North American Relations Committee
Minutes of Business Meeting
March 6, 1998

Present:  Marianne L. Cavanaugh (in-coming Chair, AAM liaison); Roberta Geier
(SLA/MAHD liaison); Suzanne Freeman (ALA/ALCTS liaison); Lee Sorensen (in-coming
Executive Board liaison); Jack Robinson (out-going Executive Board liaison)

Absent:   Claire Eike (out-going Chair); Paula Epstein (ALA/ARTS liaison);
Ray Anne Lockard (CAA liaison); Marisa Keller (SAA liaison)

Vacant:   AASL liaison

Lee Sorensen was introduced as our new Executive Board Liaison to the North
American Relations Committee.

Apologies were offered for the lack of an annual report.  Those liaisons
present gave updates on their previous year's activities.   An e-mail
message will be sent to those absent liaisons requesting their input.

The action items from the ARLIS/NA Strategic Plan; handout of liaison
contact information and the new NARC Committee Guidelines were distributed
for comment.  There were no comments.

Roberta Geier noted an error in the listserv address for the SLA/MAHD
listserv on the handout of liaison contact information.  She will look for
the correct address.  She submitted an article for "Update" on the new SLA
"Competencies for Special Librarians in the 21st Century."

Marianne asked if anyone had heard from Marisa Keller.  Roberta thought she
had left her position at the Corcoran, and would check on it.  Marianne
would seek a new liaison for SAA.

The new NARC guidelines seem to codify the liaison organizations.  There
would be room on the committee for one more organization, only as long as
the chair was also a liaison. Jack suggested that new organizations be added
to existing liaison duties if the area of interest was similar. (e.g AASL
liaison might also track AAL).

Suzanne reported the difficulties she has had in submitting notices to ALCTS
electronic newsletter "AN2."  She will try to find a contact within the
organization with more influence in the coming year.  She noted the new
publication "ArtMARC Sourcebook: Cataloging Art, Architecture, and Their
Visual Images" by Linda McRae and Lynda S. White,  jointly published by
ARLIS/NA and ALA.

Lee Sorensen asked for an update on the committee's activities (for lack of
an annual report). Responses included the CAA/ARLIS/NA joint program in
Toronto; AAM "Update" column and session co-sponsored with the Museum
Library Division at the Philadelphia conference; and maintaining a presence
at ALA Mid-winter at the Affiliates booth.

Jack suggested a review of the committee's activities in the light of the
Strategic Plan action items and the committee charge would be helpful in
re-defining the goals of the committee. There ensued a discussion of the
purpose of the committee.  Roberta Geier thought that, at least with SLA
with its focus on Continuing Education and Professional Development, her
position filled a need in ARLIS/NA.  She would like to use her list from
Headquarters of dual memberships to see if this is a general attitude.

Lee Sorensen asked that all postings to ARLIS-L begin with the committee
name.  This will help highlight the activities of the committee.  He also
suggested that, either in addition to/or instead of cross-posting messages,
liaisons post summaries of our organization's activities to ARLIS/NA.  If
they are short and succinct, they are more likely to be read.  The same
thing could be done for ARLIS/NA activities on our liaison's listserves.
Lee also asked about the
committee's presence on the ARLIS/NA website.  Marianne will look at the
website.  He also requested quarterly updates on the committee activities.

The meeting then turned to the action items from the Strategic Plan.  The
problem of joint programming was discussed (S.P. no.124).  ARLIS/NA does not
meet concurrently with our organizations, so it would require importing
speakers or workshops to an ARLIS/NA conference, or vice versa.  Roberta
said she would investigate bringing an SLA speaker to the ARLIS/NA
conference in Vancouver.  Suzanne would investigate up-coming ALCTS
"Institutes."  Perhaps the Cataloging Section would be interested in
co-sponsoring something like that.  It could be connected to the new joint
publication, "ArtMARC Sourcebook."

Respectfully submitted by Marianne L. Cavanaugh--17 March 1998