Federal and Armed Forces Libraries Round Table (FAFLRT)Board Meeting

ALA Annual Conference, 2005
Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, IL
Saturday, June 25, 2005 Attendees: Mary Boone, Sally Bosken, Carol Bursik, Margaret J. Groner, Georgette Harris, Marie L. Nelson, Fran Perros, Donna E. Ramsey, Linda Resler, Lucille M. Rosa, Jane Sessa, Cynthia Shipley, Joan R. Taylor, Eileen Welch
  1. Welcome and Call to Order. Linda Resler, FAFLRT President, called the meeting to order at 2:10 p.m.
  2. Minutes. The minutes of the January 2005 Midwinter Board Meetings were accepted as written.
  3. The President's Report was given at this morning's General Membership Meeting.
  4. Membership Report. Joan Taylor's report was given at this morning's General Membership Meeting. The Board suggested ways to increase membership, such as those presented in Mark Levin's ALA presentation on "How to Grow Your Membership," stressing value obtained for the cost of the membership. Another consideration is whether or not everything that membership would offer is already available to prospective members online. A suggestion was made to contact those that don't renew FAFLRT membership, to determine if they are just dropping ALA membership, or drifting to other organizations. We should also establish contact with any new members. It was decided that membership recruitment/retention should be an action item at every meeting, and that we should all have further email discussions in preparation for this being an agenda item at the upcoming Midwinter Board Meetings.
  5. Treasurer's Report. Carol Bursik distributed FAFLRT's June 14, 2005 Financial Statement for FY 2005 at this morning's General Membership meeting. She also stated that two mysterious food items for $166 and $322 had been charged to FAFLRT, which will be further investigated.
  6. Newsletter ( Federal Librarian) Report. Jane Sessa reported that Margaret Groner has been making initial contacts with vendors, but a need still remains for additional vendors. The next newsletter deadline will be August 15, 2005.
  7. Committee Reports. (Reports not presented at this Board Meeting were given at this morning's General Membership Meeting.)
    1. Archives. Lucille Rosa requested that we ask anyone that was a former board member of our organization(s) to submit past materials to her.
    2. Federal Personnel. Georgette Harris reported that the Human Resources Working Group would like the MLS degree to be the fundamental requirement for obtaining a Librarian position. Another personnel issue is that new federal personnel systems, such as NSPS, will be structured with pay-banding. It was suggested that FLICC host a brown-bag discussion about pay-banding.
    3. Nominating Committee. Linda Resler reported that it has been a struggle to get nominees for board and committee positions. Linda will remain on Georgette's Nominating Committee.
    4. Armed Forces Director. Lucille Rosa reported:
      1. The Navy is taking a two-pronged approach to all software in use at all Navy and Marine Corps installations.
        • In the process of migrating to the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI), the Navy and Marine Corps completed an initial study of various ILS systems, and approved the use of SIRSI, Follett, and Winnebago for their libraries which are part of the NMCI implementation. These libraries will be required to migrate to one of these ILS systems in late September, although that deadline has thus far been a moving deadline.
        • Aside from NMCI, the Navy is committed to reducing the number of software packages in use. As a result, whether moving to NMCI or not, migration to an approved ILS is expected. Beyond the initial approval of the three ILS systems already mentioned, a Business Case Analysis of all the Library Systems in use is being conducted. The results of this study will determine who must migrate to another system, and migration plans will be formulated.
      2. Two years ago the Navy Librarian position was abolished. A new position within the Dept of the Navy was created, called Knowledge Management Team Lead. This new position did not equate to the old Librarian of the Navy position, and the change has been sorely felt throughout the Navy libraries ever since.
  8. Old Business
    1. Linda Resler reported that she is still creating Word documents with our prior organizations' procedures manuals, to facilitate the creation of a FAFLRT Procedures Manual, for which the Board feels there is still a need.
    2. 2006 Annual Meeting.
      1. TeleSec is interested in sponsoring/funding the Breakfast at next year's General Membership Meeting.
      2. Jewel Player is handling the 2006 Program.
      3. Reception: ProQuest sponsored this year's reception with $1700, but next year's reception will also have to consider facility rental costs. (This year's use of Pritzker Military Library was at no cost to us.)
      4. Meeting times were discussed, with the suggestion that we book a longer block of time, to include our membership meeting, a possible meal, and our annual ALA program. This should avoid the problem we encountered this year with ALA locating consecutive meetings in widely-separated locations. The program could be held from 10:30 a.m. to noon, as it was this year. The time block we request must, however, fit into ALA's block scheduling plan.
      5. Meeting suggestions were made, such as a continental breakfast combined with the membership meeting and program, or a luncheon banquet and awards ceremony for which attendees buy tickets, which has been successful in the past.
      6. The decision was made to have the Annual Program first, 10:30 a.m. to noon, and then an Awards/Membership Luncheon from 12:00 to 2:00 p.m., hopefully subsidized by a vendor, with tickets sold, if needed.
      7. The ALA program request form will be available in September. Generally ALA grants the day/time that was requested, but assigns the location.
      8. Board Meeting times were discussed. One suggestion was to have a late Friday afternoon Board Meeting, such as 4:00 - 5:30 p.m., followed by the group going out to dinner, and the second Board Meeting on Monday morning at 9:30 to 11:00 a.m.
      9. The appropriate ALA "Track" for our Copyright Program was discussed and the "Information Policy" Track was chosen.
    3. Georgette Harris, the incoming President, will be determining the times for the 2006 Midwinter Board Meetings.
    4. Donna Ramsey was thanked for coordinating an excellent panel program on Outsourcing, presented this morning. An article about it was even printed in the ALA Conference Cognotes.
  9. New Business. Several FAFLRT members have recently passed away, which raised the question of whether or not sympathy cards should be sent to the family, and if so, should it be the Secretary who sends them.
  10. The Board Meeting scheduled for Monday, June 27, 2005 was cancelled, as all business was concluded at today's meeting.
  11. The meeting adjourned at 3:46 p.m. with the passing of the gavel to the incoming President, Georgette Harris.
Respectfully submitted, Marie L. Nelson
FAFLRT Secretary