Fall is in the air, and some of you may be smitten with a desire to do fall cleaning. Lest some think of fall cleaning as anachronistic, think of it as fall organizing. If you do fall organizing, keep OBS in mind. There are several ways you can do this.

Before you throw out a flyer or delete an e-mail message describing a conference, consider keeping a file of ideas for programs. As Baltimore approaches (and it's closer than we think!), these ideas can be simmering on the back burner. When Vice-Chair Jacqui Paul sends out the Annual OBS Survey early in 1997, you won't have to answer questions in a vacuum. What was acceptable for another meeting might translate very nicely into an AALL program. Those of you who were fortunate enough to go to the Northeast Conference in Toronto may be way ahead of me; let the enthusiasm from that meeting inspire you to plan for Anaheim.

Why am I so insistent on such long-range planning? From experience I know how difficult it is to come home from the AALL Annual Meeting and face a mound of mail to process and work to complete, plus a program to develop. The more focused and well thought out a program is, the more acceptable it will be to the AALL Education Committee. A wise person once said, "A good thing takes time." That is why I urge thinking ahead -- to avoid the stress of the last-minute and to plan carefully crafted programs!

Having said that, I to recommend to you the programs that OBS is sponsoring in Baltimore. True to its basic mission of continuing education regarding on-line bibliographic services, OBS is sponsoring a program entitled "On beyond Windows : Today's Workstations and Tomorrow's Clients." This program will give its audience and opportunity to gain familiarity with possible types of functionality of Windows-based workstations in collection development, acquisitions, and cataloging, and to examine future trends: what new developments are on the horizon and what their impact will be. The speakers are Michael Kaplan, Alva Stone, Anna Belle Leiserson, and an acquisitions librarian to be announced.

Moving from Cyberspace tools to the information world, OBS will introduce foreign and international Websites in "Around the World in Eighty Minutes." Margie Axtmann will moderate three speakers who will each show a portion of the world as it is represented on the Web. William McCloy will demonstrate the Websites of Asia and Africa, Jim Purnell the sites of the Americas, and Mirela Roznovschi the Websites of Europe. In the afternoon, "Around the World" participants will have the opportunity to take a "passport" to the Internet Room where there will be an opportunity to virtually explore the world!

There's another way that OBS can help you to organize: set aside a book or a box for books for the book swap at the OBS table in Baltimore. It can be very satisfying to pass along a book you've enjoyed so that someone else can appreciate it as well. This is excellent recycling and it makes room on your shelves for new books. These new books will be waiting for you in Baltimore at the OBS table. (Also, there will be giveaways yet to be determined -- remember the great double-edged computer screwdrivers in Indy!)

You probably have noticed that I'm encouraging the input of all OBS members. Good! Please contact a member of the OBS Board with your ideas and your needs: Vice-Chair Jacqui Paul, Secretary-Treasurer Cindy May, Members-at-Large Vianne Sha and Paula Tejeda, Immediate Past Chair Anne Myers, or me, Chair Sally Wambold. Mary Chapman, Chair of the Nominations Committee, is another person to contact if you have people in mind for OBS leadership.