SLA Boston Chapter
Executive Board Meeting Minutes
June 26, 2001
O'Neill Library, Boston College

The meeting was called to order at 6 p.m. by President Margaret Howe-Soper.

In attendance: Jessica Baumgarten, Liz Bibby, Tom Clark, Betty Eddison, Teresa Frydryk, Margaret Howe-Soper, Julie Jersyk. Helen Keil, Pauline Leeds, Kathy McCabe, Barbara Mento, Claudette Newhall, Amy Pietrowski, Julie Porter, Jill Roff, Barbra Rosenberg, Jon Rosenthal, Ruth Seidman, Alan Thibeault, Mary Jo Boland.

1. Introductions were made.

2. President's Remarks:

• Leadership Web Site - Contains leadership updates and job descriptions. We need to update our job descriptions this year to make them compatible with those of the national organization.
• Email from Wilda Newman - Wilda would like to have the names of people willing to be mentors for IFLA Fellows (attendees from third world countries).
• Attendance at the Annual Conference this year was 5,000+
• Margaret will send out a call for new members of committees. Committees needing members are: Logistics, Program, and Student Relations.
• The MLS Renewal program held at Simmons, last year was very successful and will be repeated this coming year. It will be held in March, and volunteers will be needed.
• Several officers/chairs were unable to attend this meeting. Margaret reported on these as follows:
  1. Margaret and Pauline Leeds, the new archivist, will meet with Rob Loud regarding transition for the position of Archives.
  2. Claire Stinson will continue as Membership Chair; she will have help from Sandy Moltz.
  3. Margaret will talk with Leslie Knapp, the new Treasurer as to how she does business and what she will expect from us. Kathy McCabe will also be involved in the discussion.
  4. Leslie and Liz Bibby will meet Monday.
  5. Margaret plans to meet with Sue Wolfman, the new Vendor Chair.

3. Programs
Margaret asked that those who want to put a program together should outline what they want to do. Margaret observed that the tenor of her presidency will be outreach. She would like to give a scholarship and would like to have more contact with students.

4. Fall Kickoff
The annual Fall Kickoff will be held on Tuesday, September 11 at Boston University School of Management. We will try to get vendor support. Margaret reported that we have the room until 9 p.m.

5. Central Connecticut Chapter
Margaret reported that she was approached at the annual conference by the president of the Central Connecticut Chapter regarding the possibility of combining the two chapters. While she believed that that would be drastic, perhaps a joint meeting would be feasible. Teresa remarked that the Rhode Island Chapter once considered combining with Boston, but ultimately decided that they liked their identity as a small chapter. Ruth observed that the Rhode Island Chapter was created out of the Boston Chapter around 1980.

6. Director of Finance Report: Barbra Rosenberg.
Barbra distributed a Boston Chapter budget analysis. She observed that it reflects the importance of vendor support. She commented the it would be good to have an estimate of the value of vendor support when it is "in kind." There was discussion of how to achieve this. We did not lose any money on programs last year, but it was close. By Friday, August 17, Barbra would like estimates of expenses for the coming year from all of us.

7. Bulletin: Teresa Frydryck
The next Bulletin will be the last in paper. Going electronic will save money. 80% of chapters have gone electronic to date. Our new format will be a pdf file. It is hoped that a message will go to the list with a blurb on content and a link to the file. There will be a link to the file on the Web page as well.

Regarding the question previously raised about the propriety of accepting advertising, Teresa reported that you can accept ads if the publication is only in paper or only electronic. During the transition we probably should not accept ads. An analysis of the roster reveals the about 20% of our members appear to have no email. SLA national is not sure what is the "safe" number of copies you can print and still accept ads.

It was decided that at a later date we will discuss whether to accept ads and how to price them. It was suggested that another possibility would be to have sponsorship rather than ads. Amy pointed out the vendors are getting more picky about what they are willing to support. They want marketing roi for their contribution. We will need an "issue of record" of the Bulletin for Archives and paper copies for the outreach function.

Teresa thanked everyone who contributed copy for the upcoming issue.

8. Awards: Tom Clark
Tom distributed a revised version of the policies and procedures for awards.

Next Meeting: Thursday, September 6 at a place to be determined.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:35 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Julie Jersyk
Secretary