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Vol. 22, No. 4/Summer 2000

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Business Meeting

By Linda Henderson

MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING OF THE NEWS DIVISION OF THE SPECIAL LIBRARIES ASSOCIATION

Philadelphia, Monday, June 12, 2000


The meeting was called to order by Ginny Everett at 3:07 p.m. She introduced Donna Scheeder, who was the SLA proctor for the meeting.

Ginny asked for a motion to approve the minutes of the 1999 business meeting. Justin Scroggs so moved with a second from Charlie Campo.



Reports:

Chair-elect Debra Bade gave the conference report. She welcomed all to the conference and announced that PTFS would be sponsoring the first-ever dessert and coffee reception in the Division suite after the Awards Banquet on Monday night. She said that as of May 15, 211 division members were registered for the conference and guessed that that number would rise to between 250 and 275.

Debra thanked the program moderators and speakers, session volunteers and the planners at SLA Headquarters. She thanked Connie Pickett for hosting the tour of the Philadelphia Newspapers on Saturday and gave an overview of the rest of the week's programs and activities. And she recognized the sponsors who helped with this year's programs and suite. They were: Hoover's Inc.; bigchalk.com; MediaStream Inc.; NewsEdge; Jane's; iCopyright; BET Publications; Daily Oklahoman; Bell & Howell/Proquest; PTFS; Freedom Forum; Factiva; Lexis-Nexis; Dialog; Gale Group; and Northern Light Technology.

Chris Hardesty gave the treasurer's report. He explained the printed report that was handed out and said that the Division appears to be in good financial shape. He announced that suite fees would be $25 this year and that the silent auction would be held Tuesday, with a follow-up sale on Wednesday.

Awards chair Carol Campbell talked about the banquet to be held on Monday evening.

Rob Robinson, interim Director of Professional Development, reported that about 70-75 people attended the continuing education class on computer-assisted reporting on Sunday and received positive comments from the attendees.

Carolyn Edds, Director of Publications, was not able to attend conference, so Ginny Hauswald read her report. She said that it was the sixth anniversary of the Newslib listserv and that it had recently migrated to the web with its archives. Newslib currently has about 1000 members. She thanked Barbara Semonche for continuing to moderate and maintain Newslib.

Carolyn thanked Sammy Alzofon and Linda Paschal for the new Membership directory, which NewsBank sponsors. She mentioned the News Library News committee (report later in meeting) and thanked Jennifer Evert for her two years as editor. Carolyn asked for suggestions for improvement to the web site, including extra content for the NLN pages.

She said that web site continues to receive lots of hits, especially the newspaper archives page, the experts page, the intranets section, NLN and the jobs page. She thanked Jennifer and Andrea Diconi for working to improve the site and said that Andrea has started posting new members to the site.

She announced that Chandra Pierce of the Herald-Journal in Spartanburg, SC would be the new Web Master. She also asked for additional volunteers to maintain the website.

M.J. Crowley reported that the archives have started their migration to Chapel Hill. The old scrapbooks were the first to move. A graduate student will be helping to index the print material for the web site. She is talking to Elizabeth Durso at MediaStream about loading the archives into the MediaStream archive to allow for a word search.

Justin Scroggs, chair of the Automation Committee, reported that that the photo keyword list is posted on the web site and an updated list of archiving and digitizing vendors will be there, as well.

Melinda Carlson, Broadcast chair, was not able to attend conference, so Marvin Allan reported for her that the News Division and the Broadcast Committee were co-sponsoring the session with Jim Lehrer on Tuesday morning.

Chris Hardesty reported for By-laws chair Leigh Poitinger that there were no changes.

Ginny Everett reported that Jacci Cenacveira has stepped down as Diversity chair due to time constraints and said that there was no report.

Employment chair Rosemary Nelms reported that she has been monitoring the job postings on Newslib and gave figures for the last year. She said that she saw 76 jobs posted and that they broke down as follows:

  • Reference librarian/researcher, full time - 38
  • Reference librarian/researcher, part time - 7
  • Library manager - 8
  • Photo librarian - 3
  • Library assistant - 2
  • Intern position - 2

Plus one each of several other job titles. Of those postings, 21 required an MLS and 18 said that an MLS was preferred. Skills required included 38 jobs needing Internet searching capabilities and 30 needing experience with Dow Jones and/or Nexis. Rosemary asked if posting resumes on the web or to Newslib would be a good idea.

Heidi Yacker, our new Government Relations chair, reported on two bills in Congress that SLA is currently watching. The first is HR 354, which is an anti-piracy act. She reported that SLA is against this bill and described the bill and its feared consequences. The second bill she described was HR 1858, The Consumer and Investor Access to Information Act, which SLA supports.

She also described the Uniform Computer Information Technology Act, which strengthens licenses for software and may lead to uniform licensing laws in all states. SLA's position is that it is anti-consumer because it may make it too easy to protect software flaws. Heidi also updated the status of the NTIS, which now will remain open until 2001.

Nancy Stewart gave the International Relations Committee report for Phyllis Lyons. She reported that the News Division had given SLA $1000 for a student scholarship to Global 2000 in Brighton. There will be a total of 17 scholarships awarded. The News Division will be hosting one program in Brighton on October 17.

Nancy also announced four new Freedom Forum fellows: Cathy Tierney; Elizabeth Hathaway; Barbara Oliver and PJ Grier.

Membership Chair Sammy Alzofon reported that the Division had lost about 100 members over the last year, but that SLA figures may not be accurate. She said that they report Division membership at 809. The membership list is on the website. She has lots of extra copies of last year's membership directory and may send them out to library schools.

Sammy reminded members to keep their information current by updating it on the web. She said that it is a two-step process and not everyone is completing the second step needed. She attended the membership workshop at conference and reported that SLA is trying to keep better records and that they are creating a bank of ads to use in brochures and websites. She said membership in SLA overall is declining. She thanked Linda Paschal and NewsBank for their continuing sponsorship of the membership directory.

Donna Scheeder commented for SLA on membership issues. She said that the new membership website will be finished in the fall and that SLA has added a new award - Excellence in Teaching.

Jennifer Evert reported that the new editor of News Library News will be Leigh Poitinger. She then introduced Linda Henderson, who reported on the NLN committee's work. The committee solicited bids for printing NLN, to try to cut the printing costs. Linda Paschal got a bid from NewsBank that is almost $1000 per issue under the current cost and it was decided to give the printing business NewsBank. Linda H. thanked Linda P. and Jennifer Evert for their work on the bids and said that the committee will continue its work to try to cut design costs.

The nominations committee report was given by Judy Canter for Sharon Reeves, chair. She thanked the committee for coming up with a very strong slate of candidates. She said that Ellie Briscoe, Elections Teller reported that of 823 ballots sent out, 246 (30%) were returned and all were valid, unlike previous years. Ellie attributed this to a change in procedure. This year a second set of labels was ordered and the labels were put on the tellers envelope. She announced this year's election winners: Jody Habayeb, Chair-elect; Alice Pepper, Secretary; Mona Hatfield, Director of Publications and Carolyn Edds, Director of Education.

Publicity chair Jeff Graveline has left news librarianship for law school, so Ginny Everett gave his report and announced that the position was open. Jeff made a preliminary design for a new Division brochure, which Mona will take over.

Marcia MacVane, chair of the Small Libraries Committee thanked those who had submitted ideas for her NLN column and asked for more. She also reminded members of the meeting during conference.

Linda Henderson read the Strategic Planning Committee report for John Cronin, chair. The full report will be posted to Newslib and to the website after conference. She thanked the committee for its work, especially Charlie Campo, who provided the wording for the report.

Ginny announced the Vormelker Thomas Student Award winner - Jessica Baumgart.

Ginny called for a motion to approve the committee reports. John Cronin so moved and Sammy Alzofon seconded the motion.

There was no old business.


New Business:

Under new business, Lany McDonald announced that Barbara Semonche had won the Rose Vormelker Award from SLA, but was unable to attend because her husband, Jack had undergone surgery. She then read the following resolution:

Be it resolved that the members of the News Division proudly salute the most deserving recipient of the Rose Vormelker Award, our friend and colleague, Barbara Semonche, for her inspired efforts to promote the profession of news librarianship and to mentor and guide both library and journalism students with unceasing enthusiasm and uncommon wisdom.

Donna Scheeder moved that the resolution be approved and Carolyn Hardnett seconded the motion.

Chris Hardesty announced that Factiva had donated a Palm Pilot to be raffled off to all those who paid their suite fees.

John Cronin announced that there were 11 newcomers and the place and time of the newcomers' wrap-up.

The new officers were installed and Ginny turned the gavel over to Debra, who asked for a motion to adjourn.

Lany McDonald so moved and Justin Scroggs seconded the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 4:25.

-- Respectfully submitted, Linda Henderson, Secretary


Linda Henderson is the Library Director of the Providence Journal. You can contact her at lhenders@projo.com.


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