News from Jan Haspeslagh
IAMSLIC,
I’m posting a message on behalf of Jan Haspeslagh who has just taken on a new job.  He will still be an IAMSLIC member so we won’t lose touch with him.  Join me in wishing him the best. The Executive Board hopes to announce his replacement later this week.
Regards,
Barb Butler
Jan writes:
Dear Iamslic and Euraslic colleagues,
Following might come as a surprise for many of you, for wich I truly apologize. After a very long procedure, two weeks ago, I have come out as the winning candidate for the vacancy of university librarian at the Ghent University here in Belgium . This means I will soon change jobs from a strictly marine environment towards the more general scientific and educational university environment. I have chosen to take this step mainly because the long commuting I had to do from home to VLIZ (3h 45 min. each and every day…) were more and more annoying to myself and to my family. The job I’m taking on now means 20 minutes of travel each day, staying in the same line of work and even an (unexpected) increase in salary.
All this creates of course a quite difficult situation for Iamslic and Euraslic, with my future presidency and the joint meeting next year in Belgium. With regard to next meeting: my director has confirmed officially that he wished it to take place in Oostende at VLIZ, regardless of my resignation. We will work closely together until the end of this year to organize and prepare as much as possible to give my successor a head-start. As far as the presidency goes, it seems evident and logical to me that I step down as President-Elect as soon as possible, making way for another member that can take over quickly. Although I’ll stay at VLIZ until 31 December 2008, these last 4 months will be hectic enough in themselves, leaving little or no space for international activities.
Both Presidents, Barbara Butler and Barbara Schmidt have been notified last week, and the Iamslic Executive Board has been notified of my resignation at the first Executive Board meeting and will of course quickly proceed to take the necessary actions.
I’d like to express here that it makes me really sad that I will lose so many joyful and interesting contacts across the world. As far as I know these two groups are a unique fenomenon, also compared to other professional bodies, and I’ve enjoyed uncountable happy, funny, and sometimes even silly moments with al lot of you librarians. I’d like to thank so many of you who have put trust in me to help these organizations becoming the primary professional platforms for aquatic librarians, a trust not always met with the correct actions and ideas, but I might hope that I’ve left a small footprint here and there. In any case, I’ve had the joy of meeting new friends, and hopefully some of these contacts will last for longer than my term in aquatic science information…
Life is a chain of unexpected events that we try to knit together, but that keeps unraveling. I do hope, dear colleague, that you will not hold this too much against me, and I will stay in close contact with many of you as long as possible. In any case, I will attend next years meeting as a visitor, because I don’t want to miss the good beer and mussels, do I?
Thanks a lot to everyone, and so long,
Jan
Jan Haspeslagh
Flanders Marine Institute
Oostende, Belgium
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