Meeting Minutes | October 24, 2012

Attendees: Chelsea Shriver, Jason Korff, Nadia Stennes‐Spidahl, Nora Kitchen, Alice MacGougan, Yesenia Ricardo, Caroline Crowell, Matt Ruen, Elspeth Olson, Nick Josten, Amber Saundry, Kaitlyn Sparks, Eric Meyers.

1. Approval of October 3 meeting minutes

  • Minutes were approved.

2. Events

  • Game Day (ASIS&T): The event will be held December 3 at Storm Crow at 6 p.m. There is space available, and Nick would like to cross-­‐promote the event, sending invites out through both the ALA and ASIS&T listservs.
    • December practicums starts that day, so people may not be able to attend.
  • Freedom to Read Week (BCLA/CLA): BCLA would like to do something for Freedom to Read Week in February. They haven’t met to start organizing, but would like to collaborate with ALA. o Judy Saltzman will be involved. She is a good resource and has connections at public libraries.
    • Participating in a BCLA event is a good opportunity to make contacts and put something on your resume.
    • Planning will begin in November before people start to leave, and Nick will head up the organizing committee. Chelsea, Jason, Nadia, Nora, Amber, Caroline (maybe), and Nick signed up to be on the committee.
    • One possible idea is to make banned book trading cards
  • Banned Book Week video (recap): Everyone, especially Kaitlyn the editor!, did great job, and the video looked nice.
    • External mics will be important in the future for better audio quality.
    • The video didn’t make it on the Banned Book Week playlist, but it was on the SLAIS webpage, and ALA@UBC did distribute it.
    • Next fall, the group can get more of a head start and produce a more professional video.
    • Eric has access to good A/V equipment through SLAIS and his projects.
  • White elephant book swap / bake sale:
    • What is it? Anyone can participate, but last year it was mostly ALA members. Participants bring in wrapped books so no one knows what they are, and books are swapped.
    • A bake sale sign-­up sheet will be made available so people can indicate what they will be bringing. Bake sale is donate what you want.
    • Chelsea will send out a Doodle poll (with date in the last couple of weeks prior to end of term) to determine the date, but it is usually Tuesday or Wednesday (11 a.m.-­2 p.m). Eric advised against it being scheduled on Thursday, November 22, as that is the day of Convocation.
    • Some options for buying cheap books for the swap include: public library branches cheap book sale carts, Koerner book sale (this happened last year, but not sure if it will happen this year, too).
    • If SIPS is doing a book drive again this year, people can donate their books to the drive if they end up with books they don’t want.
  • ALA Midwinter Meeting:
    • The resume workshop they are offering seems like might be valuable.
    • The meeting is January 25-­29, 2013, and at $65 for a student member, it’s about as cheap as it gets for a conference.
    • It may be possible to stay with ALA@UW people, and Elspeth will be in touch with them about that.
    • The schedule isn’t currently online.
    • Read email from Ariel Deardorff, whose dad is a librarian at the University of Washington: Basically he said that midwinter used to be primarily committee meetings, and “programming” wasn’t allowed. Now, however, many committees meet virtually so there are more discussion sessions. He said that the annual meeting is definitely more interesting, but given that midwinter is in Seattle it is probably worthwhile. I took a look at the sessions scheduled and it seems like there is a lot going on. I will probably attend.
    • It might be possible to get a group deal on transportation or carpool. About four people at the meeting said they might attend. Caroline will likely have a car.
    • Eric reminded the group about free readers copies available at the meeting.
    • Also, Carol Tilley who will be a speaker at the ALA midwinter will be giving a colloquium talk on January 30 (on comic books), and Eric hopes ALA@UBC will promote the event, there will also be an opportunity go to lunch with her.
      • Speaking of colloquiums: Next Wednesday (October 31) there will be a colloquium talk on scrapbooking in the Victorian era called “What the 99 Percent Read, and What They Did with It, a Hundred Years Ago.” Eric is also looking for students to attend lunch with the speaker, Ellen Gruber Garvey.
      • On October 24 there is a panel called “Engaging Youth With Indigenous Materials in Libraries and Classrooms” on how to select and use indigenous children’s materials. It is geared toward professionals in the field and will be in the Dodson Room. The panel will feature Allison Taylor-McBryde, Debra Martel, and Jan Hare.
      • There are also lots of good speakers coming up next term, so look out for them.

3. Student-­to-­Staff Program contest

  • The student-to­‐staff program contest process is moving a bit faster this year than last year.
  • How does the contest work? One person from our ALA student chapter will be selected to be the student-to­‐staff representative at the ALA Annual Meeting. The winner will attend the meeting, volunteer at the conference, and the award includes housing and registration costs and provides a stipend. The award does not cover airfare or meals. It is a great networking opportunity and allows the winner to see the inner workings of ALA. People who have won previously felt that it was an amazing opportunity. The meeting attracts about 25,000 people, and this year it’s in Chicago, June 22-­28.
  • The student-­to­‐staff representative is selected by an essay contest explaining why attending the ALA Annual Meeting would be your dream! (e.g. from Eric: This will do amazing things for me and my career, and I will do amazing things with it, and I will be the most amazing student‐to­‐staff person ever!) Usually the competition isn’t that heavy (generally only one entry). It is open only to people who will be students next year (graduating in May 2013 is okay, graduating in December 2012 is not).
  • ALA’s due date for selecting all of the student-­to­‐staff representatives December 19.
  • If you apply, you have to make a commitment to going. Usually the conference is the last week in June, and not during when classes are scheduled in the summer. If you have a job/co-­op/internship at a libraries, they are generally fine with you taking off for ALA.
  • There are five people who expressed interest in being selected, so it is determined that an essay competition will be held again. The deadline for submitting a one page essay is November 15. An announcement will be sent out with the instructions and the deadline.
  • Email your essay to Eric.
  • The winner of the contest will be asked to write up a blog post for the ALA student chapter blog. If you are interested in learning what it’s like to attend the annual meeting, you can read this blog post from last year.

4. Other business

  • The ALA t-­shirts have all been distributed.
  • We welcome our new treasurer, Jason, who is already working on the club’s finances.
  • There will be no co-­chair this term, but will try to find one after the new cohort arrives in January.
  • Matt Ruen with a LASSA update on the SLAIS listserv issues:
    • Basically, LASSA wants clubs to avoid sending repeated emails with lots of reminders to the LASSA Google group. It’s not that effective anyway because there are only about 75-­80 people on the list, and they are mostly the new cohort. It is by no means a complete way of reaching people at SLAIS.
    • LASSA is working with SLAIS to try to make the Connect portal more accessible for student clubs to make announcements.

5. Next meeting

  • Next meeting will be on November 14, 2012 at 11 a.m. in the Trail Room.

Meeting Minutes | 27 September 2011

ALA Student Chapter Meeting Agenda | 27 September 2011
Noon | Trail Room @ SLAIS

1. Attendance:

Yolanda Bustos
Layla Naquin
Chelsea Shriver
Lindsey Krabbenhoft
Sarah Fallik
Morgan Barnes
Kaitlyn Sparks
Mary Jinglewski
Morgan Gariepy
Chelsea DiFrancesco
Lindsay McFarlane
Tracey Vantyghem
Ebony Magnus
Elspeth Olson
Jennifer Pappas
Judith Guzman-Montes

2. ALA news and events:

Alpha Delap, the ALA New Member Roundtable SASCO liaison, contacted Eric about New Member Roundtable/ Student and Student Chapter Outreach. We’ll give her contact information for our new officers.

She’s also interested in having a joint UW/ UBC ALA event in spring. She and Eric will/ have talked about this (Eric says they’re “peeps”) and he’ll check in soon with officers to let them know what they have in mind and the student group can start planning for the Spring event. (Possibly centered around a speaker, with the UW ALA student chapter coming up for a visit)

Eric also talked about ALA co-sponsoring colloquia events. What this means for our group is that we would be responsible for promoting the colloquia and generating excitement amongst our peers. There is no financial obligation from ALA, and we don’t get to pick the colloquia speaker, but the colloquium committee does a really great job of getting fantastic speakers in. (And if you really want to sit on the committee, every winter term 2 the position becomes available through LASSA.) We agreed we’d love to support the colloquium series. Additionally, Eric mentioned that there is a special luncheon-with-the-speaker opportunity for one student for some of the colloquia. So, that’s REALLY exciting. Details on that to follow.

3. Voting:

Yolanda opened the floor for nominations and went over the positions and duties.

Voting took place by a show of support if the seat was uncontested. The only contested position was voted on by secret ballot. All nominees were allowed to speak briefly on their qualifications and Eric counted the ballots.

The results:
Co-Chair: Mary Jinglewski <mary.jingles@gmail.com>
Co-Chair: Elspeth Olson <olson.elspeth@gmail.com>
Treasurer: Jennifer Pappas<jenn.pappas@gmail.com>
Webmaster/Communications Officer: Layla Naquin <laylanaquin@gmail.com>
Secretary: Chelsea Shriver <cg.shriver@gmail.com>

Congratulations on your new positions and thank you to everybody who showed interest. Our charter stipulates that additional committees and positions (to help spread the workload) can be made as necessary, so we very well could need more help in the future, especially if our student group stays fairly large.

New reps: someone who held your position last year (hopefully) will get a hold of you soon to show you the ropes and get you oriented. It’s pretty straightforward, but encouraging words are always nice, right? If no one gets a hold of you, I am always available to help you figure things out.

4. Next Meeting:

Date and time?
The next meeting is Tuesday October 11th at Noon in the Trail Room (or a location tba via Chelsea S) We agreed that Tuesdays at noon work well for us and we will continue to meet once monthly (more as needed) at this time. Chelsea S. will book the trail again with Kiki for that date. If we have a larger turn out next meeting, then we’ll try a bigger room, but for now, we’ll see how it goes. The meeting information must also be updated on the blog, Google student calendar on the SLAIS page and the kitchenette calendar. (Chelsea S. and Layla can work out who is going to take of what now and in the future)

Any ideas/items for the agenda can be sent directly to the chairs, whose contact info is above. If execs want to set up any social networking opportunities (ie. a Facebook page, a twitter account, etc.) and they PROMISE to be diligent about keeping it up (A badly run social networking presence is worse than no social networking presence), then they can coordinate and get that going. We can all help by using any and all opportunities to advocate for librarianship and our student group by using the site, generating ideas and coming to meetings with lots of communication under our belts and ready to use the face time we have to really get things done.

5. Call for any new business?

No one had any new business to bring up at this time but I just wanted to remind you again about the ALA Student-to-Staff program.

To become our chapter nominee, qualifying interested students shall participate in an essay contest outlining how the program will benefit their professional goals. The essay shall be approximately 500 words and submitted to the faculty adviser (Eric Meyers, eric.meyers@ubc.ca) by October 31. The faculty adviser will then evaluate the essays to determine which one student will be nominated. The adviser will then nominate the student to the ALA liaison.

I know you guys probably have a lot of things on your plate and assignments are coming up fast, but please take advantage of this tremendous opportunity and if you have any questions about what the experience was like, don’t hesitate to ask me (Yolanda).

6. Meeting Adjourned.