AMERICAN LIBRARY
ASSOCIATION
NEW MEMBERS ROUND
TABLE
EXECUTIVE BOARD
MEETING
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.
.
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.