Executive Committee Meeting, Fall 2003

Chicago

Friday, October 10, 8:30 am – 12:00 pm

Saturday, October 11, 8:30 am – 4 pm

Minutes

Tom Wilson, President and Executive Committee Chair, called the meeting to order at 8:44 am, October 10. Committee members present: Colby Riggs, President Elect, Pat Ensor, Past President, Pat Mullin, Director-at-large, Barbra Higginbotham, Councilor, Mary Taylor, LITA Executive Director and Ex-Officio member.

Reviewed the agenda and added Member Requests, International Relations Roundtable, Online Manual Task Force; adjusted the order of the agenda to move the Planning activities for 2004 to Saturday.

Reviewed the June 2003 Executive Committee Minutes (2003FallEC-1) and confirmed the email vote to approve them. Pat Ensor moved, Pat Mullin seconded. Motion passed unanimously.

Received update from Pat Ensor about the 2003 LITA National Forum. All anecdotal evidence is that the Forum was well received by the participants who got practical, specific things to take home with them to use. Overall, each program was clearly technical with little or nothing offered for administrators. The new poster session was well attended and the 04 Forum Committee plans to include a poster session for next year. Discussed preconferences, facilities, food and beverages, and connectivity.

Received update from Tom Wilson about the 2004 Forum. The theme is: 10 Years of Connectivity: Libraries, the World Wide Web, and the Next Decade. Discussed a variety of presentation technologies and registration rates.

Received update from Mary Taylor about plans for the 2005 and 2006 Forums. 2005 is in San Jose at a new Marriott that will have the latest in connectivity capabilities. Colby will be appointing the 05 Forum Committee between now and Midwinter. For 2006, one site visit has been completed; plans are being made for the second site and a report will be provided at the Midwinter meeting.

Received update on the ASAE Symposium. Colby Riggs and Mary Taylor attended. Colby indicated her enthusiasm for participating in the Symposium. Riggs appreciated the opportunity it provided for the executive director and president-elect to get to know each other and each other’s work styles better. In addition, Riggs indicated her participation deepened her knowledge of how associations work. As an extra bonus, several other ALA divisions’ representatives were in attendance and the interaction with other president-elects was appreciated.

Heard Wilson report on the 2003 LITA Town Meeting (2003FallEC-9) and Board visioning process (2003FallEC-10). Better communications continues as a concern for all (Executive Committee, Board, members and staff). A number of ideas were exchanged to address reporting out by IGs about their programs and by Committees about their work: the report form needs revision, more active liaisons may help, and increased usage of LITA-L is to be encouraged. Tom will discuss the possibility of an orientation session for the new IGs/Committees Coordinators at Midwinter. In addition, concerns for continual updating of the Web site were considered.

Wilson plans to share the visioning exercise document with the entire Board. He invites all to review the list. In the next few weeks he will pull together a small group from the Board to consider the vision and to report out to the membership for comment at Midwinter. The vision statement will be confirmed at Annual Conference in Orlando.

Discussed the Midwinter LITA Town Meeting plans for 2004. Colby plans to establish an E-forum prior to the Town Meeting to use throughout the year. Her focus is on recruiting members and exploring non-librarian membership recruitment as well as mentoring possibilities. While acknowledging the need to recruit new members, she wants to explore ways to keep retirees engaged. Riggs looks forward to LITA continuing our participation in the exhibits Technology Showcase, to receiving the reports from the Best Practices Guidelines Task Force and from the Web Policy Task Force, and to developing long-term targeted membership recruiting efforts.

Reviewed the fiscal year 2003 Budget (2003FallEC-2) report. Although not the final close, the figures in this report are not likely to change a great deal. In revenues, some checks have not cleared for awards presented at Annual. ITAL continues to net revenues and the LITA Guides generated more revenue than budgeted. Although programming attendance was down overall, LITA offered six Regional Institutes and a very successful Midwinter workshop. As for expenses, $10,000 of the Administrative costs was an unbudgeted CIPA contribution. Net revenue was up in Publications (2002-$28K, 2003-$31K) and Education (2002-$47K, 2003-$69K).

Discussed executive director’s report on membership (2003FallEC-3). LITA’s membership is currently 4,565; our retention rate is 80.13%. Discussed possible incentives and dues structure.

Received update from Tom Wilson on the President’s Program planning for 2004 in Orlando. The title of the program is IT’s a small world after all. Wilson indicated a concern regarding attendance at the program in recent years. Changes in venue, format, day, and time were considered. It was agreed that changing the day and time would not be possible for this year but Colby will discuss it with IGs and Committees for her program next year.

Discussed alternatives for facilitating committee and IG work throughout the year. Wilson will discuss framing the issues with the IGs/Committees Coordinators.

Discussed the structure of the Awards/Scholarship Committees in terms of assuring continuity from one year to the next and minimizing the learning curve. Vice Presidents need to be alerted to the need for Chairs being selected from prior several year’s Committees’ members. The Bylaws Committee will be asked to develop the wording for the Manual.

Having distributed the August 25^th statement from ALA President Carla Hayden (2003FallEC-7) and the flip-chart file (2003FallEC-8) from the August 23^rd meeting on CIPA, Tom Wilson invited discussion. Since no further legal action is anticipated, it is time to move on to considering how to deal with the results. No official role for LITA was identified.

Received and accepted the Committees reports (2003FallEC-4) and the Interest Groups reports (2003FallEC-5). Concerned at the number of missing reports. Staff will send a reminder after Annual Conference to any chairs who have not submitted reports. Tom will redesign the report form, submit it to the Executive Committee for approval, and take it to the Coordinators orientation at Midwinter. Wilson hopes to schedule that orientation for Friday from 4:00 to 5:00. The new form will be distributed to the Coordinators as well as the Office. Wilson plans to add liaison reporting to the Tuesday Board meetings. Liaisons or chairs may bring action items to the Board.

Reviewed the Midwinter schedule (2003FallEC-6). Two workshops were planned for Friday from 9—5:00: 1) XML and Libraries and 2) Wireless in Libraries (which has been cancelled). Staff is pursuing other possibilities. Agreed to schedule the Board dinner on Friday evening at 7:00.

Discussed LITA’s relationship with OITP. Currently, Tom Wilson meets with Carrie Russell quarterly. Frederick Weingarten reports to the LITA Board at Midwinter and Annual Conference each year. In addition, Weingarten or Russell has offered presentations at the LITA National Forum each year. Tom will discuss the e-Books Task Force with Karen Coyle and Weingarten. If the Task Force is ready to move beyond policy and wants to find a home in LITA, Tom will recommend they consider forming an Interest Group.

The Spring Meeting will be scheduled for March 26/27 or April 23/24 depending on hotel availability.

Discussed member requests: Some members have asked that they be automatically subscribed to LITA-L when they join LITA. Generally, best practice for discussion lists is to provide the members the choice to opt in rather than forcing the necessity to opt out. The Office distributes letters to renewed, new, or dropped members each month that encourage them to subscribe to LITA-L; we are now able to do that through email and this convenience may help people to subscribe.

Discussed ways to handle news items, e.g., program summaries, announcements and descriptions of programs, summaries of meetings, etc. Tom will discuss these needs with Michelle Frisque, chair, Web Coordinating Committee.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:08.