Nicole Finzer is the Visual Resources Librarian in Digital Collections, Special Libraries Division at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. From 2006 to 2008, she was the Visual Resources Specialist at the Carpenter Library of Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, PA; from 2004-2005 she was the Assistant Curator of Visual Resources in the Department of Art History at Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA. Nicole has also worked in the Imaging Department at The Art Institute of Chicago, at the Research Center (Formerly the Prints & Photographs Department) at The Chicago History Museum, and she interned in the Archives Department at The Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio. Nicole received her B.F.A. in Printmaking and Art History from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998, attended Studio Arts Center International in Florence, Italy with a concentration in Art History and Art Conservation in 1997, and received a MLS in Art and Visual Resources Librarianship from Indiana University in 2004.

Nicole has been active in VRA for many years. She has been Chair of the Midwest and Greater Philadelphia Chapters as well as a member of the Education and Intellectual Property Rights Committees. She has presented at ARLIS and ALA national conferences, along with both the Mid-Atlantic Digital Library and National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) conferences. Nicole also serves on ARTstor's Hosting Advisory Committee.

We are at a turning point in the profession and must explore different models for continuing visual resources work by reaching a wider range of disciplines and organizations, including those outside the humanities.The visual resources model that was current when our organization was founded that of the Slide Library under the History of Art Department, is rapidly disappearing. At the same time visual resources professionals who emerged from within this model have a keen understanding of visual information, image data management, and the needs of image users. This visual literacy sets us apart from our other colleagues in the field of information science and makes us invaluable assets. We have the collective experience and professional expertise to advance the profession, but only if we can embrace new paradigms of image information, that include rapid technological advancement. The future of our organization lies in building on these current strengths by applying them toward new initiatives. To achieve the goals of staying fully informed and professionally competitive, we must be willing to promote our strengths to the broader community of information professionals

Current circumstances demand a leader who is forward thinking, capable of incorporating new ideas and steering the organization in broader directions to reach a wider audience. If elected to this position, I would strive to confront these challenges. I have extensive experience managing visual resources collections in various environments, including History of Art Departments, Art and Architecture Libraries, and Digital Libraries in academic institutions, as well as Imaging, Archives, and Research Departments in Museums. If elected, I will bring to the organization my experience working in such a wide variety of contexts to further what I see as imperative to the survival of this vibrant organization. We must make our professional expertise appealing to a broader audience, by better promoting the tangible achievements and contributions the organization has already made to the field of image management, and ensuring that the organization remains relevant in the changing landscape of the visual resources profession. If elected I look forward to working with all of the members of VRA in guiding the organization toward setting and in achieving these goals.

Jolene de Verges coordinates metadata and manages curated digital collections for the newly formed Specialized Content and Services Department in the MIT Libraries. In this role, she is involved in bridging the existing and evolving metadata communities formed around specialized formats and media such as GIS, images, CAD, audio/video, music, maps, science/engineering data and numeric datasets. She is the liaison to the History, Theory and Criticism Department and the Architectural Computation Group within the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. At MIT, she participates in the Society of Architectural Historians Architectural Resources Archive (SAHARA) and plays a curatorial role in the Future-proofing Architectural Computer-Aided Design (FACADE) Archive. Previous to her new position within SCS at the MIT Libraries, Jolene was the Images Librarian for Rotch Library of Architecture and Planning where she managed the Rotch Visual Collections. Before coming to MIT, Jolene was the coordinator of the Bridges to Art project at the Worcester Art Museum and the Digital Imaging Specialist at Smith College where she worked on the design of the Snapdragon collection management system which is modeled on VRA Core 4 and CCO. She holds a BA and MA in Art History and an MLS from Simmons College. A member of VRA since 1998, Jolene has served on various committees and as Secretary from 2007-2009.

Her interests and background include cataloging and metadata standards developed for visual resources in art, architecture, urban studies and material culture; digital repositories in libraries and programmatic approaches to building digital content; and pedagogical applications of technology.

As president-elect of this vibrant 28 year old organization, I would be honored to continue building upon the foundations and traditions that have sustained our growth and success over the past three decades. My goal as president-elect would be to do more than uphold and advance our past achievements, rich and extraordinary though they are. As an organization, we are at a critical moment in our history. I want to continue the recent efforts to improve and make more sustainable the models we have in place to support the membership, whether it is education, conferences, professional development, advocacy, communication, marketing and public relations or programs aimed at advancing our important initiatives.

New members are the future of VRA! Your involvement in the organization is of vital importance. Through my position in a leadership role in the organization, I will promote ways of tapping into your ideas and the inspiration and enthusiasm you have always contributed to VRA.

As a community of practice, VRA members have all been impacted by the immense shifts within our environments caused by technological and economic factors. For our members who are working in the area of visual media today, this likely means working in an integrated space, either virtual or physical, with colleagues who are technologists, metadata specialists, librarians, copyright and scholarly communication experts, among others. With expanded expectations to be innovative, collaborative and flexible as well as greater pressures to broaden our skills and perspectives, VRA, should be the source of continual support no matter where we are in our professional growth. A concern I share with many of you is how we re-define our roles as image professionals while not dismantling the expertise we have built up over the past. I would like to explore the impact and implications of forming more strategic alliances with related organizations such as ARLIS/NA, AMIA, SLA and others. My goal as president-elect is to develop even greater strategies that revitalize our mission of support to our community in transformational times.

Liz Gushee is the Digital Archivist for the University of Virginia Library; she is currently a member of an Andrew W. Mellon-funded project entitled "Born Digital Collections: An Inter-Institutional Model for Stewardship" (AIMS). With the partner institutions of Yale, Stanford and Hull Universities, Liz works as part of a team to develop workflows for the acquisition, preservation, and dissemination of born digital archival materials. From 2007 to 2010, Liz served as the Digital Collections Librarian at U.Va., managing projects and preparing content for the Library's repository, and from 2004 to 2007, she served as the Image Collection Librarian in the Fine Arts Library at U.Va. Liz has a background in print processes and photography and has worked extensively with special collections materials in visual formats. Liz received her BA in History from Earlham College in 1990 and her MLS from The Catholic University of America in 1998. Liz has served as Chair for the VRA Mid Atlantic Chapter, 2007-2009, and as a member of the VRA Strategic Plan Task Force, 2008-2009.

I was attracted to a career in librarianship because of my love of images and photography, specifically. I was extremely lucky to learn of the Visual Resources Association early on in my career and through the years I have benefitted enormously from the knowledge and expertise of my colleagues regarding everything from expert image management, to awareness of new technologies, to deft leadership skills. A couple of years ago, I was asked to join the most recent iteration the VRA's Strategic Plan Task Force; it was a great experience. I had the opportunity to learn a great deal about the inner workings of the Association, I was given the chance to work closely with colleagues on a project with clear goals and objectives, I was asked to communicate frequently with the organization's membership to gather ideas and feedback, and lastly, I was given the chance to think about strategies and future directions for the VRA. If given the opportunity, I would very much like to apply the knowledge and experience gained as a member of the Strategic Plan Task Force to that of Vice President for Conference Program. I would welcome the chance to work with the membership and the Executive Board to create a conference program that follows in a long tradition of providing information sharing, skill building, mentoring and a guaranteed good time for all.

Steven Kowalik is the Art Librarian at Hunter College of the City University of New York. In addition to his duties as managing librarian of the Zabar Art Library, he is responsible for collecting, developing, managing, and providing access to the print and electronic resources required to support the research, study, and teaching of visual culture at Hunter College. During his time at Hunter he has administered all aspects of providing visual resource access to the college community, from supervision of a large analog based collection to the implementation and current management of a local digital image database. He received a BA in Art History in 1978 and a MLS degree in 1981 from Wayne State University.

Mr. Kowalik has been a Visual Resources Association member since its inception, and was one of the founding members of the Greater New York Chapter, serving as its Treasurer for a number of years. Maintaining an active participation at the national level, he has served on the Membership Committee and the editorial staff of the Images Newsletter, and has presented papers at two VRA conferences. For the last three years, he has served as Co-Chair of the Development Committee; within this capacity, he was responsible for the development and implementation of the Vendor Slam event for the 2009 and 2010 VRA conferences.

As a young librarian many years ago, I decided to pursue a specialization in visual content within my chosen profession. Knowing that an organization such as the Visual Resources Association existed provided me with the confidence I needed to view such a choice as a viable option. Over the years, my VRA membership has been an essential element in maintaining my strong belief that image-based content is as important and useful as the text-based content so often emphasized in discussions of library resources. With this in mind, I have attempted to maintain active participation within the association, and have succeeded in this endeavor with the acceptance of increased responsibilities over the years.

We are all aware that the technological revolution and the more recent economic downturn have profoundly altered our roles as visual resources professionals. Acknowledging these changes, the VRA Board has been extremely successful in providing many conduits through which the membership can pursue career goals, especially as they relate to the transitions in employment which have affected some of our colleagues. One of those conduits is the annual VRA conference. My professional background and my experiences in organizing the Vendor Slam for the last two conferences have provided me with a fundamental background for the position of Vice-President for Conference Program. If elected to this important position, I promise to commit myself to providing the VRA members with the continued opportunity to engage in stimulating and beneficial conference programs with an emphasis on content related to our professional evolvement.

Marcia Focht has been the Curator of Visual Resources at the Visual Resources Collection in the Department of the History of Art in Binghamton, New York since 1986. From 1984 until 1986 she was the Assistant and Acting Curator in the Slide Library at the University of Denver School of Art. In 1986 she also worked as Cataloger in the Herbert Bayer Archive at the Denver Art Museum. Marcia received her BFA in Printmaking/Drawing in 1983 and an MA in Art History in 1987 from the University of Denver.

For the past 26 years Marcia has been very active in VRA (Visual Resources Association) on both the local and national level, as the first Chairperson of the VRA Upstate New York Chapter, and serving on several VRA committees; Membership, Silver Jubilee, Education, Nominations, and Professional Survey. Marcia has been coordinator of the Mentor Program since 1999. In addition, she initiated the popular conference "Ask the Expert" consultations. She has participated as a presenter, as well as, the moderator of several sessions, seminars, roundtables and special events at VRA Conferences and meetings. She has played a key role in the implementation of digital image sharing throughout the State University of New York system and is a member of the ARTstor Hosting Advisory Group.

I sincerely wish to continue my work as VRA Secretary. These past two years I have actively assisted the organization and members, updating forms and and procedures for conference registration, renewing membership and participating in the Chapter bundling and Bursary programs. I have enjoyed my work in preparing for two conferences, and look forward to the upcoming joint conference with ARLIS. Re-election would allow me to put the experience I have gained over the past two years to greater use. My focus for the next two years would be to find ways in which we can most effectively implement some of the goals and tasks set before us in the newly released VRA Strategic Plan. I am especially interested in the community and membership areas as I feel strongly that nurturing our members and supporting emerging and transitioning professionals to be our collective duty and pleasure.

I cannot stress enough the value of our association to the VR professional. Many of us are physically and professionally isolated within our own institutions and the sharing spirit, collective knowledge, and specialized experience that typify VRA members helps is all succeed in transforming ourselves into accomplished members of this supportive and professional community. I hope you will once again give me the opportunity to serve you in this capacity.