NMRT Board Member Final Report

 

1. Office Name: Secretary

 

2. Office Term (Date: Ex. 2002-2003): 2002-2003

 

3. Discuss/summarize your involvement with your committees this year:

 

I was actively involved in a supervisory capacity with both Archives and Handbook this year. This involved numerous emails and phone calls with the chairs of each of these committees, as different issues would come up needing attention.

 

Archives has been busy completing records creation for minutes in the online database, as well as planning for and beginning to include Reports in the database as well. How to deal with separate Timelines was also an issue that needed to be resolved. They have made excellent progress this year towards the goal of providing NMRT with accessible records of all types and in all formats.

 

Handbook has had a challenging year, attempting to upgrade the Handbook at the same time that ALA was undergoing its migration to its new web site and database. Handbook had to create a whole new structure for the new web site, while simultaneously editing the organization and content of the material. As I had training from ALA in the new web site, I was able to assist in the creation of the new structure and revising the contents suitable for display in ALA's database.

 

An outline of the new, current structure of the Handbook is given below, along with notes for items remaining to be done.

 

Navigational Tree Structure for Handbook

 

HANDBOOK - (This page contains Table of Contents.)

SECTION 1: ABOUT NMRT (need to create content for this page)

NMRT Organizational Chart (need to create content for this page)

History of NMRT

Division of Responsibilities of Officers, Directors, Committee Chairs, and Liaisons

Past NMRT Officers (currently contains list of presidents only; might want to expand to include other officers)

Constitution and Bylaws

Budget (contains links to budgets for 2001-2002 and 2002-2003; links to pdf files and to Archives)

 

SECTION 2: POLICIES, PROCEDURES, GUIDELINES & FORMS (This page currently contains only links to the Archives. Will eventually contain policies, procedures, guidelines, forms and tip sheets created by the various committees. Perhaps it should be discussed whether the tip sheets should go here or on each individual committee's page in Section 6 of the Handbook. Need to create content introduction page which defines “guidelines”, “procedures”, “checklist”, and “tip sheet”, along with the relative weight each carries.

For example:

Policy -- no procedural matters, needs Board approval, provides direction

Procedures -- in the manner of technical writing, prescriptive, line by line/step by step, direct, succinct, action words in the beginning of each line

Checklist -- bullets, prescriptive, much like a packing slip

Tipsheet -- descriptive, ideas, things implemented (success/failures), hints, tricks

 

The list below represents categories and content from this section in the old Handbook, a copy of which I have on my personal hard drive. (This will need to be archived.) Possibilities for reorganizing: 1) according to category, e.g. “Policy”, “Procedure”, etc.; 2) according to topic, i.e. having all guidelines, procedures, etc. for a given topic together; 3) farm out to the appropriate individual committee pages in Section 4.

Advertising Policy for NMRT Publications (Text)

Committee Reports (create page here containing the following links: Planning Report Form, Progress Report Form, Final Report Form)

Criteria for Program Meetings (Text)

Exhibitor Support Guidelines and Request Form (Text and Form on one page)

Guidelines & Procedures for Co-Sponsoring Programs with Non-NMRT Groups (Text)

Guidelines for Preservation of Material for NMRT Archives (Text)

Guidelines on Budgetary Expenditures (Text)

Information for New Officers and Chairs (currently links out to separate page of links; consider putting all of these links in navigation structure here in Handbook under this category)

NMRT Letterhead (in pdf) (link)

Nomination by Petition Form (in pdf) (link)

Requesting Advances/Reimbursements and Budget Increases (Text)

Budget Advance Request Form (in pdf)

Reimbursement Request Form (in pdf)

 

SECTION 3: BOARD MEMBERS & TIMETABLES OF ACTIVITIES (opening page has Table of Contents with links to the pages listed below)

President (Text)

Vice-President/President-Elect (Text)

Treasurer (Text)

Secretary (Text)

Past President (Text)

Leadership Development Director (Text)

Member Services Director (Text)

Networking Director (Text)

Outreach Director (has nothing yet)

 

SECTION 4: COMMITTEES & GENERAL TIMETABLES OF ACTIVITIES (Contains links to Committee Definitions and all committees' description and timetable pages; also links to Archives)

3M/NMRT Professional Development Grant Committee (**Need page for this committee)

3M/NMRT Social Committee (**Need page for this committee)

Alumni Relations Ad Hoc Committee (**Need page for this committee)

Archives Committee

Booth Committee

Conference Planning Task Force (?)

Diversity Committee

Exhibitor Contact and Relations Committee

Footnotes Committee

Governance Committee

Handbook Committee (page needs to be updated)

Leadership Development Forum Committee (page needs to be updated)

Liaison Coordination and Support Ad Hoc Committee

Local Arrangements Committee (page needs to be updated)

Membership Meeting and Program Committee

Membership Promotion and Relations Committee

Mentoring Committee

Midwinter Activities Committee (page needs to be updated)

Midwinter Discussion Forum Ad Hoc Committee

New Writers Support Ad Hoc Committee (listed under Research and Scholarship in the database) (**Need page for this committee)

Nominating Committee (page needs to be updated)

Orientations Committee

President's Program Committee (page needs to be updated)

Publicity Committee (page needs to be updated)

Resume Reviewing Service Committee

Self Study and Resource Allocation Committee (page needs to be updated)

Shirley Olofson Memorial Award Committee

Speakers Bureau Ad Hoc Committee

Strategic Planning Task Force (?)

Student and Student Chapter Outreach Committee (page needs to be updated)

Student Reception Committee (**Need page for this committee)

Web Committee (**Need page for this committee)

 

SECTION 5: LIAISONS –

            (Contains Descriptions, Tips, Timetables, and Liaison Positions)

 

SECTION 6: EXECUTIVE BOARD MINUTES AND REPORTS

(Contains links to Archives along with detailed description of how to search the Minutes and Reports)

 

 

Tipsheets, Procedures, Checklists planned for creation and status thereof:

 

During the course of this year, Joseph Yue prepared an extensive list of tip sheets, procedures, guidelines, checklists, etc. dealing with a variety of topics, documents that would be of enormous help to future chairs and officers were these documents to be created and made accessible. To that end, it is Handbook's responsibility to help ensure that these are created, organized, and made accessible via the Handbook. Archives, too, will share responsibility for their access, via its database. To this end, I have made a spreadsheet listing the sorts of documents desired, who is or should be responsible for them, and their current status. The document is in an Excel spreadsheet and is attached ( http://www.lib.lsu.edu/ALA/nmrt/tip_sheet_status.xls).

 

 

Events: Mike Wong resigned as chair at the end of May, with Stephanie DeClue replacing him in that position.

 

4. Based on your year's experience in this office, what future directions do you see your office or NMRT needing to take this year or the following year?

 

We need to continue to create and make accessible documents that will ensure the continued smooth operation of NMRT in the future. We've made great strides towards this end, but still have a long way to go. Committees need to create their guidelines and tip sheets documenting their activities; Handbook needs to collect, organize, and insert in the online Handbook; and Archives needs to archive these documents in its database. The Secretary can play a great role in overseeing this activity and helping coordinate the influx and disposition of these documents.

 

Recommendation: I think that either the Secretary or a member of the Handbook committee should always be trained in the ALA web site database and provided an ID and Password for uploading material. This will help keep the Handbook's operations far more efficient, as most of their work involves online updating and organization of material. Handbook's ability to do this will also keep the Web Committee free to handle all other requests from the many other committees we have.

 

5. What tips or hints do you have that might help your successor carry out the duties of this office?

 

To the Secretary:

Be sure to send out notices of reports due in a timely manner, and try to follow through on those who have not written theirs. Such information is important for others in planning and following through on their committee activities.

 

Stay in contact with the chairs of the committees you supervise and help with the overall strategic planning of the committees. Each of these will have their specific tasks, but you will have more of the “big picture”, and hence, should let that guide your interactions with your committees.

 

 

6. Please address the role of the board member as coordinator. For example, with student outreach split among three committees reporting to three directors, somebody will need to take the initiative to make sure things are going smoothly. Another example would be projects between membership, alumni, and student outreach which need to be coordinated. How might activities such as this be handled by board members efficiently and smoothly? Your thoughts here will be most helpful for future boards.

 

I see the role of Secretary not only as recorder of official Board meetings, but really as the handler and coordinator of all information produced by NMRT. To this effect, the Secretary is in charge of overseeing its creation, collection, archiving, and access by the membership. This is an enormous responsibility and requires frequent contact and discussions with the President about important activities that are either taking place or will take place amongst the various committees and their supervising officers. The President, of course, will have knowledge of other officers' activities, and can keep the Secretary informed.

 

New projects that involve creation of information will have to be monitored carefully by the Secretary, so that this new information can and will be properly archived and made available to the membership. This includes any information created by or about the membership, information about alumni, volunteers, etc.; so there is really nothing of which the Secretary should not at least be aware. Based on this overall knowledge, the Secretary can formulate the appropriate plans and put them into action via the specific committees he/she handles, as well as communicate directly with the supervising officers of other committees, whose actions may affect the workings of Archives and Handbook.

 

So I see the most important line of communication being that between President and Secretary. What should necessarily follow will be direct communications between the Secretary and other officers, as need be; and finally between the Secretary and the committees under this office's charge.

 

 

7. Date of report: 9/04/03

 

8. Submitted by: William W. Armstrong, Secretary 2002-2003