IAALD Management reports on its activities to members

Peter Ballantyne and Toni Greider provided a summary of the activities that have been carried out by International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD) in the last two years. IAALD connects and convenes agricultural information specialists worldwide, communicates and advocates the value of information and knowledge to its members and others, and collaborates with members and other partners organizations. The membership has been stable over the last few years, hovering around 300, and success has been achieved in revitalizing the association. The future plans for the association include, but are not limited to, are:

• IAALD will be continuously represented at other events such as INFITA, AIBDA, IFLA, etc.
• Chapters and sisters will be strengthened in areas such as UK, South Asia, USA, Latin America, etc.
• Continued efforts will be made on further member recruitment and membership renewals
• Open access archives will be provided for the IAALD journal
• Further efforts will be made towards new income generation and ensuring cost effectiveness
• Renewal of governance and procedures, revitalization of ex-committee members

During the discussion following issues/challenges came up:

• Congress and meetings: Instead of big conference, get special groups to have ad-hoc meetings at different events.
• Recruitment: Every IAALD member should try to get one or two members each. Incentive could be that if you recruit 3, IAALD could support 1 (pro bono) from developing countries. Create a small core group with one person in-charge in each region to drive the recruitment. Create forums under IAALD umbrella to provide expertise to members (peer support). Provide online training to participants as this would serve as an incentive.
• Communication: In case of F2F meetings, do a pre-virtual meeting to ensure that there is better participation from all members. IAALD journal should try to be promoted further and increase its visibility. We need to show the value of networking together, both physically and virtually.

Barb Hutchinson put forward a motion to have future votes to be held electronically (via Surveymonkey, etc.) which was seconded by Michael Riggs and agreed upon by all attendees.
You can join IAALD (as individual or institution) by subscribing electronically or if you are attending any of the following upcoming events:

• Accra July 2009
• Montpallier April 2010
• AIBDA 2009 in Peru
• EFITA 2010 in Netherlands
• USAIN 2010 in USA
• AFITA 2010 in Malaysia