Association des Cartothèques et Archives
Cartographiques du Canada
Association of Canadian
Map Libraries and Archives
Annual report of the 1st Vice President, 1999/2000
In the nine months since the last Annual General Meeting, I have been gently introduced to the duties of the First Vice President and have worked to become informed of the range of interests of the ACMLA. This has been an interesting learning period for me. At James' invitation I enjoyed the opportunity to participate in informal meetings between the ACMLA and the National Archives and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries. In September I had the pleasure of representing ACMLA at the farewell dinner to honour Dr. Marianne Scott on the occasion of her retirement from the National Library of Canada. Activities relating to GeoConnections that Grace worked on were assumed by the President and various ACMLA members of the working groups.
Two issues outstanding from last year were dealt with:
The main area of responsibility of the First Vice President is oversight of committees within the portfolio: Archives, Awards, Bibliographic Control, Copyright, Membership and Annual Conferences. It has been my considerable fortune to inherit an excellent cadre of committee chairs with experienced members who have fulfilled their mandates without my intervention. The detailed reports of these Committees are available for your information on the ACMLA web site. These are a few highlights of their activities over the year.
The Awards Committee, chaired by Grace Welch, has the pleasant task of identifying award recipients whose contributions make a difference to us all. This year two very worthy recipients have been named: Cathy Moulder and Ronald Whistance-Smith.
The Bibliographic Control Committee, chaired by Trudy Bodak, is charged with working on issues relating to map cataloguing and oversight of the rules affecting the cataloguing of cartographic materials. We are pleased to have them lead us into the arena of cataloguing digital cartographic resources through the workshop being held in conjunction with the 2000 conference. There have also been several changes in the AACR2 rules affecting fields for data captured in map catalogue records. The committee continues work on the National Union Catalogue of Maps to which 15 Canadian map collections presently contribute. The budget of the BCC provided funds to hire contract employees this spring to undertake database cleanup projects under the oversight of the national Library of Canada.
The Copyright Committee, chaired by Carol Marley, holds a watching brief for the impact of copyright issues. As you will see from Carol's report, she has kept a watchful eye not only on the Canadian legal environment, but has also brought us up to date on copyright issues developments in the United States. Her report also highlights efforts to make geospatial data more accessible through initiatives like GeoConnections, the coalition of interests to free geospatial data, and trends in e-commerce which impact the issue of copyright. Copyright is such a complex issue, it is essential to have this committee's watching brief on behalf of cartographic research and map collections.
Membership, represented by Bruce Weedmark, is charged with generating income for ACMLA through the annual campaign for renewals and new members. Bruce reports membership income from fees in 1999 at $8,516.59 on behalf of 228 members. The Association has a stable core of individual and institutional memberships. To date, the changing face of map collections has not been reflected in ACMLA membership, the total for 1999 being up by 12 over 1998. We are also seeing a small increase in membership among consultants and those in private business with cartographic interests.
CARTO 2000 is a joint production of ACMLA, CCA and WAML and we thank all those who worked on creating the excellent program. Local arrangements were made under the leadership of David Jones whose committee provided an extremely efficient team to plan and manage the Edmonton Conference to our benefit. The committee met monthly from the late fall through the spring to identify and prepare conference events.
2001 Conference
The Board has agreed upon Montreal as the location for next year's
conference. The CCA is also meeting in Montreal and we felt that it is
to the benefit of our members to continue the recent tradition of meeting
at the same time. The CGA is celebrating its 50th Anniversary
next year but is meeting separately at the end of May. As a result, the
first weekend in June has been proposed for the ACMLA/CCA conferences,
so that those who wish to attend the CAG meetings will be able to include
both sets of conferences in their plans. Suggestions as to session themes
are welcome. A call for program proposals and local arrangement volunteers
will follow immediately upon confirmation of the locale.
Archives
The question of organizing and preserving Association archival records
remains outstanding for the time being. Jeffrey Murray and I have
discussed the proposal to offer an archival practicum in the fall to an
Algonquin College student. In the meantime, the files are being kept safely
and there has been no demand for their use.
In conclusion, sincere thanks to members who have taken part in committee work or other tasks on behalf of the ACMLA over the past year. We are all familiar with the challenge of keeping small organizations vibrant. This would not be possible for the ACMLA without the significant commitment of time and effort by our members.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan Jackson
May 19, 2000