Dear Students, Alumni, and Friends of the School for Information Resources and Library Science:

I want to thank all of you for your support and encouragement over the past 18 months. It has been an exciting and rewarding time for me. I have learned a lot and value the new friendships that developed over this period. I am especially pleased and proud that Dr. Brooke Sheldon will be taking over in January. She is a wonderful leader and will move the School forward.

During my tenure, a number of people pulled together to bring a positive resolution to our accreditation controversy and to right some of the financial problems at the School. In addition, faculty has taken several steps that will allow us to improve the program. Many of these are in response to the feedback we received from our state colleagues and alumni. Over the next year, SIRLS will continue to seek State and alumni support as we prepare for an accreditation visit that we believe will result in a full seven-year accreditation.

The past six months were very busy. We have interviewed six candidates for faculty positions and are in the midst of preparing three offers. We hope to have an announcement of new hires in early January. I can say that we had an excellent pool of candidates who were very positive about the future of the program.

We have Bill Edgar joining us in January. In addition, we are offering our first course in the Phoenix area, "Children and Youth Services and Literature," taught by Elaine Meyers and Martin Fricke, and we hope to continue offering courses there. We started our joint program with the College of Education and began work with the Gates Foundation to support the implementation of the Gates computer gifts to libraries in the State.

In November, at the Arizona State Library Association meeting, we had 40 alumni and students join us for lunch in the exhibits. We hope this will become a yearly tradition that will afford alumni the opportunity to meet and mentor new students, as well as keep them in touch with the School.

Enrollment is back on the upswing and we have a wonderful new crew of students starting spring semester. During the Winter Inter-session we have two courses "Intermediate Legal Research," taught by Michael Chiorazzi, and "Information Seeking Behaviors," taught by Kris Maloney. These courses will count towards residence credit and we hope to continue to provide these opportunities in the future.

An exciting list of speakers is being prepared for spring semester. The first is Mike Eisenberg, Dean of the new School of Information at the University of Washington. Watch for the date and place. We hope that many of you will join us for this and many other programs.

A proposal is being developed for the "Knowledge River Institute." Once completed, we will use this proposal to seek funding for the creation of a program to recruit and graduate more Native American and Hispanic librarians. We are currently seeking collaborators from other University departments and programs, and hope to generate support over the next year. Stay tuned.

I could go on, but I hope that the foregoing conveys to you the optimism and vigor with which SIRLS faces the future. Please keep in touch and continue to offer your help and financial support to demonstrate to the University how you value your School. Remember, you can find our electronic newsletter at www.sir.arizona.edu/school/newsltr for the most current news about the School.

Have a Happy Holiday.

Carla Stoffle, Acting Director and Dean of Libraries
School of Information Resources and Library Science