The Spring Institute will be held on March 16th at the California Museum in downtown Sacramento. We are happy to have a special guest speaker for this year's Spring Institute. Patrick Sweeney, from EveryLibrary, will be doing our morning keynote and offering an advocacy "boot camp" all afternoon. A 2007 graduate of SJSU's School of Information, Mr. Sweeney is the former Administrative Librarian of the Sunnyvale (CA) Public Library and was Executive Director of EveryLibrary California, a statewide initiative to support library Propositions. He has been a lecturer at the San Jose Information School where he taught courses on political activism and libraries. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn from a professional library advocacy trainer how our profession can respond collectively to funding issues and effectively demonstrate, and assess, the value of library services to stakeholders. Mr. Sweeney has a long history of working with library campaigns at the local, state, and even national level. We have asked Mr. Sweeney to craft his keynote, and afternoon sessions, to the county law library funding crisis.

We strongly encourage members of NOCALL to attend this year's special Spring Institute. The registration cost is low and it is a great chance to network with your fellow information professionals, interact with vendors, and learn some valuable advocacy skills that have direct, and immediate, applicability.

There are garages near the California Museum:

• 1114 P Street ($15 for the day, 5 minute walk from museum)
• 1010 Q Street ($9 for the day, 5 minute walk from museum)
• 1801 10th Street ($10 for the day, 10 minute walk from museum)

We have negotiated a special rate at the nearby Best Western - Sutter House.  Please call them directly to get our discounted rate of $119 per night.

You can reach them at 916-441-1314.

The opening reception will be held at 5:30pm the night before the institute at the Blue Prynt Restaurant adjacent to the conference hotel.  Please indicate if you are attending the opening reception on the registration form so we know how many to expect.