FLRT Board Meeting #1


ALA Annual Conference, New Orleans


Hilton Riverside Hotel, Durham Room


Monday, June 28, 1999

Present:


Andrea Gruhl, President


Jewel Player, Past President


Stephanie Jones, Vice President/President Elect


Joan Taylor, Treasurer, Membership Chair


Janet Ormes, Acting Secretary


Fran Perros, Director


Arlene Luster, Director


Maria Pisa, Director


Shirley Loo, Handbook Comm. Chair


Laurie Stackpole, Internet Comm. Chair


Barbara J. Fox, AFLRT Liaison


Lee Porter, Education Comm., Co-chair


Steve Kerchoff, GODORT Liaison


Barbara Christine, rising Director


Barbara K. Bick, FLRT Intern

The meeting was called to order at 2:00 p.m. by President Andrea Gruhl.

  1. The agenda was modified to accommodate various board attendees' schedules and approved.
  2. Minutes of the previous meeting were approved with minor changes.
  3. Joan Taylor presented the Treasurer's Report. Dues revenue is down 10% from last year, consistent with reduction in ALA membership. Estimated additional revenue of $480 from Federal Librarian advertising per issue.
  4. Joan Taylor reported for the Membership Committee. The three ALA round tables served by the Washington Office are not receiving membership reports from ALA. This has been reported to ALA. The latest report we have is 349 members in February. Regarding the FLRT Mailing List Project, a message in the Fall issue of Federal Librarian asking people to participate in a mailing list for vendors yielded five affirmative responses. The message was repeated in the Spring newsletter. If we do not receive substantial additional interest, Joan proposed that we drop this project. There was no disagreement.
  5. Fran Perros reported for the Constitution and Bylaws Committee. All the changes were approved by the membership on Saturday.
  6. Fran also reported for PER. Scholarship winners have been announced. Frank Wolfe of Virginia, Jim Colby from Arizona and Steny Hoyer of Maryland will be honored by PER at a banquet in Washington, D.C. tomorrow night, June 26. Hoyer is to be the recipient of the Jack Niles Medal of Honor.
  7. Jewel Player reported on the proposed FLRT/AFLRT merger. Issues regarding the President have been resolved. Regarding merged awards, all categories can be merged into single awards except there remains a sustainable difference in the respective distinguished service awards. The AFLRT Distinguished Service Award is given for lifetime achievement as a military librarian. The FLRT Distinguished Service Award is for service to FLRT. The two newsletters would be combined into one newsletter. The vendor Newsbank would be invited to become an advertiser, rather than the comprehensive sponsor of the newsletter's layout, printing and mailing as they have done for AFLRT. Official ALA merger procedure is to be followed: Andrea has consulted facilitator Tom Kirk, Chair, ALA Committee on Organization (COO). The proposal for merger needs to appear on the ALA Spring Election Ballot for both organizations. If the membership of both organizations approve, COO will check that we have done proper planning regarding the new constitution and bylaws and other basic matters and will agree to the merger. COO will recommend approval to the ALA Executive Board who will approve it then put it on the ALA Council agenda for a final vote there. Stephanie Jones pointed out that some AFLRT members are still concerned with meetings and programs being held in Washington DC. Jewel Player proposed considering a program in conjunction with the DTIC Conference. B.J. Fox pointed out that DTIC has regional meetings and subgroups such as FLRT membership clusters can put on local programs in conjunction with these meetings. Perhaps the concern is that they fear that dues are being spent on these programs; there is traditionally little if any round table money spent on a FLRT program since vendor support of most expenses is usually obtained.
  8. Shirley Loo reported for the Handbook Committee. She reviewed the contents of the new Handbook, which includes a rich compilation of historical information on FLRT and its activities. Members are encouraged to submit additions and corrections to Shirley.
  9. Arlene Luster volunteered to draft a vision statement for FLRT.
  10. Laurie Stackpole distributed the FLRT Discussion List e-mail addresses.
  11. Laurie also distributed the 1998-1999 list of advertisers for Federal Librarian. Laurie has been the Business Manager of our journal since Fall of 1994 and wished to discontinue this task. Maria Pisa volunteered to take over this responsibility.
  12. B.J. Fox presented the AFLRT report. At the AFLRT meeting on Saturday the agenda was suspended for discussion of the proposed merger with FLRT. The meeting ended with a good feeling. There is still concern about holding Board meetings in Washington, D.C. between ALA meetings. B.J. pointed out that even though AFLRT doesn't officially meet between ALA meetings, they do a lot of planning. The Annual Awards Luncheon is completely planned by AFLRT. B.J. also announced that a directory of DOD libraries will be put on Secure STINET as a searchable database that is e-mail accessible. It is in compliance with the Government Locator system. The list will contain 917 DOD libraries. B.J. pointed out that base libraries often combine recreational functions with technical support, so many of the libraries on the list will cover both.
  13. A concern was expressed about the length of the 1999Awards Luncheon and the length of the featured speaker's presentation. It was agreed to review the timing of the activities and also to limit the bestowing of awards to 3 minutes per announcement and 3 minutes per recipient.

The meeting adjourned at 4:00 PM.


FLRT Board Meeting #2


ALA Annual Conference, New Orleans


Morial Convention Center, Room 351


Tuesday, June 29, 1999

Present:


Andrea Gruhl, President


Stephanie Jones, Vice President/President Elect


Joan Taylor, Treasurer


Janet Ormes, Secretary


Maria Pisa, Director


Jane Sessa, ALA Legislation Assembly Representative


Lee Porter, Education Comm. Co-chair

Excused (from one or both Board meetings): Barbara Busch, Nancy Davenport, Don Panzera, Fran Perros, Jewel Player, Arlene Luster, Laurie Stackpole, Barbara Fox, Lynn McDonald, Patti Fields, Shirley Loo, Steve Kerchoff, Richard Hanusey, Sami Klein, Wil Danielson, Anne Heanue, and ALA Liaison Pat May.

  1. The meeting was called to order by President Andrea Gruhl at 2:15 p.m.
  2. Janet Ormes reported for the Website Committee. The spinning globe at the FLRT website has been replaced with a fluttering U.S. flag due to a computer printer malfunction when pages having the globe are printed. The FLRT website continues to be updated as events warrant. If any member wants to put something on the website, contact Janet.
  3. Jane Sessa reported on the Round Table Coordinating Committee and expressed concerns that the voting procedure for the representative of the smaller Round Tables makes it likely that the representative will always be from the largest, even though we all get to vote. Since we are one of the smaller "Small Round Tables," we are unlikely to ever be able to elect a representative from our ranks.
  4. Jane Sessa also reported that the Inter-Agency Working Group on Title 44 Revision has not been very active because of the failure of the last congress to pass a GPO bill. The Government Information Subcommittee of the Legislative Committee of ALA has been handling the issue along with GODORT legislation committee. There is a scaled down version of the original Title 44 bill, dealing only with depository issues and permanent access issues, which is in the draft stages and hasn't really been floated yet.
  5. RTCC's luncheon meeting during ALA was attended by Jane Sessa on Monday afternoon. An election was held for RTCC representatives to planning committees for the future ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. Attendees met with newly elected Councilors for the largest round tables and Bob Doyle, who is now the Councilor for all the smaller round tables.
  6. Lee Porter reported on the ALA Congress on Professional Education in Washington last May where he represented FLRT. All resolutions from the Education Summit were adopted by the ALA Executive Committee.
  7. Wil Danielson, although unable to attend the conference, submitted a written report as GPO Liaison. Sheila McGarr has been appointed Chief of the Library Division and the position of Electronic Collection Librarian has been posted. The American Association of Law Libraries has announced that GPO Access will be honored with the first AALL Public Access to Government Information Award.
  8. Our ALA Planning and Budget Assembly Representative Lynn McDonald had attended their meetings at ALA and written a lengthy report which had been submitted to the President prior to the FLRT Board meetings, which she was unable to attend due to travel status.
  9. The Personnel Committee's report had been orally presented at the FLRT Annual Membership Meeting on Saturday by Donald Panzera, who was also unable to attend the Board meetings due to travel status.
  10. Andrea brought up the issue that ALA has no provision for proxies. Southern Chapter ALA Councilors have drafted a resolution on this issue. It will be on the ALA Council agenda to discuss.
  11. Andrea asked for suggestions on scheduling of future FLRT Board meetings at ALA annual and midwinter conferences. The group proposed that meetings at ALA Annual be held Saturday from 2:00-3:00 p.m. and Monday from 2:00-4:00 p.m. Meetings at Midwinter are to be held Saturday from 4:30-5:30 p.m. and Monday from 2:00-4:00 p.m.
  12. Andrea passed the gavel to incoming President Stephanie Jones at 3:30 p.m. and the meeting was adjourned at 3:45 p.m.
    Note:
    Minutes were provided by FLRT's Secretary Janet Ormes and approved at the FLRT Board meeting September 30, 1999.