It was election time at the AGM was held on 14 May at Furama Hotel. Over 110 members attended the event.

After a fruitful two years, it was time for the 2009-2011 Council to step down and for a new council to take over. Puspa, the current President, reported on the achievements of the current council, which included the organization of the LAS Seminar, training for para-professionals, introduction of online payment using PayPal, and the re-vamp of the LAS website which is now Web 2.0.

The Council and NLB had put in a bid for IFLA 2013 and the results will be announced in August at the IFLA conference.

Yit, the current Hon Treasurer, reported on the findings of the Investment Task Force. There are high costs involved for an association to invest its funds and it was concluded that the best option is to put our spare funds into time deposits.

Rafi presented the new look of the LAS website. It now uses WordPress as a content management system and has Web 2.0 features like RSS, Twitter, with the pages accessible via mobile phones and a more visual display. Council members and committee members can be given editing rights and uploading new content is quick and easy.

Lin Li presented the draft for the proposed online community. The target is to have the site up by the end of 2011 with the features proposed for Phase 1. The current online community will continue to be maintained until the new platform is ready.

The new council was officially elected and comprises:

• Gene Tan as President
• Lee Cheng Ean as Vice-President
• Soh Lin Li as Hon Secretary
• Susan Song as Hon Treasurer
• Khoo Ai Ling as Asst Hon Secretary

The new LAS council members are Patrick Pu, Loh Hui Hong, Yit Chin Chuan, Debby Wegener, Janice Chia, Nurhazman Abdul Aziz and Joan Wee. The Special Libraries Section also had their committee elected and comprises Debby Wegener as Chairperson, Tay Chiew Boon as Hon Secretary, with Carol Sim, Charlotte Gill and Manimekalai Thirumalai as council members.

Elaine Ng, the new CEO of NLB attended the lunch of the AGM. She introduced herself and outlined some of her plans for NLB. She plans to be supportive of LAS and looks forward to a closer relationship with LAS.

The AGM ended with lunch and loads of conversations.

Contributed by Yeo Pin Pin