ALA Minwinter Conference 1997 MARS Executive Committee Minutes Saturday February 15, 1997 Present: ExComm: Denise Bennett, Amy Wells, Marcella Stark, Elliot Kanter, Pat Reiseman, ex officio: Nancy Bodner, Paige Weston. Committee Chairs: Nancy Buchanan, Arlie Sims, Nicholas Roselli, Jennifer Heise, Peggy Seiden, Linda Friend, Pat Clark, Lyman Ross, Julia Rholes, Brenda McDonald. Visitors: Hal Mendelsohn, Naomi Lederer, Karen Diaz, Juleigh Clark Meeting was called to order at 2 PM. A. Orientation 1. Introductions: a.Committee members and chairs were introduced Committee rosters were routed. Return corrected rosters to Paige Weston by the end of Conference. b.Volunteer forms and Membership Status Reports go to Amy Wells. Copies of committees minutes and committee products should be sent to Amy Wells, Paige Weston, Julia Rholes (Chair of Planning Committee) and committee's ExComm liaison. B. Announcements: 1. MARS News a. Members were encouraged attend and participate in the Hot Topics Discussion Forum, scheduled Sunday morning from 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM. Nicholas Roselli has agreed to chair Hot Topics b.Representatives were solicited to attend the LITA Program Planning Committee. MARS is co-spsonsoring the LITA program at Annual 2, RUSA News a. Will again consider the copyright statement on the committee appointment form. ALA maintains that it holds copyright on all committee products. b.Paige drew attention to report of the ALA Structure Revision Task Force. The report essentially said nothing needs overhauling. c. RUSA Program Coordinating (Peggy Seiden). Two preconferences are planned for Annual Conference: The History Section is planning a program on genealogical research, the BRASS offering is "International Governments: Providing Business and Economic Information." 3. Non MARS meetings of interest. a. There is Sunday morning session on merging libraries and computing centers which promises to be an introduction to the culture conflict discussion organized by the Managers in MARS Discussion Group scheduled for Sunday afternoon. b. Lise Dyckmann noted that that the Freedom to Read Foundation has available arguments developed by ALA, ACLU and the Justice Department in conjunction with CDA ( Communications Decency Act. case before the Supreme Court. It was agreed that it would be appropriate to post these materials on MARS-L. C. Committees, Task Forces, Liaison representatives, and Coordinator Reports 1. Education, Training, and Support. (Arlie Sims). Considering developing "blue sheets" for search engines, or project dealing with faculty liaison. 2. Local Systems (Lyman Ross) Projects include beefing up the committee's web site and evaluation of Web interfaces to OPACS. Also considering the role of reference in designing homepages, and guidelines for developing a good reference Website. 3. Nominating (Peggy Seiden). Nancy Bodner and Lise Dyckman agree to run for vice-chair, Bill McHugh and Doris Ann Sweet for member-at-large. Committee completed all of its work via email. 4. Planning (Julia Rholes) There are plenty of copies of the handbook at this meeting. Working with Amy on her goals and objectives for 1998. 5. Products and Services (Linda Friend) Considering again sponsoring open forums with vendors. Developing a committee presence on the Web. 6. Program.( Pat Clark) Program title: "How to plan, implement, and deliver a teleconference for staff training." Speakers have confirmed, committee is working on a draft brochure, glossary and bibliography. Information available on the Web at http://www.ala.org/alaorg/rasd/mars/teleconf.html 7. Program 98 (Peggy Seiden) Considering topics : the value of the Internet, faculty who incorporate the Web in to their intellectual life, scalability of search engines, information, user studies. 8. Public Libraries (Brenda McDonald). Program for Annual Conference "Technology and Reference for Persons with Disabilities." Program scheduled on June 28 9:30 AM-12:30 PM. Working on handouts and Web site. Committee was encouraged to seek cosponsors for program in the Public Library Association by posting to the ALA Conference planning Listserv. Committee is also working on updating their glossary. 9. Publications (Nancy Buchanan). "Twenty Years of MARS in Print" will be published in RQ in the spring. Jian Liu has been appointed the Messages from MARS editor. Interviewing a candidate to manage MARS-L at their next meeting at this conference. Distributed a model for new MARS logo. The MARS red planet graphic met with overwhelming approval, but consensus was the draft logo needs a modern typeface Additional examples will be posed to the Web for members to examine. Committees are advised not put more information on gophers but rather concentrate on Web publishing. There was some overall discussion on what sorts of materials could go on the Web without Publications Committee review. The Publications Committee will define examples of items which are appropriately displayed as a commmittee's work without the assistance of Publications vs. those which are, in fact, more formal documents and which are required to move through the publications process. Committee chairs are encouraged to use local servers to post draft materials for review. 10. Hot Topics (Roselli) --See announcements. 11. Managers in MARS (Jennifer Heise) Program scheduled for 4:30pm Sunday afternoon. Raised issues of setting up guest books and short term listservs whereby interested members could continue discussion after meetings. Was encouraged to pursue with disucssion group members. 12. Scheduling (Sara Brownmiller) Thanked for posting the excellent scheduling calendars. s 14 . Awards (Elliot Kanter) Two candidates for the "My Favorite Martian Award." 15. New Members ( Donna Hogan). See notes on forms above. D. Other Business 1. Minutes Will be distributed electronically. Members are submit corrections within ten working days or minutes will stand as trasncribed. 2. Agreed to co-sponsor the GODORT on program GILS. Consensus: we need to so-sponsor meetings is we are to continue to solicit co-sponsors for our programs, recruit to the Section, reduce Association-wide duplication of programming effort, and reduce the number of schedule conflicts. Meeting was adjourned at 3:40 PM Transcribed by Marcella Stark MARS Secretary 4/30/97 Marcella Stark Head, Reference Services Central University Libraries Southern Methodist University Box 0135 Dallas, TX 75275-0135 Tel: (214) 768-2259 Fax: (214) 768-1842 E-mail: mstark@mail.smu.edu