Annual Report (2003)
ARLIS/NA Standards Committee

Sarah E. McCleskey
864-650-0246
smccles@clemson.edu

1.      Committee Charge:  At the 2003 meeting in Baltimore, it became apparent that the Committee must attempt to more closely address its charge, being “to facilitate and coordinate the development of ARLIS/NA standards. To support this function, the Committee shall (1) maintain an inventory of standards-in-progress through the Society; (2) identify areas of future standards development; (3) recommend what body should create the standards the Committee has identified as warranting development; and (4) review standards prior to Executive Board action.”  Sarah McCleskey had an extensive discussion with Jeanne Brown, Vice-President/President Elect of ARLIS/NA regarding the committee charge.  Ms. Brown feels that it is especially important that the committee actively seek out standards that other groups within /NA may be working on or considering.  Having gathered this information, the committee should encourage these groups to continue development, request budgeting, and finalize standards for submission to the Board.  Further, the committee should develop a research agenda identifying standards that it feels should be addressed in the future, and attempt to identify individuals or groups willing and appropriate to develop such standards. 

2.      Website:  An updated website has been established.  The address is http://www.lib.clemson.edu/hosting/arlis/.  ARLIS/NA Occasional Paper 14 will address accreditation standards.  Chapter 3 outlines core standards used for accreditation in all libraries; a list on the website was provided by the authors of Occasional Paper 14 for the benefit of the Standards Committee.  Updates to this list will be made available through the Standards Committee website. 

3.      In regard to identifying standards that are being worked on, or can/should be worked on, Sarah McCleskey and Rachel Kuhn met with Paul Glassman, Betsy Peck-Learned, and Jeanne Brown regarding updating of the B.J. Irvine (ed.)’s Facilities Standards for Art Libraries and Visual Resources Collections.  This might be a do-able project, especially because of recent presentations a relevant session at the Association of Architecture School Librarians conference in Louisville, Ky in April of 2003. 

4.      Sarah McCleskey also spoke briefly with Heather Ball, Chair of the Professional Development Committee, about standards they are working on concerning core competencies.  This might be something to incorporate or separate from the Occasional Paper on Staffing Standards (1996), which was suggested at the Standards Committee meeting as one  that particularly needs updating. 

5.      Another item that was addressed at the Committee meeting was the difficulty of locating ARLIS/NA publications in indexes and databases.  They might be called “gray” material, falling into the area between books and serials, so that they do not get indexed in Library Literature (or Art Index) but appear in OCLC (or vice versa).  Jon Evans and Rijn Templeton agreed to look at all the ARLIS occasional papers, decide which ones are relevant to standards, write annotations, and try to get these indexed in Library Lit and Art Index.  

6.      NISO membership, news and voting:  Sarah McCleskey, NISO liaison, voted in favor of the standards Z39.29-200x Bibliographic References; Z39.20 - 1999 Criteria for Price Indexes for Print Library Materials; Z39.71 - 1999 Holdings Statements for Bibliographic Items; and Z39.88-200x The OpenURL Framework for Context-Sensitive Services.  She also voted in favor of the following slate of candidates for officers:  For the office of NISO Vice-chair/Chair-elect:  Carl Grant; for board members, serving a 3-year term: Dan Greenstein (CDL), Oliver Pesch (Ebsco Publishing), and Ed Ramsey (Random House).  Anyone can visit the NISO web site (www.niso.org) and see what standards are currently in development, in draft for trial use, at ballot, etc., and provide input.  

7.      Membership:  Ideally the Committee would be comprised of eight members including the Board Liaison.  Currently there are seven members including the Board Liaison.  Sarah McCleskey and Rachel Kuhn made strong efforts to recruit an eighth member from a design school (because the committee lacked representation in that area) but were unsuccessful.  Sarah McCleskey and incoming Co-Chair Ann Whiteside will begin recruiting members prior to the April 2004 conference in New York, attempting to achieve representation from librarians in museums, design schools, and academic libraries.