I am pleased to submit the annual report of the 1^st Vice President for the fiscal year 2002/2003. This has been a year with many accomplishments by the committees that report to this position. We are constantly reminded that those who work voluntarily on behalf of the Association contribute enormously to the ongoing value of the ACMLA to its members.

The work of some of these members is recognized by the Awards Committee, which is charged with the pleasant but difficult task of identifying those deserving special acknowledgement. The names of those to be honoured this year will shortly be revealed. However, we are fully aware that it is impossible to award all whose efforts keep the ACMLA a vibrant organization.

Among these valued workers are the members of the Bibliographic Control Committee under the leadership of Trudy Bodak. The BCC continues its efforts to ensure that records of our map holdings have appropriate standards and are shared to best effect. You will see the detailed report from the BCC but I would like to stress the importance of the work done to revise Cartographic Materials: An Interpretation of AACR2 the cartographic cataloguing bible. Unfortunately, due to problems outside their control, their hope to have a cataloguers’ toolkit on the ACMLA web did not come to fruition this year. This is still on the agenda and should be advanced in the year ahead.

The issue of copyright remains a mysterious one for the map world. Richard Pinnell reports there have been virtually no steps to clarify this in the past year, although we are told that plans to move on the Copyright Act remain on the government’s agenda. In the meantime, the ACMLA Board has agreed that it would be valuable to contract for assistance to create information for the ACMLA website about the state of copyright as it applies to maps. This initiative will be looked at further in the year to come.

The annual conference plays a critical role in keeping ACMLA members connected to their wider community. Since the founding conference in 1967, we have met all over the country and have relied heavily on the hospitality of our home institutions. In recent years we have held several joint conferences with cognate organizations to mark particular anniversaries, topics of mutual interest, or to take advantage of shared local arrangements. The growing interest in geospatial data has brought new partnerships to meld with ongoing interest in traditional cartographic themes. Last year we met in Toronto with the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in cooperation with Capdu. This was a successful conference but constrained somewhat by the structure of the Congress. We repaid the startup seed money and made a small profit. Thanks to Marcel Fortin and his program planners for their hard work. This year our host is the University of Victoria and we are meeting in conjunction with the CAG, the CCA and the Canadian Regional Science Association. Lori Sugden has worked very hard to ensure that the ACMLA is well represented on the planning committee. Alberta Auringer Wood, Cheryl Woods and Grace Welch have provided considerable program assistance. We are about to enjoy a terrific time "On the edge".

Over the past few years it has become much more difficult to locate the annual ACMLA conference. This is partly due to the need to balance changing professional interests and partly to the amount of time required to work on such a major undertaking. As renewal of the association takes place it is important to bring new members and fresh enthusiasm to the process of conference planning as well.

AMLA Archives came under the oversight of Louis Cardinal after last year’s annual meeting. Louis has worked on guidelines to help current and former executive and committee members to weed their documents and to encourage them to be placed in the ACMLA archives collection. This collection is held in trust for the ACMLA at the National Archives but there has been little time to organize and list it.

The Membership Committee became the charge of its new chair, Beth Ray, in July 2002.

Beth carries on the tradition of excellence set by her predecessors and has discovered that there is much care and feeding required in this portfolio. Among the issues that arose were the bankruptcy of Divine/Rowecom that affected some of our members, and the implementation of a Board decision to cease Bulletin mailing to those who have not renewed membership by the end of March. You will now receive a reminder of this policy with your renewal and a note on the final issue of the Bulletin being mailed to you. We need our members, so please treat these notes as our means of keeping you informed. Finally, with the assistance of Heather McAdam at Carleton, the membership brochure was edited and created as a PDF file to enable web posting and easier future revision.

This is my final report as 1^st Vice President. I would like to thank all those who have made this a wonderful experience for me especially the other Board members who have helped broaden my knowledge of the cartographic universe. The ACMLA is a very special association.

Respectfully submitted

Susan Jackson