ACRL Arts Section

Midwinter Meeting Boston
Executive Committee & General Membership Meeting

MINUTES

Sunday, January 16, 2005
8:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.

(Approved at Annual 2005 - Chicago)

Sandy Mooney, Arts Section chair, opened the Executive Committee & General Membership Meeting at Midwinter – Boston, and introduced Mary Jane Petrowski, Associate Director of ACRL, who was present to bring news to the Section membership on ACRL Board activities of late.  Petrowski brought with her copies of documents that had been shared at the Leadership Meeting (section chairs and vice-chairs) on Friday at conference, including FAQs on the proposed dues increase and virtual meetings.  She invited questions either at the meeting or later through e-mail.

Mooney stated that she wished everyone could have shared her experience at Sections Council and weekly with ACRL personnel.  Mooney has found ACRL very responsive to membership needs, very open to inquiries and comments, suggestions, etc., and very responsive to problems as they arose.  She recommended that members take a look at ACRL’s website as it contains a lot of valuable information and useful tools.

General introductions were the next item of business, then Jane Sloan, Arts Section vice-chair, made announcements regarding recruiting to committees.  Technology and the Arts continues to be the most popular committee and actually has a waiting list for member assignments.  Sloan reported that she should have all committee assignments made within the next few weeks.

Mooney next reminded those present of other Arts Section meetings scheduled for the remainder of conference: the Dance Librarians Discussion Group will meet later today, 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. at the Sheraton.  Other events of interest: the ACRL Presidents Candidates Forum is scheduled for today from 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m., and Petrowski urged members to attend and hear the candidates for the ACRL presidency (and partake of the good food – a free lunch).  The ACRL Scholarly Communication Discussion Group will be meeting from 2:00 – 4:00 this afternoon, and the Subject Specific Information Literacy Standards meeting will be held this afternoon from 4:30 – 6:00. 

Mooney recognized Liza Vick thanking her for her work volunteering at the ACRL exhibits booth as a representative of the Arts Section.  Petrowski encouraged members to go by the booth to sign-up to win one free conference registration for the upcoming National ACRL conference in Minneapolis.

Mooney announced several ACRL deadlines, such as the February 22 date for Annual Conference meeting requests.  Mooney asked Petrowski about no-conflict time being placed in the conference schedule for Saturday morning.  Petrowski responded that there was not a no-conflict time scheduled for exhibitors.  Mooney explained the problem the Section had experienced with yesterday morning’s All-Committee Meeting time and Petrowski asked that Mooney follow up with her on this after conference to discover the cause of the confusion.  Petrowski explained for members that there are set meeting times on the schedule, however, there are also “options” of non-standard meeting times if the need exists.  Back to the issue of no-conflict times, Petrowski, on behalf of ACRL, is asking sections to look at these times (Saturday, Sunday, Monday of conference) and asking sections to just take a pledge to adhere to one of the no-conflict times on one of these days when making their meeting time requests.  ACRL is trying to remove all its no-conflict times from the conference schedule to better facilitate meeting times and attendance.

Another ACRL deadline submission date is the date for minutes of meetings - February 18.  Mooney reminded committee chairs that the Meeting Highlights form that ACRL requires be used must be followed by a formal report.  Chairs should forward both documents to Mooney as section chair.  Eric A. Kidwell, section secretary asked if chairs should also forward copies to him to assist with writing meeting minutes, or if Mooney would assume this responsibility.  Mooney replied that she would take care of distributing copies to whomever else needed them.  There was then a discussion on the most effective way of approving section minutes and forwarding a final approved copy to ACRL.  Historically, Arts minutes have been approved at the Executive Committee & General Membership Meeting at the following conference – an approximate five-month delay.

Petrowski suggested that the Section consider approving minutes via e-mail vote (i.e. virtual approval).  She also is asking sections to be sure to include requisite information in the headers of reports and minutes (e.g. section name, committee or group name, meeting date and time), and asked if our minutes are posted to our section web page.  They are.  Petrowski said that if it would be easier, ACRL could pull file copies from there; however, Kidwell said he would continue to forward copies directly to Petrowski.  With regard to highlights forms, Mooney asked Petrowski if she could submit a report she wrote from yesterday morning’s All-Committee Meeting, rather than submit individual committee forms, the reason being that most of the meeting time was taken for general discussion, only one or two committees actually had enough attendance of members to meet and conduct business.  Petrowski replied that this would be fine, that ACRL is just trying to emphasize the necessity of section minutes and other documents that demonstrate the work of sections.  These documents are not just filed away but actually do get used and served a very vital ACRL purpose.  Mooney informed members that section chairs also must submit an annual report to ACRL.

Sloan commented that the section newsletter should also include committee reports, recognizing that some editing for space might well be required.  Mooney will also send copies of committee reports to the newsletter editor when she forwards copies to Kidwell as section secretary.

Petrowski announced that ACRL is asking sections to consider ways they can economize the scheduling of meeting times.  She recognized that Arts is already doing an excellent job at this with our All-Committee Meeting on Saturdays and our Executive Committee & General Membership Meeting on Sundays, and this is what ACRL would like to see other sections pursue.  There’s consideration in Arts to schedule the Dance Librarians and the Film and Broadcast Studies Librarians discussion groups together at conference.

Tom Caswell suggested that the Section might want to consider holding a general Arts discussion group as part of either the Saturday or Sunday meeting format.  Roland Hansen responded that the Section use to do something similar to this; however, it evolved into the Sunday morning Executive Committee & General Membership Meeting, with the anticipation that the meeting of general members would serve as a general discussion group.  Mary Edsall offered the idea that the Section could plan for a topical discussion group at conference and divide the Saturday meeting between this and meeting of committees.  This had been discussed as well at Saturday’s (yesterday’s) meeting, the idea that the All-Committee Meeting could evolve into an All-Committee/ Discussion Group Meeting, and invite new section members with an announcement of the topic to be discussed.  The consensus of members was that this is an idea worth pursuing.

An additional perspective was offered by a new member attending her first Arts conference meeting, stating that it can be intimidating coming into a meeting, such as one titled “All-Committee” when you are not on a committee.  Several members agreed that the Section could do more to make sure new members and interested parties know they are welcomed to attend all Arts Section meetings at conference.

The next agenda item addressed was approval of the minutes from the Executive Committee & General Membership Meeting at Annual Conference held in Orlando, 2004.  Mary Edsall moved for approval of the minutes, Jane Sloan seconded.  By voice vote the minutes were approved.  Kidwell will send a copy of the approved minutes to ACRL upon return from Midwinter and will also send a copy to Caswell for posting to the section web page.

Next to follow were committee reports:

Roland Hansen reported as chair of Membership and Outreach.  The committee will be losing most of its members after Annual in Chicago (Laurel Bliss and Hansen himself), so new members will need to be assigned.  Claudia Covert will be continuing her term and has been asked by Hansen to consider the chair position.  Caswell announced that the new section logo has been completed and after receiving feedback from the Section is being used on the web page (congratulations were extended on the new logo).  Hansen hopes that by late January or early February he will have a master of the section brochure.  Ann Liddell is working on the final revisions.  Hansen will take care of the printing and mailing from his library.  On behalf of his committee he asked for advice on how much effort should be expended on members who have dropped their section membership.  As of November 2004, Arts has 792 members (compared to 795 in November 2003), with 11 new members (12 in November 2003), so section membership is holding steady.  Mooney mentioned that the section budget has $250.00 to use for brochures.  Petrowski asked if the new brochure could be ready for ACRL national conference in April.  Hansen responded that he believed so, he will certainly work toward that goal.  Petrowski stated that she would like to have 100 copies for distribution.

Mooney reported that the ACRL dynamic membership database is working well.  Section leadership is quickly notified on matters of membership.

Edsall introduced one last membership issue.  She is presenting at the MLA (Music Library Association) next month.  The MLA does offer affiliate status to TLA but not to ACRL – Arts.  One advantage of such status is discounted registration for meetings.  Should we pursue this status?  We do have a liaison status with MLA, however this has functioned for communication purposes only.  Hansen stated that he thought we did have affiliate status with both MLA and TLA.  He will follow-up with Petrowski on this, who asked about ArLIS as well.  Hansen will look into affiliate status for all three organizations, as the consensus is such status would benefit ACRL – Arts.

Rita Jones, ACRL Board liaison to the Arts Section, joined the meeting.  She reported on Thursday’s all-day Board meeting (8:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.).  She assured that the Strategic Plan is not a shelf document, but a living, working document.  ACRL is wanting its various committees to align themselves with the Strategic Plan (which Arts has been working on as Mooney had reported at Saturday’s All-Committee Meeting from Edsall’s report of her work).  ACRL Board is also looking at cost-saving measures and means of reducing bureaucracy … ACRL wants to be “nimble” and truly member-driven.  Jones encouraged members to contact her via e-mail (Rjones@ccsf.edu) anytime.

Sloan asked if there were to be further discussions of ACRL splitting from ALA?  She would like to see a real written assessment of the issue shared with the membership.  Jones replied that there had been such a discussion three years ago by the ACRL Board and it has been discussing this issue since.  Advantages and disadvantages have been identified, one of the disadvantages of most concern being the administrative functions ALA performs that ACRL does not as an ALA division, but would have to assume if ALA was not longer the parent organization.

Another question to Jones was whether or not ACRL’s Strategic Plan is aligned to ALA’s?  Jones responded that she wasn’t sure of the linking between the two documents.  Some clarification was received on the issue of the date of the current ACRL plan.  It is a 2005 plan to serve the division until 2010.

Lastly, Jones reported that advance registration for ACRL’s national conference in Minneapolis this year has been extended to February 1.

Committee reports resumed at this time.

Nominating Committee:  Stephen Patrick reported for Ann Liddell who was unable to attend Midwinter.  The slate for the 2005 election is: Vice-chair/Chair-elect – Shannon Van Kirk; for Secretary – Liza Vick.  There will be the opportunity for write-in candidates.

Planning Committee:  Edsall gave a report on the work she had completed mapping our current committee charges to the ACRL Strategic Plan.  She found it quite easy to accomplish due to our recent committee restructuring.  Caswell asked if we need to address committee charges once again now that we have the mapping?  Mooney asked if the Dance Librarians Discussion Group charge has change?  Edsall responded that she had made a change in the phrasing of the charge for this discussion group, changing the word “programs” to “projects” since discussion groups don’t do programming.  The Planning Committee will be pleased to continue with this work however the Executive Committee wishes.

Program Committee (Chicago 2005):  Mooney reported on the planning for the jointly sponsored program for this summer’s Annual conference in Chicago (“Chicago Blues: From the Delta to the World”), a program Arts is co-sponsoring with the African-American Studies (AFAS) Section.  Roland Hansen has been our section’s on-site point person in the planning.  He has been working with Suzanne Flandreau and Andrew Leech of the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago and speakers have been confirmed or soon will be.  The scheduled time of the program is likely to be Sunday, June 26, from 1:30 – 3:30 in the afternoon and held in the convention center.  It was noted that this was the preferred location and Kem with AFAS is credited with accomplishing this success.

Program Planning (New Orleans 2006):  Sloan reported that the deadline for program proposals for Annual 2006 scheduled for New Orleans is May 1 (2005).  Sloan will chair this committee and is looking for members and has received some interest.  Discussion of program topic has thus far centered on technology in the arts, perhaps arts in general and the internet as an art form.  She is looking to investigate joining with LITA in an effort to pool interest and resources (and audience).  Mooney emphasized ALA’s planning requirements which LITA doesn’t have, so there will be a need to determine LITA’s interest as early as possible.

Publications & Research:  Shannon Van Kirk was unable to attend Midwinter Boston.  Caswell reported for the Committee in her absence.  Liddell continues to work on the final draft of the section brochure, as reported earlier.  Caswell is working on migrating our section web page to the ALA content management server, work that is moving slowly due to its nature (and the experience he has had with the ALA server crashing a lot).  Caswell reported that he is approximately halfway completed with this project.  It appears that about nine of the seventeen sections of ACRL either have migrated or are in the process of migrating their pages to the ALA server.  He is also working with ALA’s IT people to identify all references to the Arts Section where the name of the section is identified as “ARTS” rather than the official “Arts” so these references can be corrected.  At the conclusion of his report, there were expressions of gratitude to Caswell for all his hard work.

Edsall asked if she might report on recent developments with A Core Collection in Dance publication.  She is working on a revision with Pat Rader and Monica Moseley of the New York Public Library, Beth Kerr, Nancy Friedland and Kidwell who will continue to provide the Arts Section overview, on this project.  She ideally hopes to complete the revision by the end of the year and it will be both a print and electronic publication, and available as a package.  The electronic version will reside on the server at TempleUniversity.  An announcement on the new edition of the Core Collection will be included in the Arts newsletter and on the web page.  Edsall also announced that the Core Collection had received a write-up in the New York Times upon receiving the Lillian Moore Award which is given by the Dance Perspectives Foundation (NYT, October 16, 2002).  Edsall is welcoming feedback from users of the resource to assist with preparing the second edition.  She will highlight all those who worked on the first edition so this information can be shared through the section newsletter and web page.

It was also announced that Edsall (for dance) and Sloan (for film)  have volunteered to assist with the development of the Resources for College Libraries being compiled by Choice Reviews.  This will serve as the update to Books for College Libraries, third edition, 1988 by ALA.  Marcus Elmore is heading up this project and has asked for volunteers to work on identifying titles to be included in this bibliographic work of recommended titles.

Technology in the Arts:  Nancy Friedland has found it necessary to resign as chair of this committee.  Sloan reported that she has asked someone to assume this responsibility and that person is considering the request.

Dance Librarians Discussion Group:  Liza Vick announced that the DLDG will meet later today from 4:30-5:30 at the Sheraton.  The discussion group is working on a project for presentation at Annual conference.  Edsall announced that the Princeton Book Company is looking to e-book publish long out-of-print seminal works in dance – a monumental effort.  Edsall also mentioned that the DLDG received good publicity by being listed as part of a presentation she had given, along with Pat Rader and Debra Elfenbein at Society of Dance History Scholars conference held at DukeUniversity last June.  The title of the presentation was “In the Dark House with a Flashlight and a Spoon, or, Are Dance Archives Doing Their Jobs?”  It is planned that the Dance Librarians Discussion Group will coordinate with the Society and CORD (Congress on Research in Dance) to conduct similar cooperative discussions on projects of common interest.

Film & Broadcast Studies Discussion Group:  Sloan reported that the discussion group met yesterday afternoon and first discussed the ACRL web site.  Film & Broadcast Studies is working on developing its own web page of film and broadcast resources and is looking to ACRL as a home for the page.  There is some concern over the password protection on certain parts of the ACRL site and the Film & Broadcast Studies would want their bibliography of resources publicly accessible.  Sloan would like to see a larger presence by Arts in general in this capacity, once other bibliographies can be developed.  She commented that film and television studies is a small scholarly area and usually combined with larger disciplines, so recruiting volunteers to assist with developing the Film & Broadcast Studies Discussion Group web site can be a challenge.  Diana King at UC-Davis will be the next chair of the Discussion Group.

With no further committee reports, the next agenda item was unfinished business.

Mooney has discovered an error in the ALA Organizational Handbook related to the Arts Section and will report the correction.

Related to the new section brochure, Mooney reminded that the Section has $250.00 budgeted from ACRL for this.  The Section also has $500.00 for the 2005 Annual program.

Mooney would like the Section, if there is sufficient interest, to revisit the topic of webcasts, and read the relevant statement from ACRL from the minutes of Sections Council from Annual 2004.  Sloan mentioned that on the ACRL web site one can find streaming video and digital audio that has been placed there by other sections.  The main issue seems to be content.  Do we as a section have something we want to do?  One possibility posed was the program being planned for Annual 2005.  However, the question of time would seem to be a barrier, since there would be copyright issues that would have to be addressed.   Risk management was one other topic put forth.  Hansen wondered if the program that is developed for Annual 2006 in New Orleans might be a possibility, particularly since technology in the arts is being considered as the program topic.  And since we have a waiting list of members interested in serving on the Technology in the Arts Committee, these members could form the ad hoc committee.  The central questions remain, however.  Do we want to pursue webcasts?  Do we want an ad hoc committee to study this issue?  Mooney questioned what we could virtually approve (i.e. approve formation of the ad hoc committee) or whether we should go ahead and grant approval today.  Jones, as an ACRL Board member, offered her perspective.  Edsall moved that we establish this ad hoc committee, which will explore the issue of webcasting for the Annual 2006 program; Hansen seconded.  Motion passed by voice vote. 

The last item on the agenda was new business.

As previously discussed at Annual 2004, a Friday night informal social hour was held at this Midwinter.  Those who were able to attend thought this should become practice as it can help to make new members feel welcomed, as well ad provide all members the opportunity to come together and enjoy each other’s company.  Hansen agreed to find a location for the social hour at Annual 2005 in Chicago with a 6:30 p.m. starting time.

Mooney announced that the section manual is being updated and will be made available electronically.

Work continues to archive information on section chairs, other officers and committee memberships.

Mooney will compile a document based on the discussion that occurred at this conference’s All-Committee Meeting and provide this to Caswell for the section web page, and make a request for member response.

With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 11:13 a.m.

Present:  Laurel Bliss, Tom Caswell, Claudia Covert, Mary Edsall, Ann Ferguson, Amy Fordham, Jane Gottlieb, Roland C. Hansen, William Hemmig, Rita Jones (ACRL Board liaison), Alan Karass, Charlene Kellsey, Eric A. Kidwell, Sandy Mooney, Stephen Patrick, Mary Jane Petrowski (Associate Director, ACRL), Jane Sloan, Lucie Wall Stylianopoulos, Liza Vick.

Respectfully submitted

Eric A. Kidwell

Secretary, ACRL Arts Section