As we approach the end of my term as your President, I want to report to you some highlights of the progress we have made towards meeting these objectives. The Board has met three times – in November following the Annual Meeting, in March and in June. We will meet once more at the 2001 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. To facilitate the work of the Board, the President often delegates substantive research and planning work to task forces. These working groups exist during the current President's tenure, but can be re-instituted by the subsequent President.

 Dates and details are forthcoming.

• Additional summits are in the preliminary planning stages including a
• Search summit to be chaired by Matthew Koll, and
• Bioinformatics summit being developed in cooperation with the University of Maryland.

Task: Provide centralized services to SIGs and chapters to help them build and manage their communities of interest.

• In November, the Information Architecture Task Force was established composed of Joseph Busch, Gene Garfield, Dick Hill, Michael Leach and Gretchen Whitney. This task force has been developing a plan for a more effective, "end-to-end" ASIST information system. I'm pleased to report that Headquarters has negotiated a contract for a new association management software platform. This new software will enable ASIST to distribute services to SIGs and chapters such as Web access to chapter membership information and online chapter meeting registration.
• In March, the Board set up a new category of local groups called "forums," intended to foster local development of special interests such as information architecture. Forums require a liaison with the local ASIST chapter. Regional IA groups have been forming and are meeting in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, as well as other cities. The Board instituted a process whereby a forum can apply for seed money to develop local programs. The Board believes this blending of regional and special interests will be an opportunity to reinforce our expanding Summit program, as well as bolster our long-standing regional chapters.
• In May, the Board chartered two new Special Interest Groups – SIG/Information Architecture (SIG/IA) and SIG/Digital Libraries (SIG/DL). To join these new SIGs' listserves, go to

Task: Provide members-only services on asis.org including personal access to your directory information.

• I'm pleased to report that the new association management software platform will enable ASIST to distribute member-only services on our website such as online access to your membership information.

Task: Work on developing a marketing plan that will include re-branding the organization to reflect the name change, focus on identifying what services and benefits are desired by our members, and begin to implement a targeted marketing campaign to corporations, institutions and other high value audiences.

• Donald Case, working with Wiley and coordinating with the Board, has been surveying ASIST members (new and long-standing) and non-members.
• In May, the Marketing & Recruitment Task Force was formed consisting of Dick Hill, Doug Kaylor, Michael Leach and Vic Rosenberg to examine issues related to individual membership, chapters, SIGs.

Task: Work on developing an understanding of how to transform communities of interest into communities of practice.

• In May, the Affiliation & Advocacy Task Force was formed consisting of Joseph Busch, Don Kraft and Victor Rosenberg to recommend criteria and processes for affiliations, identify target groups with whom to affiliate (particularly those that provide advocacy) and to recommend how ASIST should advocate directly itself.