Board and Committee Meeting; Membership Meeting ALA Midwinter Meeting 2008

Saturday, January 12, 2008
8:00-10:00 in the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Room 108B

Agenda

  1. Call to order

    Janet Scheitle, FAFLRT President, called the meeting to order.

  2. Minutes of the last meeting

    There are no minutes from the 2007 ALA annual conference.

  3. Old Business

    There was no old business raised.

  4. Reporting

    1. Report of the President

      FAFLRT members are encouraged to keep current on activities of the roundtable by reading the Federal Librarian newsletter. The most recent edition can be found online  here.
      • Establishment of a FAFLRT Committee on Legislation (COL)
        The FAFLRT Executive Board recently voted to form a new FAFLRT Committee on Legislation (COL). To best serve the needs of Federal and Armed Forces libraries, FAFLRT should have a direct line to ALA’s COL to suggest new legislation that would benefit the FAFLRT community. We know that the closing of federal libraries is only one important issue for FAFLRT members. There are many additional challenges that may require legislative attention. But how do we identify those challenges? What are some creative ways Congress might support libraries in improving services to users? And how can we harness the great legislative ideas of staff in Federal and Armed Forces libraries? A committee was formed to decide how to identify issues and gather input from federal and armed forces libraries. It is proposed that there will be a series of opportunities to speak up and staff in various types of libraries may present ideas for possible legislative initiatives. You may also see special events held, listening sessions at conferences, or even virtual meetings. The FAFLRT Committee on Legislation will craft resolutions for consideration by the ALA legislative assembly and ultimately the ALA Washington office for action. If you are interested in participating, please contact JScheitle@gpo.gov.
      • "Deliberative Dialogue on Government Information"
        Your input needed by March 15! ALA hosted a December 12, 2007 session for council and board members as well as elected officers of chapters, divisions, and roundtables. In an effort to foster better communication, the following draft protocol was proposed to address how units within ALA should respond when solicited by an outside organization for an official position or statement of ALA policy. The draft protocol was discussed at the ALA Committee on Legislation meeting at Midwinter. ALA expects every round table executive board to comment on the protocol. ALA also expects its membership to do the same. Please send comments to JScheitle@gpo.gov. The next steps proposed for "deliberative dialogue" include:
        • It’s clear that ALA COL expects resolutions to be discussed within each roundtable, chapter, and division so that a consensus may be reached and communicated to them. The December 12th session sprung from a difference of opinion between two entities within ALA.
        • It’s expected that FAFLRT will also work within its membership to gain input on resolutions and actions before sending an official response to ALA as a roundtable position on an issue.
        The ALA Legislation Assembly conducted a session at midwinter and circulated a "virtual orientation memo #3b" with information about the purpose of the assembly.
      • Developing a Federal Library and Information Center Impact Statement
        The ALA Committee on Legislation sponsors the Subcommittee on Federal Libraries which is currently chaired by Jane Sessa. The group is circulating a draft " information impact statement" which was drafted by Aimee Quinn (former GODORT chair). The statement proposes a process by which federal agencies would examine the mission and role of the information services provided by an agency library or information center before making a recommendation about closing a facility. The structure of the process is similar to that used in creating an environmental impact statement. It is proposed that the process would be approved and endorsed by ALA's Committee on Legislation before being recommended that federal agencies employ such a process. Please review the document and send your comments to Janet Scheitle JScheitle@gpo.gov by March 15, 2008. Your input needed by March 15!
      • Roundtable Assembly
        At yesterday's Roundtable Assembly meeting, John Chrastka, ALA Membership office, and Leslie Berger, ALA Past President, spoke. Leslie's comments reflected the issues found in the Midwinter update. Of particular interest were the items on ALA virtual membership, the delay of a graduated dues schedule, the December 12th session on Deliberative Dialogue, the web site redesign, and membership information. At next annual conference, John Chrastka mentioned the ability for roundtables to participate in the pavilion presentation. It was suggested that FAFLRT continue to send someone to New Members Round Table (NMRT) functions, updates, and orientations to meet their new members and tell them about our roundtable. To overcome problems experienced in the past, ALA is considering allowing conferees to book hotels through the housing office in future only after registering for the ALA conference. Remember that FAFLRT members are typically federal employees who are able to get hotel rooms at the federal per diem rate. You just have to call before the rooms are on hold for ALA.
      • ALA Washington Office
        A visitor to the FAFLRT meeting, Lynne Bradley from the ALA Washington Office, reported that liaison to FAFLRT, Pat May, was stuck on a train and would probably miss the board meeting. The ALA Washington Office is requesting FAFLRT work with the military library community to draft a strategy for impact aid or to develop another strategy or strategies to response to Municipal Service Partnerships. She suggested that DoD provides impact aid to school libraries in communities where they have military installations but thought that DoD did not provide impact aid to public libraries in those same communities. Jannie Davis chimed in stating that, in fact, Army does provide impact aid to public libraries in the form of municipal agreements. The request, per Lynne, then might be to provide ALA Washington Office with a legislative strategy or strategies that might work across the branches of the DoD when armed forces libraries are threatened. To do so, there was a discussion of who might hold meetings, where, and when. Jannie Davis agreed to sponsor a meeting in Washington, D.C. Would military libraries want ALA to work to keep military libraries in communities or stress impact aid to public libraries where the military libraries would otherwise be closed or not made available?

    2. FAFLRT Treasurer report

      Marie Nelson the following 3 files in her report submitted prior to the conference.
      1. FY07 Final Account rendering. (Some items here that were widely variant from our original budget plan for FY07 was the high amount spent on Meal Functions, but it was offset by large corporate sponsorship Donations, so there was no problem there.)
      2. FY08 To Date (30 Nov 07): At the bottom of this I explained that FAFLRT is carrying a negative balance because of three FY07 Advertising Invoices that haven’t yet been paid by the vendors (at least not as of 30 Nov ’07).
      3. FY09 Budget Projection: While the attached file I got from Pat May says FY09, it is really the FY08 budget that was submitted to ALA in Feb ’07. This is used as the starting point in compiling the FY09 Budget, which I need to submit to Pat May by Jan 22. So, I would like to request that the Board look over this FY08 budget and see if they identify changes or new items that will come up in FY09.
      The advertising revenue credited to FAFLRT allowed the roundtable to end with a positive net asset balance, however, efforts must be made to collect those funds. Board action needed: Follow-up with the errant vendors. If these revenues are not recaptured, FAFLRT will carry this negative amount on our books and run the risk of ending the year with a negative balance.)

    3. Report of the Federal Directors

      Doria Grimes reported on the meeting of the Federal Directors and Armed Forces directors at Jane Sessa's library November 28, 2007 to discuss how the FAFLRT COL would operate. She expressed concern that the holding of listening sessions would be labor intensive for the few members of the FAFLRT COL. Discussion included having listening sessions hosted at the variety of conferences and professional meetings already scheduled for the community. It was suggested that the FAFLRT COL members might orchestrate others to host listening sessions and gather the information to report up to ALA WO. There is a session scheduled for the annual conference to report on the findings of listening sessions and the state of federal libraries. Nancy Faget requested the FAFLRT COL decide if they want to host and run this session or not.

    4. Armed Forces Director Report

      Jannie Davis (Army Installation Management Agency Regional Librarian), Armed Forces Liaison, reported on a variety of activities in military libraries as extracted from the Army Library Program Update.
      • Army Library Steering Committee Working Groups
        • Strategic Planning: Develop the Army Library Program Strategic Plan, 2009 - 2013
        • Human Resources: Revise Librarian Master Training Plan
        • Digitization: Promote coordination and collaboration of digital projects
        • Consortia: Establish enterprise-wide purchases of e-content
        • Nominating: Identify candidates and manage election for ALSC member-at-large vacancies
        • Emerging Technologies: Disseminate information on new technologies
      • Federal Librarian Competencies:
        Federal Librarian Competencies are being defined by the FLICC Human Resources Working Group based on Numerous Competency Documents. The draft is to be Posted on Wiki in 2nd Qtr of 2008. Librarians are invited to comment. Approval Authorities: Federal Library & Information Center Committee (FLICC), US Office of Personnel Management, Individual Agencies (DOD). Federal Librarian Competencies Domains are as follows:
        • Agency/Organization Knowledge
        • Library Administration and Management
        • Reference Research
        • Collection and Content Management
        • Customer Education and Training, and Instructional Design
        • Technology Management and Information Assurance
        • Specialized Knowledge, Skills or Ability
      • Librarian Career Program
        In FY 07, 68 Librarians were centrally funded for training. 23% of 300 Army librarians were funded for activities such as ALTI, MLW, Modern Archives Institute, School for Scanning, MLA, SLA, and Digitization Practicum. For Army Library Training Institute (ALTI) 2007, 35 attended the event hosted by the Army Corps of Engineers Humphreys Engineer Center in Alexandria, VA. For the Librarian Career Program in FY 08 Professional Development Training, the Army Librarian requested Central Funding for 31 Librarians, however 2 Training Opportunities were canceled because they did not meet 5 CFR 410.404 and 5 USC 4101 definition of training. The 3rd & 4th quarter training is still under review. The Army Library Training Institute (ALTI) is scheduled for 2009 with an ALTI ’09 Working Group determining the host and location.
      • Army’s Academic Libraries
        Are working on the library standards added to Accreditation Requirements. $50K was spent on Academic E-Books for Army Career Tracker for NCOs available for access via My Library. They are working on the BRAC Impact on Academic Libraries. There is a new library at the Logistics University at Fort Lee. US Army Maneuver Center of Excellence, Ft. Benning: Infantry and Armor Schools
      • General Libraries
        Awards for Army libraries garnered recently include Carla Pomager, Federal Librarian of the Year, and MWR Awards for Best Library at Grafenwoehr (large sized), Bamburg (medium sized), and Garmisch (small sized). General Libraries Information System (GLIS) was set up, a world-wide network of 59 Libraries currently with 18 Libraries to be added in FY 08.
      • Partnerships:
        • NEA/BIG READ Literacy Program
        • Disney/Walden Media on Bridge to Terabithia Promotion
        • Playaways Included in Deployment Book Kits
        • FY 08: $3.2M Allocated for Databases
        • FY 07 DOD and MWR Baseline Standards Currently Being Assessed
      • Municipal Services Partnership (MSP)
        • FY 05 Defense Authorization Act: Authorized pilots at 2 Army installations
        • Purpose: To evaluate feasibility and efficacy of obtaining specific installation services from local municipalities
        • Program Scheduled to Terminate on 30 Sep 2010
        • Pilot Installations: Forts Huachuca and Gordon
        • Fort Gordon - Elected not to participate
        • Fort Huachuca: Library Closed Mar 07 (Contracted with Sierra Vista for Library Services)
      • Proposed Legislation
        • FY 08 Defense Authorization Bill
        • Extend Pilot Authority to All Military Services
        • Extend Duration of Program to 30 Sep 2012
        • FY 09 Defense Authorization Bill
        • Expand to all CONUS Army installations
        • Broaden authority to all “Municipal Services”
        • Provides Authority for Multi-year Authority up to 50 Years

    5. Membership Committee Report

      Donna Ramsey, Membership Committee Chair, reported on her work with ALA’s John Chrastka. She will attend the membership meetings during midwinter conference and report back to the board. Donna presented a list of new FAFLRT members. It was discussed that FAFLRT might have a process to meet and greet new members and invite them to participate in the roundtable. It is also a possibility to have ALA membership services email members who have dropped from FAFLRT in order to discover why they left. Helen Sherman, ALA Education Assembly and FLICC liaison, reported out on the work being done on competencies by several organizations. The virtual membership is being encouraged throughout ALA. FLICC's work with FAFLRT on Careers in Federal Libraries at last annual conference will continue as an event at next annual conference. The Pentagon library is almost completely migrated to the Washington Headquarters Service. She suggested FAFLRT members learn of the online course offerings that should be great interest to them. The FLICC Forum was moved to the fall in 2007. The Policy & Advocacy group is working to digitize brochures to share.

  5. New Business

    ALA New Member Roundtable (NMRT) assigned student liaison, Kim Lyall, to FAFLRT. Kim submitted slides to the board regarding how she envisions FAFLRT and NMRT might work closely in the future. She is volunteering for one year through the NMRT liaison program. She is interested in connecting library school students looking for professional experiences in federal libraries with opportunities through the FAFLRT network. The first step she has taken is to conduct a survey of NMRT members to discover who has an interest in federal librarians. She is willing to create or add to a wiki where internships and resumes are gathered to pair students and libraries. Also, Kim is willing to post internship announcements to the NMRT discussion list. A draft agenda for the 2008 ALA Annual Conference programming was circulated by Nancy Faget. The agenda will be run by the FAFLRT board for approval since there are costs involved with the conference. It was suggested that FAFLRT seek a "bus tour" sponsor who can use the time for a demo of products for FAFLRT members. The following proposed changes to the FAFLRT budget will be submitted to the FAFLRT board for their approval. Any approved changes will be reported to the membership, however, FAFLRT Board and general members wishing to comment on the following proposed changes can submit their comments to Janet Scheitle ( jscheitle@gpo.gov) by March 15, 2008.
    • Consider making the newsletter available only electronically or reducing the number of tangible printings from 4 to 2 issues per year. Note: The FAFLRT newsletter, the Federal Librarian, is currently made available in print and electronically 4 times a year. Annual costs for printing and mailing the newsletter are several thousand dollars. However, this may have an impact on advertising revenue.
    • Also consider an associate membership that would only distribute the tangible newsletter as a subscription to non-FAFLRT members or even non-ALA members. Note that other roundtables such as SRRT sell their newsletter as a separate subscription for $15/year to individuals and $20/year to institutions who are not members of the Round Table.
    • Also consider creating a tiered membership structure (membership + electronic newsletter and membership + printed newsletter)
    • Also consider dropping professional memberships (Public Employees Round table PERT, others?) and contributions (Coalition for Effective Change) to save $500 annually
    • Also consider minimizing audiovisual costs for the conference activities. Last year's budget included $4,237.16 in AV costs. Consider co-sponsorship of events to share this high expense or even hosting events off-site.
    • Also consider raising funds through conference activities where feasible. Consider charges for pre-conference events or special events.
    • Also consider raising funds as other roundtables do with silent auctions of donated items. GODORT does this successfully. According to Bill Sleeman, GODORT raises significant funds through the donation of specific items such as vacation rentals. Pursue a donation from the Armed Forces Vacation Club and experiment with a silent auction open to all ALA members for bidding purposes. Of course, this would have to be widely advertised and monitored because FAFLRT members bidding should not pay more than they would normally pay for an AFV club rental ($350 per week).
    • Also consider waiving any membership fees for students. There are a minimum number of students currently. Over time, free membership for library school students might build FAFLRT membership at little cost to the roundtable.
    • Also consider e-cards or business cards instead of printing tangible brochures. The brochures usually costs $500 for 1,000 or $800 for 2,000.