ALA General Meeting

December 15, 2004: Minutes

President Marc Gartler began the meeting at approximately 5:15pm.
Marc congratulated the ALA members on a successful and well-attended Holiday Party. Congratulations also went out to the Lecture Committee for the Allen Lanham lecture, which was also a success.
Our ALA T-Shirts are now sold out! There was a question from an ALA member regarding whether or not we are planning to buy and sell more T-Shirts. Marc answered that the ALA board has been discussing that option.
Marc has been talking to Beth Woodward about the various University Library training sessions and whether or not we can also attend as students. The training sessions cover various library-related technologies as well as professional development courses. Beth has replied that all NetG online workshops are definitely available to us, and that she'd welcome us to co-sponsor a library training session.
Committee reports:

Committee has contacted various people about having a "How to attend a conference" session in mid-February with the Conference Committee. Sue Searing and Susan Barrick have already offered their time. It is anticipated that this would be a brown-bag discussion during lunchtime.
Katie polled the Drinking_GSLIS group to see if there was interested in this session, and there seems to be. Tim polled the current meeting attendees and about 8-9 said they would attend such a session.

Field Trip to Parkland occurred yesterday (Dec 14th). Seemed to be a success although no one at meeting had attended this field trip.
Later this week, many Chicagoans (mostly LEEP/distance students) are going to the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology on Dec 17th.
Committee is planning its next meeting in early January before members head off to ALA Midwinter.

Allen Lanham lecture was a success. Decent attendence, although committee wishes they could've had a higher attendence.
Michael Gorman - committee will be talking to him more after the new year. Working on bringing him in sometime in the Spring semester, based on his availability and schedule.
Terry's comments on Michael Gorman - Try to get on his schedule early (like Jan/Feb) before his schedule fills up. Terry volunteered to help contact him as necessary. Terry also suggested we apply for SORF funds to help bring him in, and possibly talk to the GSLIS lecture committee about co-sponsoring it.
Next committee meeting planned for early/mid January.
Other ideas: Committee is looking to try and get two big lectures to bring in a large number of people. Michael Gorman is one. Also talked about some guy in town who is working on the Project Gutenberg

Holiday Party went very well! Very few glitches (and all were minor)!
Next step is to plan for the Pancake breakfast
Next meeting sometime early next semester
Terry: in past, Social Committee has also helped set up a graduation party or picnic. Could be a possibility this year. Also, in the past, the previous Dean used to invite students over around graduation time. We may want to talk to other student groups about reorganizing a celebration picnic, or talk to the Dean to see if he's planning anything
Marc suggested the Social Committee also organize a Chicago get-together during the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.
Jenny Benevento suggested organizing a monthly gathering to get ALA and GSLIS people to just go out and meet Social Committee members. May be able to get more people involved in ALA in this way. Could be either a bar or coffee shop type of gathering
LeAnn Suchy said she was approache by Leigh Estabrook about something similar already. Some way to reach out to new students and get them to meet people and get them involved.
Sponsoring a "Meet & Greet" early next semester was brought up. Many people thought this would be a great idea!
Terry mentioned that there used to be a regular ALA/Master's Student gathering each week (or every other week) at a pub. We could even start this up again

We have 20+ extra orders that were gathered during distribution and at the Holiday Party
Also are talking to Susan Barrick about getting word out to Alumni in the next Alumni Newsletter
Looking to possibly sell other items: totebags, bumper stickers, GSLIS flask?
Question as to if there will be more t-shirts. Tenative answer is yes...but it'd be best to order more than 50, since we get the best price that way.
We could also sell some during LEEP weekend.

Officers have been elected! Anne Paprocki is the 1st President of the ACRL Division! Congratulations to Anne and the new secretary and treasurer!

Will have next meeting right after the ALA Midwinter conference
Question was asked about who is going to Midwinter, so that people can meet up or hook up. Dyanna supposedly has the full list, and she was unable to attend this meeting.

Still no committee chair. Email the board (ala@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu) if interested!

No response from them recently. No one knows if there is still a committee chair for this committee.

Marc's general comments to all committees:
- More advertisement of committee meetings for next semester. Not only that, but try to advertise your committee meetings enough in advance that others could possibly attend
- There will also be some new students next semester, so if you advertise your meetings enough, you may pick up a few more members
- We'd also like to get a Calendar of ALA events up somewhere. It was mentioned that we could post a paper ALA calendar in the LRL and just write in events/meetings there. That way people can always look there.
ALA Annual - Still only $45 till January 2nd. $60 for students after that!
PLA Spring Symposium - March 7-9th. Early bird registration ends in January
ALA Student-to-Staff - Terry needs the results by January 27th. Essay contest details will be going out shortly.

Minutes taken by Tim Donohue, 2004-2005 Vice President.