Home About LITA The Organization, Policies and Procedures Board of Directors ExCo Fall 2001 Minutes

Flo Wilson, President, called the meeting to order at 8:50. Committee members present: Sara Randall, Past President, Pat Ensor, President-Elect, Barbra Higginbotham, Councilor; Colby Riggs, Director-at-large, Ex-Officio member: Mary Taylor, LITA Executive Director.

Coordinating Programming was added to the Agenda.

Took action on and approved the Minutes from the June Executive Committee meeting.

Heard report on 2001 National Forum. Preliminary numbers were shared. Registration for the Forum itself was approximately 400. The two half day preconferences registrations were 132 for Digital and 61 for Accessibility. The evaluations are generally indicating that the programs were good to excellent. Complete analysis will be reported at Midwinter.

The 2002 Forum is scheduled for Houston, October 11-13, 2002. The contract with the Westin Galleria & Westin Oaks was negotiated and completed in March 2001.

The 2003 Forum location possibilities identified at Annual Conference have been contacted. Proposals from hotels in Baltimore, Norfolk and Arlington were distributed with a spreadsheet identifying highlights. No proposals were received from Alexandria but Arlington is close to many DC attractions and Old Town Alexandria. Providence does not have one site that would work for the Forum and the rates were high. Taylor will proceed to visit Norfolk and report back to the Committee prior to Midwinter 2002.

Possible locations for the 2004 Forum were discussed.

Discussed planning activities for 2002. Pat Ensor is making plans for the Midwinter Board planning meeting (Board roles, e.g. full Board, Executive Committee, liaisons to LITA committees, etc.) and the LITA Town Meeting topics for discussion. Pat also reported that the Nominating Committee appointments were almost complete.

Discussed fourth quarter report on FY2001 budget. LITA continues to do well and is maintaining an adequate reserve. There was some discussion about the effects of the economic downturn.

Discussed membership issues including: recruitment, the “dance card”, and services such as the members only section of the LITA Web site. The total LITA membership at the end of FY01 was 4,963. It was decided that a task force would be created to come up with recommendations for member enhanced services, consisting of representatives of the Membership, Publications and Web Coordinating Committees.

Web site content was discussed. Currently, no group is charged to manage content, e.g. regularly seeking content and scheduling updates, etc. The Executive Director and President will work with the Web Coordinating committee to clarify what assistance is available from the LITA Office and to explore how to enhance the News function. The Web Coordinating Committee will be asked to report on the News function, in particular, at Midwinter.

Heard Executive Director’s report. Reviewed objectives for the year and discussed cost containment measures.

Heard report from President regarding the new ALA Technology Showcase debuting at the Midwinter meeting. LITA was invited to provide an expert panel to review proposals and Wilson appointed Mary Alice Ball, Tom Dowling, Sandra Hurd and Scott Muir. Eighteen proposals were submitted and the panel reviewed and ranked them. The President will express interest in continuing to be involved in this activity of the Exhibitor’s Round Table, assuming it continues.

Wilson reported on a few possibilities for the President’s Program.

Reviewed the LITA Web-based CE Task Force Report. The Task Force will be sked to explore a bit more the possibilities of licensing content developed elsewhere. The full report and the topic in general will be considered at Midwinter.

Discussed proposal on pricing and placement of advertising on ITAL Web pages. Taylor to take proposal to full board.

Briefly discussed the Bibliographic Control of Web Resources: A Library of Congress Action Plan. The President will respond to the Library of Congress expressing agreement with the appropriateness of the LITA involvement and the concerns about focusing in too detailed a fashion on the traditional library approaches to web resources.

Discussed coordinated programming for LITA. Recommended a joint meeting or conference call with the chairs of the following committees: National Forums, Program Planning Committee, Regional Institutes, and Publications, to be scheduled after each Midwinter and Annual Conference. The Chair of the Regional Institutes Committee will be asked to initiate the conference call after Midwinter. LITA can arrange to cover the costs of the call.

Received Committee’s and Interest Group’s reports from Annual Conference.

Briefly discussed the LITA Midwinter schedule of meetings.

Set the Spring meeting dates for April 6-7 subject to cancel after Midwinter.

Adjourned meeting at 4:50