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North American Serials Interest GroupNASIG NewsletterVol. 20, no. 3 September 2005 ISSN 1542-3417 Elizabeth Parang, NASIG Secretary Date, Time: May 18, 2005, 8:17 a.m.-4:35 p.m. Attending: Members-at-Large: Ex-Officio member: Guests: 1.0 Welcome (Savage)
2.0 Secretary's Report (Parang) 2.1 Board Actions Since Jan. 13, 2005 Meeting 5/6/2005 The consensus of the Board is that Board members (current and incoming) WILL be eligible to win the 20th Anniversary quilt drawing but no other drawings. 3/30/2005 McKee moved (Geer seconded) that the Board adopt the financial plan as revised by the March 16th, 2005 conference call discussion. The motion passed unanimously. 3/14/05 The Board endorsed the slate of award winners selected by the Awards & Recognition Committee. 3/10/05 McKee moved (Emery seconded) that due to not receiving any Tuttle applications, we reallocate the money budgeted for awards to allow UP TO 6 student grant awards. The motion passed. 2/28/05 Geer moved (Schmitt seconded) that sitting members of the Executive Board or committees with primary responsibilities for managing any NASIG grant or award are not eligible for that award or grant during an award or grant cycle that is concurrent with their tenure on the Board or relevant committee. The motion passed unanimously. 2.2 Pending action items from past meetings The list of pending action items was reviewed; no changes were made. 2.3 Mysteries from the manual Although the Secretary's job description indicates that position will maintain a file of software license agreements, Parang has not found any in the Secretary's papers. Novak indicated the Treasurer has a copy of the license for the accounting software. Schmitt indicated that committees she liaisons with also have copies of licenses. ACTION: Parang will create a list of license agreements for the Secretary's Manual and will obtain copies of licenses where possible. References to maintaining mechanical of NASIG logo and preparing annual awards to be presented during the Annual Conference were agreed to be out of date and will be removed. 3.0 Treasurer's Report (Novak)
Novak noted the format of the budget will change with the new version of Quicken being purchased for the Treasurer 3.1.1 Balance Sheet May 2005 3.1.5 2005 Minneapolis Conference Summary Report Novak reported the hotel had been paid 50% of the cost up front. 3.1.6 2005 Conference Detailed Financial Report Due to the extra expense of anniversary activities, this conference will probably just break even. Attendees suggested that PPC could try to offer more pre-conferences in the future, perhaps multiple half-day sessions with some in the morning and some in the afternoon. Possibilities could include more SCCTP sessions. Perhaps some synergies with ALCTS could develop topics; Emery indicated that as the incoming chair of the ALCTS Serials Section she plans to work closely with NASIG. ACTION: Page will urge PPC to consider more pre-conferences and offer both morning and afternoon half-day sessions. 3.2 Update Conference Registrar section of manual Novak reported online registration has caused many changes and the corresponding section of the CPC Manual needs to be overhauled. ACTION: Novak, Savage and Tenney will rewrite conference registration section of CPC Manual. 3.3 Training for new Treasurer, Rose Robischon, will occur beginning June 16, 2005. Novak noted that due to the new financial plan, the potential increase in workload of the Treasurer will need to be closely monitored. 4.0 Committee and Team Annual Reports - (note: these will be published in a special issue of the Newsletter) Savage noted that during the past year there were a total of 23 task forces and committees. 4.1 Archives (Parang) 4.1.1 Charge needs to be overhauled Archivist must create a manual; could check with similar organizations for examples of manuals. Some committee chairs have instructions as to what to send to the Archives, how long to keep records, etc. ACTION: Set up a task force to create an archival policy for the organization The Archivist webpage needs a link to the list of what's in the Archives. http://web.library.uiuc.edu/AHX/uasfa/3502060.pdf 4.1.2 Responsibility for photographing realia/maintaining photo archive One copy of photos of t-shirts and other souvenirs should be sent to the Archives and one copy to Creech for the web site. 4.2 Awards & Recognition (McKee) Frick and Slagell will give out the awards during the opening ceremony. The committee will be smaller next year. The Board endorsed the committee's recommendation to continue requiring electronic submission, use of the identity matrix to track the blinding process, use of the master scoring workbook, and the posting of all material in a Word format on the A&R Web site for committee review. 4.2.1 Documentation/manual Slagell will be in charge of creating a comprehensive manual. 4.2.2 Relationship with Mentoring Team ACTION: Page will talk with the A&R co-chairs about moving the Mentoring Team to A&R 4.2.3 Advertising of awards Information about awards must be included in the NASIG brochure. ACTION: Publicist (Savage) will work with A&R co-chairs to develop more extensive advertising of awards 4.2.3 Offer Horizon Award rather than Tuttle in "Champion" years The Board endorsed the recommendation that the Tuttle, rather than the Horizon, award not be offered when the Champion award is offered. The Champion award is intended to be offered every five years as an anniversary item. The Board discussed whether the Champion award should use an application process (as was done this year) or nomination process. ACTION: Ginanni to ask A&R to rework the award so it is a nomination rather than an application. The Board extended its thanks to A&R for the additional work completed this year in the creation of two new awards and for the improvements in the Mexico Student Grant process. 4.3 Bylaws (Tenney) The Board thanked the committee for completing everything in a timely manner and doing an excellent job. Appropriate people must revise a number of items to reflect the dues change, especially online forms and procedures. ACTION: Ginanni will be responsible for finding a volunteer to track down everything that needs to be done. Schmitt noted that Oliver will do this for ORT. The Board discussed whether NASIG should continue to accept Canadian checks given the many problems with the bank. However, the Canadian government will not use credit cards for payments. The Board agreed to accept checks for $75 Canadian as dues payment because this was the Canadian equivalent at the time the dues proposal was made. Committee chairs will be asked to turn in a list of changes needed on the web site for implementation in July. 4.4 Conference Planning Next year CPC has been asked to have a special liaison to PPC. The incoming PPC and CPC people should try to meet at the current conference. The committee chairs must be sure to communicate with each other often. 4.4.1 Conference budget (Savage) No sales tax needed to be paid on the a-v. The RFP for the a-v helped reduce the cost although it added to the workload. Having a standard a-v package in each room didn't actually add to the cost and did reduce the problems with moving equipment. Next year CPC must determine what the standard package will be before PPC discusses a-v needs with speakers. 4.4.2 Board to help with anything during conference? (Savage) CPC had a sufficient number of volunteers to cover all necessary tasks. CPC asked if it would be okay to close registration during the Vision Sessions so all CPC members could attend them. Because that would conflict with publicized hours for the registration desk, the Board decided that registration must stay open during the Vision Sessions. Several Board members volunteered, however, to staff the registration desk for CPC during these times. 4.4.3 Drawing for quilt (McKee) Martha Burk, the quilter, will draw the winning ticket 4.4.4 Fraudulent registrations, requests for visas (Schmitt) Schmitt discussed fraudulent credit card charges. Information is available on the Web site for those planning to attend the conference as an educational activity. NASIG generally only provides letters of invitation for invited speakers (PPC) and award winners (A&R). Conference attendees apply at the U.S. Embassy in their own country. CPC and the Conference Registrar will not provide letters but will send an explanatory message. CPC should keep a list of people who request visa letters. Often there are suspicious items on the registration, ex., maximum number of guests, no sessions selected. The Treasurer does refunds via check and will watch for suspicious charges. The Board recommended that credit cards be refunded via credit charge refund despite the fact this incurs an extra charge for NASIG. 4.4.5 Remaining conference events Board members should attend (Savage) 4.5 Continuing Ed (Luther) Luther reported that OVGTSL did have several specific serials sessions. In answer to the question, was NASIG publicly thanked for sponsoring programs, Luther replied that brochures were set out and she knew that NASIG was thanked at the Potomac and North Carolina events. CEC had not planned for revenue generation this year. The NASIG CEC Online Education Task Force Final Report will be placed online. This task force did examine webinars and online courses. They encourage capitalizing on hot topics, partnerships. 4.6 Database and Directory (Emery) 4.6.1 Re-constitution/redefinition of the committee The new technology group will address the re-constitution/redefinition of D&D. 4.6.2 Update D&D's tools The pdf Membership Directory has not been updated since December. New tools caused problems due to lack of technology skills among members of the committee. The date of updating of both directories needs to be prominently displayed. The committee should aim to update them monthly. The Board thanked the committee for their work and especially McClamroch for stepping up and taking over the chairmanship. 4.7 Electronic Communications (Randall) 4.7.1 Change passwords for lists, list archives, private folders in web space, etc. 4.7.3 Weeding outdated files on NASIGWeb and email list archives Savage indicated that passwords should be changed annually at the same time, July 1. The Secretary should maintain a list of who has passwords. ACTION: ECC will notify the Secretary when passwords are changed or new ones created. Savage noted that the list archives passwords should be changed as should the password for the Board web space. The usernames can remain the same. ECC maintains a site management space on the web that contains a list of usernames. The Board discussed the fact that the list archive software does not work well; this could be due to server response. The Treasurer has had problems with email. The message limit size has caused problems with the UKSG Serials eNews. ECC should address these issues with bee.net once all passwords are changed and the website is updated. ACTION: Add to Working Calendar that all committees must review the content of their list archives to determine if any need to be retained when ECC purges the list archives in a few weeks. ECC must send a message to the chairs reminding them. Previously the Board had discussed having a second list for "NASIG chat", keeping NASIG-L for official announcements. There is some interest in that or a Bulletin Board; this should be discussed at the Town Hall meeting. ECC will divide the committee into web and list subgroups. Page announced that the 2005/2006 ECC co-chairs have been appointed, Creech will be in charge of the Web site and McElroy in charge of the lists. They were asked to farm out work to members and not do everything themselves. They will add links to ECC pages giving the two email addresses, list@nasig.org and web@nasig.org The committee had recently changed the footer of NASIG-L messages; the Board requested that the change be reworded. ECC noted that the Working Calendar is still organized around a June annual conference. Liaisons should remind committees to check ahead and make adjustments to their schedules according to the month the conference will be held. 4.8 Evaluation and Assessment (Schmitt) The E&A recommendation, that a task force should be appointed and charged with exploring online evaluations, surveys, and evaluation and assessment software, will be part of the technology plan. The Strategic Support Task Force had investigated online voting vendors that also sold evaluation and survey software. Ginanni has the information from these companies. 4.9 Finance (Novak) Novak reported the Finance Committee was dissolved, as specified in the new Financial Plan. 4.10 Newsletter (Simser) 4.10.1 Committee annual reports page The editor could maintain a webpage allowing easy access to the annual reports in the Newsletter. Simser presented a lengthy draft she had created of the proposed NASIGWeb page; the Board decided to adopt this suggestion. ACTION: All committees should link to this page from their webpage. All task force reports should be included in the Newsletter. Articles about new task forces should be in the Newsletter and linked to the task force's webpage. The conference/calendar editor could maintain these pages. The technology committee should consider this function also as part of broader NASIG metadata management. The Board thanked Simser for her work on the Newsletter and her great editing. 4.11 Nominations and Elections (McKee) The Board thanked the committee for a job well done. 4.12 Online Registration Team (Novak, Schmitt) French and Spanish languages forms for membership need to be added. 4.12.1 Outsource portion of work Due to the technological skills needed, outsourcing should be considered as a long term solution; third party software does exist. However, having a third party handle updating the registration site might result in the site not including all the current functionality, such as selecting programs to attend. For the present, succession training is needed. 4.12.2 New opportunities There are now more people involved, D&D for example. Problems exist such as having people with Access and SQL experience plus firewall problems for remote access. Now with online capabilities, members could renew and register at the same time. 4.12.3 Manuals Because the current Registrar doesn't know next year's Registrar, training cannot necessarily take place. Thus a functional procedural manual is vital (See 3.2) 4.12.4 Technical support for CPC, PPC, Treasurer The Board thanked ORT for the exceptional amount of work completed. 4.13 Mentoring Task Force (Tenney) The Board renamed this group the Mentoring Team. (See 4.2.2) 4.14 Proceedings (Randall) The Haworth contract should be scanned and placed in the Board web space. The three-year contract with Haworth will be up for renewal and a task force should be appointed to investigate alternatives. ACTION: Page will send a copy of the contract to ECC to be scanned and placed in the Board web space. Haworth does pay for the editors to visit their Press. The Board could consider having co-editors sign up for two years but must keep in mind that this is approximately 15 months of work. The task force looking at publications should look at work cycles. 4.14.1 Editors contact speakers/PPC much earlier next year The editors need to contact speakers even earlier; preferably as soon as the speakers have been selected. ACTION: Parang will add to NASIG Working Calendar 4.14.2 Pdf version in website? Interest has been expressed in a pdf version of the Proceedings. First we must look into the Haworth contract on this, to see if it is mentioned anywhere, and proceed from there. ACTION: Randall will investigate the possibility of including PDF versions of the Proceedings. ACTION: ECC establish link from Proceedings page to handouts. 4.15 Professional Liaisons (Schmitt) Schmitt recruited many new liaisons. They are enthusiastic and their reports have presented a wide range of scope, content, length, structure, and style, which has consequently required extensive editing by Newsletter staff. Some liaisons only send one report but should be encouraged to report regularly, sharing information about their organization with other NASIG members. NASIG does not provide funding to liaisons. These liaisons are NASIG members appointed by NASIG to gather information from other organizations that will be of benefit to NASIG members; these reports are not official communications from the other organizations, and these liaisons are not appointed by the other organizations, though it is possible for the same person simultaneously to be appointed for a similar function within the other organization. The purpose is information flow. Part of the NASIG Strategic Plan is to connect with the broader serials community. The Board agreed the Professional Liaisons program should be continued for the 2005/2006 appointment year. Reports should be reoriented towards the Newsletter instead of the current orientation to Board meetings. ACTION: Schmitt and Chesler will establish guidelines and expectations for the content of liaison reports as well as the frequency and structural format of the reports. The Liaison Reports Submission Form will be modified accordingly. 4.16 Publications (Emery) A note will be placed on the Committee's webpage indicating the suspension of the committee. 4.17 Publicist (McKee) The Publicist is the voice of NASIG and sends out all promotional materials. 4.17.1 Update membership brochures Tenney suggested a quick update with a small number printed; the new Membership Committee could then do a thorough revision. ACTION: Parang will do a quick update The Brochure should be put in the Board web space before printing. The final version should be sent to the Translators Team as a word document. NASIG should have a notice about "Creative Commons" on its Web site. ACTION: Emery will explore options among the Creative Commons licenses; if any seem appropriate for NASIG's use, she will recommend the Board adopt one as NASIG's default copyright/license control policy for most of our publications (excepting, of course, the Proceedings and any other publications which require involve other intellectual property management factors). 4.18 Site Selection (Luther, Page, Tenney) Tenney visited Richmond, VA and reported it looks very promising for a future conference site. Virginia will be celebrating its 400th birthday in 2007. New Orleans is bidding on late May 2007. ACRL is meeting in Baltimore in 2007. The committee will pursue Canada for 2008. A suggestion was made that perhaps NASIG could collaborate with the group in New Brunswick that holds a serials conference. 4.19 Translators Resource Team (Geer) The Strategic Plan has been translated into French and Spanish. These versions have been added to NASIGWeb. These translations required a lot of difficult work and the Board thanks the TRT for all of this hard work. 5.0 Task Force Reports 5.1 Anniversary Task Force (Geer) Four skits are planned. Schmitt volunteered to videotape the skits for possible showing at next year's conference. 5.2 History Task Force (Tenney) The task force had some difficulties getting responses from prospective interviewees , but nevertheless completed its work on schedule. Anne Mitchell, Publications Committee Co-Chair, then converted the approximately 40 pages of text to a layered html document and made it available from NASIGWeb's Publications page. 5.2.1 List of Continuing Education events over the years At the Task Force's suggestion, the Board will ask the Continuing Education Committee to compile a list of NASIG-sponsored continuing education programs during the past 20 years to add to this new NASIG History. 5.3 Online Survey and Evaluation Task Force (Savage) The technology plan will address these issues. This task force has not been appointed yet. 6.0 Other/New Business Page announced the 2005/2006 Board Liaisons and committee chairs: Chesler will be liaison to the Professional Liaisons; Emery will be liaison to CEC (Beverley Geer, Nathan Rupp, Co-Chairs); Ginanni will be liaison to A&R (Jeff Slagell, Sarah Sutton, Jessica Gibson, Co-Chairs) and the Translators Task Force; Maxwell will be liaison to Bylaws (Adolfo Tarango, Chair), the Mentoring Task Force, and Membership; Novak will be liaison to PPC (Rachel Frick, June Garner, Tonia Graves, Co-Chairs); Page will be liaison to the Technology Cluster - ECC (Anna Creech, Emily McElroy, Co-Chairs), E&A (Step Schmitt, Chair), D&D (Jo McClamroch, Chair), ORT (Schmitt, Chair); Parang will be liaison to Archives (Marie Seymour-Green); Randall will liaison to Proceedings (Meg Mering, Elna Sexton, Co-Chairs); Savage will be liaison to N&E (Philanese Slaughter, Chair); Tenney will be liaison to CPC (Paul Moeller, Wendy Highby, Co-Chairs) and Newsletter (Simser). Page, Novak, and Tenney will be the Site Selection Committee for 2007.
Page noted that so much technology is used by committees and on web pages that this factor should be examined closely. Page proposes a study for the next year. Schmitt will function as the Coordinator of the Technology Cluster, a sort of Chief Technology Officer. She will evaluate and recommend an optimum structure to implement technology that will support the work of the committees. ACTION: ECC should overhaul and update the NASIG Web site The training component needs to be addressed. End products include an inventory of current technology due by the Fall 2005 Board Meeting and a written short range plan due May 2006. Having committee communications go through Board liaisons can lengthen the processes and create obstacles to quick results. Acknowledging receipt of emails is important. Schmitt and the technology group will look at the bee.net relationship and software for surveys and voting. This year is a pilot test and will develop a list of requirements for a Chief Technology Officer ACTION: Page will submit a draft charge for the pilot Chief Technology Officer 6.2 UKSG Serials eNews, NASIG ed. (Savage) The agreement was scanned and added to the Board web space. This is a three-year agreement. 6.2.1 Bee.net limitation on message size See 4.7 6.2.2. NASIG contributions Six contributions are to be made each year, including announcements of things NASIG is doing such as continuing education activities, Proceedings, handouts. CEC should send announcements to the Publicist who will continue to forward items 6.3 Chairs Orientation Manual (Savage, Tenney) Board members should send Tenney messages about items to add. Committee chairs should be asked to make suggestions. 6.4 New Board Members Orientation Manual (Savage) ACTION: Savage will draft a New Board Members Orientation Manual 6.5 Brainstorming session (Savage) Savage has already received some comments from members not able to attend. 7.0 Financial Plan. Phase 1: Initial implementation (Savage) 7.1 Tasks to be done this summer During the Chairs Meeting, emphasize that any budget item request increasing more than 2% will require justification 7.2 Development and Membership Committees ACTION: Savage and Page will create committee charges ACTION: Issue call for volunteers over NASIG-L The dues increase should generate the same amount of money being spent now. In the past at least 50% of the money spent came from surplus money earned at past conferences. NASIG needs to develop other sources of income. The new Financial Plan includes methods for this such as increasing membership, creating a development program, and creating revenue-generating continuing education events. All these take some time to realize. We want to create endowments for items highly valued by members, such as grants and awards programs, grants to members for continuing education. We need a plan for each endowment, including purpose, goals, sources of income, and investment strategy (need approximately $20 in principal for each $1 budgeted annually.) The Development Committee will discuss plans for fundraising activities indicating where the money will go, how it will be managed, how it will be raised (ex. drawings, donations, check-off on renewal form.) The Membership Committee will work on increasing the number of members in order to increase income as far as the Financial Plan is concerned. (Though increasing membership for financial purposes is only one purpose, and not the most important purpose, for this committee's work.) This goal should be in the original charge, both recruitment and retention. The Committee must develop an understanding of why we lose members, why we gain them, and why members renew each year. Often they move into a job having nothing to do with serials or they retire. Currently there are 15 student members. ACTION: As a first step to revive library school outreach, Maxwell will track down the CEC report and place it in the Board web space and will spearhead the effort to move forward. Chesler asked, what is the cost per member of running the organization? Should library school students be enrolled for free? Savage approximated the cost per of member as being $68. Paraprofessionals should be targeted as well. Chesler suggested starting a conversation on NASIG-L or some other list/bulletin board. We could offer members the opportunity to donate money towards student/paraprofessional members called scholarships. Luther suggested an initiative, "Pay $100 and renew yourself!" - $75 dues for self and one student member's dues. Workshops should cover publishers and subscription agents as well as librarians. The Texas Library Assoc. has done some preconferences with NASIG. Schmitt noted that vendors should be able to discuss developments in their field. Emery reported that some publishers are pulling out of ALA because of poor treatment. Publishers want to learn how librarians are utilizing information; publishers can hold an Informal Discussion Group. Randall voiced the opinion that although focus groups had been rejected in the past, perhaps we should consider a time for this type of activity. Chesler reminded the Board of the need to consider what vendors are contributing to the organization. Geer noted that we need to remind members that we are getting back to what NASIG used to do - "the future is what we were!" Other themes: NASIG as a community. Let NASIG be your library advisory board. 7.3 Revenue-generating continuing education events 7.5 Treasurer create method for managing the four budgets Need to investigate if there are legal requirements for four separate budgets for endowments. NASIG needs a financial advisor specializing in nonprofits. Randall moved (Schmitt seconded) that NASIG hire a financial consultant, whose specialty is nonprofits, to assist in the implementation of the financial plan. The motion passed unanimously. ACTION: Novak and Robischon will look for a qualified consultant 7.6 Peripheral concerns noted in the Plan The latest version of Quicken will be purchased for the Treasurer's use. The Financial Plan clearly will increase the Treasurer's work load, so the Board must watch this carefully and respond as needed quickly; the Treasurer must be sure to keep the Board informed about this situation as more aspects of the Financial Plan are implemented. The technology group will begin the review of all of NASIG's committees, services, etc.
NASIG needs to come up with features at the annual conference that will make employers want to send employees to the conference. In the last few years, programs developed to appeal to publishers had low attendance. Perhaps better advertising is needed, for example targeted ads to SSP roundtables. At the UKSG conference, of the 600 total attendees, about 50% are from the commercial sector. At the Charleston Conference, which has grown to about 900 attendees, approximately 60% are librarians and 40% are vendors. The Focused Vendor Demo last year was highly rated. Luther reported that SSP is marketing to libraries and suggested that NASIG needs to engage vendors in discussions. The UKSG plenary sessions had more people speaking and had people from outside, such as a banker. Members should be surveyed to discover their preferences for programming. The Board should review the SSP Mentoring Program. Perhaps NASIG should hold a roundtable sponsored by CEC. Chesler suggested holding a pre-conference and session entitled, Introduction to Serials Librarianship for Publishers. He also indicated a need for opportunities for publishers to speak with librarians; the pre-conference Chesler and Maxwell are presenting is an attempt at this but we need to bring in a broad cross-section of the serials community. NASIG programs have tended to focus on the how-to of librarianship instead of the broad issues. This factor may be contributing to the decline of commercial sector participation in NASIG. 8.0 Program Planning (Geller, McElroy, Page) 8.1 Tracking speaker evaluations Geller and McElroy did create a speaker effectiveness tracking matrix that will be tried for this conference. 8.2 Alleviate pressure to contain AV usage/costs? 8.3 Continue with Vision/Strategy/Tactics distinctions? The Board should get feedback from the vendors who participated in the Focused Vendor Demo as to the value to them of this session. Vendor testimonials could be used for future publicity. At this year's conference, this is a no-compete time. Next year this session should be scheduled earlier in the conference. As the written report indicated, of 178 suggested programs, 34 were selected (19%). In revising the PPC Chairs Manual, Geller and McElroy confronted several issues. For example, if someone has presented at the last three conferences, should his/her proposal be accepted? The program is a mix of big talks by well-known persons and also new people giving first presentations. The Board has left decisions about programming to the PPC. PPC does include information in the call for papers and has written an article for the Newsletter about program selection. 9.0 Remaining sessions Board members should attend (Savage) 10.0 Wrap up (Savage) The meeting adjourned at 4:35 p. |
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