Art Libraries Society
Central Plains
ARLIS/CP is a chapter of:
Fall 2005 Business Meeting Minutes
Inn of the Governors
Santa Fe, NM
October 27-30, 2005
The Fall 2005 chapter meeting was held in Santa Fe, well beyond the bounds of the Central Plains, as a joint meeting with the Mountain West chapter. Each chapter held a separate business meeting on October 29, 2005.
Chair Susan Bobo called the meeting to order at 1:05 p.m. Members in attendance were Susan Craig, Mikael Kriz, Tom Young, Lois Crane, M.J. Poehler, Ellen Petraits, Kay Logan-Peters, Clare Vasquez, and Midwest Representative Leigh Gates. The minutes of the last meeting were approved and the treasurer’s report was accepted.
Midwest Representative’s Report:
Leigh Gates reported on the mid-year meeting of the Board at Cornell University. The new executive board members were announced (they are listed on the ARLIS/NA website). The national meeting at Banff (May 5-9, 2006) features strong programming. It is hoped that the absence of big-city distractions will promote intensive networking among members. Future national conferences will be held in Atlanta (2007), San Diego (2008, a joint meeting with VRA), and Indianapolis (2009). ARLIS/NA continues to solicit comments about its newly redesigned website. Summer workshops will be held at Duke this year and Portland next year. The Executive Board approved the strategic plan, but the language is still being refined. Core competencies have been posted on the members only part of the ARLIS/NA website.
Discussion with Midwest Representative:
Leigh fielded questions: any movement on electronic archiving? Leigh will check to see if a task force has been established. Will the national organization host all chapters’ websites? No, not at this time. ARLIS/CP’s website is impressive, thanks to Susan Bobo. Might there be a meeting of chapter webmasters? Margaret Webster really like the web masters meeting idea. She suggests that a meeting might be pulled together in Banff, if only on an informal basis. Susan Bobo will contact Nedda Ahmed, ARLIS Website Editor, to see if she might be interested in facilitating.
Some chapter members are frustrated by the fact that the ARLIS web site members password had not been sent in their membership renewal letter as it had in the previous year. This definitely cut down on membership use of the new web site. Could we make sure that the password is included in subsequent renewal letters or sent separately for easy access? Margaret Webster says the password WILL be sent along with membership renewal this year. Susan Craig suggested rebuilding the Collection Development information that formerly resided on the ARLIS/NA website.
Old Business:
Thanks to the nominating committee M. J. Poehler and Ellen Petraits, an excellent candidate was found for the only open position. Ellen Urton was elected unanimously as Vice Chair/Chair Elect. It was suggested that instead of email ballots, the chapter use a service like Survey Monkey, that we could subscribe to for only a month at a time, as needed.
Susan Craig offered a preview of the upcoming meeting at Lawrence, Kansas to be held in March 2006. The program will potentially include a panel discussion with a focus on several models for digital imaging projects: the University of Kansas’ art museum, architecture school, and art history program have each pursued different courses in digitizing visual resources. Another possible presentation might concern GIS (Geographic Information Services) and its applications in architecture. In mid-March of 2006, the Spencer Museum of Art will have an exhibition of Asian textiles; Susan will contact the curator for a tour and perhaps a presentation. Other possibilities for programming or tours are the Design-Build houses built by K.U.’s architecture studio. Also discussed was the possibility of changing the scheduling of the meeting—perhaps have meetings all day Thursday and Friday and no Saturday tour or program?
New Business:
The major project for the chapter is the update of the old directory, Who’s Who in Central Plains (1997). Susan Bobo and new volunteers Kay Logan-Peters and Mikael Kriz will mastermind the project. It seems likely that the directory will continue in electronic format only. A new title would give a more accurate idea of the contents: Resources of the Central Plains, perhaps? Send your title suggestions to Susan Bobo. The working group of Susan, Kay, and Mikael will create criteria for the scope of the new directory/resource guide. Since the project is more than a simple directory, it likely will be eligible for funding by ARLIS/NA.
Other issues discussed were an increase in dues and other ways to increase chapter revenues. The chapter’s main expense currently is the travel award for a chapter officer to attend ARLIS/NA. Increasing the amount of the award would make it easier for someone to attend the national conference. M. J. moved that we raise annual dues to $15.00 for 2006; Susan Craig seconded it. The motion was carried. Lifetime memberships remain $100. It was also moved and carried that we include a line for donations on the annual membership renewal. If members care to make a donation to the chapter, they will receive an acknowledgment from the treasurer on behalf of the chapter. Donors will be listed in the annual report. We raised the possibility of a grant for travel to chapter meetings, but agreed to discuss the issue at the next meeting.
The final issue discussed was a proposal made by Marianne Cavanaugh (in absentia) and Clare Vasquez to offer duplicate books, journals and auction catalogues to ARLIS/CP members as a tangible benefit of membership in the chapter and potentially to encourage attendance at chapter meetings. Interested member libraries would email lists of duplicate publications to chapter members for their libraries and would undertake to bring the materials that members selected from the list to the next meeting. This proposal revived warm memories among several members of the old periodicals exchange of years ago. Ideally, any library that has duplicate materials and is able to dispose of them by giving them to other libraries should send a list to the membership in advance of the Spring 2006 meeting. It was noted that some institutions have policies that prohibit them from disposing of library materials in this way. Mikael Kriz of St. Louis University had an alternative suggestion for disposing of duplicate materials: Better World Books (www.betterworldbooks.com), a for-profit company that sells or recycles donated books and donates funds to literacy projects and non-profit organizations.
The final piece of new business was a gift from the meeting attendees (not from Chapter funds) to the chairs for local arrangements from the Mountain West Chapter, Mari Russell and Eumie Imm-Stroukoff, for their stellar contributions to a wonderful meeting. Susan Bobo presented them with gift certificates from a local bookstore on behalf of the Central Plains attendees.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:30.
Respectfully submitted,
Clare M. Vasquez, Secretary/Treasurer