Minutes of the Board of Directors

Aug. 2 , 2006

University at Albany

Attending:

Deborah Bernnard ( President), Lorraine Melita (Secretary), Liz Strickland (Treasurer), Pat Hults (Communications Chair), Gretchen Lieb (Government Relations Chair)

1. Approval of minutes of the last meeting

Bernnard moved to accept the minutes. Lieb seconded the motion. The motion was passed by the Board.

2. Committee Reports

a. Communications – Pat Hults

Documents continue to be added to the website. Send request for any desired additions to Pat. Abigail Bordeaux and Bern Mulligan are committee members this year.

b. Membership – Suzanne Preate (absent. No report)

c. Government Relations – Gretchen Lieb

• The key for this year’s activities will be getting involved with other statewide organizations, such as NYLINK and NYSHEI. Deborah suggested that Gretchen poll our membership for input on their legislative concerns.
• ACRL has a Legislative Initiative this year; Gretchen is our contact for that. ACRL has a good legislative website which Gretchen recommends be linked to from ENY/ACRL’s webpage.
• Deborah suggested that Gretchen write a legislative report to be included in the chapter newsletter. Pat suggested a legislative blog be added to ENY/ACRL’s webpage. Gretchen and Pat will work on that.
• NYLA’s Lobby Day is scheduled in March and Gretchen will coordinate efforts with them.

d. Program – Deborah Bernard (Fran Apollo absent)

Deborah distributed the Spring Conference evaluation forms. Suggestions include more interactive components and the feeling that Poster Sessions are hard to draw quality presentations, but that they are a good opportunity for newer librarians.

• Deborah has asked Fran to look at policy and procedures for setting up regional Brown Bag programs. These might include schedules and regions, subcommittees to organize them, identification of regions, and methods for selecting topics.
• NYLA has offered to give us a slot for a workshop at their Fall Conference. The Program Committee will consider whether we want to accept and if so, how we would use it.
• The organizers of the Fall Symposium presented by the University at Albany sent a thank you to ENY/ACRL for our co-sponsorship. We will be listed as a co-sponsor in their flyers and Deborah has been asked to give the concluding remarks.
• There is tentative interest by Syracuse to sponsor our Spring Conference this year.

3. Officer Reports

A. President

Michelle Parry is the new archivist. She is looking at digital
archives for ENY/ACRL. ACRL allows server space for chapters.
Another suggestion was to investigate The SUNY Office of Library
And Information Services which offers access to the SUNY
repository. Vassar was also mentioned as a possible host for the
digital archives.

B. Past President

C. Treasurer

The treasury is in very good shape. As of 6/30/2006, the balance
was $19,276.89. Five hundred dollars ($500) was sent to U of Albany as
our contribution towards the Fall Symposium. A $2400 check was sent to
Hamilton. Scott has been paid. The balance in the Newkirk account as of
6/30/06 was $16,167.58.

The Chapter’s incorporation papers were sent to Megan Bielefeld
at ACRL (at their request). When Strickland took over as treasurer, she
changed the treasurer information with the NY State Tax Dept. She also
mentioned that the procedures for doing this need to be updated in the
officer's handbook. She will send the changes to Pat. Strickland also
handed out tax exempt forms to the board members.

D. Secretary

A discussion was held regarding publishing the minutes and the
financial information. The Board agreed that the minutes for all meetings
and financial information from the annual meeting will be published on
the web.

4. Old Business

a. New Archivist, Michelle Parry.

b. Straw vote for by-law change results: 41 ballots were returned. 40 ballots
marked “Yes” to changing the by-laws. 1 ballot was invalid as it was
sent by an organization with no name written on the envelope. The Board
noted that the Secretary should certify the results with the Board stamp
and send the results to Michelle. The membership will be notified.

c. Brochure: Deborah recommended that we create a brochure to use in
recruitment. She asked that Pat and Suzanne work on this. The brochure
could include benefits of membership, cost, what the organization does,
what are its initiatives, pictures, past conference themes, description of
chapter regions and their relation to ACRL, and a mail-in form to join.

d. Gas Mileage: Discussion of gas mileage amount will be sent out to
membership. It was suggested that gas mileage reimbursement should be
made the same as the state rate. This will be discussed at the Annual
meeting. The gas mileage request should be submitted to member
organizations first. Stickland will review to see how many members
have asked for reimbursement.

e. Discussion of treasurers term: The Board decided to leave the treasurers term
at 2 years.

5. New Business

The Board will hold a conference call for the January meeting. A meeting in
April will be revisited in January. The annual conference will be held in
May.

Respectfully submitted,

Lorraine Melita