American Library Association

New Members Round Table

Executive Board Meeting

 

 

Saturday, June 25, 1994

 

 

The ALA/NMRT Executive Board was called to order by President Joanna Burkhardt at 8:05 a.m., June 25th, 1994. The following members were present;

 

 

Bea McKay, Betsy Fordan, Janette Smith (Godort), Susan Benjamin, Laura Sill, Jenifer Abramson, Darlene Nichols, Jeffrey Levy, Kathy Kie, Angela Jones, Dora Ho, Nancy Cummings, Linda Golian, Joanna Burkhardt, Ann Snoeyenbos,

Deb Nerud, Judy Hambrick, NMRT Liaison, Elaine Yontz, Carol kem, Terri Summey, Michael Coleman, Marilyn Green, Joan Reyes, Ann Gordon, Kimberly Robles, Barbara Walchle.

Opening Remarks

 

Jeanette Smith presented on Godort. Joanna said everyone did a good job this year.

 

Cognotes

 

Deb Nerud reported there have been 2 issues of Cognotes already 24 pages each. Advertising has gone well. Cognotes needs an assistant edit or Deb nerud is functioning as assistant editor presently because continuity on the Committee does not allow anyone else to fill the position and nobody else has enough experience to take over. For1996 Tina Oswald has agreed to be assistant   editor Deb drew up a form to drum up interest in Cognotes. They also have three students on the Committee.

 

Approval of Minutes of Midwinter Board Meetings

 

Betsy Fordon mentioned a few corrections that needed to be made to the Midwinter Minutes. Barbara Walchle agreed to amend the Minutes as requested.  Joanna entertained a MOTION to approve the Minutes from Midwinter 1994. Fetsy Fordon MOVED; Jenifer Abramson SECONDED. MOTION CARRIED.

 

President's Report

 

Joanna reported all went well. Everyone did a good job

 

Vice-president's Report

 

Betsy Fordon reported she put her packets / files together. Midwinter activities went well and she notified the NMRT election winners: Elaine Yontz, Vice-President / President - Elect; Angela Jones, Secretary ; Mary Jo Howard Treasurer; Directors, Suzanne Byron, Michael Coleman.

 

Past President's Report

 

Jenifer said she checks her e-mail and answers her phone. She discussed poor election returns of NMRT ballots . Joanna suggested the nominating committee could encourage members to vote Elaine suggested NMRT needs to get more people involved so they know people and want to vote for them. Laura Sill agreed with Elaine .

 

Treasurer's Report

 

Joanna reported Joni could not be here but Joni is responsible for all the clean up after Annual such as reimbursement requests and bills

 

Secretary's Report

 

Barbara Walchle reported she wrote up the Minutes from Midwinter and sent them

Out to all officers/directors/committee chairs. Joanna suggested in the future the Secretary should continue to send Minutes to committee chairs. Barbara said she would make the necessary corrections in the Midwinter Minutes but would not send them out again.

 

Affiliates Council

 

Ann Snoeyenbos reported for Kart Fattig. They do not have a meeting scheduled for this time Ann said she has had no communication from Karl since Midwinter. Laura Sill asked whether the whole process might need to be investigated, not just the communication problem Ann said she thought the structure was OK but she was open to ideas. Maybe NMRT needs to make an effort to extend more into the states. She thought Affiliates Council could work if they would. Maybe Affiliates Council could work with Chapter Relations. Judy Hambrick asked if Affiliates Council has ever worked with Membership Services.

 

Director's Reports

 

Conference Arrangements

 

            Laura Sill sent most of the time coordinating and planning. She was hoping Committee chairs would show up and report themselves.

 

            Membership Meeting - Laura reported for Kathy Sorury Everything is in order for the membership program on Monday. They decided to leave the membership meeting at the end of the program. They will also give away door prizes. Kathy Kie raised the issue of the membership meeting: should this be a priority for next year's Committe? The membership meeting should not be an afterthought; the placement is not such a problem but maybe people feel nothing

happens there .It is worth while but we need to know why we are having it.

 

Membership/Awards/Continuing Education

 

Darlene had nothing to add beyond what the Committee chairs would say.

 

Publications

 

Kathy Kie said she will meet with the new Director for Publicity / Public Relations. Cognotes and the newsletters are going well. Footnotes went well. Kathy reported the Booth looks good Betsy asked Kathy to tell her what happens when she and Michael meet.

 

Liaisons

 

Bea reported the mini-Handbook for 1iaisons had been approved. Bea sent the information to the Handbook Committee and made packets for individual liaisons. Bea made one description and customized it for each liaison. Bea felt they have the structure in place and are ready to go. They need people to fill the positions. There are 6 continuing 1iaisons and 1new one. There are 18 vacant positions, so Bea encouraged people to help her get these positions filled. Betsy said Professional Ethics and Supervisory Skills are filled. Bea asked about LITA and LAMA/PAS Since these are large groups, should appointments be more specific, maybe to the membership? Laura Sill agreed it should be linked to an umbrella committee such as membership. Betsy said maybe we need to clarify whether all these liaison positions are needed.

 

Committee Reports

 

Cognotes - Deb Nerud already reported early

 

Archives - Barbara Walchle reported for Robert Dunkel berger . He has finished his organization project and compiled finding aids for the Archives. In addition he has continued to receive files to add to the Archives . Carol Swain has agreed to become the new Archivist.

 

Footnotes - Marilyn Green reported she produced Footnotes under budget for April/June. This issue also contains lots of information about Miami Beach.

 

Exhibitor Contact and Relations - Elaine reported it was a fun and interesting yea r . Social funding from 3M fell into their laps She hopes the Exhibitors' Round Table Board will approve the Friendly Booth Award. Elaine gave a history of the Friendly Booth Award and announced the Award will be given Sunday at Noon. .Joanna encouraged everyone to thank vendors for their support

 

Handbook - Bea McKay reported for Clare Dunkle. Handbook. revisions were sent out The time table has been changed for this Committee so they will not be bringing in new people at critical times.

 

SALA/Social - Michael Coleman reported SALA planning went well. They distributed all the tickets they had planned to give Out , and more Michael said SALA should go well. They planned for 200 and there might be 15 extras.

 

Carol kem reported on the Social. It is to be held in the Fontainbleu Saturday night. They have great door prizes and everyone must have a ticket . They are planning form maybe 300. The theme is Moon over Miami This is a highlighted event . Carol said it came in under budget and she wanted to thank. 3M and spread their name around. Carol brought tickets with her to sell . Buses will run until about 1 a.m The Endowment Fund balance is $5, 9 0 0

Grassroots Grants - Mary Jo reported her committee has awarded 33 grants, about the same as in the past . She tries to contact all the states . Mary Jo thought something should be done with the daily logs recipients have to fill out at state conferences .

 

Wisconsin issue - Not all states where we give out these grants have a New Members Round Table . It doesn't matter to Baker & Taylor . The Wisconsin Affiliate disbanded and weren't sure how they could apply for Grassroots Grants. It's OK if the state doesn't have an affiliate but some state-level committee would have be the contact. Ann suggested Grassroots Grants could be pushed as a reason to have an NMRT in the state . Michael Coleman said Library School Outreach could push states to have a mechanism in place . Michael said names of winners could be written into the program for SALA The person from baker & Taylor will make remarks but not read the list.

 

Shirley Olofson Endowment - Carol Kem discussed selling the old Olofsom t-shirts . Perhaps NMRT could add postage charge and sell them by mail,or maybe give them as gifts or do or prizes , or t-shirts from different conferences could be packaged together However, only XXL and XL were left over.

 

The Olofson Committee is an ad-hoc committee T-shirt promotion is being taken over by OCLC/Forest Press, what now? Do we want to consider other fund raisers or disband the Committee ? question for discussion . The $15, 000 goal would make the endowment self-sustaining . We are about $6. 000 from that goal .Ann Gordon - maybe we need the Committee for 3 more years .over reception results into the fund , we will not need a Committee to raise funds .

 

Betsy Fordon - agreed we should do it under the Social If we lose 3 M funding we would have to do something else, but for now it can go Joanna opened the If we turn through the Social.

 

 

Joanna - reminded everyone the t-shirt and pin sales still have to wind down .

 

Carol Kern - if the Social turns into more of a fundraiser we might have to increase the ticket price . Right now it is artificially low. Joanna- asked if it would be possible to collapse the fund raising into the Award Committee Ann Gordons aid it could and she ( the new chair )would get the t-shirts .

 

Laura Sill - said an advantage of this would be that they could work .with various membership and out reach committees, which might help distribute the t-shirts .

 

Joanna entertained a MOTION to disband the Shirley Olofson Endowment Committee and place any remaining fund raising activities under the Award Committee. Jenifer MOVED; Ann Snoeyenbos SECONDED. MOTION CARRIED Judy Hambrick said she would check and make sure interest is being credited to us.

 

Booth Committee - Nancy Cummings reported . The Booth travelled a lot. From its home base at Florida Atlantic is went to various conferences .

 

Leadership Development - Joanna said she wasn't sure there was a report as this happens more at Midwinter. Janet Lynch Ford and Joanne Lehman are the new co-chairs .

 

Library School Out reach - Terri Summey reported . Volunteer database has been redesigned to be more effective .The Committe revised the handouts they send to people speaking at library schools . They got funding to make a poster to send to library schools highlighting NMRT activities . For next year the free membership in NMRT needs to be worked on. Letters are now being sent to student chapters when available . The rest go to deans , which does not work well.Terri said if she had a list of NMRT members she could more easily contact people . Laura Sill said all the MACE committees need to have a tight communication system . We also need to work on recruiting members who want to do something. Betsy said she encouraged chairs to pick people they are close to and have contact with , to serve on committees.

 

Local arrangements - Linda Golian reported she did a familiarization tour of Miami Beach, got publicity pictures into American Libraries , and got lots of freebies . She ended up with 500 tubes of sun tan lotion She also put out an e-mail posting and had a party one day to stuff orientation packets . She received materials to bring to Conference and solicited door prizes . She began in April and got many especially the LOTUS software package worth $800. -$1,000. Linda said Local Arrangements needs more money next year .

 

Membership Meeting - Already done

 

Mentoring - Joan Reyes reported . There were 37 mentor and 38 mentee applications . She had to run off the extra 15 tickets to the Social. They had more mentees than they thought . Dora helped maintain the database . Joan sent a mailing to deans and student groups to post the applications . She also made sure publicity got into all the journals, NMRT-L, and other listservs on a more timely basis . Ann said maybe Terri 's and Joan's databases could be merged. Laura said the mentor program should work with the liaisons. Joan said she did not want to give away her secrets for getting new people involved . Kim Robles and Jeff Levy said Texas has a very successful mentoring program .

 

Status of Mentoring Committee - This Committee is a standing committee so who should be responsible for it ?

Laura Sill - suggested Liaisons

Joanna - said MACE was too busy. Library School Out reach is under MACE, though .

Betsy - said Leadership Development is under the President so maybe it should go under MACE after all .

Laura - agreed to take it on for now.

Joanna - said we can check back. at Midwinter and see how it goes .

Betsy MOVED to put Mentoring under MACE. Laura Sill SECONDED. MOTION CARR I ED.

 

Midwinter Activities - Dora Ho reported only a handful showed up for committee meetings . Probably rain / shuttles/ location caused the problem The Social at the L.R. Times was very successful. All money from ticket sales went to the Shirley Olofson Endowment. About $400 were raised .

 

Minorities Recruiting - Dora Ho reported for - Michael Samson. He wants to create e-text to reach out to more people . He made a flyer to send out to the Black Caucus, Chinese-American librarians and Hispanic librarians .

 

Nominating Committee - Joanna said Joan Kaplowitz ' report was available .

 

Orientation - Elaine Yontz reported for Shamina Amin and Jimmie Lundgren. They will have people to talk about the exhibits and a person to talk about natural history of South Florida ,as well as a folksinger at the Orientation Program

 

President 's Program - Jeff Levy reported Dr . Julie Todaro will be the speaker.He displayed the program as well as separate flyer she created . Jeff placed most of these in a box in the Communications Center under the combined flyer . He also made an evaluation form and will give a t-shirt and pin to Dr.Todaro. He obtained a walking mike and lectern mike. They will participate in the NMRT Survey as well.Ann Gordon asked if we could put one of the new generic Olofson t-shirts in the bag. Joanna said this would be alright if it were arranged ahead of time. Elaine Yontz was not sure whether Forest Press would want to have us give them away since theoretically they could sell them

 

Publicity - Kathy Kie was going to report for Steve Kerchuff . Joanna said Steve resigned as he has many other activities . He was not sure whether we needed a Publicity Committee but the consensus at Midwinter was that we still need it . We need to increase ties between Publicity and other- committees and streamline procedures. Laura Sill said it is unclear how publicity works . Publicity Committee needs to work with the directors because everyone needs to know about it if we are going to have a Publicity Committee at all .

 

Resources - Kim Robles reported they split up the NMRT Survey. The Survey targeted those who attended NMRT programs; other groups of ALA members They  wanted to see how aware people are. Also the Survey went on the listservs. This pared down postage costs and still allows them to survey all ALA members. Laura Sill has copies of the mail survey for Executive Board . Kim said some statistics may be skewed.An example of committee framework was done. They saw duplication and inconsistency and differences in how our committees are structured from the rest of ALA Kim recommended NMRT implement a system for monitoring which would give hard data to support implementing changes. Most other groups and round tables already have a permanent planning committee and perhaps if NMRT had one it would be easier to get information from people .

 

The Committee collected mission statements from other round tables to study what structure they use Jenifer clarified why we have a Resource Committee. Eric Wade set up this Committee to study money activities and any resource NMRT USES: it is supposed to have a broad mission

 

Jenifer - said we need to take action on this Committee because it has been ad-hoc for 2 years . Betsy MOVED continue ad - hoc status until Midwinter and discuss it then . Jenifer SECONDED. MOTION CARRIED.

 

Shirley Olofson Memorial Award - Ann Gordon reported there were 8 applicants . Margaret Edmundson was offered and declined the award Walter Cook also declined and Cathy Nelson Hartman accepted the award.The award will be presented at the President' s Program on Sunday.Thank-you' s have been sent and materials are ready to pass on Publicity will go to Footnotes to announce the winner

 

Membership Promotion and Relations - Nancy Cummings reported for Bob Wick. Bob wants video footage from different conferences . Judy Hambrick said her video company can do this but it will cost Jenifer said vendors might like to contribute to this

 

Old Business

 

Jenifer said she wanted to make sure she gets recognized as a sustaining member. There is some way the computer could put in an “s” next to her name This would be a way to track. sustaining members Judy Hambrick said she would get back to us on  this .

 

New Business

 

Elaine has a proposal pending Exhibits Round Table approval: next year NMRT and Exhibits Round Table would co-sponsor the Friendly Booth Award. NMRT members would judge for it and do publicity and Exhibits Round Table would advise . Elaine wanted NMRT Board to approve this proposa1. Jenifer MOVED;

Betsy SECONDED. MOTION CARRIED.

 

 

MOTION to place Leadership Development Committee under the auspices of Vice-President /President - Elect as part of his/her responsibilities for Mid winter .

Betsy MOVED; Darlene SECONDED. MOTION CARRIED.

 

Announcements

 

Joanna reminded everyone to remember Footnotes deadlines

 

The new Board members were announced: Vice-President/President-Elect, Elaine Yontz Secretary , Angela Jones Treasurer Mary Jo Howard; Directors, Suzanne Byron Michael Coleman .

 

Kay Castle will come to Monday's Board meeting to hear how we have planned meetings the things new members want from Conference

 

Betsy reminded all old chairs to please come on Monday.

 

Adjourn

 

Darlene MOVED; Betsy SECONDED to ADJOURN Executive Board ADJOURNED at 12:30 p.m .