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Vol. 21, No.4/Summer 1999

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Minutes: Annual Business Meeting

News Division of the Special Libraries Association

June 7, 1999Minneapolis Convention Center

The meeting was called to order at 3:05 p.m. by past chair Tom Lutgen in chair Carol Campbell's absence. Tom announced that Carol was unable to attend conference due to her husband's surgery and that a card for Carol was in the suite for all to sign.

The minutes of the 1998 business meeting were approved.

Bill Van Niekerken gave the treasurer's report. He said that the division continues to be healthy financially, but that we would once again be collecting suite fees. Bill announced that, this year, everyone who paid his or her suite fees would be entered into a drawing for a Palm Pilot donated by Dow Jones.

Chair-elect Ginny Everett reported that as of Monday, there were 157 News Division members attending conference.

Director of Education Sperry Krueger summed up her tenure on the board by describing the three CE courses that she had coordinated. She announced that there were 77 attendees at the Sunday CE course in Minneapolis on public records. She also asked everyone to give ideas for possible CE courses to incoming education director Stephanie Willen Brown.

Carolyn Edds, Director of Publications, thanked Barbara Semonche for shepherding Newslib into its sixth year and announced that it now has over 1,000 members.

She said that the membership directory has been published and thanked Newsbank for their sponsorship. She also thanked Andrea Wilson for taking over as webmistress of the News Division website and Stephanie Willen Brown for maintaining the archives page, which has had over 87,000 hits.

Other traffic on the site: Experts page - over 5,000 hits; Job page - over 22,000 hits; Internet page - over 30,000 hits and News Library News - over 2,000 hits.

Carolyn thanked Jennifer Small for a good job with News Library News. She said that the new logo would be unveiled in the next issue and that there was more copy than could be published in the printed version of the spring issue so the additional copy would be at the website.

Tom Lutgen said that the board had discussed the substantial cost of printing News Library News. Linda Henderson and Bill Van Niekerken will start a committee to examine ways to cut costs while keeping it accessible to all News Division members.

Jim Hunter suggested producing NLN pages as PDF files and posting them to email. Ellie Briscoe warned of disenfranchising members who may still be without email. She suggested getting the list of those who have email from SLA. Linda Paschal said that the information about email addresses is also in the Newsbank database that they use to produce the membership directory. Linda Henderson said that the committee would work this year and not make any hasty decisions. She said that they would prepare a report for next year's business meeting.

M.J. Crowley, archives and history chair, said that the searchable electronic archives have been moved to Mediastream. M.J. also said that the print archives will be moving to the School of Journalism at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and thanked Barbara Semonche for her help. M.J. said that the move and the subsequent cataloging should take about a year.

Ellie Briscoe, elections chair, announced that of 845 ballots mailed, 295 (34%) were returned. Of those 45 (15%) were invalid, mostly because they had no or incomplete return addresses. She announced the results of the election: Debra Bade, chair-elect; Chris Hardesty, treasurer; Stephanie Willen Brown, Director of Education.

Membership chair, Sammy Alzofon, said that the Division had 911 members as of the meeting. She said that she has done a mailing to all new members. She also said that the membership directory was a little late this year because it turned out to be a "tough edit." She said that the list of library and journalism organizations has been updated in the directory, with URLs. Plans are to put a list of new members on the website, with minimal information for privacy purposes. Mona Hatfield asked about SLA's policy of not allowing membership information on the web.

Linda Paschal said that SLA is updating their membership database and Sammy reminded members to keep their information updated with SLA, especially new area codes. Donna Scheeder said that a card from SLA with a PIN number on it should be in the mail to members. This will allow members to update their information online.

Tom Lutgen asked for a round of applause for Lany McDonald and the 75th anniversary gala committee for all of their work.

Jim Hunter, chair of the nominations committee, said that they had over 20 names to choose from and that they were all good choices.

Chris Hardesty, public relations chair, said that seven students needing information about news librarianship had contacted him. He also announced that there were about 65 members contributing to this year's auction and sale. The 1998 sale raised over $2,000.

Ginny Everett asked about updating the Division brochure. Chris said that he had been told that that fell under the purview of the publications director. Carolyn Edds said that she was thinking about an update.

Marcia MacVane, small libraries chair, said that she is collecting email addresses to develop a mailing group.

John Cronin had no report for the strategic planning committee.

There was no old business.

Under new business, Chris Hardesty introduced the Vormelker-Thomas Student Award winner, Solvieg Nes. Solvieg, who is from Norway, is our first international winner. Chris said that there were 11 applicants representing nine schools and three countries.

Kathy Foley asked if we were going to have a presence at the Unity conference. Chris Hardesty said that we would look into it. Later, Carolyn Hardnett said that she would be a presenter at the Unity conference and would be happy to publicize the Division while there.

Ernest Perez asked for submissions to the professional journal that he is now editing.

Carolyn Edds asked members to think about ways to use the audio and video capabilities on the website, perhaps for next year's conference.

Carolyn Hardnett chastised the group at the business meeting for having no controversial issues to bring up. She therefore moved: "It's time for the News Division to change its name and we need to think about it." The motion was seconded by Barbara Semonche, who suggested "No News is Good News." After Ernest Perez called the question, the motion was adopted.

Tom Lutgen introduced the new board members: Debra Bade, Chris Hardesty and Stephanie Willen Brown. He then passed the gavel to Ginny Everett. The meeting was adjourned at 3:50 p.m. There were 58 members present.

Respectfully submitted,
Linda Henderson, Secretary

 


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