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Summary of the 2004 Annual Meeting

(for detailed information on presentations and agenda, visit the 2004 Annual Meeting page).

The 2004 Annual Meeting was a great success.  The meeting kicked-off on Thursday, September 16th at 1:00 PM.  The Steering Committee opted to start the meeting in the afternoon, allowing members some extra travel time that hopefully reduced the cost of staying an additional night.

Brad Westmoreland, Chair of the Steering Committee welcomed all members and staff of GIS.  The group quickly got down to business.  GIS Product Analysts, John Barr and Joanne Reid gave overviews of Polaris 3.1 and Polaris 3.2.  Juliane Morian, Member at Large of the Steering Committee, kicked-off the Polaris Users Group Logo contest by previewing all the designs.  Congratulations to Lesta Sue Hardee for designing the winning logo:

Thursday evening, the group hosted 11 vendors who showcased their products and partnerships with Polaris.  Vendor comments after the Annual Meeting were very positive and fueled with excitement by the level of interest they received at the Vendor Reception.

Friday, September 17th was a largely instructional day.  The Steering Committee with the help of volunteer, Christine Hage from Clinton-Macomb Public Library, had worked for months on designing a program that met the interests of attendees and provided useful tracks for members to choose from.  At any given session in the day attendees could choose to learn about some aspect of Polaris that affects circulation, acquisitions, patron services and the PACs, or system administration.

Jenny Levine, a.k.a. "The Shifted Librarian" gave an informative and exciting presentation on technology-trends and how libraries can respond.  She not only wow-ed the members with some of her statistics and predictions, she also grabbed the attention of GIS staff who attended and seemed very interested in molding their product for new generations of library users.

Friday's event culminated in a luau-themed President's Reception hosted by GIS.  The attendees were divided into groups and periodically met for friendly word-scrambles and other games.  A highlight of the evening was the surprise performance by GIS leadership --

complete with coconuts!

Saturday, September 18th was a day of business, general meeting sessions, and voting.  The steering committee reviewed the voting process for enhancements (due by November 15, 2004).  Members voted on by-law changes (no proposals passed) and voted in a new Steering Committee member of Mary Hedrick (Member at Large).  Dana Hines and Sherry Knight were incumbent nominees and both retained their respective positions of Secretary and Member at Large positions.

Bill Schickling gave a State of the Business address and touched upon a top 10 list of things to look for when shopping for an ILS.  He also answered questions from the group in a popular session called, "Ask Bill". 

On the whole, the many months of planning a national meeting resulted in a tightly organized conference that resulted in good information sharing and networking.  Thank you to all who attended!