ALCTS Serials Section Executive Committee

Minutes from the 2006 Midwinter Meeting in San Antonio, TX

Sunday, January 22, 2006

10:37 am-12:22 pm

St. Anthony Hotel, Anacacho Room

First meeting

MEMBERS PRESENT:

• Jill Emery, Chair
• Emily McElroy, Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect
• Lauren Corbett, Past Chair
• Meg Mering, Secretary
• Helen Gbala, Member-at-Large
• Maggie Horn, Member-at-Large
• Marla Chesler, Member-at-Large

GUESTS/LIAISONS PRESENT:

• Scott Opasik (Chair, Serials Standards Committee)
• Eleanor Cook (Chair, Policy and Planning Committee)
• Step Schmitt (Chair, Nominating Committee)
• Marilyn Geller (Chair, Bowker/Ulrich’s Serials Librarian Award Committee)
• John Hostage (Chair, Research & Publications Committee)
• Lori Osmus Kappmeyer (Representative to ALCTS Organization and Bylaws)
• Sandy Srivastava (Representative to North American Serials Interest Group)
• Betty Landesman (Chair, Education Committee)
• Gary Ives (Chair, Acquisitions Committee)

PLEASE SEND CORRECTIONS TO Meg Mering at mmering1@unl.edu

Introductions

J. Emery welcomed Executive Committee members and guests to the meeting. Everyone introduced himself or herself. J. Emery announced that M. Horn would serve as the meeting’s timekeeper.

Saturday ALCTS Board Meeting

J. Emery provided highlights of the Saturday ALCTS Board meeting:

• An ALCTS and ACRL program on digital library preservation is being planned. J. Emery asked for a volunteer to represent the Serials Section on the planning committee. M. Geller volunteered to serve on the committee.
• A proposal to increase ALA dues will be coming before the membership for a vote. A FAQ has been prepared as to why dues should be increased. The dues increase would be done in increments over a period of several years. Members can now choose to pay their dues in two payments. Students and new librarians will continue to receive a cost break.
• Thirty to forty people attended the ALCTS Presidents Volunteer Forum.
• Please send ideas for ALCTS presidential citations to J. Emery.
• ALA President-Elect Leslie Burger’s theme will be “Transformation, Revolution.”
• The Non-English Access Task Force has recommended discontinuing the use of MARC 8 and using Unicode instead.

Role of Member-At-Large Positions

At the All Committee Meeting, the Serials Section Executive Board asked committees what they thought about expanding the responsibilities of Members-At-Large to include liaison responsibilities to section committees. The response was generally positive. Members-At-Large would be able to assist with continuity. They would be a resource to the Committee. They would not want to be overly involved in committee activities. Not all committees may require liaisons.

ACTION: By February 10, 2005, the three current Members-At-Large will draft a revised description of the Member-At-Large’s duties. The revise description will not require ALCTS approval.

L. Corbett proposed having a formal orientation for the Serials Section’s new committee chairs.

ACTION: J. Emery and E. McElroy will take this suggestion under advisement for the 2006 annual conference.

ALCTS Strategic Plan 2006-2011

Once the plan has been accepted, each Section will be asked to come up with goals and objectives.

Reports of Committee Chairs, Section Representatives to ALCTS Committees, and Discussion Groups

Policy & Planning Committee Chair (E. Cook) (oral and written)

Committee members acquainted the new chair with the community’s activities from last year and expectations for future work of the committee. They reviewed the committee’s charge and purpose. Currently, the Committee is focused on supporting activities surrounding the Strategic Plan. It is responsible for reviewing all the Section’s committees and discussion groups on a regular basis. The Committee works on attracting and establishing constituencies that are not covered by current committees and discussion groups.

In a larger context, the Committee is charged with bringing new policy issues to the Section. This discussion will continue over e-mail. E. Cook will talk to the section leaders to see what next steps might be taken.

Committee members will remind other Serials Section committee chairs to send feedback on the Strategic Plan draft to Helen Reed by Feb. 10, 2006.

Research & Publications Committee Chair (J. Hostage) (oral and written)

The Committee agreed to remove Unraveling the Mysteries of Serials from the ALCTS Web site. It also approved a request from Michelle Sitko for an extension for Guidelines for Managing Microforms in the Digital Age to the Annual Conference 2007, with interim reports.

Serials Acquisitions Glossary, 3rd edition, revised, has been mounted as a PDF file available from the ALCTS home page The Committee would like to see the publication listed on the Serials Section’s Web site.

After discussion of her proposal for a Web-based collection of biographies of serials pioneers and leaders, Connie Foster decided to withdraw it and work on it as a personal project.

The Committee discussed the list of Serials Section publications for review. A better way of tracking publications is needed, including information on a publication’s current status, when it was last reviewed, when it should be reviewed again, etc. The Committee will forward a copy of the review form for Guidelines for Handling Library Orders, dated 2004, to the Education Committee.

Education Committee Chair (B. Landesman) (oral)

The Education Committee plans to replace the Syllabus for Serials Collection Management, Records Systems, and Preservation Teaching and Training with two new syllabi, one on collection management and the other on preservation. The Committee would like to have a representative from PARS appointed to assist with working on the preservation syllabus.

The Committee is proposing a program for the 2007 annual conference. The program would be a basic introduction to electronic serials. At the Serials Section’s executive meeting, a suggestion was made that program could be turned into a course on the fundamentals of electronic serials.

Serials Standards Committee Chair (S. Opasik) (oral)

The Committee prepared for its Serials Standards Update Forum to be held at the 2006 Annual Conference.

ALCTS 2006 Annual Pre-Conference Sponsorship (S. Srivastava) (oral)

The title of the program is “ERM Implementations: Are We Taming the Electronic Tiger?” ALCTS and NASIG will be co-sponsoring this pre-conference. ALCTS and NASIG have not previously co-sponsored any programs together.

Action: The SS Executive approved this program.

Closed Session:

Bowker/Ulrich’s Serials Librarianship Award Committee (M. Geller) (oral)

The Committee recommended Karen Hunter, Senior Vice President of Elsevier, for this year’s award.

M. Horn made the motion to accept the Committee’s recommendation. H. Gbala seconded the motion. The motion passed.

As of January 1, 2006, Ulrich is part of CSA and not Bowker. J. Emery will consult Charles Wilt, ALCTS Executive Director, about changing the award’s name.

The announcement which solicits nominations for the award does not specify if nominations should be mailed via regular mail or if they can be sent as e-mail attachment. This year’s nominations were received both ways. M. Geller suggested amending the announcement to encourage e-mail attachment. This change would be helpful to committee deliberations. The Executive Committee approved this change to the announcement.

Nominating Committee Chair (S. Schmitt) (oral)

Over e-mail, the Committee members identified and selected candidates for Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect, Member-At-Large, and Secretary. The candidates’ names have been submitted to the ALCTS Office.

A motion was made to accept the slate of candidates. H. Gbala seconded the motion. The motion passed.

First Step Award Committee Chair (Christa Easton) (written)

After consulting with J. Emery, the Committee extended the application deadline from December 1 to December 15 to allow potential candidates additional time to apply for the award. Four candidates applied for the award.

After careful review and discussion of the candidates, the Committee unanimously agreed to recommend Patrick Carr, Assistant Professor/Serials Librarian, Mississippi State University as the recipient of the First Step-Wiley Professional Development Grant.

A motion was made to accept the Committee’s nomination. L. Corbett seconded the motion. The motion carried.

The meeting adjourned at 12:22 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Meg Mering, Secretary

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ALCTS Serials Section Executive Committee

Minutes from the 2006 Midwinter Meeting in San Antonio, TX

Second meeting

Tuesday, January 24, 2006,
8:07-9:50 am
Convention Center, Room 206B

MEMBERS PRESENT:

• Jill Emery, Chair
• Emily McElroy, Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect
• Lauren Corbett, Past Chair
• Meg Mering, Secretary
• Helen Gbala, Member-at-Large
• Maggie Horn, Member-at-Large
• Marla Chesler, Member-at-Large

GUESTS/LIAISONS PRESENT:

• Renette Davis (Chair, Continuing Resources Cataloging Committee)
• Susan Davis (Representative to ALCTS Budget & Finance Committee)
• Gary Ives (Chair, Acquisitions Committee)
• Carolynne Myall (Representative to the LRTS Editorial Board)
• Scott Opasik (Chair, Committee to Study Serials Standards)
• Lori Osmus Kappmeyer (Representative to ALCTS Organization and Bylaws Committee)
• Kevin Randall (Representative to CCS Cataloging Committee: Description and Access)
• Connie Foster (Representative to ALCTS Publications Committee)
• Tschera Harkness Connell (Representative to ALCTS Planning Committee)
• Linda Smith Griffin (Representative to ALCTS Education Committee)

PLEASE SEND CORRECTIONS TO Meg Mering at mmering1@unl.edu

Introductions

J. Emery welcomed Executive Committee members and guests to the meeting. Everyone introduced himself or herself. J. Emery announced that M. Horn would serve as the meeting’s timekeeper.

Chair's Report

J. Emery consulted C. Wilt about changing the Bowker/Ulrich’s Serials Librarianship Award’s name. As of January 1, 2006, Ulrich is part of CSA and not Bowker. The award’s new name will be CSA/Ulrich’s Serials Librarianship Award.

C. Easton is taking the lead on a fundamentals of serials Web course.

Reports of Committee Chairs and Section Representatives to ALCTS Committees

CC:DA (Representative: K. Randall) (oral and written)

RDA

Resource Description and Access (RDA) was the only topic of discussion at January 20th’s all-day meeting. It was also the major topic at the half-day meetings on January 21 and January 23.

Jennifer Bowen, ALA Representative to the Joint Steering Committee, reviewed the major developments since the 2005 annual conference. A revised RDA Prospectus has been released. Drafts of RDA will be made fully available to the public via the JSC web site. FAQs are posted on the JSC Web site, and questions will also be answered in ANO. An e-mail discussion list about RDA has been created and is open to the public at large. A plan has been created for handling comments from the public. Marjorie Bloss has been hired as the Project Manager for RDA. CCS will host an RDA Forum at each Annual Conference and Midwinter Meeting throughout the development process. ALA Publishing has put together focus groups for getting feedback on the prototype Web version of RDA.

Don Chatham, ALA Publishing, reported on development of the prototype Web version of RDA. It was to be shown to three focus groups--catalogers, educators, and system vendors--but the third group did not take place. The prototype received generally positive response. Ideas are being sought for opening up the process some more. As described by D. Chatham, the Web version of RDA will be much more powerful than the electronic version of AACR2. A particularly exciting feature hoped for is interoperability with cataloging modules of library ILS systems.

Mary Larsgaard, CC:DA Chair, guided the committee through a systematic section-by-section review of the draft. The Committee attempted to address mainly the major issues. Discussion will be continuing discussions online.

AACR2

Barbara Tillett from the Library of Congress announced that the Library of Congress Rule Interpretations to AACR2 will indeed cease at the time of implementing RDA. However, some kind of guidelines will be needed in using RDA. Something similar to LCRI, perhaps called Cataloging Decisions, will be started.

MARBI

Two MARBI agenda items of particular interest to serialists were: Proposal No. 2006-05: Changes to Holdings data fields to accommodate ONIX for Serials in the MARC 21 Holdings Format (approved) and Discussion Paper 2006-DP05: Indicating coverage dates for indexes in the MARC 21 Holdings Format (will be turned into a proposal).

Task Forces

Greta de Groat and John Attig presented the report on the Task Force on Rules for Technical Description of Digital Media. They noted that much more needs to be done in RDA than simply carrying forward the rules from AACR2. For example, how much information will need to be included in a record. Perhaps, a general policy would be “if in doubt, include it”.

K. Randall presented the report on the Task Force to Maintain the CC:DA Publication “Differences Between, Changes Within”. Questions have come up within the task force regarding the need for a revised publication and the proper format of publication. K. Randall will be consulting with the ALCTS Publishing to determine the best way to proceed. The task force will provide a report to CC:DA in early spring 2006.

Becky Culbertson presented the report on the Task Force for the Revision of the ALCTS Online Publication “Guidelines for Cataloging Microform Sets”. The original publication was created in 1989. A new draft has a broader scope and is titled “Guidelines for Cataloging of Record Sets: Reproductions (Microform and Electronic) and Original Sets”.

Programs

Matthew Beacom announced that a program on the new manual Cataloging Cultural Objects will be held June 22-23, 2006 (around the date of publication of the manual).

Other activities in 2005/2006

A task force was created within Continuing Resources Cataloging Committee to discuss and prepare comments on the draft of RDA. K. Randall is chair of the task force, which includes CRCC members and four additional people. The task force has been very busy discussing the draft of Part I online, and the chair is compiling the comments to prepare a summary for submission to CC:DA in February. The final report on Part I will also be made widely available to the serials and cataloging communities in February 2006.

ALCTS Planning Committee (Representative: Tschera Harkness Connell) (oral and written)

Strategic Plan

In preparation for the Midwinter meeting, Helen Reed, chair of the ALCTS Planning Committee, distributed a draft of the ALCTS Strategic Plan to all division level groups, with the hope that they would discuss the draft at Midwinter and send their comments to her by February 10, 2006. During Midwinter, ALCTS Planning members were reminding as many groups as possible to respond to H. Reed with their comments. The time frame is tight as a final draft needs to go to the ALCTS Board by mid-March 2006. In response to questions about what happens next, ALCTS Planning members are contacting all Division level groups to inform them that, "Following Board approval at Annual Conference 2006 of the "Strategic Plan 2006-2011," the next step will be for each ALCTS group to develop tactical initiatives/action items to achieve the objectives. The timeline for this step will be established by the Board."

ALCTS Member Survey

ALCTS Planning discussed the ALCTS member survey that was distributed fall 2005. They made a preliminary analysis of the responses in terms of how they might affect the new strategic plan. Detailed analysis still needs to be done.

Tactical Initiatives Database

Technical difficulties have prevented members of Planning from inputting data gathered at Annual 2005 into the database. These problems have been partially solved so that the data can now be entered. However, the system remains difficult to update. Because of the difficulties and because the method of tracking initiatives for the new plan has not yet been developed, ALCTS Planning is not collecting new data from the 2006 Midwinter Meeting, but is concentrating, instead, on the Strategic Plan.

LRTS Editorial Board ( Representative: C. Myall) (oral and written)

The Editorial Board of Library Resources & Technical Services met once at Midwinter Meeting 2006. Below is a brief summary of information from this meeting of interest to members of the Serials Section:

LRTS continues to appear on schedule, with varied content that includes research articles, notes on operations, reviews of literature in technical services specialties, and book reviews. The number of submissions continues to grow, with 49 papers submitted for consideration during 2005, compared with 35 papers submitted in 2004.

Currently, LRTS has an acceptance rate of 52.5%. All accepted manuscripts required some revision. The journal’s acceptance rate is down slightly, a fact that presumably reflects the increased number of submissions.

Of the 49 submissions, five were explicitly on serials topics. Other submissions on topics in cataloging, collection development, etc., also included material relevant to serials.

The book review section has grown in extent and variety of coverage. While nine titles were reviewed in 2003, 26 titles were reviewed in 2004, and 27 were reviewed in 2005. Serials Section members interested in reviewing for LRTS should contact Book Review Editor Edward Swanson, swans152@umn.edu.

The January 2006 issue includes a review of the literature on serials, 2000-2003, written by Serials Section Past Chair L. Corbett. While the next review of serials literature has been commissioned, LRTS editor Peggy Johnson is still seeking authors for reviews of the literature concerning collection development (2004-2005 or 2006), acquisitions (2004-2005), and cataloging (2005-2006).

LRTS has been experimenting with a system of assigning mentors to aspiring authors prior to submission of their papers for consideration. Editor P. Johnson expects to expand and formalize this process.

Parallel electronic publication of LRTS has not been resolved. Tables of contents, abstracts, and an archive of some past issues in pdf form are available on the LRTS Web site. The LRTS Board approved the possibility of adding additional and more interactive components to the site. These components may include more letters to the editor, a blog, etc.

In 2007, LRTS will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the division and its own fifty completed volumes. T. Connell is preparing an article analyzing the content of the journal during its first fifty years.

ALCTS Publications (Representative: C. Foster) (oral and written)

ALCTS Publications met once during the Midwinter Meeting. Items of relevance to SS included:

• Mary Beth Weber, ALCTS Newsletter Online editor, encouraged sections to send her any programs or publications (new or existing) that she can highlight to the membership.
• Narda Tafuri, the chair of ALCTS Publications, reported briefly on the Library Education Summit and that a synthesis of core competencies and other issues surrounding education and service among librarians and support staff will be forthcoming. One focus will be how to attract support staff and keep them informed about ALCTS publications. Opportunities will be provided for input at section/committee levels once the discussion points are structured.
• C. Foster reminded committee chairs to complete a proposal form for ALCTS Publications whether new, revision, or online-based proposals. This form begins the publication process which must go from committee to section to division before it can be officially launched, for print and Web documents.

ALCTS Organization and Bylaws ( Representative: Lori Osmus Kappmeyer) (oral and written)

This Committee reviews ALCTS level committees on a regular basis. At this meeting approved the continuation of the ALCTS Program Committee, after hearing a report on its successes and challenges from chair Genevieve Owens. Getting enough pre-conferences is one of their biggest challenges. The groups that will be reviewed at the 2006 Annual Conference are the ALCTS Membership Committee and the Medium Heads of Technical Services Discussion Group. The Organization & Bylaws (O&B) Committee also approved a proposed change to the Cataloging & Classification Section charge in order to add metadata to the description of its interests, with removal of the word “library” in the last sentence (“in both traditional and non-traditional library settings”) to avoid redundancy and be more inclusive.

In an e-mail discussion during the fall, O&B approved six interest groups, some of which had formerly been committees. O&B questioned whether some of the different proposed electronic resources interest groups were redundant and should be asked to combine. C. Wilt clarified that the Association does not intend to create barriers to interest group formation. The Board is not averse to seemingly overlapping groups. O&B needs to obtain a list of when all the current ALCTS interest groups were created in order to be aware of when each will come up for renewal. O&B would also like clarification on how interest groups should be renewed or not renewed and who should keep track of the renewal dates. The chair will work with C. Wilt on this matter.

ALCTS President Rosann Bazirjian asked O&B to consider changing the bylaws to remove section names, so that changes in section names would not require a vote of the membership, potentially to be voted down. Section charges also appear in Article X with the section names. Before deciding what to do, O&B members wanted time to review the bylaws and obtain more information. L. Kappmeyer asked the Serials Section Executive Committee for their opinions on this change. They expressed concern and opposition to removing all mention of the section’s specific name and role from the bylaws. C. Myall suggested that putting section names and charges in an appendix to the bylaws would be a solution to this problem.

ALCTS Budget & Finance Committee (Representative: S. Davis) (oral and written)

The 2005 budget year ended with a deficit of $17,694 which was an improvement over the previous fiscal year. Both LRTS and office operations ended in the black. B&F reviewed the first quarter report for the fiscal year 2006 budget. This year will be the first that revenue from the dues and subscription rate increases will be fully realized. The preliminary fiscal year 2007 budget was approved and forwarded to the ALCTS Executive Board as an action item. Some estimated costs for the 50th Anniversary Celebration are included. These expenses will be offset by fund-raising as the planning moves forward. C. Wilt is very optimistic about the potential for the anniversary activities to generate a surplus, and fiscal year 2006 is also expected to end in the black.

Both the New Initiatives and IFLA travel support will be funded as contingency items again this fiscal year.

B&F reiterated the principle that dues revenue must support the office operations. In spite of the dues increase, ALCTS gained about 35 to 40 members last year.

AV material will be supplied for programs. Any other AV requests must be made to C. Wilt who will try his best to convince ALA who ultimately determines what AV is permitted. Even microphones are considered AV, the use of which will likely be noticeably reduced over past conferences.

C. Wilt reported that this year’s ALA overhead charge is 21.8%. ALA also began charging back the divisions for credit card processing fees (3% of each transaction).

ALCTS Education Committee (Representative: L. Smith Griffin) (oral and written)

Core and future competencies were the focus of the January 20, 2006 Education Summit. The five areas addressed at the Summit were management, acquisition, cataloging, preservation, and collection development. A list of competencies will be sent to all section’s chairs and education committee chairs. The sections are asked to review and comment on the competencies by March 15, 2006. The competencies will be presented to the ALCTS Board at the 2006 annual conference.

The ALCTS Education Committee will create an evaluative sub-committee to assist with identifying programs that can result in continuing education classes.

Acquisitions Committee Chair (G. Ives) (oral)

The Serials Acquisition Glossary, 3rd Edition, Revised is finally available on the ALCTS Web site. Announcements about the glossary were made on various discussion lists. The ALCTS Newsletter Online’s October 2005 issue included an announcement about the glossary.

The Committee is planning a program for the 2006 annual conference. The program title is “Publisher Packages in the E-World: New Roles for Libraries, Publishers and Agents.”

Continuing Resources Cataloging Chair (R. Davis) (oral and written)

At its update forum, the Committee had a very ambitious and interesting agenda. The first topic was RDA. Jennifer Bowen and Marjorie Bloss gave an update on RDA. K. Randall gave a CC:DA report, which was primarily about RDA. Les Hawkins gave a CONSER report and also talked about a proposal to authenticate OCLC e-serial records which were created as part of the OCLC E-holdings pilot. Regina Reynolds gave the Library of Congress report, the ISSN/NSDP report, and a report on the developing access level record for serials. Andrew Shroyer shared the results of an informal opinion survey about access to serials across title changes.

Union Lists of Serials Chair (Paul Moeller) (written)

Myrtle Myers of OCLC provided the Committee with an update on OCLC’s retirement of Passport for Union List and the enhancement of the Connexion browser to support local holdings maintenance. Included in the discussion were OCLC’s use of MARC 21 Format for Holdings (including setting the defaults for the 008 byte 20 (Lending Policy) and byte 21 (Reproduction Policy) for serial records as 'won't lend' but 'will copy'), the conversion of OCLCs holdings records, MFHD file output, printable files of holdings output, and the import/export of holdings by libraries. This update was followed by a discussion of the Committee’s role in promoting the efficient and effective use of union listing.

The Committee decided to develop a resource page featuring an explanation of the importance of union listing, a description of an ideal union listing world, and a links library of resources for and about union listing and MARC 21 Format for Holdings. The Committee also considered how its efforts could be refocused and discussed the recruitment of new members. These efforts all support ALCTS’ efforts to promote the development and use of both standards and best practices.

ALCTS Program (Representative: Cindy Hepfer) (written)

Programs sponsored by the Serials Section are:

ALA 2006 pre-conference

“ERMS Implementation: Are We Taming the Electronic Tiger?”

This program was commissioned by the ALCTS Program Committee. The program chair is Sandhya Srivastava. Norm Medeiros will serve as the moderator. They worked together to plan the program. The audience will have an opportunity to consider six commercially available products. Librarians implementing ERMS from III, Endeavor, Ex Libris, Serials Solutions, SIRSI/Dynix and VTLS will briefly describe their products, outline their implementation strategies, and discuss issues such as interoperability.

ALA 2006 program

“Serials Standards Update Forum.”

Wen-ying Lu presented the program plan on behalf of the Committee to Study Serials Standards. Regina Reynolds, Tim Jewell and Priscilla Caplan will provide an update on the development, changes, applications and issues related to ISSN, DLF-ERM and ONIX for Serials. Since this program has been presented previously, some thought it might be held annually and given an institutionalized day and time. G. Owens, chair of the ALCTS Program Committee, will speak with C. Wilt about this possibility.

“Publisher Packages in the E-World: New Roles for Libraries, Publishers and Agents.”

G. Ives presented this program on behalf of the Serials Section Acquisition Committee. The two-hour program will feature a panel of 6 speakers – two librarians, two publishers and two vendors – who will delve into the changing roles of each of the parties in regard to the provision of publisher packages. The ALCTS Acquisition Section and RUSA/STARS will co-sponsor the program.

The ALCTS Program Committee:

• Reviewed the program and pre-conference proposal forms which have become quite dated. A suggestion was made that these forms might be more easily found on the ALCTS website if they were linked to from the forms page and from the Program Committee’s homepage. G. Owens and Julie Reese, ALCTS staff liaison, will review the forms. Tim Strawn, a committee member, volunteered to review the program planning manual.
• Talked about the desirability of each section developing a “Fundamentals of�” course.
• Talked about the need for prompting program planners to consider whether the programs that they plan might potentially be developed into pre-conferences, institutes or Web-based courses.
• Talked about the desirability of using ALA’s Online Communities software to post and review program proposals in a shared Webspace.

ALCTS Membership Committee (Representative: Ann B. Vidor) (written)

Membership Committee meeting was on January 22, 2006.

• With R. Bazirjian and B. Johnson, the Committee discussed how they had been promoting ALCTS and been trying to attract new members.
• John Chratska, ALA Membership Marketing Manager, talked about the proposed dues increase and why it is needed
• C. Taylor from the ALCTS Office gave a Web site report. The Committee agreed to draft something for the ALCTS Web site promoting careers in Technical Service. Three committee members agreed to be trained by C. Taylor on how to use “communities.ala.org” so that the Committee could begin to use the Web site for committee business
• The Committee reviewed the guidelines and plans for soliciting volunteers for staffing the ALCTS booth at the 2006 annual conference.
• The Committee reviewed the Library School contacts list. Committee members have had limited success in going to library schools and talking about ALCTS and Technical Services careers.
• The Committee reviewed the ALCTS Support Staff Grant Awardees Mentoring Guidelines document. Committee members volunteered to mentor the six 2006 SAGE Support Staff Travel grant winners.
• “Mentoring” is a possible program topic for the 2006 annual conference, which could be co-sponsored with another group.
• Committee members suggested ideas for the ALCTS 50th anniversary celebration exhibit and dinner.

Old Business

None

New Business

ALCTS President-Elect Bruce Johnson will be making committee appointments by April 1, 2006.

A timetable for the ALCTS 50th Anniversary Celebration is being developed.

A plan is under way to identify and to better publicize which ALCTS members are running for Council.

S. Davis announced that Shelley Meyer, a past member of the SS Research and Publications Committee, had died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism and recommended that the Section extend its sympathy to her family.

M. Mering announced that ALCTS Web site was being revised. ALA will soon have a new content management system. Rob Carlson is the new Web Development Manager. He replaces Debi Lewis.

The meeting adjourned at 9:50 am.

Respectfully submitted,

Meg Mering, Secretary