Present:
Flo Wilson, President and Chair, Pat Ensor, President-Elect, Barbra Higginbotham, Councilor, Sara Randall, Past President, Colby Riggs, Director-at-large, Mary Taylor, Executive Director

Flo Wilson called the meeting to order and the following additions were made to the agenda: annual review of the Executive Director, discussion on Committee Reports, and update on the President’s Program

Confirmed the email vote to approve the January 2002 Minutes.

As the National Forum Steering Committee, discussed the 2002 Forum program plans and progress to date. Confirmed that the 2003 Forum will be held in Norfolk Virginia on October 2 - 5, 2003 at the Sheraton as agreed to at the last meeting. Heard report from Mary Taylor about the west coast site visit. Agreed to hold the 2005 Forum on the west coast and to hold the 2004 Forum in a central location.

Discussed Board planning activities for 2002. Pat Ensor noted that there are no defined duties for directors-at-large, the Committee Chairs Coordinator and the Interest Groups Coordinator positions. Ensor will work with the committee Chair and Interest Group Coordinators to draft a list of their duties, eventually to be taken to the Bylaws Committee. Ensor and Colby Riggs will work on a draft list of director-at-large duties.

Discussed the Board Planning sessions and decided to cancel the session scheduled at AC 2002. The Friday night Board dinner will be scheduled for Atlanta.

Discussed the need to systematically capture Committees and Interest Groups meeting documentation and to archive it for future planning. Decided to ask the current Coordinators to address this at the joint meeting in Atlanta.

Riggs volunteered to work with John Forys on the new IG chairs orientation, to post it to the Web, and discuss on the listserv the flexibility accorded to IGs in general with programming issues, the relationship with the Program Planning Committee liaisons and specifically how to recruit members, how to decide whether to plan a program, how to offer joint programs as an option.

Confirmed earlier agreement that each Committee is to have a Board liaison and noted that definitions including this aspect of the Board member role will help all.

Discussed orientation for new Board members. Riggs and Ensor volunteered to organize a breakfast with the two newest Board members (Karen Cook and James Kennedy) plus the newly elected ones, and Ensor volunteered to plan the mentoring activities for those Board members being elected this spring.

Heard Ensor comments on the appointment process. Most appointments have been made and the merging of the Membership and Leadership Committees into the Member Development Committee is proceeding. The members of the Research Committee whose terms continue past this Annual Conference, have been given appointments on other committees. She will be contacting the Board members regarding their liaison assignments and making changes as needed. After the election results are announced, Ensor will work to include unsuccessful candidates in her appointments.

Reviewed the FY2002 second quarter budget report, the FY2003 Financial and Strategic Overview, draft budget speadsheet, and draft budget notes. Sara Randall will make a motion through email to raise ITAL subscription rates 10% (from $50 to $55) in FY2003. The Office will coordinate with the Program Planning Committee and with the Regional Institutes Committee plans to offer workshops for the first time at Midwinter in 2003.

Committee went into executive session to discuss the Executive Director’s evaluation.

Reviewed the options of establishing an endowment and determined not to do so at this time.

Heard Taylor’s report on programming, membership (4,679), publications, and Office objectives.

Discussed the LITA Web site. Considered the LITA Website White Paper submitted by Martin R. Kalfatovic, LITA Web Coordinating Committee Chair. Decided to put “Member Only Features” on the Board agenda for Annual Conference. Wilson will follow-up with the Membership Committee which was to put together recommendations on this topic.

Discussed the possibility of engaging a consultant to jump start a Web redesign. Randall to provide feedback on how much time/cost that might take from her experience with using a consultant.

Discussed the role of the Web Manager and the applications submitted for the position. Wilson and/or Taylor will follow up with reference calls for two of the applicants. Taylor will schedule interviews with the candidates and the Board for Monday, June 17 at 8:00 and 9:00 am in Atlanta. Taylor will let the other applicants know that they are no longer under consideration.

Discussed communication of current news. Executive Director to resurrect LITAline for posting periodic news items to the membership. This will differ from previous incarnations of LITAline in that it will be posted to LITA-L rather than continue as a separate listserv. Wilson will ask Michelle and Susan to ask Committee Chairs and IG chairs to submit meeting reports for posting on the Web. A determination was made that the report form should be modified to ask what the Committee/IG is actually doing and to identify its specific activities. Taylor will follow-up on this form change.

Discussed virtual members appointments to committees. Randall was the first to appoint virtual members with the understanding that the experience would be evaluated at some point. Wilson and Ensor have continued virtual member appointments. The Bylaws Committee is tasked with evaluating the use of virtual members, making a recommendation for the Board and working on changes to the bylaws. The Committee plans to initiate the evaluation this summer after Annual Conference. Ensor will ask the Committee chairs to brainstorm about how to better use virtual members. Capturing highlights from these discussions would be part of the Bylaws report and could later migrate to the manual portion of the LITA Web.

Discussed Board and Officer organization and responsibilities. The Office will develop a calendar of events to help the President-Elect plan for making appointments, participating in the ALA appointment process, attend BARC meetings, etc.

Decided to 1) ask the Past President to represent LITA on the Planning and Budgeting Assembly; and, 2) add to the LITA Board agenda (for each Annual Conference), a discussion of appointment recommendations for ALA Committees.

Discussed copyright agreements and decided to ask the Publications Committee to follow the ALA revision process and report to the Board.

Discussed report submitted by Rebecca Felkner on Webcasting.

Heard Wilson report on plans for her President’s Program, Building Our Cultural Heritage-Electronically. She has four speakers including: David Green from the National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH), Virginia Kerr from Northwestern University, Bernard Reilly from CRL and Richard Rinehart from the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive.

Discussed the Regional Institutes Letter of Agreement.

Reviewed the Committee Reports and Interest Group Reports from Midwinter.

Adjourned meeting at 4:00 pm