Mars Executive Committee MidWinter 1997 Minutes Tuesday February 18, 1997 Meeting was called to order at 9:35 AM. Present: ExComm Amy Wells. Denise Bennett, Paige Weston, Elliot Kanter, Pat Reisemann, Committee Chairs: Arlie Sims, Lee Dalzell, Visitors: Hal Mendelsohn, Andrea Copeland for the Public Libraries Committee 1. Announcements a. RUSA Board: New Update Editor: Beth Woodard, University of Illinois b. Appointed a Task Force to review funding for publications in response to an author with a contract with ALA Editions who approached the Board for funding for a survey. Groups considering publication were again reminded to go through channels and to begin by submitting a proposals to the Publications Committee. c. ALA has narrowed down candidate list for Executive Director. Majority of candidates under consideration do not have an graduate degree in library science. d, MARS Program in San Francisco will be traditional, a high tech program with low-tech presentations. Satellite hook-ups are very costly 2. Committee Reports a. Public Libraries (Andrea Copeland) Located an additional speaker for program at Annual, an individual who manages an agency that locates positions for persons with disabilities .On Monday morning, there is tour of the services for persons with disabilities provided by the San Francisco Public Library. Tour organizing would like MARS to co-sponsor.This time conflicts with GODORT GILS Program MARS is co-sponsoring. Current policy is not to co-sponsor simultaneous programs. conflicts. Pat Resiseman will check if there has been cosponsor-ship of simultaneous programs in the past. b. Management Committee (Lee Dalzell). Planning a Discussion Forum ( in conjunction with Managers in Mars) at San Francisco on teleconferencing covering services such as Global School House, World Bank, CUSeeMe. Topic will link with MARS program on teleconferencing. Committee will contact scheduling coordinator Sara Brownmiller to see if Discussion Group can follow immediately after the Committee meeting. Also discussed factors that are driving the selection process of electronic resources including circumstances that are out the librarian's control , i.e. consortial arrangements or institutional commitments.. The RUSA Program is San Francisco is dealing with some of these issues but is focused on large academic libraries. Committee was advised that if they worked on these issues as they relate to college and public libraries, they could provide a major service to librarians in those institutions. c. Education, Training and Support (Arlie Sims.) Working on ways to continually evaluate search engines and websites; trying to define appropriate methodologies for doing so. Alicia McManus will set-up a temporary closed Web site where committee members can send information. Looking forward to an Open Forum in a year. Were advised to test databases using the identical searches and to develop and then publish sample searches that trainers could use to determine the best search engine for given topics or fields. Committee will complete its work for the section review via email and submit a report at the end of March. 3. Section Review. a. Laranye Dallas, Chair of RUSA Organizations would like to have all materials from this section review in hand for review at the committee's Monday (June 28) meeting in San Francisco. Goal is to get materials to her a couple of weeks before conference. Organizations committee can also complete work on section review via email after Conference. Meeting was adjourned at 10:35 am Minutes transcribed by Marcella Stark MARS Secretary 4/28/97 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