The LONE STAR LIBRARIAN
Summer 1996 Issue
The Lone Star Librarian, a quarterly newsletter [ISSN 0739-4950],. isthe official publication of the Texas Chapterof the Special Libraries Association. The contents or articles andeditorials are not to be considered as being orrepresenting the official position of the Texas Chapter. The SpecialLibraries Association assumes no responsibilityfor statements and opinions advanced by the contributors to theAssociation's publications. Editorial views do notnecessarily represent the official position of the SLA.
Texas Librarians are honored as Gov. Bush signs the Proclamation on April 16 at the State Capitol. Attendees include: Elizabeth Halliday Reynolds, Susan Ardis, Renee Daulong, Brooke Sheldon, Sharon Shaw, Molly White, Kathy Fowler, Zoe May, Jsusan Rhyne, Jessica Ciccone, Paula Day, Catherine Harris, Kay Schleuter, Terry Foster.
Through the efforts of Texas Chapter Public Relations Chair Renee Daulong and other concerned librarians, Texas Gov. George W. Bush proclaimed the week of April 14 as Library Week and April 18 as Special Librarians Day. In a ceremony held at the state capitol, Bush signed the proclamation and acknowledged the contributions of libraries and librarians to the lives of Texas' citizens and businesses. A copy of the proclamation appears below.
Official MemorandumState of TexasOffice of the Governor
Therefore, I, George W. Bush, Governor of Texas, do hereby proclaim the week of April 14-20, 1996, as: Library Week and April 18, 1996, as: Special Librarians Day In Texas and urge the appropriate recognition thereof. In official recognition whereof, I hereby affix my signature this 16th day of April, 1996.
by Ann Griffith
Dr. Brooke Sheldon, dean of The University of Texas (UT) at Austin Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS), has announced that she will leave her position, effective September 1, 1996, to return to full-time professorial duties. As UT Austin President Robert Berdahl observed, the university will lose a valuable administrator and visionary leader, but keep the benefit of Dr. Sheldon's experience, judgment, and knowledge in new capacities.
Brooke Sheldon shepherded many of us through library school in her five years at UT as dean, and before that, as acting provost and later dean for 14 years at Texas Women's University's library school in Denton. After 20 years in administration, Dr. Sheldon says she wishes to return to the classroom and to her research and be, once again, "on the firing line".
Among her many accomplishments while at UT, Dr. Sheldon mentioned some as especially important, and cited the help of very supportive faculty and staff in achieving them. In 1992, UT-GSLIS was able to acquire from Columbia University its unique world class program in preservation and conservation. The doctoral program has been restructured and revitalized. Outreach masters programs for El Paso and San Antonio have been established, utilizing interactive television as the primary format. UT-GSLIS was ranked as number nine among the top ten library schools in a recent US News and World Report. A wide variety of interdisciplinary curricular and research initiatives have been developed with other components of the university and representatives from the private sector and state government. UT-GSLIS has increased to eighteen full-time faculty members. Finally, the school's endowment has almost doubled in the past five years.
Some of the major challenges Dr. Sheldon and UT GSLIS faced in the past five years include a doubled enrollment to approximately 480 students, which has increased faculty workloads and class sizes. A major problem-the need for increased space for the school-has not been resolved. I hope to develop a leadership course that can be shared with other library schools via distance learning technologies -- Dean Brooke Sheldon
Dr. Sheldon's immediate and long term plans include taking a sabbatical, during which she will spend time re-tooling and preparing for full-time teaching - and renovating an old adobe house in Santa Fe! She and UT-GSLIS faculty member Dr. Loriene Roy are finishing up a book on Library Education in the United States, and she has plans for another leadership book focused around various types of information environments. Dr. Sheldon expects to be teaching in the management area of the GSLIS curriculum and hopes to develop a leadership course that can be shared with other library schools via distance learning technologies. Dr. Sheldon also remains active in professional associations as the chair of ALA's Committee on Accreditation and as a willing participant in SLA events.
We are fortunate to be able to keep the benefit of Dr. Sheldon's experience, judgment, and knowledge within the information professional community. For those attending this fall's SLA Southwest Regional Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Dr. Sheldon will be a keynote speaker on October 31.
The spring meeting in Austin was held Saturday, March 23, 1996 at the Radisson Hotel on Town Lake in Austin from 8am to 5pm. There were 86 registrants (12 of which were students) plus 8 to 10 vendors.
Conference speakers Guy St. Clair, Bill DeGenaro and Jane Dysart, SLA President, addressed issues such as competitive intelligence and entrepreneurial librarianship
Our speakers were also guests of honor at a party at UT Professor Julie Hallmark's home on Friday night, to which all attendees at our seminar were also invited. Guy St. Clair headlined a UT colloquium on Thursday night and UT shared his expenses with Texas Chapter. (((
Radisson Hotel, Austin, Texas Friday, March 23, 1996 President Gail Wilson called the meeting to order at 8:15pm. Gail passed around the SLA list of dropped members and asked those present to contact any individuals whom they knew personally and find out why they dropped their memberships - if they did indeed drop it. Treasurer Bob Ruliffson announced that registration for the next day's meeting was $4,400.00 so all meeting expenses were covered. Bob announced that the SLA stipend had not yet been received. Gail pointed out that the affirmative action position is not an active committee and has no budget, but she was requesting that money needed be spent as though it were a committee (which it probably should be, due to its importance). Bob agreed that there would be no problem with funds.
President-elect, Susan Yancey, reporting on Saturday's meeting, stated that 86 members and 12 students were registered. Vendor support seemed low, but Gail remarked that it was average and Houston had been better than average. Susan announced that the summer planning meeting will be in Houston on July 13 or July 27.
The Lone Star Librarian, a quarterly newsletter [ISSN 0739-4950],. is the official publication of the Texas Chapter of the Special Libraries Association. The contents or articles and editorials are not to be considered as being or representing the official position of the Texas Chapter. The Special Libraries Association assumes no responsibility for statements and opinions advanced by the contributors to the Association's publications. Editorial views do not necessarily represent the official position of the SLA. Acceptance of advertising does not imply endorsement of the product by the Chapter or the Association. Address inquiries to:
Texas Chapter, Special Libraries Association, PO Box 17011, Austin, TX 78760. Address manuscripts, comments, notices, etc. to the Publications Committee. Inquiries for advertising rates and advertising orders should be addresses to the Advertising Manager. Texas Chapter SLA members automatically receive subscriptions to the Lone Star Librarian. Address other subscription inquiries and non-member changes of address to the Editor. Members should send changes of address to the Special Libraries Association, Membership. Dept., 1700 18th Street NW, Washington, DC 20009.
Gail requested those present to consider candidates for the Texas Star a ward and send recommendations to Marilyn. She also asked that everyone consider Una Gourlay's request for volunteers to make contact with new members from outside America.Under new business, Gail brought up the matter of student stipends and federal income tax. Ben Toon reported that taxes can be avoided if students pay expenses and get reimbursed or if the Chapter buys airline tickets and gives them to the students - otherwise money given is reported to the IRS. Ben and Barb Denton, as Student Liaisons, strongly felt that cash should be given to the students with the understanding that it is taxable income for them.
Another matter under new business was the recommendation from the nominations committee to remove the "must show the return address" and "tally each member" and "assure that only members vote" be removed from the procedures manual for the operations of that committee.
In the discussion that followed. Gail pointed out that the reasons for the changes were 1) the committee does not have a list of members to use for tallying; 2) return addresses often identify the library not the individual and 3) voter fraud seems very unlikely so there is no need to worry about "only members" voting. A motion was made by Dell Johnson and seconded by Nancy Cash to agree to the changes in procedures; it easily was passed.
Next, Gail brought up the question of whether a board meeting is needed in the fall even though there will be no fall meeting in Texas due to the regional meeting in New Mexico. Susan Yancey announced that she would probably convene a breakfast meeting of whichever members are at the New Mexico conference.
Dell Johnson suggested the Board consider renting a bus for transportation to the Southwest Regional Conference. It was generally agreed that it should be considered Strategic planning received attention for the remainder of the meeting. Blaise Turney discussed the membership opinion survey concerning the 1997-2000 strategic plan and distributed her latest draft. These new recommendations were made: Dell Johnson recommended a question on where would the members like to have meetings. Elizabeth Halliday - Reynolds suggested asking in question 8 whether the person is in an information center / library and it was pointed out that question 1 2 needed an additional column for "plan within the next year".
Blaise said she plans to send out the questionnaire in May and the Texas Chapter will pay the expense. She is looking at 2 or 3 statistical packages that will be available to her free as a doctoral student. She also pointed out at a lot of the demographical questions are needed because headquarters does not have any way to provide that information even though it is something which they already have on record. Blaise remarked that she probably can give an overview of the results at the summer meeting so that Andrea can incorporate them into a strategic plan for the following Spring. Margaret Carroll asked that this overview or draft be published in the Lone Star Librarian.
Andrea Greer brought up a proposal to combine consultation and public relations. Gail reported that the proposal was based on the feeling by those committee chairs that the duties and obligations overlap. There was some discussion that centered on the duties of the consultation chair and whether valuable information should be freely given to outside requesters and whether the consultation chair might be changed to provide assistance to chapter members with their job-related problems. Margaret Carroll recommended that this matter be deferred until there was a draft of the new strategic plan and everyone concurred.
Andrea distributed the results of her request for input on the goals of the current strategic plan. On March 4th she had distributed a request for a review of the 1993-96 strategic plan. All responses were incorporated into her March 23rd report. Gail pointed out that a mission statement is vital to any strategic plan. Margaret Carroll directed attention to national headquarters' mission statement. A discussion on the mission of the chapter followed. Gail remarked that we need to communicate to people who are not members and we should make the communication with more people in the information field part of our goal. Further discussion by Ben, Andrea and Blaise led to the statement of three concepts for incorporation into a mission statement: membership, development, research.
Margaret Carroll put forth these three concepts: as increase the organizations visibility (marketing plan); increase service to the profession ( professional development) and manage the chapter effectively as a business. Blaise pointed out that a strategic plan needs to be a guide for action plans to accomplish the mission. Gail asked everyone to think about chapter goals and bring concrete recommendations to the summer meeting Barb Denton remarked that Leah Bartlett has the procedures manual with the strategic plan on diskette if anyone needs it.
Gail requested everyone to also look at the procedures manual and note any needed changes. She set April 15th as a target date for getting mission statement recommendations and your committee goals needed to support the mission. Blaise pointed out that the survey will play an important role in revealing what the members view as important goals. Margaret said that we should not feel that we have to follow everything national does but we should customize to suit our constituency.
Judy Jennings distributed her affirmative action liaison report. Her report announced her goals and provided everyone with a copy of a concept paper for a project to implement a minority internship program that is being discussed by a coalition of TWU, UNT and UT Schools of Library and Information Science.
At 10pm Margaret Carroll moved to adjourn and Ben Toon seconded. Support for motion was unanimous. Submitted by, Connie Bihon, Secretary
Schedule changed: The Texas Chapter's reception at the Boston SLA Annual Conference is scheduled for Monday, June 10, 1996 from 4:30 to 6:30 pm at the Sheraton Boston in the Independence East/Center room. Lexis/Nexis is supporting us in this endeavor. Thanks to them in advance for their help. See the Boston Chapter web site for helpful info for attendees.
Submitted, by Bob Ruliffson, Treasurer
Starting balance 7/1/95 $21,321.79 Income $ 8,590.98 Expenses $14,257.91 Balance 3/14/96 $15,654.86 Account balances Checking $ 1,895.91 SLA Pooled Money Market Account $13,758.95 Total $15,654.86 Fall 1995 Meeting Summary Income $ 5,315.00 Expenses $ 2,495.41 Net income $ 2,819.59
The chapter annual report was submitted to Washington in early February. I'm still waiting for our annual allotment check (any day now!) which should be in the neighborhood of $5500.
So far, we've spent about 38% of what we budgeted for this year. Income should exceed what we forecast. Looks like we will be in acceptable financial shape at the end of the budget year (6/30/96).
I want to congratulate Ann Griffith on her election as 2nd VP Elect for Texas Chapter for 1996-97. I welcome her to the Board and thank her for her upcoming help with Vol. 49 of the Lone Star Librarian.Volume 48 closes with this issue and I feel privileged to be editor. I enjoy and benefit from the contact with the members all over Texas. I hope that for the coming year Ann and I can continue to receive suggestions, comments, input of whatever type, to help the LSL be useful and newsworthy for the members. Your contributions are welcome and necessary.
Thanks and regards,
Dell Johnson, 2nd VPdell.johnson@sematech.org
Forwarded from First VP Susan Yancey.
Hi, Sue - I'm really looking forward to the [spring] meeting. Since my retirement last year, I've really been out of touch. A comment::- the Lone Star Librarian announcement of the meeting says that the "National" President will speak. I gotta tell you - Jane Dysart is Canadian and I sat next to her for three years on the SLA Board. She really bristled up when anyone said "National". Always reminded us that SLA is an international organization. She's a great gal - I'm so glad she's coming, and Guy is one of my all time favorite people. Julie's party is a treat. Great cast of characters/events you put together. Lou
Lou Parris, Houston, The Great State of TexasEd. Mea culpa. Thanks to Lou for her reminder and humblest apologies to Jane Dysart, our Association President.
Our sister organization, Texas Library Assoc. [TLA], has a new home page at http://www.txla.org Contents include:
This item originally appeared in "Power Tools for Information Professionals," a newsletter published by F1 Services, Inc.
by Chris Dobson
Next to personnel, equipment is often the most difficult resource for libraries to obtain. The term "capital expenditure" seems a death knell for most requests. Companies typically spend capital funds on profit generating divisions while support functions languish.
For the librarian struggling to serve those expanding profit centers, the corporate priorities may seem skewed. "Why," you may wonder, "is the lobby getting new furniture when the library microfiche reader/printer produces uniformly gray pages?" There are three possible reasons. You have not clearly explained to your manager the consequences of denying your capital expenditure request. You have not presented statistics on microfiche usage. You have not presented anecdotes about critical information needs delayed while you waited for other libraries to send legible copies of articles you had on microfiche. You have not mentioned influential library users who were unhappy with the microfiche printer.
Your manager has some reason for not passing on your request that is related to his or her own goals, pressure from higher up the chain of command, or even more critical needs of other groups within your department. The president decided he really hated the color of the chairs in the lobby.
If you have fallen victim to reasons 2 or 3, you must accept the vagaries of corporate life. All is not lost, however. If the company is making capital expenditures, other departments are buying new equipment. Computers, chairs, tables, microfiche printers, fax machines, and copiers are not uniquely library equipment. And "new" does not necessarily mean newly purchased. If you have a 286 computer, a 486 would be an improvement. If another department is installing Pentiums, they may be discarding 486s. If your company is downsizing and all capital expenditures are frozen, you have other opportunities for acquiring new (to you) equipment. Fewer employees means excess furniture and computer equipment.
Unused equipment does not just disappear. Find out what procedures your company follows in discarding unneeded equipment. Check with Maintenance, Corporate Services, or Finance. Cruise the halls and talk with people to determine who is buying new equipment or what departments are being eliminated.
Discuss your needs with your manager and ask his or her help in finding surplus equipment that will satisfy your requirements. It doesn't have to be new to be better than what you have now.
The theme of this year's annual conference, and thus the topic of the essay competition, is Information Revolution: Pathway to the 21st Century. Congratulations to Judy and Valerie, stipend recipients for 1996.
This year, the winners were Valerie Bishop of UT-Austin and Judy Chalmers ofTWU. The stipend was presented at the chapter's Spring meeting in Austin.
The Public Relations Committee has actively been promoting the upcoming Spring meeting. These efforts have been focused on notifying interested groups such as ALA, TLA (Texas Library Assoc.), SALT (State Agency Librarians of Texas), OLA (Oklahoma Library Assoc.), and the Austin Law Librarians Group. A notice should also be printed in the Austin American-Statesman.We are now turning our attention to promoting International Special Librarians Day. I have received a marketing kit with templates for note pads, bookmarks, flyers, etc. from headquarters. These materials will be mailed to 10,000 Special Librarians by Lexis-Nexis. (It is unclear whether this is upon request or will be a general mailing.) Let me know if you would like copies. I checked with HQ and, unfortunately, this year's logo will not be available in electronic format.I hope to have April 18 declared Texas Special Librarians Day by Governor Bush and Austin Special Librarians Day by our Mayor. It would be great to have declarations from the mayors of all the major cities - let me know if you can invest a small amount of time to assist with this. I would also like suggestions for other ways to promote the event.
Since our last meeting in Fall 1995, two issues have been published, Nov. 1995 (48:2) and Feb. 96 (48:3). Ads have been included in each one, due to the diligent efforts of the Vendor Relations Chair, Trip Wycoff. Thanks to all who have contributed to the content through articles, letters to the editor or news & announcements.
The past 2 issues have come in under budget, mostly due to the volunteer efforts of members and friends in Austin, who have folded, labeled and sorted, to prepare the newsletters for bulk mailing. A LARGE measure of gratitude goes to Renee Daulong and Barbara Denton, at IRS in Austin, both for space to do the sorting and for coordination of efforts during these sessions. The last issue of Vol 48 is due out at the end of May 96, and I am now officially soliciting articles, etc from everyone! A large part of that issue will report the Board's activities and the Educational activities of the Spring Meeting. Also, some information about the Fall Regional Meeting should be finalized by then. The Aug. issue (Vol 49: 1) will have article(s) about the Annual Conference. But committee reports and conference reports are not enough to make people read LSL or want to join SLA as a result. With the goal of improvement in mind, please forward suggestions, ideas and criticisms to me or to Gail, to pass along to me. The copy deadline for May issue is May 15.
Issues: What problems, if any, do the members see in publishing the Lone Star Librarian on our Texas Chapter web page? SLA HQ has sent me a survey asking how we are dealing with electronic publication issues, I have not responded yet. But the fact is, I saw no "issue" about it. Now, I realize this may have been short-sighted. Do people see the newsletter as a benefit of membership that should not go out free on the web to non-members? Should we perhaps embargo it for a while before it goes up on the site? Or not put it out there? What other problems might there be?Kudos: Since all these reports are coming to all of us by email (a few by fax), a lot of the copy is now already written for the Board minutes and for the newsletter. Very good idea, Margaret Carroll! Thanks.
The Houston Local Planning Group met on Tuesday October 17, 1995 at the Houston Public Library from 5 to 7 pm. The event was a tour of the Government Documents Division as the Houston Public Library has been a government depository since 1884. Our guide was Cindy Page, the Government Documents Librarian, who gave us her thoughts about current issues in government information and prospects for the Government Printing Office. Twenty six of us had an overview of the collection, saw the CD-ROMs in action, toured the 6th floor documents area, and the 2d and 3d public floors where the heavily used documents are located. We enjoyed refreshments both before and after the program.Our annual Winter Social was held on Wednesday December 6, from 5:15 pm to 8 pm, and was enjoyed by 36 of us, and hosted by Majors Scientific Books, Inc. We met at Majors Scientific Books warehouse at Kerby Drive near the 610 Loop and had a behind the scenes tour of the facility and opportunity to meet their account specialists. Afterwards, we traveled to Majors Bookstore at 7205 Fannin, a two mile distance for a welcome by the bookstore manager, Kris Naylor, refreshments, and a wonderful opportunity to browse and make purchases which included a professional discount. Our thanks to Joyce Lewis, the Regional Vice President and Manager of Majors who helped make this program a great success. Our bookstore sojourn occurred after the store was closed to the general public. Delicious food and drink and a trio of holiday dressed carolers complete the very special program. It was so successful that Majors would like to make this an annual event
We are in the midst of planning a program during the week of May 20 to be held at the Gas Research Institute (GRI) Information Center, 1100 Louisiana Street, Suite 3630. Thanks to all who have made our year and programs so successful. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the Austin meeting>
Lone Star Librarian Not much to report. I have focused on increasing our advertisers in the Lone Star Librarian and have been successful in getting a number of yearly contracts for the newsletter. Conferences: Last Fall's conference had fantastic support from the vendors. We had 14 vendors at the Fall conference. So far for the Spring conference we have 8 vendors exhibiting. Please encourage your vendors to support us and to give me a call at (713) 469-6004.
The Dallas/Ft. Worth Local Planning Group's Holiday event was hosted by Microsoft Corp. at their Las Colinas Technical Support site, December 7th, 1995. 100+ Special Librarians and their guests gathered for an evening of food, friends, and fun, fun, fun. Attendees began the evening with a tour of the Microsoft Branch Library. Next stop was the Microsoft Consumer Division's "playroom". Microsoft Home CD products were made available for "testing". You could tour the National Gallery of London or the Barnes Collection, cook with Julia Child, "read" the interactive book, "How the Leopard got his Spots", or explore Microsoft Oceans and more! A buffet dinner was followed by drawings for super door prizes. The first 75 SLA members, and Library School students and Faculty received goodie bags filled with toys supplied by Dun & Bradstreet, F1 Services, Knight-Ridder, Lexis/Nexis, Microsoft, Moody's, Reference Press, Dow-Jones, Corporate Profound, and UMI.
January 30th saw 50+ members at Bell Northern Research for a program titled "Tactical Strategies to Survive & Thrive in the 21st Century: Value-Added Services". Thanks to Terry Hopkins and Elena Carvajal for developing this tremendous program. Three practitioners, Terry Hopkins, J. C. Penney's Planning and Research Dept, Lisa Casto, Director - BNR Information Center, and Sharon Criswell, Director - Fidelity Investments Money Market Center Library, and Library consultant, Dr. Florence Mason, gave us their views on how value-added services could enhance our value, stature, and security within our organizations. Real-life examples of value-added services were examined with practical advice provided. A tour of BNR's library, featuring two levels, vaulted ceilings, and state-of-the-art hardware, proceded the program.
April 19th, our final meeting for the 1995/96 year, will be a 1/2 day Strategic Planning Workshop lead by Richard Hulser from IBM's Consulting practice. Richard has worked on SLA's Strategic Planning Committee, and has conducted a Strategic Planning workshop for SLA's Board of Directors. He also convened the new SLA Information Futurist Caucus.
My thanks to all the individuals who worked so hard to make this a great year for the DFW/LPG. See you in Austin [at the spring meeting]!
This last Fall the Student Groups for North Texas (University of North Texas & Texas Womens University) toured three special libraries in the downtown Dallas area. The libraries visited were the Dallas Museum of Art, the Jenkens & Gilchrist law firm, and the Region 6 Environmental Protection Agency. The tour was well attended and I received good feedback from both students and librarians who participated.
Several free passes were awarded to students to attend the Christmas party held at Microsoft in Irving. Besides the students who won passes, the event was well attended by students of both schools. This Spring another tour was offered to the student groups of both universities to the Las Colinas area in Irving. A small group of students toured the libraries of the M/A/R/C Group, Exxon Corporation Headquarters, and the Federal Home Loan Bank. Although the group who attended this tour was smaller than in the Fall, I received very good feedback from the librarians who hosted the group.
For the student stipend award that will be given away at the Austin meeting on March 23, we had a large outpouring of entries at the last minute. A total of 15 essays were submitted for the contest and two winners were selected. The winners are Judy Chalmers of TWU and Valerie Bishop of UT. Judy will be unable to attend the meeting due to an injury sustained this last week. A formal presentation will be made at a later meeting held in the North Texas area.
There was a question raised about how the winner would be given their award because of the effect on their income taxes. A compromise has been reached to give the winner a choice of accepting the money and paying the taxes, paying for everything up front and being reimbursed, or to have SLA pay for the flight and hotel and award the money left over from these expenses.
An offer was made to the two North Texas Universities to send one student from each school to the Spring Conference with SLA picking up the tab. Mark Wilcox from UNT will be attending the Spring Conference. TWU was unable to select a student to attend.
In April a Saturday workshop is planned at the University of North Texas for both schools on job hunting. Several manager-level librarians have volunteered to be a part of the panel discussions. This event will be opened for all Library school students and lunch will be catered. There will be a small fee charged to cover costs.
As of 2/29/96 the Texas chapter membership statistics included:
I am formally requesting a visit to the chapter by the SLA President or Vice-President for a future chapter meeting. By formally requesting, headquarters pays their expenses.
The summer planning meeting will be held in Houston on either July 13th or July 27th depending on your input. Please let me know if either of these dates is a magic date for you. The fall meeting will be held in conjunction with four other southwestern chapters - the Oklahoma, the Rio Grande, the Rocky Mountain, and the San Diego - on October 30-November 1, 1996 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The International Relations Committee is initiating a mentor project across geographic boundaries with the intention of facilitating professional contact and fellowship among all members of the Association.
The project is focused on two activities:
We are looking for volunteers:
Thanks to all of the members who supplied input on the first version go around of the survey. Attached is the second draft of the survey (a little longer and hopefully, more informative.) Please take a few minutes to review and make any further suggestions as to any missing areas of information you feel will be needed to provide input for the development of the Strategic plan. The objectives of doing the survey are to determine attitudes, opinions, and needs of the membership and to assess the effectiveness of the programs, services, and products our chapter provides as a basis for planning future directions for the association. The areas covered are demographics, current issues of concern for librarians and the profession itself, current membership activities and programs effectiveness, future membership programs and activities, and critical issues for the future. The survey is designed with closed-ended and structured questions, but also allows for open-ended questions and comments. I am currently evaluating statistical software programs for compiling the responses for the membership survey. Unless something else happens to delay implementation, we should be able to mail out the survey and gather responses in time for the summer planning meeting. As noted before, it is planned to have the survey sent to all current members of the Texas Chapter.
The Strategic Planning Committee has reviewed the 1993-96 Strategic Plan and submitted suggestions for review by the Executive Board and Advisory Council during the past year. Requests were made at the Summer Planning Meeting, the Fall Board Meeting and through the Lone Star Librarian for members of the Board and Advisory Council to review the Plan and submit their findings. The responses received will be reviewed and discussed at the Spring 1996 Board Meeting. The Member Survey is in preparation for distribution to the Texas Chapter members. However, due to unforeseen delays it is recommended that the results of the survey be deferred until the Summer Planning Meeting.
The Strategic Planning Committee has solicited and received input as indicated for each goal of the current Strategic Plan. It is recommended that a Draft Plan be prepared for the Summer Planning Meeting with the Final Plan submitted for Chapter review and approval at the Fall Board Meeting with adoption at the Spring 1997 Board Meeting. This extended timeline will allow for the completion of the Member Survey and compilation of the results by Blaise Turney, Chair, Member Survey. We appreciate all the feedback to the Member Survey at the Fall Meeting and to the Strategic Plan during the past month.
Also, this year she has been Question and Answer Column Editor of "Flying Solo" the newsletter of the Solo Librarian's Division, the fastest growing division within SLA with over 5,000 members. Olga reports on her Consultation Chair work that she provided consultation to the Citibank Library in Roanoake, Texas., north of Dallas
by Erika Mittag
Again, I have waited until the last possible minute to submit this report due to the rapidly changing situation on a number of pieces of legislation on the Hill and in the courts. Now to sift through the nearly 100 documents in my virtual file drawer on government relations issues...
First some administrative details; I am looking forward to meeting Roxanne Fulcher SLA Government Relations Director and working with the rest of the Association level committee during the Boston conference.
Ty Webb, chair of the Association level Government Relations Committee (SLAGR), recently submitted the annual report of the committee to the SLA Board of Directors. In it Ty noted the creation of an e-mail list including members of the SLAGR as well as chapter and division Government Relations committee chairs and some other interested individuals to improve dissemination and sharing of information on important issues. Also noted was the decision to cease SLA s co-sponsorship of National Legislative Day (held this year on May 7) with ALA and the District of Columbia Library Association. SLA members were encouraged to join their state delegations to advocate on library issues. In February, SLA joined a coalition called the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition, which is a plaintiff to a challenge to the Communications Decency Act, the censorship piece of the Telecom bill. Some court action in this suit is expected May 15. SLA also joined with ALA, AALL, ARL and MLA in a statement for hearings on HR 2441 concerning copyright on the information highway (more below). Comments were also submitted on the Electronic Federal Depository Library Program Transition Plan (EFDLP), chiefly expressing concern that the technological infrastructure necessary to support the nearly all electronic FDLP described in the Plan does not yet exist.
I'm sure it will be mentioned elsewhere in this issue, but the SLA homepage is up on the Internet at http://www.sla.org/ Government Relations plans to include updated information on those pages soon. I hope to be able to include more updated information to the Texas Chapter homepage in addition to the electronic copies of this report as part of the Lone Star Librarian.And now for the issues...
As mentioned above, imminent court action is expected in the suit brought by a variety of public interest groups concerning the Communications Decency Act and it s apparent infringement of First Amendment Rights as well as possible imposition of criminal penalties against libraries and other providers of access to the Internet should an unsuspecting patron stumble across material "harmful to minors". In March, the FCC issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) regarding section 254 of the bill on defining universal service. This section, mentioned in some of my earlier reports as the Snow-Kerrey- Rockefeller-Exon amendment, was strongly supported by library groups to provide discounted and/or low cost telecommunications connections to schools, libraries and rural health providers as a means of disseminating the benefits of the connected society to those unable to afford private access. This NPRM is nearing the end of its extended comment period with results of this first round to be published soon.
The Depository Library Council meeting and Federal Depository Conference were held in mid-April where about 600 depository librarians and others discussed the implications of the EFDLP proposal for their libraries and patrons. While GPO, several library associations and others intimately connected with implementation of this plan reached consensus that a five to seven year schedule was more realistic and doable. House leadership appears intent on pushing for the two year implementation schedule.
has submitted a section-by-section analysis of the FDLP legislative proposal to several Members of Congress,the Vice President and SLA with a request to discuss the matter.. Primary issues include cost of building the technological infrastucture necessary to support the plan, copyright issues, no-cost access to government information, preservation issues, and standardization of document formats.
A recent post on GOVDOC-L mentioned the fact that all of the standard search internet search engines (Yahoo, etc.) are only capable of searching the HTML indexes and texts of documents. What these search engines cannot search is the text of documents in PDF format (supported by Adobe Acrobat among others) which is preferred for its more readable appearance. A recent announcement about the first totally electronic document published drew comments from the GOVDOC-L crowd when the very long URL address ended in the innocuous document title: report.html with little in the URL to identify the actual title or content of the report - a cataloger's nightmare come true. These two examples are only the tip of the iceberg of issues.
GPO's draft report is titled Study to Identify Measures Necessary for a Successful Transition to a More Electronic Federal Depository Library Program and can be found on the Internet.
National Information Infrastructure Copyright Protection Act of 1995 (H.R.2441)This bill is being marked up today (May 15) by the House Judiciary committee with a strong possibility that the Copyright Term Extension Bill of 1995 (H.R.989 & S.483) will be offered as an amendment. This would provide copyright protection 70 years past the death of the copyright holder creating a nearly impossible situation for libraries and publishers in tracing copyright for items no longer in print and providing copies for patrons. It could also impose penalties on libraries and online service providers (OSP s) for copyright infringement by users of their access hardware and software. SLA is a member of the Digital Futures Coalition (DFC) which is trying to bring some balance to this legislation in the areas of fair use and copyright term length. House Judicary Chair Senator Orin Hatch urges that the legislation must move quickly, with details to be ironed out after the bill becomes law while the DFC emphasizes doing it right the first time. Hatch agreed that a separate hearing on the issues pertinent to libraries and distance education should be held, but no date has been set.
Health Information InfrastructureIn April, SLA sponsored a three day conference titled "The Emerging Health Information Infrastructure: Enabling the Future" where information and medical specialists heard experts and discussed various aspects of the impact of the Internet on the practice of medicine. Key issues involved authenticity of information, access to information, security and encryption. Roxanne Fulcher attended this meeting and will make available on request the conference attendee document which includes the topics and papers. She also recommends the document "Telemedicine and the National Information Infrastructure (NII): Policy Issues and Recommendations on Telemedicine," published in Feb. by the Joint Working Group on Telemedicine. To obtain a copy contact: Office of Rural Health Policy, Health Resources and Services Administration, Department of Heath and Human Services at 301-443-0835.
As always, I'm interested in your feedback. Please contact me at ecmittag@mmm.com with any thoughts and/or concerns regarding government relations issues.
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