MARS Executive Committee and Planning Committee Minutes Friday, June 15, 2001 Nikko Hotel, Ballroom III PRESENT: Executive Committee members, including incoming members: Nancy Buchanan, William McHugh, LeiLani Freund, Doris Ann Sweet, Naomi Lederer, Pat Riesenman, Carole Richter, Andrea Copeland, Linda Friend. Committee and Task Force Chairs, Representatives, and Planning Committee members (including incoming): David Hovde, Lesley Bell, John Glace, John Hinchcliffe, Scott Garton, (intern), Linda Keiter, George Porter, Martha Walker, Kathleen Kern, Rosemary Meszaros, Kelley Lawton, Jose Aguinaga, Michael Ciccone, Denise Bennett, Marcella Stark, Mary Pagliero Popp, Nancy Crane Portnow, Elliot Kanter, Arlie Simms, Natalie McDonough, Lori Morse, Toby A. Lyles. William McHugh, vice-chair, chair-elect presided. A. Orientation Introductions were made. Bill McHugh passed out an agenda, an orientation memo for chairs of committees, task forces and discussion groups, and forms for program proposals and for participation interest. B. News and Announcements 1. Naomi Lederer, Chair of Outreach and Birthday Party Planning, promoted tonight's 25 year birthday party. Thanks to extensive publicity and planning, a large group of attendees is expected. 2. A MARS representative is needed for the ALA New Members Roundtable orientation meeting on Saturday. John Hinchcliffe has handouts and notes. Natalie McDonough volunteered to attend for MARS. 3. Public Libraries Discussion Group on Virtual Reference Service, Saturday 9:30-11:00. 4. Hot Topics Discussion Group: Open URL and Link Servers, Saturday 11:30-12:30. 5. Mars Chair's Program: Library-Vendor Communications, Sunday 9-10:30. Program will be preceded by short business meeting where My Favorite Martian award will be announced. 6. Managers in Mars Discussion Group: 24x7 Reference, Sunday 4:30-5:30. 7. Products and Services is planning a forum for Midwinter conference. 8. Non MARS meetings of interest to Martians- a. RUSA/LAMA: Having it All (Amy Tracy Wells). Saturday 2-4. b. LITA E-Books and Journals IG: E-Books and future of copyright. (George Porter). Sunday 9-12:30. c. Library of Congress/RUSA sponsored forum on Digital Reference and Bibliographic Control: Options for Collaboration (Nancy Buchanan). Sunday, 4:30-6:30 pm. Hosted by Beacher Wiggin. 9. Three program proposals for 2002 need to be reviewed and approved by Executive Board. Forms are due Sunday at RUSA office. a. Education Training and Support (Arlie Sims): Care and feeding of the virtual librarians-training and support for electronic reference. Speaker panel representing different library types planned; focus is staff training for this function. RUSA ExComm voted to approve this proposal, which will go to the RUSA Conference Program Planning Committee. b. Local Systems & Services (Kathleen Kern): Usability testing for reference librarians: doing it cheap, right, yourself. 1.5 or 2 hour slot. Proposal is approved and will go forward to RUSA. c. Bill McHugh: Each section is guaranteed two programs, with good chance of getting a third. Usually best not to propose more than three programs. RUSA gets total of twelve in addition to RUSA President's Program. 10. Bill McHugh passed out 2001-2002 MARS roster to committee chairs; corrections are needed by July 9 for ALA Handbook. 11. One or two public library representatives could be used to fill committee spots, but most are completely filled. A few volunteer forms are available for passing out for few available openings. 12. Midwinter minutes were passed out, and will vote to approve Tuesday. 13. Election Results: Bill McHugh congratulated the new vice-chair elect LeiLani Freund, and new member-at-large Naomi Lederer. C. MARS Business 1. Section Review (Denise Bennett). Section reviews take place every five years. a. Every committee chair has to fill our a committee check list. b. Members-at-large will attend committee meetings for checklist review at Midwinter. Everyone has to schedule an actual meeting; committees won't be able to schedule only a discussion forum. c. General questions for section: overall objectives, fit with RUSA objectives. Section Review committee members are MARS representative to RUSA, members-at-large, Chair and Vice chair, Historian. RUSA doesn't want a huge report or elaborate documentation. d. Timetable: Midwinter planning and meeting; report will be submitted at Annual. Good scheduling will be required for MARS liaisons to meet with all committees for assessment meetings. 2. Orientation (other) for Committees: Bill McHugh distributed an Orientation Handout, and thanked incoming and outgoing committee chairs. Guidance and responsibilities: a. The MARS Handbook is available on the Web to provide guidance on procedures. b. RUSA Guides and ALA Handbook are available in the ALA Offices in the Convention Center. c. Planning Committee has developed "Martian-to-Martian Communications" for the Web site as tips and informal planning assistance. d. Chairs are responsible at Midwinter and Annual to attend first ExComm Meeting and to report back at one of the end of conference meetings. e. Chairs should fill our the committee reporting form (in Handbook) before leaving Annual. The form should be given to Marcella Stark either at the conference, or sent to her by July 6. Messages from MARS submissions are due to Anne Haynes by July 6 also. f. Tips for committee meetings: Use roster for attendance; try to get visitors involved. g. Review MARS goals which need to be approved by Planning Committee each year. Goals are influenced by Section activities, and intended as direction rather than constraint. h. MARS Publications- Members are encouraged to think about different kinds of MARS publication opportunities, and to consult the Publications Committee early in the process of considering a publication. The MARS Best List and the User Services Bibliography are two recent publications in RUSQ. Occasional Papers (the expanded User Behavior Bibliography is an example)need to be approved by RUSA. Alesia McManus can assist with Web projects. i. Program Proposals- The time frame for program approval usually begins with Midwinter. Programs need to be approved one year in advance. One advantage of an official program is that it includes a lot of formal publicity. (1)Discussion Groups and Forums are more informal. Any committee can sponsor a discussion forum, in addition to the two standing MARS Discussion Groups. (2)If a committee is asked to co-sponsor a program they should bring the proposal to ExComm for review, especially in the interests of preventing time conflicts. j. Committee members should be encouraged to subscribe to MARS-L. k.$50 budget is available to each committee; other financial requests have to be made at Midwinter for the following fiscal year. l. Post-annual responsibilities - Brief reports from outgoing committee chairs should be sent to Ann Haynes for Messages from Mars by July 6. - Send archives of old files to the Secretary (Carole Richter) who will compile and send to RUSA Archives. These files may include descriptions of projects,prints of Web pages and other notes. m. Prepare for Midwinter-Committee chairs will receive forms to request meeting space and time in September; return the form promptly to Scheduling Coordinator Carrie Bickner, not to ALA. A sample schedule is in the Handbook. 3. Nancy Bodner has asked that MARS volunteers staff the RUSA booth for four hours on Saturday, Sunday or Monday. 4. Pat Riesenman expressed concern about RUSA Update editing of MARS-L Messages; Toby Lyles suggested that a word count for the full version be given. It would be helpful to know how much space we will have. 5. Tickler File- Denise Bennett described the background. The file was created two years ago in response to a desire to have a list of interesting potential topics available. Should this list be reviewed and updated? Marcella Stark and Denise Bennett will update the Tickler File. 6. Bill McHugh introduced a discussion of virtual member strategy. What experience have committees had so far? It is difficult to sustain membership if seldom or never able to attend a conference. Projects are easier to participate in 'virtually' than decision-making discussions, although listservs and conference calls can help. More than one virtual member on a committee might be a problem. 7. Chair's Program Planning Committee for Annual 2002. Bill McHugh passed out a program proposal. Pam Sieving is the new chair of this committee, which will meet on Sunday. Minutes transcribed by Carole Richter, MARS Secretary 1/15/2002