ART LIBRARIES SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA

31^st Annual Conference

Post-Conference Board Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

Wyndham Inner Harbor Hotel, Baltimore. MD

MINUTES

Present: Elizabeth Clarke, Executive Director; Allen Townsend, President, Daniel Starr, Past President; Jeanne Brown, Vice-President/President-Elect, Phil Heagy, Treasurer; Judith Herschman, Secretary; Suzy Frechette, Midwest Reg. Rep.; Irene Puchalski, Canadian Rep.; Laura Schwartz, South Reg. Rep.; Kay Teel, West Reg. Rep, Carol Graney, Northeast Reg. Rep.Also attending: Vicky Roper, Association Administrator.

The meeting was called to order.

1a . 2003 Conference Wrap Up – (Joan Stahl and Linda Tompkins-Baldwin reporting)

5 membership renewals

11 full conference registrations

7 daily conference registrations.

16 no shows

On the whole the conference went well. There were some hotel problems reported. Some programs went on longer than scheduled and that possibility should go into the planning for future conferences. The Baltimore Museum of Art graciously stayed open longer for us. One speaker and one poster session person did not show up. The Copyright session was particularly successful. It seems that a fewer number of speakers (2 or 3) seems to work better. The fact that the session rooms were proximate to the exhibitors worked extremely well. Ten people crashed the membership luncheon. Special meals need to be ordered in advance with special tickets since there was some confusion during the luncheon. There were some self-scheduling complaints: some wanted the process to be more official, but many of the group meetings made it into the program anyway.  The intent of the self-scheduling is to maintain some spontaneity, so we need to decide which is more important. The poster sessions were well attended. Placement was good. Starr called for a Conference report as soon as possible. It should be sent to Townsend. There was no firm financial news about the conference yet, but it was expected that it would more or less break even.  All conference speakers will be paid out of the Speaker’s fund. There was great enthusiasm expressed for the speakers by the membership. Tompkins-Baldwin was successful at negotiating fees, but there is a need to delineate in the form the amount of the honorarium. There were some discrepancies in the amount given to each speaker.  Local arrangements were helpful in suggesting speakers to program organizers.  Stahl indicated that equipment requirements were somewhat of a problem. Starr suggested that more information should be incorporated into the Conference Guidelines. The Board congratulated, praised, and thanked Tompkins-Baldwin, Stahl, and their local arrangements committee for a successful conference.

1 b. 2004 NYC preview

1.b i  Should we move the time for committee meetings to more accessible times to broaden participation now that there are fewer committees? A proposal was put forward to try to schedule all divisions at same time. Problems might occur because of room sizes and board attendance; the hotel logistics govern whether or not it is feasible. 

More generally, the roles and involvement of various entities, i.e., the local planning committee, headquarters, the Board in organizing the annual conference, are ambiguous especially who has the final authority. While much is delegated to the local committee, Townsend, as ARLIS/NA President, may get more involved.  Clarke suggested that more conference planning responsibility could be picked up by headquarters allowing the local committee to concentrate more on program planning. One person would then be dealing with the hotel including scheduling rooms, technology, lights, etc. Headquarters would take lead responsibility and coordinate with local people. The Board would need to tell Susan Rawlyk what we want.

Townsend brought up the issue of conference workshops and core competencies.  Various committees and groups are working on and discussing in the context of the NY Conference. There was strong support at the Leadership Breakfast for creating an ongoing, Conference-based continuing education workshop series. It was indicated that the Reference Section was interested in providing continuing education activities at each annual conference in the form of in-depth bibliographical and reference series, such as those it has already presented under the title, “They Never Covered This in Library School”. It was suggested that continuing education might be the role of the Professional Development Committee, setting up a separate subcommittee to specifically address this issue.  Starr agreed that it was appropriate for the Professional Development Committee to take this on. Townsend asserted the need for the Committee to work closely with Clarke on developing core competencies. The possibility of traveling workshops to regions/chapters was also suggested for the future after the basic plan related to the conference is underway. Models of core competency programs from other organization should be examined. Townsend emphasized the need for coordination of all of the activities related to professional development activities. It was suggested that certificates of completion of workshops could easily be issued for participants.

Action:   Graney and/or Townsend will ask the Professional Development Committee to form a subcommittee to explore how ARLIS might go about creating core competencies and to come up with a plan for developing continuing education opportunities at the conference. The subcommittee should include a member of the Management Issues Round Table (MIRT). The PDC should also contact the Reference & Information
Services Section to inquire about their interest in this topic and membership on the subcommittee, and Elizabeth Clarke, ARLIS/NA executive director, about her certification proposal.  Deadline:  July 15th.

1.b ii.   There was extensive discussion about how to arrange activities in New York since the conference falls during Passover and Palm Sunday; CPAC is looking at ways to accommodate the holidays. It was agreed that the possibility of changing the schedule should be pursued including any financial or contract implications. Elizabeth will investigate possibility of changing the conference dates. Conflict with holidays, etc. needs to be avoided in the future.

2. a Committee reports

2.a i. Awards

Gerd Muehsam           

Headquarters will do mailings to library schools for this committee. Mailings should be coordinated with other committees, e.g., Membership, Development, Awards. An attempt will be made to purchase from ALA an updated list, and the mailing list with labels maintained at Headquarters by Roper.  Members who have more current contact information should notify Roper coordinate website updates with Jonathan Franklin.

Since winning Muehsam papers are not being automatically published in Art Doc, the question of how to distribute them more widely was discussed.

Action:  Starr, as liaison to the Publications Committee, will ask it to consider how the Society will handle unpublished Muesham Award papers.

Wittenborn

The possible confusion about the name of the award as a result of the newly named Alan Wofsy Fine Arts/Wittenborn Art Books was discussed.  All references to the award should consistently use its full name, the George M.Wittenborn Memorial Book Award.   Policy Manual and website wording should also be changed to reflect the current practice of giving only one award with possibly multiple honorable mentions.

Action: The Administrative Documents Editor when hired will make consistent across all Society documents including web page references to the George M. Wittenborn Memorial Award.

2. a. ii. Catalog Advisory

This Committee plans to revise the NH schedule (an ARLIS/NA document) and to edit the exhibitions best practices document for posting on web. With respect to the relationship of the Cataloging Section to the Cataloging Advisory Committee, it was indicated that a lot of issues discussed in the section meetings were referred to CAC, the more formal recommending group.

2. a. iii Development

The need to develop a plan for our business members equivalent to the Society Circle was reiterated by Starr. The idea of the establishment of a task force to investigate business sponsorship was revived. Since advertising is down and the Society is approaching the same people too many times, Townsend and Elizabeth suggested that a single bundle /package be offered for sponsorship. One check to the Society would give the sponsors all of the benefits they now get plus added value such as advertisements. Greg and Elizabeth have surveyed sponsors and found them receptive. Both headquarters and the treasurer felt that it would be financially beneficial to proceed this way.

Action: A task force consisting of Clarke, Starr, Most, and Heagy should be re-established to investigate business sponsorship and present a bundled package of options. A document needs to be sent again by June 1.   Deadline June 15

2. a. iv Diversity Forum

Townsend reported positive discussions with committee members about the diversity issue. The former diversity committee chairs and members led by Starr will propose actions for the future.

2. a.v. Finance Committee

A distinction must be made between donations to Restricted Funds vs. Designated Funds.

The former is donated for a specific purpose, while the latter is not donated for specific purposes but designated by Board. There have been misidentified targets for some of the funds which will be corrected and moved to appropriate categories. In addition, a Reserve Fund is being established. Funds will be renamed to make things clearer and to reflect the intent of the original donations. To that end the following motion was passed:

Motion #1 : The Board unanimously accepted that monies labeled Internship Fund as of 12/31/02 (previously labeled Research Fund) be moved to the Travel Grant Award Fund; and that monies labeled Travel Grant Award Fund as of 12/31/02 be moved to the Internship Fund.

There remains a Reserve Fund which is a designated fund to which members can contribute and which the Board can use at its discretion. A discussion about how to handle the Speakers Fund relative to the Conference Budget ensued.  It was suggested that the Speakers fund be transferred to the conference revenue line. However, the Speakers fund revenue can only be transferred at end of year and cannot be used for calculating the Conference financial outcome. Worldwide Books restricted fund needs to be restored as a line on the books.

2. a.vi. International Relations

Puchalski reported that there were insufficient funds to sponsor the social event for international attendees. Instead, e-mailing an invitation to the meeting helped boost attendance at the session and resulted in some international attendees and IRC members going to dinner as an informal group. There have been complaints about the higher membership fees for foreign attendees and a proposal that some adjustments based on exchange rates be made.  Society dues are based on salaries, but exceptions are made for foreign members who pay a flat fee. The Executive Board needs to reexamine this issue.

There were some who expressed a desire to have attendee lists in advance. There were printed copies at the Baltimore Conference registration desk. It was proposed that an electronic version be made available in the member’s area of the website.

Action: The Society’s Website Editor should post registered conference attendees on the members section of the web in advance of the annual conference, beginning with the New York Conference in 2004.  Headquarters will provide the list to the Editor in advance.

The request that conference fees be waived for foreign speakers has been rejected by the Board. Starr suggested that there should be greater promotion of the organization by serving as liaison with international counterparts, by taking positions and actively participating in IFLA conferences, and sharing of information during the year. Starr reported that Ken Soehner had been nominated to run for IFLA’s Art Section Steering Committee. The reviewed charge needs to be conveyed to Committee. Starr complimented Puchalski’s work as liaison for that committee.

 2.a.vii. Membership

 Outreach efforts to library schools resulted in over 50 student members this year. The committee plans outreach to chapters, library schools, and recent membership non-renewals as well.  The existence of ARLIS literature to distribute helps this effort. With regard to diversity, a suggestion was made to collaborate with ALA since it already has a structure. L.Stylianopoulos will provide the Membership Committee co-chairs with more information.

The membership form is being revised by the Membership Committee and Board-based dues task force composed of Puchalski, Heagy, and Townsend. There will be no new substantive changes except for changes in categories, which the Board will discuss at Mid Year.  It was suggested that Public Libraries be added to the form.

Student national chapter discussion

University of North Carolina gave money to establish a local ARLIS/NA student chapter. The issue of student chapters raised the question of their relationship to ARLIS/NA, i.e. should they be separate or incorporated, national or local?  Pros and cons were discussed.   One argument put forward is that student status is transitional and it would be hard to maintain continuity. Starr suggested the appointment of a student liaison or ombudsman to coordinate activities and interests at meetings. Starr also suggested that a retiree liaison would also be valuable. It was decided that further investigation is warranted.

2. a. viii Nominating

The nominating committee is trying to identify the best candidates and are entertaining self-nominations. The nomination process will be posted to ARLIS-L by the Committee chair.

2. a. ix. North American Relations

The (now defunct) committee assisted Townsend in appointing liaisons to other organizations.  Liaisons will continue to keep track of list serves and monitor programmatic developments for matters of interest to ARLIS.  Liaisons will report to the Vice President/President Elect in the future. 

Action: Townsend will ask the Visual Resources Division moderator to act as VRA liaison.

Action: Townsend will draft position descriptions for all liaisons.  Deadline May 1

2. a. x. Professional Development

Ways of recruiting undergraduates into the field were discussed. Proposals included the creation of a brochure or bookmark for distribution, targeting art history and studio art majors, sending information to library schools and career centers. Previous brochure will try to be retrieved. A formal request should be made to the treasurer for the cost of any brochures.

The PDC wants to attract more applicants for the Internship Program. Proposals included e-mailing current ARLIS student members and incorporating solicitation into e-mail to library schools, insure incorporation of announcement in internship compilations of other organizations such as ALA. The possibility of proposing a conference session on how to create a library internship program was also discussed.

See discussion of core competencies in agenda 1.b.i.

2. a. xi.  Public Policy

The question of who should be responsible for issues that arise frequently and require immediate response or have short deadlines. The Public Policy Committee should take responsibility to draft statements which have been thoroughly discussed by the committee and which require Board approval.  Position statements requiring immediate response can be submitted to the Board and sent around to the Board list via e-mail for comment.

With respect to the proposed position statement on the Iraqi war, the Society needs to be careful not to violate our tax-exempt status and should deal with legislation and issues related to its professional concerns.  Examples of such matters are: Digital Millennium Act, UCITA, and Digital Choice. The Board was directed to Review the Articles of Incorporation relating to Public Policy charges and activities. The President should be contacted with concerns who should consult ALA with respect to its policies on influencing legislation. Committee should give the Board a list of legislation and positions they want the organization to take. 

There was a discussion about identifying additional organizations to work with outside of library organizations such as the ACLU but the Board prefers the committee to work with other library organizations.  It was recommended that the Committee publish short articles in UPDATE to keep the membership informed.

2. a. xii. Publications

There is a new Art Documentation editor. The Board will need to review the relationship between all of our publications and web publishing and figure out how to profit from the publications since the cost of printing is so high. With respect to Art Documentation, we need to work through issues of quality vs. cost. Clarke needs to get back to the committee with some cost figures, particularly of illustrations.

The desirability of keeping the Update columns for those sections, committees and roundtables which may be dissolving was discussed.

2. a. xiii. Standards

Concern was expressed about the charge of this committee. One of the responsibilities is to extract from developing national standards such as NISO those sections of interest to ARLIS and to compile standards which develop from other ARLIS committees. Facilities standards are being updated. Sarah McCleskey is about to issue “Staffing and Core Competencies Standards”. It is expected that this committee will become more active over the next few years.

 2. a xiv. Collection Development Committee  

Townsend expressed that there is some unhappiness that this committee was being dissolved. Members had a discussion on how they might reconstitute themselves, e.g. as a discussion group or a roundtable? Starr pointed out that there was a highly successful discussion meeting about vendors at St. Louis and thought that sessions might be proposed that would reach a broader group of interested people.

3. Strategic Plan Action Items

Goals for the coming year

A review of the role and charges of Standing Committees and the Strategic Plan assignments for specific committees needs to be done.

Action: Committee strategic plan action items should be reviewed by each Board liaison for any required updates, changes, and accomplishments, and ways to communicate them.  Committee Liaison should also provide recommendations on whether is it necessary for all committees to meet at the Annual Conference. Deadline July 15

4. Lantern Slide Survey

In response to Maryly Snow’s request to mount a web-based Lantern slide survey on the AWS, a discussion about surveys in general ensued. The current policy manual statement requirement that all Society-wide surveys be approved by Headquarters and the President or Executive Board was discussed. A suggestion was made to possibly purchase web survey software to enable electronic surveys to be done easily.  The Society’s capacity to mount online surveys in the future was discussed.   

 Action: Brown will submit proposal for the Lantern slide survey to HQ for financial determination and respond to Maryly.

5. Divisions, Sections, Round Tables Discussion

Art & Design School Division

It was expressed that divisions are important for communicating and networking. The co-moderators are revising the mission statement. They are planning to develop their website and planning to post guides. Alan Michelson will host the website. (Starr asked that Roper create an Excel spreadsheet indicating moderators of committees, divisions, and roundtables for easy e-mailing and linking). Incoming co-moderators are Rachel Beckwith and Nensi Brailo. 

Academic Division

They are alive and well and do not want to dissolve. The new moderator is Deborah Ultan. The substantive discussions in this group were budget cuts, training issues for staff, and research level collecting for undergraduates. Henry Pisciotta and Ellen Kempf presented results of visual image study. They are also doing a history of past division moderators.

Museum Library Division

The museum division meeting content was discussed, with observations being offered that the discussion group format might serve this group more effectively.

Public Libraries

Frechette reported that there at least 10 Public Librarians attended the Baltimore Conference but had no official forum or presence on the program. While the group did not formally dissolve, it was running out of moderators. Townsend reiterated a commitment to provide representation for all groups. Frechette proposed that a discussion group or other entity might address this need. 

Teel indicated that the roundtables, e.g. serials, were worried about being rejected for program scheduling because they are too small. Starr indicated the need for agendas and a discussion of how to incorporate these into conference and planning. It was recommended that these groups might post agendas on the listserve before Conferences, providing links from the preliminary program whenever possible.

Visual Resources Division  

Mary Wassermann reported on the ARLIS/NA-VRA Joint Education Task Force, of
which she is co-chair with John Taormina. The workshop has been conceived as a summer institute, with a curriculum outlined in detail, to be hosted at Rice University. Originally scheduled to begin in June 2003, it was postponed a year to allow time for fundraising. Other possibilities are being considered, such as aligning it with a library school (perhaps Syracuse or Pittsburgh) or offering a series of workshops before and after conferences or as part of chapter meetings. Further discussion is to take place at VRA in Houston. The membership of the Task Force will be restructured to achieve the remaining goals; John Taormina has resigned as co-chair and VRA is seeking a replacement. With the Visual Resources Advisory Committee being dissolved, the future role of the VR Division was discussed. It can act as a liaison between ARLIS/NA and VRA. One goal is to make the two web sites (VRD and VRA) complementary. Mary Wassermann will be coordinating an assessment of the joint conference in Saint Louis. Giovanna Jackson, who was unable to attend the conference in Baltimore, will be the VRD Moderator during 2003-2004, and the Update editor will be Susan Miller.

Architecture Section

According to Brown, members expressed some concerns about the reorganization.  Do members need to be part of official structure to justify travel to administrators? Does being part of the formal structure require or encourage members to take greater responsibility than they would otherwise? For example, someone would have to become chair and assume a leadership role.

Cataloging Section

Members want to have substantive content in their business meeting. There was not much communication during the year, however, and the existence of the section was questioned. The sections essentially provide a session guarantee.

Starr indicated that Goodman identified 17 different discussion groups for NYC 2004 which is fewer than usual. Do members want more meetings and fewer sessions?  Brown reiterated that the Architecture section members say that architecture-related sessions are not enough to justify coming.

Starr will ask Goodman to make a mock-up of the conference program and see what time is left for sessions. Two or three different models are possible. He proposed putting the structure discussion in the context of conferences.

Roundtables

The moratorium on forming new roundtables was discussed. The current roundtables will be left in place for the time being, but most of the growth of the structure was accounted for by the requests for new ones.

An authorized list of discussion groups was proposed. It was suggested, however, that members might be upset if Conference meeting space were not guaranteed for such groups. Plenty of self-scheduled rooms were left vacant this year. While the larger number of roundtables have been problematic to programming in the past, often having fewer than ten people, the Society wants to encourage spontaneous emerging interests/needs. Some suggestions include: a time slot for a particular discussion, charging $10 for each roundtable, follow the Music Library Association’s approach to require a petition every three years to continue the roundtable, abolish all roundtables and require that a petition be submitted on a certain schedule to reconstitute a particular roundtable.

Action:  Starr will initiate another ARLIS-L discussion of reorganization.

6. Oral History program

Starr suggested that we get permission to publish the transcripts of oral history interviews on the web.

Action:  Starr will forward to the publication committee for discussion, the question of how the proposal to publish the transcripts should be handled.

7. Conference material archives

Townsend proposed that links might be provided from the online program or proceedings documents to corresponding handouts given at meetings. According to current guidelines, session handouts do not go into the archives. That Moderators should get numbers of sign-ups for any given session right after the early registration deadline should added to the Conference Planning Manual. 

8. Certification of art librarians

See discussion of core competencies and possible certificates of attendance in agenda 1.b.i.

9. Chapter/Society affiliation and legal issues.

Several concerns surrounding the relationship of chapters to ARLIS/NA were raised and discussed.  Right now we have strong Chapter affiliation, requiring ARLIS/NA membership although the requirement has not necessarily been enforced. Questions remaining: What is our liability with regard to Chapter-based activities?  Could the chapters afford to incorporate and do they have to incorporate separately to be non-profit? Would they still need separate liability insurance? What would the cost of such insurance be? Could the cost be paid for by a slight increase in dues?  Further discussion postponed until Mid Year in Philadelphia. 

Action: Clarke will approach the American Society of Association Executives to find out how the issue is generally handled, and will present various models at Mid Year.  Starr will approach ALA for advice. Deadline May 1.

10.  There is a possibility of receiving an invitation from the Northwest chapter for a national conference in Banff, the pros and cons of which were discussed. The Southeast Chapter is working on an invitation for 2006.  The Midwest chapter may also make a bid.

The mid-year Board Meeting will be held in Philadelphia, August 26, 10 am-6 pm and August 27, 9 am-3 pm.

Meeting was adjourned.