Committee Final Report

NOTE: ** = Required Field

 

 

**Type of report being submitted: Committee Final Report

 

**Date: Dec. 13, 2004

 

 

**Committee Name:  Midwinter Discussion Forum   

 

 

 

**Supervising Board Member:  Sally Gibson

 

 

 

**Chair, Co-Chairs, Assistant Chairs:  Beth Filar Williams, Rich Murray

 

 

 

**Committee members:  Tiffany Allen, Karen Davidson, Sebastian Derry, Sarah Jeong, Nancy Kampfe, Amy Kane, Andrea Wirth

 

 

 

**Goals, Objectives, Projects completed (including, but not limited to, any procedures, tip sheets, checklists, etc. created during the reporting year):

 

We hosted an online leadership discussion on NMRT-L centered on the book Getting Things Done When You Are Not In Charge by Geoff Bellman, which was chosen from a list of titles provided by the Self-Study and Resource Allocation Committee.  The discussion began October 4 and continued for five weeks, wrapping up on Nov. 5.  Each week two committee members facilitated/led the discussion.  A total of 121 messages were posted to the list as a part of the discussion; 44 different people sent messages.  The author of the book also followed the discussion and posted his comments.  Unfortunately during week 3 there was a technical problem with ALA's listservs and no messages were distributed at all from about Oct. 19 through Oct. 25.  Having the discussion come to a complete stop for a week took away all the momentum that had been established during the very active first two weeks and it was never quite regained.  In spite of this major technical glitch, the discussion proved to be quite successful – as it wrapped up, many NMRT members sent messages to the list and off-list to the committee chairs stating that they found the online discussion experiment to be very valuable and enjoyable.

 

 

 

 

 

**Action Items/Issues To Be Resolved – What plans/projects remain which will be carried over or postponed until next year? Have there been any substantial changes in plans requiring a reconsideration or cancellation of projects? Information regarding such will be helpful for future chairs and planners.

 

Holding the discussion online rather than in person at a program at Midwinter was a first-time experiment and for the most part the committee felt it was a big success.  The main suggestion for future chairs and planners is that, should NMRT decide to continue with the online discussion, five weeks is too long.  Three weeks would probably be a more reasonable length. 

 

 

 

Financial Report Section:

Your budget appropriation (see budget)

a. 0

Amount which you have spent this year

b. 0

Difference between budgeted amount and amount spent (a-b)

c. 0

 

 

**Report submitted by:  Rich Murray

 

**Email address:  r.murray@duke.edu