AMERICANLIBRARYASSOCIATION

NEW MEMBERS ROUND TABLE

EXECUTIVEBOARD MEETING

FEBRUARY 5, 1995

The meeting was convened by Betsy Fordon at 2:25 p.m. The following members were present:

Paula Hering, Angela Jones, Judy Hambrick, Carol Ritzen Kem, Maria Laude, Betsy Fordon, Ann Snoeyenbos, Jon Marner, Suzanne Byron, Joanna Burkhardt, Mary Jo Howard.

REPORTS

Affiliates Council

Ann Snoeyenbos, Affiliates Council president, reported that the Council had met that morning and had representatives from Alabama, Virginia, New York, and Texas present. They reported on situations in their states. Affiliates Council did not meet last year at the Annual Conference, but did meet at Midwinter last year and had representatives from Texas, Nebraska, and New York. Ann has planned meetings for the Annual Conference in Chicago and hopes to have a bigger turnout. Her main thrust for this year is to get

the Affiliates Council back on its feet again. She feels that as budgets get tight people tend to turn more to their state organizations and this will be a good opportunity for the Affiliates Council. The Council has a good budget, but Ann doesn't anticipate any expenses.

Ann went to the ALA archives last year to look at the Affiliates Council archives and she got a lot of good ideas from past councils. She and Jon will be working on a handout of good ideas for state associations to do at the NMRT level.

The biggest concern at this morning's meeting was the lack of applicants for the Grassroots Grant and 3M awards. Ann will be working with Grassroots Grants and Library School Outreach committees and the NMRT treasurer to try and set up some standard procedures to open up lines of communication. There is a lot of duplication among Grassroots Grants, Library School Outreach, and Affiliates Council because they all work with state associations. They hope to combine their efforts to make their work more efficient.

Director for Liaisons

Suzanne Byron reported she held a meeting for liaisons yesterday but no NMRT liaisons attended. However, some liaisons to NMRT from other ALA organizations did attend. Liaisons seems to have languished somewhat recently. Beatrice McKay, last years Director for Liaisons, did some brainstorming with the liaisons and Suzanne hopes to get some of their ideas in place. She would like to create a set of uniform guidelines for Liaisons, which was one of last year's biggest complaints. She is also looking at ways

to streamline the whole program.

The whole idea of the program is to get NMRT people out into other areas of ALA, so Suzanne is looking at having liaisons tell how their experience helped them in those organizations and pass this on to others. Some other suggestions are a clearer definition of the Liaison program and what it does and making liaisons more of a two way street, linking our liaisons with liaisons from other organizations. Another idea was to use our newsletter and other newsletters to share ideas.

Suzanne said her tasks for the rest of the year would be to work on the handbook for liaisons and to try to further communications with the liaisons.

Betsy commented that it is difficult to be a liaison. Elaine replied that it may take more personal contact with people to convince them to be liaisons. Ann suggested putting a list of possible organizations for becoming a liaison to on the Committee Interest Form, but Betsy replied the form was too long now. Elaine and Suzanne didn't-think the form was the problem it was more a question of a problem with the structure of the program.

Discussion ensued over how to how to get more people to volunteer to be liaisons and at what level of organization they should be a liaison to (division, committees, etc.). Some divisions are so large that it is hard to have a liaison to the whole division. Exhibits and Intellectual Freedom are two roundtables that usually have liaisons.

Ann suggested that maybe we should have liaisons at the division level instead of at the committee level. Suzanne felt people should go to whatever organization the liaison wants, to help them fulfill their goals. Joanna pointed out it was a two way street, liaisons should bring back information to NMRT to help other NMRT members.

Paula pointed out that there was interest from some divisions to give a presentation at the Orientation. Betsy wanted to keep Orientation the way it is, they could come to Executive Board meetings if they were interested. Liaisons from other organizations are also welcome to come to Executive Board meetings. Elaine would like to have NMRT liaisons go to division board meetings and membership committee meetings and report back to NMRT. There is no structure for this now, but Suzanne will be working on

making the guidelines clearer.

OLD BUSINESS

Style Manual

Richard Dickey had proposed a style manual to ALA, which would cover electronic media especially well. Richard has resigned and it has not been taken up by anyone else. Betsy reported that now other style manuals have come out which do cover electronic resources.

Suzanne made a MOTION that NMRT drop the proposal to create a style manual given that other style manuals have moved to fill the void of documenting electronic resources. Ann SECONDED. The motion PASSED.

Sustaining members

Judy Hambrick is checking on the issue of sustaining membership for NMRT. She hasn't gotten an answer on it yet. A MOTION was made to table the issue until Monday's meeting. The motion PASSED.

NEW BUSINESS

Betsy reported there is no new business. The discussion and passage of the budget has been tabled until Monday's meeting.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Carol Kern asked for volunteers for the Friendly Booth Award.

Carol also reported on the Exhibitors Round Table. They are working on a silent auction to have at the Annual Conference which would raise funds for an endowment for a scholarship award. Carol reported there may be a need for volunteers to help at the auction and at the booth. This auction may take place for several years before the endowment of $50,000 is raised. Carol asked for NMRT support for this activity.

Elaine made a MOTION that NMRT support the Exhibitors Round Table's silent auction activity in whatever way that we can. Ann SECONDED. The motion PASSED.

Paula reported that close to 25 tickets had been sold for Monday's social.

The meeting ADJOURNED at 3:00p.m.