Back to the Future

San Francisco is the ideal setting in which to consider LIRT's accomplishments over the past 20 years and at the same time assess its direction for the 21st Century. The city simultaneously offers some of the most uniquely American history and some of the hippest future trends. LIRT took some time at its All Committee's meeting to acknowledge the past year's accomplishments, to highlight individual committee efforts, and to note continuing initiatives.

1996-97 was a very productive year for LIRT. Jana Edwards and Billie Peterson developed an outstanding LIRT web presence at http://diogenes.baylor.edu/Library/LIRT that continues to evolve and grow. Through the hardworking efforts of the Long Range Planning Committee, LIRT conducted a successful retreat. The Recruitment Task Force Final Report (1995) recommendations were assigned to committees for action. The 5-Year Financial Planning Task Force recommendations established a subcommittee of the Long Range Planning Committee to ensure strong fiscal oversight. For the first time in many years, the membership voted for a dues increase to strengthen LIRT.

Current LIRT committees are busy with a variety of projects useful to the membership. At the conference, the 1997 Conference Program committee organized and presented an intriguing program about learning styles. The PR/Membership committee sponsored BITES with LIRT at some great Bay Area restaurants, and the Liaison committee continues to provide information on non-LIRT instructional meetings. The Research committee has compiled a list of world wide web tutorials with evaluative annotations that will soon be available on the LIRT web site.

All in all, LIRT continues to be vital and robust, changing as the need for library instruction changes among its members. I am pleased with my year as president and look forward to remaining involved in LIRT.

Kari Lucas, Head of the Undergraduate Library at the University of California at San Diego, is the past-president of LIRT.