The people have spoken – the annual meeting was a success.

The NYSHEI Annual Meeting took place on June 4, 2007 at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. The Theme was “Building Partnerships for Print and Electronic Resources”. The speakers were Bernard Reilly (Center for Research Libaries, Chicago), Perry Willett (University of Michigan), and Lofti Belkhir (Kirtas Technologies, Rochester). Panelists included Judith Cohn (representing the New Jersey Knowledge Initiative), Darrin Conroy (NYS SBDC) and Jason Kramer (NYSHEI Executive Director). Over sixty people from forty some institutions attended.

The evaluations of the NYSHEI Annual Meeting were very positive, with close to 100% stating that the program was relevant and timely.

The speakers and panelists received overwhelming approval. Especially noteworthy from the perspective of the attendees were the presentations on digitization by Perry Willett and Lofti Belkhir and the presentation on New Jersey Knowledge Initiative by Judy Cohn.

Attendees considered the panel discussion as informative and useful.

People were quite satisfied with the program publicity, the registration procedures and cost, the facilities and the location at Vassar in Poughkeepsie. Everyone agreed to keep the program on one-day with the same amount of activities, but people were split over whether to align it with another conference or not. It may depend upon the circumstances.

Attendees had good suggestions about how to improve the logistics, facilities and food at the Annual Meeting, including time to learn a little more about NYSHEI during the business meeting (while keeping the business meeting relatively short). Overall, very favorable comments about NYSHEI and the NYSHEI Annual Meeting.

Thank you for your feedback and for your continued support of NYSHEI.

Gary Thompson
Siena College