CARL Board of Directors Meeting June 2, 2003

Video Conference:

North: California State University, Hayward (Concord Campus)

South: Cerritos College

Attending: Judy Clarence (President); Ron Rodriguez (Vice President, South); Jean Purnell (Vice President, North); Ann Hotta (Secretary); Liz Ginno (Membership Director); Fred Batt (Interest Group Coordinator, North); Suellen Cox (for Tamara Weintraub, Interest Group Coordinator, South); Simone Yu (Campus Liaison Coordinator, North); David Rios (Campus Liaison Coordinator, South); Christina Woo (Newsletter Editor); Bonnie Petry (Web Site Coordinator); Lynne Reasoner (Archivist); Aline Soules (Legislative Liaison)

Guest: Kelly Janousek

Absent: Vicki Rosen (Treasurer); Ruth Wallach (ACRL Chapter Council Delegate)

1. Approval of Minutes for meeting of March 10, 2003.

2. Approval of Agenda. Approved

3. President's Report

a) Judy Clarence gave a reminder for future board meeting dates: September 29 (videoconference), and December 8 (live, in the south). Judy will make arrangements in the north and Ron will make arrangements in the south. Judy suggested that the December 8 meeting be held at the conference site in Pasadena; Ron will investigate.

b) The Program Planning Manual is on the website in the "Archives" section.

c) Judy has not yet contacted Interest Groups about updating bylaws and holding elections; she was unclear which groups have done this already and which haven't. Judy will send out a blanket inquiry to all groups.

d) The nomination rotation that we have been following for years is not exactly what is described in the bylaws. Should we change the bylaws or the current practice? It was decided to add this to the list of tasks for the Committee on Organization.

Aline commented that the bylaws seem overly detailed; if we used more general language, then small changes could be made much easier. Alternatively, Ann suggested we simply state in the bylaws that some body, say, the Committee on Organization, will establish the procedures. Then the detailed procedures could be kept apart from the bylaws themselves.

e) Judy wished to know if everyone is getting CARLEX messages. Liz, Aline, and Fred are not. Judy will ask Cynthia to check on this.

f) Judy reminded everyone to send pictures of themselves for the website if they haven’t already.

4. Southern Vice President’s Report

a) Conference: Ron is working on a plan to obtain contributions from vendors. His goal is $5000. The Westin management has changed personnel slightly. Ron has some AV-related questions for them. Simone said that last time Elsevier seemed willing to send us give-away items as long as we gave them enough advance notice.

b) Nominations Committee: The committee has candidates for all offices. The committee lost one person due to the person becoming a nominee; remaining members are Ron, Christina, and Evelyn. The call for nominees on CARLALL garnered a number of nominees. Liz will check that all nominees are members in current standing. The committee will send out a form to nominees to gather biographical information and a statement. Ron asked to use current Board members’ submissions as samples; no one had any objections.

The election will take place in October. The committee will send out firmer dates for email notification, mail of ballots, and due dates. Should we attempt to do the election via email? A few members do not have email addresses, so we would need to give advance notice to say that the election will be held by email. Suellen shared experience in another context at work with using email for elections; she said that the response rate was much higher than it had ever been. Would confidentiality be an issue for email elections? Web forms could be used to help make voting more anonymous. Liz will talk to John and figure out a way to do this.

5. Northern Vice President’s Report

a) Mini-Conference: Jean, Judy, Vicki, and Fred have done some preliminary planning. The event will be held on Friday, December 12 at Preservation Park (Niles Hall) in downtown Oakland. We have the facility from the morning and must vacate by 3 pm. The cost for the facility is $425; this includes a $100 security deposit, which we have already placed. We will need proof of a certain level of insurance coverage; we are waiting on our 503c3 status so we can get insurance. It does not appear that Preservation Park has insurance that we can purchase from them directly.

Program planning is to be announced. One possibility is to invite groups to reprise their conference programs. If the program planners would like to contact someone about the "Treasures of the CSU" program, contact Barbara Quarton. Suggestions for plenary speakers are welcome.

Christina will place a "save the date" announcement" in the upcoming newsletter.

 

6. Conference Planning Report (Kelly Janousek)

The theme will be announced in the upcoming newsletter. Several tracks have been identified to help people come up with ideas:

The conference website will be up soon. A link to it will appear on the CARL website.

Graphics and information about registration to Liz, who will set up the reg online website. Deborah will work on these details with Liz.

 

Kelly recommends a $15 difference between members and non-members to give more incentive to people to join CARL. The prices were determined by the cost of the food ($12,000). Preconference food: a break, offsite cocktail party, continental breakfast. Conference food: a break, all-conference reception, a break, awards luncheon, a major continental breakfast. Rooms are $119. Attendance at Asilomar was 225 people. Will more people stay home because their institutions won’t be paying for them to go? On the other hand, will more people chose to attend CARL rather than an out-of-state conference? Lots of fun activities are planned, such as a possible post-conference trip to the Huntington Library.

The midday slot between the preconference and conference will possibly be used for a networking time for interest groups with a possible box lunch. Dave Tykosen will be doing another evening of entertainment. Keynote speakers are being approached:

"Commercial breaks" of library history trivia are being planned for extra fun.

Interest groups are already asking for program slots. Four to seven slots are available. Judy Lee will send out information, forms, etc. to Interest Groups this week.

Judy asked if anything was being planned for paraprofessionals. Friday does seem to be a good day for a program. Kelly will pursue this further; she has already made contact with COLT and with Pasadena City College, which has a Library Technician program.

Regarding the "Treasures of the CSU" program — Kelly is working on one final technical glitch and then the site will be ready for uploading onto the CSU website. A link will appear from the CARL website. Kelly will put something about it in the newsletter.

Ron reported that the Conference Committee will meet July 17, hopefully at Pasadena City College. A lot of details will be firmed up at this time. Liz will attend this meeting.

 

7. Secretary’s Report

a) Ann obtained a copy of the Administrative Manual from John McGinnis. Most if not all of the contents can be sent to the Archives. Ann will check some items against the website to see what is current. The Board agreed that the website already basically serves as the Administrative Manual and there is no need to hang onto a binder of old materials.

b) Along those lines, Ann suggested that the website be tweaked a little to make things easier to find. Bonnie explained that when it was created she was expecting updates on many of the documents currently in "Archives," but they have taken much longer than expected to arrive. Bonnie will hide or delete "under construction" pages and will investigate broken links. Ann will make some suggestions for reorganizing the web pages and will send these out to the rest of the Board for consideration.

 

8. Treasurer’s Report

Ann gave Vicki’s prepared report in her absence.

Total Income: $14,637.50

Total Expenses: $8,719.51

Net Income: $5,917.99

Bank account balances:

Checking: $22,962.71

Savings: $28,704.00

a) The amendment to the bylaws passed and was accepted and verified by the Secretary of State. Thanks especially to Liz and Jean. Vicki will send out a message to members when she returns.

b) On May 6 the IRS received the answers to their questions concerning our application for 501c3 status. We will keep our fingers crossed. Vicki included a supplemental letter in March explaining our relationship to ACRL and ALA, both 501c3 organizations. This seemed to help in that the IRS reopened our application instead of making us start from scratch. Vicki worked with our attorney, who read drafts and offered suggestions for clarity. He also facilitated the amendment process with the Secretary of State. This accounts for the attorney fees this quarter. Vicki will pull information together on what it means for us to be a 501c3 organization.

c) Vicki and our CPA filed our 990 tax forms with the IRS and the State of California. Even though we don’t have our non-profit exemption yet, they advised continuing to file. Vicki also filed the yearly registration required of California public benefit corporations.

d) Citibank absorbed CalFed and the checking and savings accounts were transferred. With Citibank, Vicki received a VISA bank card in her name with CARL. This also allows for easy online and phone access to the accounts. Citibank’s fees are higher: $10 instead of $4 for a returned check; $0.30 instead of $0.12 for each individual deposit over 100 items.

e) $10,000 was transferred from checking to savings, as per the Board’s request.

 

9. Membership Director’s Report

a) Liz has had to recreate the file for the brochure. No objections were voiced to the blue on white font. Liz will change the luminosity of the "&" to make it stand out less. Bonnie will tell Liz what font is used for the "&" on the website. Liz will change "Member of the Year" to "Outstanding CARL member." Liz has quotes from two different printers; the cost will be on the order of $750. There are lots of dated items in the brochure; Liz will make some of them more generic so that the brochure does not go out of date so quickly. Inserts will have to be used in any case since the sign-up form will be an insert. A web copy for downloading will be available so we will not need that many copies. When do we want to do the mass mailing of these to non-CARL members of ACRL? ACRL will generate an email list (not totally up-to-date) at the cost of 5 cents per name.

 

b) There are:

614 members for 2003

144 members from 2002 still in the database

about 50 new members, half of these library school students

185 members from CSU

159 members from private

113 members from UC

112 members from community colleges

8 members from public libraries

12 members from schools

10 others

10 vendors

Interest Groups memberships:

CALM — 339 Community College — 140 SEAL — 117

CDIG — 228 CSUL — 181 ABLE — 81

sCIL — 271 DIAL — 103

CARLDIG — 168 GPIG — 84

Christina will put these figures in the upcoming newsletter and Liz will send it out to Campus Liaisons Coordinators.

Membership is down a little. Lots of people are retiring but not rejoining CARL, even at the retirement rate.

10. Committee on Organization

Cynthia and Deborah have met. Jean and Ann have not heard from Cynthia. Jean will call Cynthia to inquire about this. She will also follow up on Kelly Janousek’s appointment to the committee.

11. Webmaster’s Report

a) Bonnie has tested transferring pages to the Digital Forest site, and it works fine. All files will be transferred this summer. The December 2002 minutes are up on the website. Bonnie is working with Vicki on the IRS report.

b) Liz wondered if we could get a more uniform look for our logo. Ron suggested we include our stationary in that. Liz will gather versions of our logo and put them up on a web page; Board members will vote on which one they like the best. Christina said that she chose the newsletter masthead but is not wedded to it.

12. Newsletter Editor’s Report

a) Christina expressed thanks to everyone who has contributed to the newsletter. Christina welcomes feedback, including feedback on the look and feel.

b) There is plenty of room for something about the conference in each of the upcoming newsletters, so by all means please submit announcements. Christina asked for one person to be the designated point person for all conference-related questions; Ron volunteered.

c) Campus Liaisons are encouraged to submit news. We should list Campus Liaisons in the December or September issue.

d) The electronic version of the March issue has not come out yet but will be sent with the June issue. This was due to IT-related difficulties and the upgrade in the Adobe Acrobat version that appeared this past spring. Liz reminded everyone that if you choose to receive the newsletter via email you will not receive a print version.

e) Aline would like to add a piece about the role of the Legislative Liaison. Christina said there is still time if she submits it this week.

f) Judy received an inquiry from a school that said it should be receiving copies of the newsletter. We don’t have an institutional member category; usually some individual at an institution receives a copy and donates it to the school. Lynne will contact the school. Ann suggested we create a "newsletter only" category for institutions and start collecting dues from them.

13. Interest Group Coordinator North Report

Fred is pursuing up-to-date rosters for each group. He reported on the following Interest Groups:

SEAL: Field trip program

ABLE: Meeting held March 21

CARLDIG: Seems to be revitalizing itself

Technical Services: Meet April 25 to talk about bylaws and programming

14. Interest Group Coordinator South Report

Suellen reported for Tamara:

DIAL : Hosting a program on August 1 on library service to diverse groups

ABLE: Program October 24: Assessing info competencies for business

sCIL: Meeting June 5 to review draft of bylaws and election

SEAL Planning field trip Sept. 20. SEAL also wishes to do a preconference session. Suellen will let them know that they should submit something for the September program now, since the next newsletter will not appear until after the program.

15. Campus Liaison Coordinator North Report

a) Simone referred to the "Treasures of the CSU" report given earlier by Kelly. After the CSU sample link is established on the CARL website, we can then announce to campus liaisons the project of posting special collections from member libraries on the CARL website and invite member libraries to join using the sample and template provided by the CSU program. Jie Tian, the co-chair of DIAL, is about to post a list of special collections in ethnic studies.

b) Simone is not receiving much campus news for the "Places in the News" section of the newsletter. Simone will send out a reminder to campus liaisons. Perhaps clearer examples can be spelled out in the newsletter. Christina will do this. Christina also suggested Board members set a good example by submitting something themselves.

16. Campus Liaison Coordinator South Report

David has been receiving lots of submissions for "Places in the News" from all types of campuses.

17. ACRL Chapters Council Delegate

Judy is unclear if the report to ACRL is due May 9 or August 15. Judy will contact Ruth about this.

18. Legislative Liaison Report

a) Aline has been asked by people to batch information into one email. She is trying to do this, although sometimes she has to split it or else the messages bounce back for being too long.

b) Aline is investigating which legislators are most effective in moving issue forward. These are legislators who, for example, respond to her messages.

c) Liz reminded everyone that one can only get off the CARL-ALL and CALIBACA listservs if one removes oneself.

19. Old Business

Guide for Interest Group Leaders: Is the guide on the website complete enough? IG Coordinators should take a look.

sCIL and ACRL Immersion Program: An announcement will appear in the next newsletter. The cost is $1000, so Christina feels that people should have a heads-up so that they can start planning for it now.

20. New Business

Posting to CARLALL: Liz should have a backup in case she is away on vacation, etc. Christina suggested that Liz put information about who to send submissions to into a vacation message. Liz and Judy will work out a procedure.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 1:00 p.m.

Respectfully Submitted,

 

Ann Hotta

CARL Secretary