MARS Executive Committee Minutes (2001 Annual, San Francisco 6/19/2001)

MARS Executive Committee

Minutes

Tuesday June 19, 2001 Crown Plaza, Sutter III

PRESENT:  RUSA Vice-President Carol Tobin, Executive Committee members: 
William McHugh, Nancy Buchanan, Linda Friend, Doris Ann Sweet, Pat Riesenman, 
Naomi Lederer, Carole Richter. 

Committee and Task Force Chairs, Representatives and Planning 
Committee members: Marcella Stark, Mary Pagliero Popp, Lori Morse, 
Mariana Fitzgerald, Rosemary Meszaros, Pam Sieving.

Nancy Buchanan presided.

A. Announcements Nancy Buchanan announced that minutes from Midwinter 2001 will be
	reviewed and approved virtually. Two ad-hoc groups will be 
	established, for section review and for virtual reference guidelines.

B. Committee and Task Force Reports

	1. Outreach and Birthday Party (Naomi Lederer)
		a. Met Sunday to discuss the MARS Birthday Party. Nancy 
		Buchanan will send thank you letters to sponsors. Kelley Lawton 
		is the incoming chair. Becki Whitaker MARS representative to RUSA 
		Membership. 
		b. Currently there are no Mentoring or Happy Hour coordinators. 
		Paige	Weston reported on mentor feedback; may just be simple 
		introduction at Happy Hour. Need for MARS Outreach continues; 
		has function beyond outreach activities. 
		c. Tentative plan is to hold Midwinter Happy Hour at the Club 360, 
		33rd floor revolving rooftop lounge at the World Trade Center.
		Nancy observed that the official exhibit opening is Friday at 5:15, 
		which may impact Meet Martians.
		d. MARS has run out of brochures. Outreach is natural home
		for this function. RUSA should be contacted to verify the brochure
		status. Outreach needs to be added to the list of committees on the 
		brochure.

	2. MARS Best Web Sites Task Force (Lori Morse)
		The MARS Best Task Force is working on RUSQ article. Fourteen 
		people are currently on the committee. There are 32 winning sites 
		which each received 3 or more favorable votes.
		
		
	3. RUSA Access to Information (Lori Morse)-Midwinter Forum topic 
	will focus on user privacy.

	4. User Access to Services (Mary Popp for Sally Jacobs) 
		a. The committee's bibliographic article on user behavior in 
		searching electronic resources article was published in current 
		issue of RUSQ. An Occasional Paper expanding this article is 
		the next step, and has already been approved by RUSA 
		Publications Committee. The goal is have publication completed 
		by Annual 2002. The Web version will have to be removed from 
		the MARS Web site when the print publication is completed.
	
	5. Listserv information-Nancy Buchanan announced that Donovan Vicha, 
	RUSA Web Program Officer, can set up lists on the ALA server for 
	committees.

	6. RUSA Planning and Finance (Bill McHugh)
		a. There will be some difficult years for RUSA with a cash reserve 
		deficit projected at $39,000. Eliminating the print RUSA Update
		will be a significant savings. Approved expenses that contribute 
		to the deficit are $10,000 for a Charles McClure study on digital 
		reference standards. The RUSA Institute lost about $30,000.
		RUSA is encouraging units to consider planning a Pre-conference 
		workshop. At this point Midwinter approval would be required for 
		a Pre-conference in Toronto 2003.
		b. Sections are being asked to contribute to contribute to the legal costs 
		of fighting CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act).
		c. There is hope for long term returns from continuing education,
		publications, and membership.

	7. President's Program 2002 (Pam Sieving)
	Handouts with program description were passed. Three speakers are
	anticipated. Funds are available for breakfast for speakers. MARS
	has $750 total available for speaker expenses. The program will
	focus on search interface design.

	8. Nominating (Linda Friend) Not yet ready to report.

	9. Planning Committee (Marcella Stark) 
		a. Martian-to-Martian Transmissions will be updated after the 
		conference. Sample questions for program evaluations, and 
		outlines for speaker comments will be included.
		b. The committee needs an intern position to work on 
		reformatting the MARS Handbook. Bill McHugh has identified
		someone for this task.
		c. Support and transition has been built into the positions
		of Scheduling Coordinator and Historian. These appointments 
		will be for indefinite time periods.
		d. There was discussion about the position description for
		Scheduling Coordinator, and a few changes of wording were 
		made. A motion to approve position description of Scheduling
		Coordinator was approved.
		e. MARSBEST Task Force-Met with current and past chairs to 
		discuss organization issues; recommended a move to
		standing committee status. Developed purpose, membership
		requirements, terms of office, specific responsibilities.
		The committee name will be MARSBEST Free Web Sites. The
		Executive Committee voted to approve the committee status.


Minutes transcribed by Carole Richter, MARS Secretary
1/15/2002