Here's some of my thoughts on recruiting students and student outreach--two things that are very near and dear to my heart!

A couple of years ago, a student at the University of Illinois library school tried to get an ILA student group off the ground. (Kristy will probably remember this--she volunteered her help to get the group going.) Nothing ever really happened due to lack of interest.

As I see it, the main difficulty with recruiting students into ILA is that many students do not know where they will be living once they graduate. When finances are tight, it's difficult for students to justify membership in a state library association if they don't think they'll end up staying in that state when they get a job. Perhaps a better idea would be to promote state library association membership in general. That way, people who stay in Illinois after they graduate will consider joining ILA, and people who move to other states will have received the message about the importance of state library association membership and will consider joining the state library association in their home state. I see this as an opportunity for us to possibly partner with other state library associations, particularly in states where there's a library school or states that seem to be popular with graduates looking for their first jobs (i.e., California, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Massachusetts, New York).

Of course, there are many UIUC LIS students who live in Illinois and plan on staying here, and they can certainly benefit from student membership. However, we have to come up with incentives to inspire them to join. Student pricing is a good deal, of course, but what else can we do for them? I hate to sound negative, but ILA can seem awfully closed off to new members as far as getting involved is concerned. (That's actually part of the reason why I let my ILA membership lapse after I graduated from library school--I couldn't see any way for a new member without institutional connections [i.e., library director on the executive board] to become involved in the work of the association. I don't like to join an organization and be a passive member who just reads the newsletter and sometimes attends the conferences!)

Perhaps we need to highlight the benefits of student membership beyond "it's cheap and it looks nice on your resume" by letting students know how state library association membership can benefit them in the early stages of their career in professional librarianship and by providing ways for them to get involved and get to know the association.

Also, we should not forget the students at Dominican when we discuss marketing to students. I'm under the impression that there are probably more Dominican students who will be staying in Illinois post-graduation, so we may be more successful marketing ILA membership to Dominican students. I am most familiar with UIUC GSLIS (I graduated in 2003 and my husband is a 2005 grad, and we both still have strong connections to the school through the alumni association and the student groups), but I know there are a number of ILA folks who are Dominican (or Rosary) alums who likely still have connections.

Please let me know what you think about what I've said. I'm curious to hear other committee members' opinions on student recruitment and student outreach.