Computing Services Special Interest Section

Business Meeting Minutes

July 14, 2008, 8:15 am

Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon

The Computing Services Special Interest Section Business Meeting was called to order at approximately 8:15 am by Chair June Liebert.

Over 50 attendees including the Board were present at the meeting, which followed directly after the CS-SIS Breakfast.

Chair Liebert formally introduced the executive board and thanked them for their work. At approximately 8:19 am, Chair Liebert called for approval of the Minutes from the 2007 CS-SIS Business Meeting, which had been posted on the cssis.org website. Vicki Szymczak had served as Secretary-Treasurer and took the minutes. Members Ken Hirsch moved, and Member Sally Irvin seconded that the 2007 Business Meeting Minutes be approved. All in attendance approved the minutes.

At approximately 8:22 am, Secretary/Treasurer Willis invited attendees to review the CS-SIS financial report provided at each table. Secretary/Treasurer Willis reported that our balance at the end of the 2^nd quarter reported by AALL was $11,394.04. This provides the most accurate information prior to expenses incurred during AALL. The SIS takes in funds over the summer months from vendor contributions to AALL functions, as well dues and breakfast registration fees. The SIS will incur expenses related to AV equipment rentals for the two Hot Topics, the CS-SIS breakfast, and other conference expenses. In all, the treasury is in good shape.

AALL reports that currently there are 465 registered members in the CS-SIS. Secretary Willis reported that the election this past May went smoothly with over 150 votes cast, which is approximately one quarter of our members participating.

Chair Liebert commented that the two CS-SIS Hot Topics did incur some AV expenses but were very well attended and received. We plan to hold two more at AALL next summer in Washington, D.C. Chair Liebert also noted an upcoming $500 expense for the successful Web 2.0 challenge. Last summer Web 2.0 was one of the Hot Topics; this was extremely successful and led to the Challenge. Chair Liebert concluded that the CS-SIS had 8 programs accepted for this year’s conference, and that over 600 had signed up to attend the Cool Tools program directly following the Business Meeting.

Chair Liebert also pointed out that our website has changed and is now located at cssis.org. Annual reports will be posted there soon.

At approximately 8:35 am, Committee Reports began:

· Adaptive Technologies (Susan Boland): the idea is to expand the resource initiated by Lyonette Louis-Jacques, which evaluates the usefulness and relevance of adaptive technologies in our profession. Member Ryan did not serve on the committee this year, but he is willing to serve on it this coming year.

· ByLaws (Dom Grillo): Dom Grillo and committee did an excellent job updating the bylaws to include what to do in the case of an Executive Board member leaving in mid-term or in case of tie votes. The results of the changes were not noticed in time for a vote at the Business Meeting. The revised bylaws will be posted soon and a vote will be set up in the near future. Please be sure to vote on this when it is announced.

· Emerging Technologies: Bonnie Shucha, Meg Kribble and Debbie Ginsberg designed a Web 2.0 Challenge aimed specifically for law librarians. It is a hands-on course. Over 200 applied and 100 have been accepted. Guests are welcome but will not be assisted by the facilitators. There are 8 instructors and 20 facilitators. It is a 5 week course with 2 instructors per week. This will be one of the show cases at the Cool Tools program. Plan to do this again later this year by encouraging those who complete the course to serve as facilitators or instructors.

· Grants: Theresa Arado served as Grants Committee Chair; Robert Thurman reporting. Secretary/Treasurer Willis announced that Raizel Liebler and Stacey Rowland received grants to AALL this summer. A third, special grant was offered to Mark Folmsbee to attend as the CS-SIS VIP as the Kenneth J. Hirsch Distinguished Services Award winner and for his valuable contributions to the CS-SIS and the law library profession. Mark very much wanted to attend but is beginning medical studies and didn’t have the time. Mark sent his thanks to the CS-SIS and said that he enjoyed working with us over the years.

· Job Descriptions database (Pam Brannon): Member Pam Brannon expressed regret that it is not yet up on the website. Discussion ensued and the consensus is to solicit on lawlib and cssis listservs to obtain more job descriptions. Plan is to have the database back on website sometime in near future. Chair Liebert provided some background on the database: it had been hosted on some different law school library servers, but as webmasters left their jobs, the database had to be shifted to new/different servers. It was not sustainable to keep hosting it outside of AALL, so the goal is to bring it to AALL.

· Awards: Member Sheri Lewis announced that Mark Folmsbee was selected to receive the Kenneth J. Hirsch Distinguished Services Award. Sheri wrote an article for the Daily Rose, but it did not get published unfortunately. This award was established in 2004 and named after Ken Hirsch. Mark Folmsbee was a guiding force in law library technology. Mark served as Chair of our SIS from 1996-1996, and Mark was a frequent presenter at AALL. Mark was an early innovator, including hosting the first AALL email list, assisting with developing AALLnet and an informal mentor to many in this SIS. As previously mentioned, Mark could not attend this year; John Christianson accepted the award on Mark’s behalf.

· Nominations (Kris Niedringhaus): thanks to Kris and Committee for recruiting a very good slate of candidates this year. This year required candidates for Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect and for one Member-at-Large. The Secretary/Treasurer serves a two year term, and that office will require a vote in 2009.

· Recruitment & Involvement (vacant): Chair Liebert asked for volunteers for this committee and thanked Chair-Elect Szymczak for filling in for part of the year.

· Roundtable Planning/Coordinating Committee (Sally Irvin): Member Sally Irvin discussed the 2 Roundtables offered this year: 1) Publicizing Your Library with Technology, and 2) Teaching with Technology: Best Practices. At both there were lots of good ideas and sharing. This is a good format that is enjoyed by all who attend. Thanks to Sally for coming up with two good topics.

· Strategic Planning Committee (Vicki Szymczak & Jean Willis): Chair Elect Szymczak discussed how the SIS had done a great job in living up to our prior plans. Kudos to Immediate Past Chair Niedringhaus for her excellent work in developing the three previous strategic plans, which served as a foundation for creating the upcoming plan. The next plan will be posted on the website, and it follows a similar format of goals and objectives as the preceding plan. Immediate Past Chair Niedringhaus moved to approve the new Strategic Plan, and member Lewis seconded. All members approved.

· Technology Competencies (John Jorgenson): Member Jorgenson found the work of the committee to be a bit daunting. Is working on documentation and the work is ongoing at this time.

· Web Development Committee (Raizel Liebler): created cssis.org with Member Debbie Ginsberg’s help. In the process of transferring from AALLnet to cssis.org. The pull-down menus are all in PHP, and Raizel would appreciate any help possible with this. The links on the right side of the page and the blogs all work now. Please email Raizel with any blog ideas. Plan is to permit all Committee Chairs and Executive Board members to post directly. Hope to have this available in the near future. Kudos to Raizel, Debbie & June for a great job on this. Please note that the cssis.org webpage provides a template that others can use to design other websites. Everyone is invited to consider this useful tool when the need for web design occurs.

· Publications Committee (Eric Kistler): please provide articles for the website.

· Program Planning Committee (Vicki Szymczak): there will be a Program Planning meeting held at Noon on July 14 to begin planning for 2009 AALL Programs. Everyone is invited to attend. A meeting was also held at CALI in June, where some good ideas were put forward. Any CS-SIS member interested in recommending programs or working on the Committee are invited to contact Vicki.

At approximately 8:45 am, Chair Liebert asked if there were any old business items to discuss: no.

At approximately 8:46 am, Chair Liebert asked if there any further new business items to discuss: no.

At approximately 8:47 am, Chair Liebert introduced the new Executive Board:

· Chair: Victoria Szymczak, Brooklyn Law School Library

· Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Bonnie Shucha, University of Wisconsin Law Library

· Secretary/Treasurer: Jean Willis, Sacramento County Public Law Library

· Member-at-Large: Katie Jones, Wyoming State Law Library

· Member-at-Large: Meg Kribble, Nova Southeastern Law Library

· Immediate Past Chair: June Liebert, John Marshall Law School Library (Chicago)

June passed on the Chair’s propeller beanie, provided originally by Don Arndt, to Vicki and provided thank you presents to the Executive Board members.

Incoming Chair Szymczak adjourned the meeting at 8:51 am.