AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

NEW MEMBERS ROUND TABLE

EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING

FEBRUARY 6, 1995

 

NMRT President Betsy Fordon called the meeting to order at 9:35 a.m. The following members were present:

 

Angela Jones, Mary Jo Howard, Joanna M. Burkhardt, Suzanne Byron, Linda Golian, Kimberley Robles, Monika Antonelli, Donna Hogan, Joan Reyes, Michael Samson, Maria Laude, Betsy Fordon, Valerie Sherman, Bob Wick, Michael Coleman, Laura Sill, Paula Hering, Pat Henderson, Dora Ho, Dorothy Buice, AM Snoeyenbos, Elaine Yontz,

Betsy began by reminding everyone that only Executive Board members could make motions and vote, although everyone was invited to speak.

 

REPORTS

 

Leadership Development

 

Janet Forde reported that their major hurdle was communication with other committee members because the committee members were so spread out. She formed a "1ocal" NMRT group in Florida at the library school in Tallahassee who worked with them. The program went well this morning, NMRT candidates spoke at the meeting as well as Mary Somerville, candidate for ALA president. The committee spent $133 for coffee and photocopies.

 

There was some discussion on the style and time of the forum. Michael Coleman liked having the candidates speak. Betsy responded that the only drawback was that it shortened the time for the actual program, but Joanna Burkhardt responded that this was a big part of leadership development. Several people pointed out that the early time period could be. a problem for some. It was pointed out that it would help if the program could be held at the Convention Center. Judy Hambrick could help get us space in the Convention Center, but it can't be guaranteed.

 

Elaine Yontz made a MOTION that the Leadership Development Committee evaluate this time slot and report back to the Executive Board at the Annual Conference. Joanna SECONDED. The motion PASSED.

 

Director for Membership, Awards and Continuing Education (MACE)

 

Laura Sill reported that as Director of MACE she oversees Grassroots Grant, Library School Outreach, Membership Promotion, Mentoring, Minorities Recruitment, Shirley Olofson Award, 3M grant, and Scholarship committees. She serves as a resource person for those committee chairs and helps to verify information for them.

 

Laura attended the ALA Awards Hearing the previous day for NMRT. ALA currently subdivides awards by grants, scholarships, and recognition awards. The hearing discussed current awards and proposals for new awards and setting a minimum cash value for awards. Laura felt the hearing was very valuable and she learned quite a bit. There is currently a moratorium on new awards until the Annual Conference. The ALA Awards Committee is responsible for reviewing all proposals for new awards. There are some awards given by various ALA organizations that are having trouble getting applicants. NMRT usually has a good response for getting applicants.

 

They talked about trying to recognize people's time constraints in filling out awards and how to make this as easy as possible.

 

ALA Awards committee asked everyone to recognize that are three categories of awards and to think about the intent of the awards given out. The meeting didn't have any effect on existing awards.

 

The ALA Awards committee is proposing that for grants there be a minimum of a $10,000 awards for ALA grants, $5,000 minimum for divisions, and there was no mention of round tables. They pointed out that some of the NMRT grants were cash awards to bring people to conferences. The Awards committee is proposing that for recognition awards there be a $3000 minimum for ALA awards, $2500 minimum for

division awards. People were questioning why recognition awards should have a cash value at all. The proposal for scholarships was $5000 minimum for ALA, $3000 minimum for divisions, and there was no mention of round tables.

 

This brought up the point at the Awards Hearing that maybe there should be a fourth category for awards: conference grants. Other ALA organizations besides NMRT give these out.

 

There was also discussion at the hearing about having a built-in evaluation process for new awards. Based on what the Resources Committee is proposing NMRT should have this already. There was also a discussion of what was the rationale for having the ALA Awards Committee, and it was brought out they wanted to make sure awards that are given out by ALA are "meaningful," which led to a discussion on what the definition of "meaningful" was. They want to have some criteria for proposals for new awards. The Awards Committee also discussed how the handle the administrative overhead and the revision of the Awards Manual. Laura will try to get a copy of the revised manual.

 

Laura reported that action items for her include questions about application design, applicant eligibility, publicity, selection methods, applicant references, and selection criteria. Laura will be brainstorming across the awards committees to tighten up these things. She would also like MACE to try to integrate their work across committees more and support each other more.

 

Grassroots Grants

 

Pat Henderson reported that her committee has been working with their state contacts. The grant helps a library school student from each state to attend their state or regional library conference. During the first six months of the past year 19 grants of $250 each have been awarded. The names of the recipients will be published in Footnotes. Surveys have been handed out to the grant recipients and the state contacts to get feedback from them on how they feel the grant is working and how improvements can be made. All

recipients who responded expressed their gratitude to Baker and Taylor. Some suggestions have been made on how to better publicize the grant. These include having pictures of grant recipients in newsletters, having a mentoring program at the state level, and having the award presented at the state conference.

 

There have been problems getting applicants for grants on a state-wide level. About 75% of state contacts said they have only had one or two applicants. There were some questions about eligibility requirements. Right now the committee is seeking state contacts for 1995-96, updating the handbook, and compiling a list so the recipients can be invited to the reception at the conference. So far the committee has had no expenditures.

There was a question of whether the answers to the eligibility questions were being recorded and Pat replied that they were.

 

Library School Outreach

 

Linda Golian reported on the activities of the Library School Outreach Committee. They split apart a listing of library schools and contacted the schools and found out who they should send materials to and the names of the faculty advisor and the student chapter president; The biggest problem is that there are a number of library schools that don't have an official ALA chapter. Many of these have a SLA chapter but not an ALA chapter.

 

After this information was collected, a packet of materials regarding NMRT and ALA was sent to each school. This time this packet was sent to the library advisor if they knew it, but in the future they would like to send to both the faculty advisor and the student president. She feels we would reach more people going through the student president. Many schools don't have student elections until late fall so there will be a second mailing later in the year.

 

 

Eleven universities have asked for presentations, which is a 25% hit rate. The committee needs volunteers to do presentations in Tennessee and possibly New Jersey. Linda reported that at one time any school which had a presentation were given raffle tickets to students attending for a drawing held at SALA for a free year's membership in NMRT. Laura told her to go ahead and do this. Several people reported that this had already been approved.

 

Linda reminded everyone that the committee would be doing a second mailing, so if you would like to have materials included in this please send to Linda by April 1st. Send 70 copies, if possible.

 

Bob Wick commented that Linda was doing a very good job, other mailouts done by other committees were not getting as much of a response as she was.

 

Membership Promotion and Relations

 

Bob Wick reported on the activities of the Membership Promotion and Relations Committee. This committee makes several items available for general distribution: the membership brochure with a small blurb about NMRT and the committee brochure which describes each NMRT committee. The membership brochure was revised last year and is in good shape. The committee brochure gets out of date very quickly, and Bob will be sending it around to committee chairs and others in about a month to make suggested changes. Read over the brochure to make sure your committee is listed and its charge is

accurate, because this brochure does generate a lot of response.

 

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Last year the committee also developed a brochure called NMRTips. This sheet tries to promote some of the basic things that go on in NMRT to encourage participation by new members. Many made suggestions for the new brochure. These included sending the brochure out to all members and library schools, putting the sheet in the literature bins at conferences and including it in mailing to Affiliates.

 

The committee has also begun to explore redoing the NMRT video, which is beginning to become out of date. They have also been looking for someone to videotape some NMRT events for this video.

 

Bob gave statistics on how many brochures and videotapes were sent out during the previous year. Michael Coleman congratulated Bob and the committee on a job well done. Several people also made suggestions on updating the various brochures. It was noted that the NMRTips sheet needed to be kept short so that people will read all of it.

 

Bob mentioned that the costs of printing the brochures had been cut by using a desktop computer and using Kinkos to print the brochures. Because of this, the whole appropriation wasn't spent last year and probably wouldn't all be spent this year, either.

 

Laura gave her congratulations to Bob on a job well done. The Committee also needs to be beefed up, and they are trying to get new members.

 

Mentoring

 

Joan Reyes sent applications to library schools and so far has received four replies. She has also sent applications to state associations and affiliate associations, and will be sending out applications on various listservs. Joan has also sent a letter to Michael and Deb asking for help with publicity, which has been a problem. She would like to print applications in various journals. Joan would like to get the application into Footnotes and will look into putting it into Cognotes at the next Midwinter conference.

 

Joan passed out applications for those who might be interested in being mentors at the Annual conference. The deadline for the applications is April 30. The applications have been changed slightly so that she can match people up better.

 

Betsy reminded Joan about the deadline for getting copy into Footnotes and the need to work on the handbook entry for the Mentoring Committee. Monika asked how many mentors and mentees there were; Joan replied that it varied from year to year. Michael Coleman suggested sending out the applications in the library school packets.

 

Minorities

 

Dora Ho reported that this committee was collecting statistics on minority enrollment in library schools, so that they could put more of a focus on those schools that had a higher minority enrollment. They also were trying to find out if the schools had a minority recruitment coordinator so that they could work with this person. Several library schools have not been responsive to their requests, so the committee may be asking NMRT members at those schools for help in getting responses.

 

The committee is also working on updating their flyers to make them more appealing. If you have any suggestions for Dora on the flyers, let her know. Michael Samson complimented the Committee on the new brochures.

 

Dora has also talked with a professor at UCLA about putting NMRT information (about minorities or about NMRT in general) on UCLA's World Wide Web page. Some discussion ensued on this topic. Several wanted to know if ALA had a home page yet; Judy will check with ALA about this. Several suggested that NMRT develop its own home page.

 

Dora mentioned that the mentor program run by LAMA had ceased because there was confusion about what the program did, so now NMRT had the only mentor program in ALA. Betsy reminded Dora to get the handbook entry for the Minorities Committee ready by the annual conference because the entry would need to be approved at that time.

 

Scholarship

 

Monika Antonelli reported that the Scholarship Committee received 32 completed applications. Applications were accepted up until December 15 because the deadline for applications was incorrectly printed in several ALA publications (Judy Hambrick will correct this). The committee met at Midwinter and selected a winner and a runner-up; the winner will be announced after he/she has been contacted. The committee also discussed ways to increase the number of scholarship applications, including printing the EBSCO scholarship applications as soon as possible, begin advertising earlier, and advertising on

additional listservs.

 

Shirley Olofson Memorial Award

 

Laura Sill reported for Nancy Cummings, who could not attend Midwinter. She will send copies of the committee report to chairs after Midwinter. Because the committee couldn't all get to Midwinter, they chose the award winner using phone calls and e-mail. The committee noticed several flaws on the application form and will be working to clear these up.

 

The committee would like to seek an additional award for someone with raw potential who is either in or -just out of library school. Nancy would be willing to set this up but would need more money to do it.

 

There were 23 applicants for the award this year, and the award was promoted in various publications and listservs. The winner has not been notified yet.

 

At this point, discussion ensued on whether it would be possible to award more than one Olofson Award and the amount of the award. At this point, there is not enough money in the endowment to award more than one award. The endowment needs to reach $15,00Ojust to give one $500 award each year. Laura said that MACE will be looking at our purpose in awarding the award and will bring ideas on this topic to Executive Board meeting at Annual.

 

Director for Publicity and Public Relations

 

Michael Coleman reported that the most pressing issue was what was going to happen to the Publicity Committee. Steven Kerchoff has resigned as chair, and Deb Nerud has been filling in for the present, but the committee doesn't seem to have much of a focus. Michael wanted to know if we still wanted to have this committee.

 

Joanna made a MOTION to have the Self-Study and Resource Allocation Committee look at the charge and usefulness of the Publicity Committee. Michael SECONDED. The motion PASSED.

 

Michael reported there were some problems with people not receiving their ALA publications. Judy replied that a lot of these problems were really address problems. Michael has developed a form letter to help people who are not receiving their mail from ALA.

 

Cognotes

 

This committee is trying to recruit new members. The biggest problem is finding people who can attend both conferences. They are trying to recruit new members through ads in cognotes and other publications.

 

Booth Committee

 

This committee works with Quality Books quite a bit. Maria Laude reported that Quality Books has a new rep. this year and it took her a while to finally track her down. Maria has talked to Carol Kem about getting more support from Quality Books for the booth and they have been very supportive.

 

Maria is trying to get names and contacts for information being distributed at the Booth. There have been some problems with getting committee members together. The booth this year will play off the theme "Stepping Out NMRT Style" with pictures at the Booth. There will also be t-shirts for sale. Judy will help in reserving booth space at Annual. Paula will send out letters asking for volunteers to help at the booth.

 

The idea of having NMRT ribbons at the booth was also discussed. Judy will investigate having these ribbons printed.

 

Footnotes

 

Marilynn Green, editor for Footnotes, reported that they had produced two issues so far this year. There were some problems with the mailing list from ALA, but most of these have been corrected. Rita Smith is the assistant editor and will be taking over as editor after Annual. They have worked out a procedure for people who are not receiving their mail from ALA.

 

Marilynn will also be rewriting the Handbook section for Footnotes. It is currently written stating specific postal rates for the mailing of Footnotes. Marilynn will be re-writing this section to make it more general.

 

OLD BUSINESS

 

Budget

 

Betsy distributed the proposed budget. She and Mary Jo Howard discussed the changes that had been made to the budget. The following changes were made to the budget as distributed:

 

- Left $100 under Newsnotes, put $50 under Affiliates for operating expenses.

-Put $25 under Self-study and Resource Allocation Committee for operating expenses.     - Moved Leadership Development Committee under Vice-president.                                  - Canceled out the Shirley Olofson Ad Hoc Committee line.

-Added Mentoring Committee under MACE with $50 for operating expenses.

-SALA and the Social Committee were split up and each given $50.

-Added $25 under the Publicity Committee for a total of $50.

-Under Affiliates, changed amount to $50.

-Under Programming, gave Social $750 and SALA $250 for seed money.

-The line for the Olofson Fundraising was crossed out.

-The name for the Resources Committee was changed and moved underneath the President.

-Under Income, this amount will be limited to a line for dues and external support from vendors.

 

There was a MOTION to transfer $246 into the Olofson Account under principle from Administration. The motion PASSED.

 

The was a recommendation to list categories under Shirley Olofson for social tickets and sales (until the t-shirts and pins are cleared out).

 

Suzanne made a MOTION to accept the budget as amended. Elaine SECONDED. Laura made a FRIENDLY AMENDMENT that revised budgets be mailed to all Executive Committee members. The motion PASSED.

 

NEW BUSINESS

 

Kim Robles announced that she will be sending out the new survey and the results will be published. If you have ideas on where the survey results should be published, let Kim know. Kim also has the raw data from the survey, ask her if you would like to see the comments and suggestions, etc.

 

Kim also reminded everyone to look over the Mission Statement that the Resources Committee (now the Self-study and Resource Allocation Committee) has proposed before the Annual Conference.

 

Judy will fix the way the meeting rooms are set up for Executive Board meetings so that it is easier for everyone to interact. She also reminded everyone that if you need help with mailings, conference arrangements, etc., to let her know.

 

Suzanne made a MOTION to adjourn. Michael SECONDED. The motion PASSED and the meeting was adjourned at 12:25.