MLA Academic and Research Libraries Division (ARLD)

Board meeting, 1/25/02

Attending: Karen Fischer, Laurel Haycock, Julie Kelly, Jane Ann Nelson

The minutes from the 12/21/01 meeting were approved and the agenda was adopted.

Old Business

1. Web Page.

Julie reported that the ARLD Web page corrections suggested at the 12/21 meeting had all been done, with the exception of the listserv directions. Julie will find out about making suggestions for the larger MLA page.

2. Listserv

Karen has made tentative arrangements with the computer center at Carleton College to run our listserv. She will serve as list owner and work on a draft of a policy statement and other messages to be sent to subscribers. Julie will get an e-list of the members’ e-mail addresses from the MLA office.

The group discussed various ways to promote the use of the listserv, and ARLD in general. A mailing with a promotional item was suggested. We will ask the MLA office about obtaining such items.

We will probably sign people up automatically, and give them the option to sign off if they wish. We will use the listserv to promote upcoming activities, ask for input, and send news from the Board meetings. We hope libraries will send notices about new people who have been hired.

3. Membership

It was noted that although MLA sends a greeting to new members, we neither get a notification nor send anything from ARLD to new members. Julie will ask the MLA office if we can be notified about new ARLD members.

4. WAAL

The Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians has a conference each spring, and the group wondered if ARLD members might be welcome to attend. We also thought a joint ARLD/WAAL meeting might be a good idea. This topic will be added to a future agenda for discussion.

5. Best Practices in Instruction workshops

Jane Ann reported that we are budgeted for 9 sessions in 2002, three per region. They are tentatively planned for two hours each, with light refreshments. There is a bit of money in the budget for photocopying and travel. We are guessing that we will have about 10 people per meeting. Each will include one or two short informal presentations, and time to share ideas. We will need to find members in each region to assist. Materials and ideas from each meeting could be posted on the Web.

While the three regions have not been clearly defined, we discussed possibly having sessions in Duluth, St. Cloud, Rochester, Mankato and the Twin Cities. We are looking for sites that would be convenient for members. We plan to do three sessions in March or April, and Jane Ann will work on finding contact people for three sites.

Topics suggested for the workshops include active learning, assessment, humor and faculty collaboration. It was mentioned that some program ideas from the MLA meeting might be appropriate to recycle in the workshops, as well

by Minnesota presenters at ALA and ACRL conferences.

6. Meeting Schedule

Jane Ann and the group finalized the ARLD Board meeting schedule for 2002:

Feb 22

Mar 22

April 19

May 17

June 7

August 16

(MLA Sept 25-27)

October 18

November 15

December 13

New Business

1. MLA Conference Program Planning

The group discussed a number of possible programs for the MLA meeting. Karen will compile the list and e-mail it to the group, and we will divide the responsibility of assisting with speaker contacts and program write-up. The final plans are due to MLA in early March.