[Chapters-l] Chapter Assembly Director's Report (from Chapter Assembly meeting in Charlotte)

[beata_panagopoulos at Harvard.Edu]

Below is the text of my report to Chapter Assembly, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2005 
at the annual meeting in Charlotte.  The minutes from the Chapter Assembly 
meeting and notes from the Chapter Leaders Breakfast will be forthcoming. 
Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions!

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I would like to tell you about a few things that have been going on since 
the last time we met in Providence, November 2004.

ASIS&T EXECUTIVE BOARD'S 5 YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN
During the past year, the Board has been analyzing ASIS&T’s strengths and 
weaknesses and developing a 5 year strategic plan.  Briefly, the proposed 
strategic plan includes the following goals:

** Internationalization: which means among other things, creating a 
presence in South America, Europe, East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. 
There is interest in forming chapters in these regions, however, there are 
a few hurdles to overcome before this will be possible, such as the high 
cost of membership.  We are already making progress on this front.  ASIS&T 
sponsored an IA Summit this month in Brussels and it was so successful 
that the organizers want to do it again in Europe.

** Focus on publications: expanding the number of publications ASIS&T 
issues.  We have been dreaming about an applications journal for a number 
of years; we should publish an information architecture journal; and we 
might be able to produce journals in different languages.

** Capitalizing on our intellectual property; and

** Development of programs that can “go on the road” to help chapters with 
their programming.

DORMANT CHAPTER FUNDS
The Board passed a motion to move funds that are now held in “Dormant 
Chapters” for the Pittsburgh and Western Canada Chapter be moved to 
general ASIS&T funds.  The background for this is: when Chapters have no 
activity or responsible officers for a period, ASIS&T HQ recovers the 
funds from the bank and hold them in case the Chapter should revive. These 
are on the balance sheet “held for dormant chapters.”  There is little or 
no likelihood that Pittsburgh or Western Canda will be reactivated; both 
were inactive for quite some time prior to recovering the funds.  The 
impact of doing this is that the money will move from the liability side 
of the balance sheet, making it an asset.

We are no longer listing Chicago and Pittsburgh on the ASIS&T Chapters web 
page.  This is not de-chartering, just not publicizing.  It is a Board 
action to move funds, but a Chapter Assembly recommendation to the Board 
to deactivate chapters.

STUDENT CHAPTERS
Candy Schwartz - Chapter Assembly Representative for Student Chapters, 
Report 2004/2005

** All student chapter advisors and Web sites have been verified. 
Considerable revisions were made to them.
 
** The annual student party in Charlotte, for students, will be held at an 
undisclosed location and time – has had close to 50 students have rsvp’ed.

** 9 student chapters submitted reports (out of about 40), 7 in time to be 
considered for the Outstanding Student Chapter of the Year. The award jury 
completed its work in good time, and gave the award to the Univesity of 
Washington and to Simmons (Candy recused herself from voting).

** The European student chapter petitioned successfully to become a 
chapter.

** The University of Arkansas Little Rock has requested that its chapter 
be dissolved.

** The University of Alabama is being re-energized.
 
Finally, Candy surveyed students and has prepared a report and 
recommendation to strengthen student participation in ASIS&T for the 
Board.

CHAPTER AWARDS
Electronic submission through the START conferencing system continues to 
have many more advantages over the old method of sending six paper copies 
to Sandra Holder at Headquarters.  However, one major drawback is that 
Sandra kept track of which chapters were submitting nominations and she 
would encourage chapters to submit when she them when she knew they 
should.  No one has stepped in to take over this role and consequently, 
not enough Chapter leaders take the time to nominate their chapter  or 
their leaders for awards.  As I went through all the announcements on 
Chapters-L of the programs Chapter put on this past year, I was very 
impressed with the fantastic learning and networking opportunities ASIS&T 
chapters are making available to their communities.  Examples of chapter 
programming include the Wisconsin Chapter’s sponsorship of the talk 
“What’s So International about International Librarianship?” by Peter 
Johan Lor, Secretary General of IFLA, NORASIST’s program “To Blog or Not 
to Blog, the regional meeting put together by Indiana, Michigan and 
Chicago chapters called:  “To Google or not to Google,” and PVC’s program: 
>From Soup to Nuts: Blogs, Blogging and Greater Impacts to Information 
Science.”  Why not honor the hardworking members who have produced this 
excellent programming by nominating the event, member, or chapter for an 
award?  We will put up on the website an example of an award nomination to 
help you with your submissions.  One tip I’ll offer right here is that you 
have to answer all the questions on the questionnaire.  The jury assigns 
points to each answer given and if you do not provide n answer, guess 
what? No points!

New awards guidelines, developed by the Awards and Honors Committee, were 
approved by the Board.  They detail procedures and requirements for the 
establishment of new Society- and Unit-Level awards.

Amy Wallace developed guidelines for a proposed Chapter Innovation Award. 
This idea came out of the Chapter Leaders’ planning breakfast in 
Providence.  They have been submitted to the Awards and Honors Committee 
for approval.

SPECIAL RECOGNITION
Special recognition goes to the creators of the International Calendar of 
Information Science Conferences, Caryn Anderson and Michel Menou.  This 
very impressive project was a collaborative venture of SIG III, the New 
England Chapter and the European Chapter.  It is the type of project that 
might have received the Innovation award if it was already established.

PROGRAMMING SUPPORT FROM ASIS&T FOR CHAPTERS
Another idea that came out of the brainstorming / planning breakfast was 
that of a speaker’s bureau.  Although that proposal has not materialized, 
President-Elect, Michael Leach is very interested in knowing how 
interested chapters would be in having programs that could come to them, 
the programs “on the road” idea.  Chapters could also share their 
successful programs with each other. 

MEMBERSHIP DATA
The online membership database is almost a reality.  Once the web redesign 
is up, a member will be able to login and change his or her own membership 
data.  Canned reports will also be available for chapter recruitment and 
retention activities.

ASIS&T DIGITAL LIBRARY
The ASIS&T Digital Library is up.  Letters were mailed out to all members 
explaing how to access it.  Access is not straightforward.  It is located 
on the Wiley InterScience website.  But once you find it, you’ll find The 
Bulletin, The Proceedings, and 3 volumes of ARIST (not including the two 
most recent years.)

Amy Wallace compiled and distributed a Chapters Best Practices document. 
It is just a start, but has a lot of potential as a Wiki.  We were waiting 
for the new website to put this document as well as other useful ones up, 
but perhaps we can simply provide a link to the Wiki on the web page.

ASIS&T WEBSITE REDESIGN
The website redesign ran into serious obstacles this year.  It is now back 
on track and there will be usability testing of it at the conference.