President's Greeting

As I begin the 2007-2008 USAIN Presidency, I want to welcome all the new and returning members to our organization and to our website and to share some of the plans for the coming year. This is an especially important term, since we will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of USAIN as an organization at the forthcoming conference in Wooster, Ohio in April 2008. The theme of the conference, Tradition in Transition: Information Fueling the Future of Agbiosciences, represents the wide array of interests and topics that all of us work with on a daily basis at our various institutions. The success of the conference at Cornell last October was shown by the praise we received from a number of sponsors and exhibitors, and the enthusiasm of the attendees; this success was a direct result of the extremely hard work of the conference planners and the various committee members. The fact that many people volunteered to work on the Ohio conference almost immediately after the call went out, is another indication to me of the importance of USAIN to our members.

In the description of USAIN on our web site, one of the key statements for me is that USAIN promotes cooperation and communication among its members. I would like to reiterate what Heather Moberly said last year about the need for members to be participants in discussions on the formation of a new national information policy, in partnering with other agricultural information organizations such as AgNIC and IAALD, and in serving as leaders in strengthening collaboration with NAL, the U.S.D.A. and our colleagues in other professional societies.

There are numerous opportunities for participation in the organization. We have had an excellent response to the request to serve on committees involved in planning for conferences. However, we need to expand the work of other ongoing groups. The Legislative and Government Relations Committee is key to making sure that we promote the importance of access to agricultural information for state and national legislators but is lacking members as of now. The Technology Trends Interest Group is in a position to educate members about new ways of communicating through social networking. They could provide input to the USAIN Board, which is exploring new ways of communicating with members, such as the use of blogs, wikis, and Facebook. The Communications Committee, Preservation Committee, AgNIC and other Interest Groups would benefit from having some new members with fresh ideas to contribute. Comments from the member surveys show that there is enthusiasm for expanding the subject areas of Interest Groups, but we need volunteers to get those in place. So I want to reiterate the need for your participation and support of USAIN as an organization that represents the efforts and interests of its members. I encourage everyone to spend some time looking at the USAIN web site, where you can get more information about ways to get involved.

I would also like to highlight some of the key projects for this year. One major focus in this term will be a revision of the Action Plan, and I will be sending out more information on how members can share their ideas on this. This fall we will have the completed White Paper on the state of agricultural information and its structure. In addition, we are exploring how land grant institutions can partner with NAL in supporting the National Digital Library for Agriculture. We are always looking for new ideas and new areas where we can work with other organizations both in the United States and internationally. Recently we submitted letters of support for AWIC, the Animal Welfare Information Center at NAL, and to request that specific language be added to the 2007 Farm Bill regarding access to agricultural information. These letters and any subsequent documents appear on the What's New section of the USAIN website, and we have high expectations that our input will be considered valuable.

I look forward to working with all of you, and encourage you to contact me or any of the other USAIN Board members during this 2007/2008 term.

Norma Kobzina
USAIN President, 2007-2008