LLAMA SASS Technical Services and Systems Committee
Minutes
ALA Midwinter Meeting, San Diego, CA
Saturday, January 8, 2011, 1:30-3:30 PM
Marriott Hotel & Marina, Marriott Hall 3
Committee Charge: To study and evaluate procedures and issues relating to the management
of technical services systems and to provide a forum for discussion of related problems in all
kinds of libraries.
Present: Lynda Aldana, Emily Bergman, John Brunswick, Bea Caraway, Vicki Grahame, Nancy
Hershoff (chair), Marilyn Lewis.
Absent: Brad Eden.
Guests: Michelle Turvey-Welch (LLAMA/SASS chair), Nick Velkaurh (MLIS student, San José
State University)
1.
Welcome and introductions / Meeting recorder – Nancy Hershoff called the meeting to
order and invited introductions from all present. Bea Caraway agreed to take minutes for the
meeting.
2.
Additions to agenda – There were no additions or changes to the agenda.
3.
Approval of minutes from 2010 ALA Annual Conference – Nancy distributed copies of
the minutes. There being no changes or additions, the minutes were approved.
4.
ALA Connect – Nancy encouraged committee members to use ALA Connect. Michelle
Turvey-Welch, who was present for this part of the meeting, reminded us that a notification
feature was available in ALA Connect.
5.
Committee webpage:
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/llama/committees/systemsservices/sass_tss.cfm
The committee webpage includes past minutes and the committee roster. There was some
question as to whether the 2010 annual program evaluation summary was posted to the
committee webpage. There are two options for posting committee materials, the committee
webpage and ALA Connect. Committees may choose one or the other or use both. Nancy noted
that she likes the redundancy that using both pages provides but prefers the ease of uploading
files herself to ALA Connect. Michelle announced that the current SASS web master, Joseph
Williams, is stepping down, and she encouraged interested members to apply for the position.
6.
Old business (note change in order of discussion of items)
a.
2010 Annual Conference Program “The Backroom Powerhouse: Leading
Technical Services in Turbulent Times” – program report and evaluation summary
As one of the presenters, committee member Emily Bergman expressed her
disappointment that she had been given almost no guidance as to content and felt that
her talk had missed the mark. (It was noted that Emily’s talk suited the original program
title very well (Navigating the Political Landscape in Technical Service) In contrast, Lynda
liked the variety of perspectives offered and the diversity of content. The location was
far from the convention center and furthermore was incorrect in the program, which
may have reduced the audience size. PowerPoints were to have been posted to ALA
Connect or somewhere on the LLAMA/SASS website. Nancy promised to look into this.
e.
Making our 2010 annual program into a webinar
The discussion brought more questions than answers. The main topics were as follows:
Technical issues – ALA has bought GoToWebinar, which we can use. Michelle will send
Nancy the name of the ALA contact for the application so that we can find out what the
technical requirements are, both for setting up GoToWebinar locally and for using it
once set up.1 This will affect webinar presenters.
Type of programming – Should the webinar be live and interactive or recorded for
playback at any time? Michelle indicated that it should be live, but could either be a
one-way presentation or else could consist of an introduction to a topic followed by
open discussion among participants.
Purpose and value of webinars – Emily asked if the purpose is to make money or to
share expertise with staff who can’t attend conferences, to which no one offered an
answer. If the purpose is to make money, Vicki pointed out that potential participants
would pay for a webinar only if its value for them was obvious. Must we charge, or can
we offer free webinars? Even if we can offer them free, someone mentioned that
charging even $10 would bring a higher attendance than charging nothing.
Turning the 2010 program into a webinar -- Vicki noted that webinars generally are
more effective for training sessions or from more technical presentations, e.g.,
introduction to RDA or training for RDA, than for sharing personal experiences, which
was the thrust of the 2010 annual conference program. This sort of content doesn’t
necessarily translate well to PPT slides. Emily wondered if our committee could put on a
webinar that could compete in quality with LLAMA webinars done by Julie Todaro and
Pat Wagner in past years. Would our speakers from the 2010 program be willing to do a
webinar? If so, we should use the original program title.
In the end, we decided that Nancy will talk to Fred Reuland, the continuing education
person in the LLAMA office, about all our questions. Armed with additional information,
we will take up the webinar discussion again.
b.
New Supervisors in Technical Services: A Management Guide Using Checklists –
revision, addition, updates, etc.
Emily Bergman and Andrea Kappler, editors, are considering a second edition to include
more topics. For the original work, some chapters were written by teams, others solo,
and the same approach could hold for the new edition. The committee members
responded enthusiastically to the proposal. Could this edition be an ebook?
Next steps:
Emily will talk to Fred Reuland or Carey??? about 1) getting online access to the text of
the original edition and 2) the possibility of publishing the new edition as an ebook or in
dual format.
Two months after we have access to the text, we will have a conference call to discuss
our strategy. While reading through the original edition, members should toss out ideas
for new topics via email.
c.
Discussion of the 2012 ALA Annual Conference program idea: Next-gen technical
services --formation of a program committee
After much discussion, we decided to wait until after a decision about the webinar
project to decide about 2012 conference programming. Three projects are too many
(book revision, webinar, and program). We could co-sponsor a program in 2012 and
look to 2013 (Anaheim) to do our own.
Initial discussion of the topic at our 2010 annual meeting centered on what technical
services will look like in the mid-term future. Vicki doesn’t like the topic: we’re all doing
it already and are worn out! Other ideas include, for 2013 in Anaheim

someone from the UC system to talk about their initiative (based on the white
paper, “Next‐Generation Technical Services: Changing How We Provide Technical
Services for the University of California Libraries”).

someone from Pepperdine to talk about their WorldCat ILS


someone from a public library to talk about their perspective
someone from a public library board to discuss the financial perspective.2
Vicki suggested patron-driven acquisitions as a possible topic.
Next steps: Continue discussion of program for 2013. Ask Brad to chair a subcommittee,
or at least ask for his input soon.
d.
Co-sponsorship for other programs – We agreed to offer to co-sponsor a 2012
ALCTS Acquisitions Section program on the future of acquisitions. Marilyn Lewis will
communicate with the ALCS committee on this.
7.
New business – none.
8.
The meeting adjourned at 2:50 PM.
Respectfully submitted by Beatrice L. Caraway
1
The ALA contacts are Steven Bowers (Chair of LLAMA Continuing Ed Committee) and Reuland
(freuland@ala.org).
2
In late February, Marilyn Lewis offered to fill this slot if we need her to, as she is newly
appointed to the board of a public library.