[Sigiii-l] ASIST SIG III 2004 Business Meeting Minutes

[Yin Zhang]

Dear All, 

We know that some could not make the meeting. Please review the 
minutes and let us know your comments -- there are many wonderful 
suggestions on what we need to do for the next year. Your input and participation are extremely valuable. 

Cheers! 

Nathalie and Yin

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ASIST SIG III 2004 Business Meeting Minutes 
Tuesday, November 16, 2004 
Westin Hotel, Providence, RI 


The meeting was called to order at 3:15 p.m. by Chair Nathalie Leroy. Those present were: 

Nathalie Leroy, United Nations, leroyn at un.org 

Yin Zhang, Kent State School of Library & Information Science, 
yinzhang at slis.kent.edu 

Abebe Rorissa, University of North Texas School of Library and 
Information Science, aar0018 at unt.edu 

Kendra Albright, University of Tennessee School of Information 
Science, albright at utk.edu 

Shivanthi Weerasinghe, Bank of Ceylon Library (BL), librarian at boc.lk 

Giselle Foss, National Public Radio Broadcast Library, gfoss at npr.org 

Pam Osborne, Mercy Corps, posborne at mercycorps.org 

Anita Johnson, World Bank, ajohnson1 at worldbank.org 

Nadia Caidi, University of Toronto, nadia.caidi at utoronto.ca 

Mila Rush, University of Minnesota School of Library Science, 
m-rush at umn.edu 

Duncan Omole, World Bank, domole at worldbank.org 

Faizur Rahman, University of North Texas, sfr0003 at unt.edu 

Toni Carbo, University of Pittsburgh, tcarbo at mail.sis.pitt.edu 

Julian Warner, Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, 
j.warner at qub.ac.uk 

Because at least two of the members (Toni and Julian) had to attend 
the general ASIST Business Meeting, they were asked to speak first. 
The rest of the meeting was conducted following the regular agenda. 
Their comments are incorporated into the appropriate sections of the 
minutes. 

1. Introducing the International Contest Winner 

This year's International Contest First Place Winner, Shivanthi 
Weerasinghe from Sri Lanka, was introduced. Attendants were 
acknowledged. 

2. Approval of the Slate of Officers 

Nathalie reported she had received some messages from members, all of which were to approve the Slate of Officers. The Slate of Officers as listed in the November 2004 edition of the SIG-III Newsletter was approved. Faizur Rahman and Abebe Rorissa jointly volunteered for the position of Communications Officer. Yin will work with them for a smooth transition. 

Therefore, the 2004-2005 SIG III Officers are: 

Chair: Yin Zhang 
Chair-Elect: Nadia Caidi 
Past Chair: Nathalie Leroy 
Assistant Chair (Outside the US): Merlyna Lim (Indonesia) 
Communications Officer: Faizur Rahman and Abebe Rorissa 
Treasurer: Bahaa El Hadidy 
InfoShare Officer: Sue O'Neill Johnson 
SIG Cabinet Representative: Toni Carbo 
Alternate: Sue O'Neill Johnson 
Annual Meeting Program Chair: Duncan Omole 

Global Plaza: 
Mentors: Naida Caidi and Michel Menou 
Global Plaza has been trying to seek alternative formats and contents. Members who would like to take responsibility for the event, or to try something else, are most welcome. Nadia and Michel will be happy to mentor as appropriate. 

International Paper Contest Committee 
-Duncan Omole, Liwen Vaughan, and Linda Bringan 
-Mentors: Yunfei Du, Nathalie Leroy, and Sue O'Neill Johnson 


3. Treasurer's report 

Yin presented the report on behalf of the Treasurer, Bahaa El Hadidy. The FY04 SIG III general fund has an ending balance of $2,993 as of the end of September. Per treasurer's request, 100% Ending Fund Balance rollover to FY05 was approved. With the SIG III membership revenue, the starting budget for FY05 is $3,659. 

SIG III InfoShare account has a balance of $875.04 at the end of FY04. At this year's International Reception, we raised another $345.5 ($231.5 from Silent Auction; $114 from Raffle ticket sale ? Anne Holohan of University of Trento in Italy won half of $227 raised from 50/50 raffle ticket sale). Therefore, the current balance is $1,220.54. 

The third account we have is the Digital Scholars Fund. The FY04 
ending balance is $7,163.27. We expect to spend about $1550 to cover 
this year's international paper contest first place winner's travel 
and hotel expenses and another $1840 for 8 two-year ASIST memberships to the top winners of the international paper contest. Therefore, the current balance is at $3,773.27. 


4. Report on 2004 activities 

Nathalie reported on the activities: 
-The 5th International Paper Contest was a success. 
-SIG III sponsored or co-sponsored five sessions for this year's 
Annual Meeting. Duncan was complimented on the way he had handled the conference program planning process. 
-No report was available on the planned SLA/ASIST Asian Conference, as no feedback had been received from PK. Jain. 
-Fundraising: SIG III raised $3400 this year from Elsevier for the 
International Paper Contest and International Reception. SIG-III will need to focus more effort on fundraising, in particular for the 
international paper contest. Yin mentioned that she is looking into 
previous donors and exploring potential new ones such as publishers, 
SIGs, Chapters, and vendors. 


5. Global Village Plaza 

Julian expressed appreciation of the global plaza program. Nathalie 
indicated that the Global Village Plaza organizers had asked for 
volunteers to take over the next year's Plaza, or even for new ideas 
for a program that could replace the Plaza. Nadia explained that at 
this stage it may be too early to come up with new ideas. We will 
accept nominations for new leaders for this effort. 


6. Work Programs for 2005 

6.1 Toni indicated that SIG-III should organize (possibly in 
cooperation with SIG-IFP) a pre-conference workshop on Global 
Information policies and ethics. 

6.2 Toni also indicated that the International Reception should be 
an ASIST event and that SIG-III should not have to do fundraising to 
finance the event. SIG-III would continue chairing the event, however. She also indicated that SIG-III should look into what was being served, and replace the usual fare with international food. 

6.3 Silent Auction and Raffle: 
-Toni expressed the view that SIG-III should pay more attention to 
this event and try to collect more items. She suggested setting two 
or three larger gifts that could replace the money as prizes for the 
raffle (dinner-for-two vouchers, or bottles of wine...). In this way, more money would remain available for the InfoShare program. 
-Toni also suggested that a lectern would be helpful to attract 
attention for organization purposes during the reception. 
-Duncan commented that he had sold raffle tickets two years in a row 
and recommended providing some incentives to convince buyers to buy 
more than just one ticket, e.g. ?buy-five-pay-for-four? formulas. 
-The group also discussed other ways for improvement. For example, 
explain the raffle ticket sale and silent auction from time to time so that people who come late can catch what is going on, and also so 
people are kept posted on the progress of the events. 


6.4 International Paper Contest: 
Sue, Yunfei and Nathalie were thanked for their work on the contest. 
Liwen, Duncan and Linda volunteered to take over. Liwen will 
coordinate the selection of judges. Nathalie indicated that she would be willing to continue reviewing papers. 

6.5 Mentoring Program 
-Nathalie proposed to start a Mentoring Program for developing world 
librarians to continue the work started with the contest. She will 
draft a call for mentors and a call for mentees, using the contacts 
established through the paper contest. Giselle Foss shared the 
mentoring program offered by the SLA. 

6.6 Proposed sessions: 
Duncan will continue serving as the ASIST Annual Meeting Program 
Chair. The proposed program ideas include: 
1) Pre-conference workshop on policies and ethics (contact: Toni, 
Nadia, Michel, Yin, and European chapter chair-Professor Tatijana 
Aparac-Jelusiæ at taparac at ffos.hr) 
2) LIS Education awareness (contact: Yunfei) 
3) Neutrality of technology (contact: Kalpana Shankar & Nadia) 
4) Life-cycle of information (contact: ?). SIG USE is interested 
in co-sponsoring; their contact person: Rioux Kevin at 
ksrioux at uncg.edu. 
5) International standards development (contact: Gail Thornburg 
at thornbug at oclc.org. SIG LT is interested in co-sponsoring. Their 
contact: Cindy at ccampbll at bucknell.edu) 
6) Global Plaza (contact: Nadia and Michel) 
Please contact Duncan if you would like to propose sessions and help 
identify speakers for the sessions. The deadline for submissions is 
January 21. Please keep in mind that each proposal needs to be 2-page long and illustrate both research and practice. 


7. Other Business 

Toni shared ideas about SIG restructuring based on suggestions at the SIG Cabinet Meeting. She volunteered to serve on the committee. 

Yin concluded by making a few announcements: 
-She thanked Nathalie for her work with SIG-III. 
-ASIST Los Angeles Chapter will make a donation to the digital 
scholars fund this year as they have been doing. Yin will send a thank-you letter to the Chapter Chair. The Los Angeles Chapter's practice should be encouraged so that other chapters and SIGs can help with SIG III's fundraising effort. 

The meeting adjourned at 5:10pm. 

Respectfully submitted, 

Nathalie Leroy and Yin Zhang