MARS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, PLANNING COMMITTEE AND COMMITTEE CHAIRS MEETING

Saturday, January 25, 2003

LOEWS Hotel  -- Congress A/B

 

PRESENT:

Executive Committee Members:

LeiLani Freund, Chair; George Porter, Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect;  William McHugh, Past Chair; Naomi Lederer; Alesia McManus; Mary Pagliero Popp; Doris Ann Sweet; Anne Haynes; Pat Riesenman; Helen Subbio

 

Committee and Task Force Chairs, Representatives, and Planning Committee Members: 

Rosemary Meszaros; Arlie Sims; Danianne Mizzy; Lesley Bell; Mary Stansbury; Mary Mintz; Denise Bennett; Debbie Bezanson; Kate Todd; Alan Stewart; Rick Hart; Kelley Lawton; Y. Diana Wu; Danise Hoover; Linda Friend; Lori Morse; Vicki Mills; Julie Borden; Jana Ronan; Lisa Horowitz; Amy Tracy Wells.

 

LeiLani Freund, Chair, opened the meeting at 2:15 pm.

 

  1.  Introductions and Announcements

 

LeiLani Freund welcomed everyone to the meeting and asked all present to introduce themselves and to make announcements at the same time.   Announcements were made about MARS related discussions:  the User Access to Services Committee Discussion about Electronic Authentication, the Management of Electronic Reference Services Committee discussion about the NISO Question and Answer Protocol for Reference, the MARS Products and Services Committee discussion on One Stop Searching and Effects on Information Literacy, and the first-ever meeting of the Virtual Reference Discussion Group. 

 

LeiLani called for additions to the agenda and noted that the agenda was a guideline for the work of the three meetings at the conference.  She passed around the 2002-03 roster and asked all to make corrections in their own names and to review the roster at committee meetings.

 

  1. Orientation and Reminders
    1. LeiLani announced that she had copies of the Atlanta orientation handout if anyone still needed one.  She reminded committee chairs to turn in their committee attendance forms and asked discussion group chairs to FAX a copy of the attendance sheets for their discussion group sessions to Becki Whitaker for the RUSA Membership Committee. These attendance sheets should include affiliation and email address. 
    2. LeiLani also asked chairs to submit reports after their meetings to the MARS Chair and Vice-Chair and to the Chair of the Planning Committee, as well as to submit a report to Messages from MARS.  George Porter asked chairs to contact him and LeiLani directly if they had personnel issues.
    3. George talked about the appointment process and asked chairs to talk to their members about plans to stay on the committee, to remind members and guests at their meetings about the Committee Volunteer form on the MARS web site, and, for those who are leaving their committee chair roles, to suggest a new chair.  LeiLani noted that comments on the Committee Status Report from the committee chair are invaluable.

 

  1. Messages from MARS

 

Anne Haynes reminded everyone that the next deadline for Messages from MARS was February 1.  Articles should be brief for inclusion in the post-Midwinter report in the RUSA Quarterly.  Longer articles may be sent for the web version on the MARS Web site.  She also corrected her email address:  anhaynes@indiana.edu  Both Anne and LeiLani noted that this issue is a good place to report on discussion sessions from Midwinter and to announce preconferences. 

 

The deadline for the pre-ALA Annual Conference issue will be about a week before March 13.

 

  1. Review of Actions Via Email

 

LeiLani reviewed ExComm actions since the last meeting in Atlanta. 

    1. Atlanta minutes--The minutes from the Annual Conference in Atlanta were approved by email.
    2. Interim Web Coordinator appointed—Daisy Benson had to resign her position of web coordinator for medical reasons.  Jian Liu volunteered to serve and we have been very grateful for his help.

We will discuss the recommendation process for the next coordinator at this conference.  ALA is switching to a different management system for web pages and Donavan Vicha had suggested we appoint someone who knows MARS and the MARS web site.  Jian fits these criteria.

    1. Rick Hart was appointed as the MARS representative to the new RUSA Professional Development Committee. 

Rick announced that for the next meeting of the Professional Development Committee he is to come back with ideas of programs the section has done that could be repeated or put on a web page to meet members’ continuing education needs.  A variety of suggestions were made including:  the Public Libraries Committee web page, the Virtual Reference preconference from last year and this year, and programs from the Education, Training and Support Committee on “Riding the Merry Go Round” and “Care and Feeding of the Virtual Reference Librarian.” It was suggested that the program “I’m Addicted to Google and Afraid to Admit It” might be made into a tutorial and the Products and Services Committee vendor discussions could be adapted.    Denise Bennett noted that the impetus for this activity came from the RUSA retreat. 

 

  1. MARS Business
    1. Conference Program 2003 (Rosemary Meszaros) – Rosemary noted that she will send a fuller report on Tuesday.  The program title will be “The Information Commons Challenge:  Take Ownership of Technology Before It Takes Ownership of You” and will be held on June 22 at 10:30 am.   A web page is being put together for the program.  Planned speakers include:  Allison Cowgill of Colorado State University, Michael Edmunds of the University of Toronto ScotiaBank Information Commons, and a speaker from Arizona.   Vicki Mills suggested that, for persons unfamiliar with the concept, a virtual tour might be helpful to include in the web site.
    2. The new MARS LITA Representative was introduced.  She is Diana Wu of San Jose State University.
    3. Planning Committee (Linda Friend) – Linda passed around a handout about plans for reviewing the MARS Handbook.  She noted that her committee’s goals for this conference were:  a) to finalize the section goals (done every Midwinter) b) review the Web Coordinator position; c) review the content and format of the MARS Handbook; d) discuss virtual membership; and e) look at the section review.

Several suggestions were made for additional activities by the Planning Committee.  Naomi Lederer suggested adding the committee member responsibilities from RUSA (or at least a link to it).  This would parallel the chair responsibilities already in the Handbook.  Linda noted that some of the Martian to Martian Transmissions were ready to be moved to the Handbook.  Vicki Mills mentioned that the Local Systems and Services Committee would like to make some changes in their committee charge and was directed to bring those to the Executive Committee first.  LeiLani stated that Jian Liu had brought to her attention the fact that the PDF and HTML versions of the Handbook differ. 

    1. Virtual Members (LeiLani Freund) – LeiLani announced that Virtual Members are now officially called “e-members.”  Denise Bennett talked about the fact that there was an ALA document expressing concern about allowing virtual members to vote in committee decisions to which RUSA had responded.  Bill McHugh said that the RUSA Board thought RUSA could work with the language in the ALA proposal.
    2. Task force to explore a list of fee-based web sites (LeiLani Freund) – LeiLani stated that RUSA was interested in having MARS pursue a list of fee-based web sites similar to the MARS Best List.  Amy Tracy Wells has agreed to be a consultant to such a group.  Amy suggested that the group be charged to explore and positively or negatively recommend whether to develop such a list.  It should consider what specific goals are satisfied through the development of such a list in conjunction with a specific publication vehicle, which will both motivate and guide development of such a product.   Some of the questions it would answer included:

 

a. Why do we want to produce another list (specific goals):  RUSQ publishable?  Librarians do not review only free books; how do websites differ?  To provide an educative component of professional development.  MARS Best is very successful; we can leverage our expertise.  Balance free against fee.  It will raise MARS visibility.  Someone else might do it, although we can do it better.

b. Who specifically is already producing a fee-based list?  Library Journal did one.

c.  What issues need to be raised?  Common access to specific resources through defined aggregators (e.g., ERIC through FirstSearch).  All or select priced resources.  Subject emphasis vs. general reference.  Model the free “MARS Best” procedures.  Timeframe.   With CODES?

Bill McHugh moved and Naomi Lederer seconded the appointment of the Best of Fee-Based Reference Web Site Investigative Task Force to examine the feasibility of a MARS list of best fee-based web sites and to recommend possible procedures for creation of the list.   The motion passed unanimously.  Alesia McManus was asked to share this information with the Publications Committee.

 

The meeting was adjourned at:  4:05 pm

 

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Pagliero Popp