RUSA HISTORY SECTION EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MINUTES AMERICAN LIBRARY
ASSOCIATION MIDWINTER CONFERENCE, 2003
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
Saturday, Jan., 25, 2003, 8-9 a.m. Radisson, Chancellor
Tuesday, Jan., 28, 2003, 8-11 a.m. Embassy Suites, Logan
Saturday, Jan., 25th
Present: Agnes Widder (secretary), Jennifer Paustenbaugh, Joseph Straw, Ruth Carr,
Michele McNabb, Ann Reinert, Cindy Krolikowski, Phoebe Janes (vice chair/chair
elect), Nancy Eckerman (member at large), Nancy Godleski (chair), Bill Buckner,
Mary Mannix, Susan Malbin (member at large), David Lincove, Jim Niessen (past
chair), Tom Kemp.
Announcements: the Section dinner will be Sunday evening, 6 p.m. at Bookbinders,
215 S. 15th St. Nancy Godleski thanked those who provided restaurant suggestions.
Jim Niessen announced that the Association for the Bibliography of History will
meet after the dinner on Sunday, at 9 p.m. at Bookbinders. This organization
normally meets at the American Historical Association conference. The slate of
proposed officers for next year's Section positions is in the works.
1. Corrections to the minutes of the Executive Committee from 2002 Annual
Conference: from the June 15th meeting: Ann Reinert corrected here mail address.
Celestina Wroth, rather than Ruth Carr, is the new News editor. From the June. 18th
meeting: Jennifer Paustenbaugh, rather than Jennifer Albano, is the chair of
Historical Events Committee. Nancy Godleski added information to #7 on the RUSA
Membership Committee report and to #14, the Instruction and Research Services
Report, but she is not responsible for either committee. The discussion of the
History Section Award will become section llA of the minutes of June 18th.
2. Reports from History Section Committees:
Local History Committee is responsible for the Section's program at the annual
conference this summer in Toronto, but the planning is not going smoothly. Susan
Malbin, the new chair of the committee does not know where the previous chair, Ed
Franks, is with the planning. Ruth Carr pointed out that perhaps it is not a good idea
to change the chair of the committee planning the Section program during the
program planning. This could be corrected in the Section procedures. After much
discussion it was decided, since there is already an abundance of conference
programs, not to try to throw together a program at the last minute.
Genealogy and Local History Discussion Group is having a tour of the Masonic
Temple and its library here in Philadelphia at the conference. The Masons have very
good biographical records, which are useful for genealogy research. Report by Jay
Kemp.
History Librarians' Discussion Group will feature Sue Roberts and David Lincove
leading a discussion on Cooperation in collection development for history
collections. Report by Jim Niessen.
5. History Section Program Schedule. Where does the Instruction and Research
Services Committee fit into the Section's rotating responsibility for planning the
Section's annual program for the ALA conferences? Bibliography and Indexes
Committee did the program in 2002. Local History was responsible for it for 2003.
Genealogy Committee is planning it for 2004. The new Instruction and Research
Services Committee will be responsible for planning the annual program for the
2005 conference. Then Bibliography and Indexes Committee will do it in 2006,
beginning the rotation over again.
7. ABC-Clio History Library Award. Jim Niessen reported that ABC-Clio is interested
m offering a sum of money to honor a history librarian. Jim gave the publisher the
RUSA guidelines on awards. We will revisit this topic at the meeting on Tuesday
where we will look at two proposals.
2. Section committee reports, cont'd.
Bibliography and Indexes Committee. The best bibliographies in history list from
2002 and 2003 will be published in one article in RUSQ.
Genealogy Publishing Company Award Committee. The committee met via mail.
Nancy Eckerman reported that they have nominated Charles Cummings of Newark
Public Library for the award.
Genealogy Committee. This committee has two sub-committees, for online
education and for standards and guidelines, as well as a pre-conference planning
committee. The online education sub-committee will have a technical speaker on
creating an online continuing education course. Two guidelines are being worked on
by the Standards and Guidelines sub-committee: on establishment of local history
collections and on preservation, conservation, and restoration of local historical and
genealogical materials. Janet Schultz is the secretary of the committee. 33
·people attended the genealogy pre-conference on Friday. It was held at the
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, to save money. This worked well. Another time
a tour of an "off-campus" facility where the pre-conference is held would be a good
thing to include. Genealogical Publishing Company and Pro-Quest assisted with
expenses. Tom Kemp spoke. Attendees would have liked to have heard him more.
They will begin planning the next genealogy pre-conference, for 2004,
at this conference. Heritage Quest has cancelled its microform [sic] program.
Genealogy Committee intends to send a letter to the National Archives encouraging
them to take over this publishing endeavor. The Committee is interested in
exploring the possibility of adopting the RUSA CODES mentor program model.
There was some discussion of the format in which the committee's minutes are
made available. There was also some discussion of the timing of publication of the
"RUSA Update" information relative to upcoming conferences. Report by Bill
Buckner, with contributions by Tom Kemp.
Historical Events. No committee members were appointed. They have no meeting
time at this conference. Nancy Godleski apologized. The committee was accidentally
wiped out by RUSA; this is being rectified. Jennifer Paustenbaugh is the committee
chair.
Local History Committee. Will have a tour of the Masonic Temple today. They will
discuss revision of the two standards and guidelines mentioned in the Genealogy
Committee paragraph above at their Monday meeting. American Museum curators
will be invited to the meeting. as well as the Society of American Archivists/ALA
Committee members, which deals with primary sources. Report by Susan Malbin.
Instruction and Research Services Committee. For its first project this committee is
devising a web form which may be used by students to assist them in evaluating
primary source web sites. It is8-9 pages long and at their meeting they will continue
tinkering with it. When finished it will be placed on the History Section web site.
They will explore ways to publicize its existence
and usefulness and will discuss other activities they might engage in. Phoebe Janes
wishes the chair, David Lincove, to forward to her names of people interested in
serving on this committee. It is hoped, too, that the present members will wish to
continue. Report by David Lincove.
At 9 a.m. this meeting adjourned,
Respectfully submitted, Agnes Widder, Secretary
Tuesday, Jan. 28th
Present: Nancy Godleski (chair), Bill Buckner, Nancy Eckerman (member at large),
Agnes Widder (secretary), Curt Witcher, Tom Kemp, Joseph Straw, Nancy Doane, Jim
Niessen (past chair), Ruth Carr, Cindy Krolikowski, Phoebe Janes (vice chair/chair
elect), Carla Rickerson, Jeannette Pierce, David Lincove, Ann Reinert, Byron
Holdiman.
[MISSING TEXT IN ORIGINAL DOCUMENT]
2. Reports from Committees of the History Section, cont'd.
Genealogy Discussion Group. Meeting at the Masonic Temple went well. Report by
Tom Kemp.
Genealogy Committee. The online education sub-committee will get a proposal to
RUSA in?
by? March. There was interest in revising the two standards and
guidelines that need it; the sub-committee for this purpose will work with the Local
History Committee on this. The Section program for the 2003 annual conference in
Toronto, being planned by the Genealogy Committee's sub-committee for this
purpose, will ask REFORMA, as it will be on genealogy work with Spanish speakers.
Report by Bill Buckner.
Instruction and Research Services Committee. David Lincove described further the
web form the committee is developing for use by students in evaluating primary
source web sites. Publicity about this to students and teachers in college and high
school needs to be done. It is hoped that it will be useful in bibliographic
instruction. It is an aid to helping a student determine whether a web site containing
primary sources is good or not.
History Librarians' Discussion Group. Jim Niessen reported that the room assigned
was not set up in the manner he had requested, but that the hotel personnel were
helpful in rearranging it the way we wanted it. 34 people attended. The discussion
was about cooperation in development of history collections. Really much of the
discussion was about cooperation in sharing access to library resources between
libraries, via interlibrary loan and by walk-in patrons. Who can borrow via ILL?
How long does it take to receive needed items? Is the ILL service mediated? Some
institutions have ILL going through their circulation departments now instead of an
ILL dept.with patrons placing their own, unmediated requests. A representative
from the Center for Research Libraries attended and fielded questions, defended,
and represented the CRL's services. Several topics for the next meeting, which will
be at the next midwinter ALA, surfaced: digitization of primary resources, free and
commercial, and library produced digital resources; different media and formats,
including use of oral history and A V; and commercial web portals for history
combining reference, primary and secondary sources. Report by Jim Niessen.
Bibliography and Indexes Committee discussed 25-30 bibliographies, narrowing
their list down to 9 which will be reviewed in the next best bibliographies in history
article in RUSQ which will cover both the 2002 and 2003 lists. The deadline for
submission of reviews to the chair is Feb. 14th. The chair is gathering copies of the
2002 reviews from the assigned reviewers. Jeannette Pierce.
Nominating Committee has put together a slate consisting of 1 VC/CE candidate and
two candidates for each of the other offices. The names have been turned in to
Cathleen Bourdon. Report by Curt Witcher.
Local History Committee [sic] has no program planned for the ALA conference
in Toronto. We discussed the situation. ALA in Toronto is a joint conference of both
ALA and the Canadian Library Association. A couple of Canadian librarians reviewed
the program proposal; they indicated that local history was not as interesting to
Canadian librarians as a program on provincial or national resources would be. Yet,
it was thought that a speaker they proposed did not have much respect. Sam
Boldrick has offered to speak, but the point of the program was to have it on
Canadian local history, rather than American. Text for the final program would be
due the end of January (this month). The chair of the committee, Susan Malbin, is
about to begin a new job with the IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services)
and would likely be relieved not to have to do this. There is also some problem with
when it has been scheduled during the conference. History Section is already cosponsoring a program on adoption. A vote was taken and it was determined not to
continue trying to plan this program. Proposals for the 2004 conference program
are due to Carla Rickerson by May 15, 2003. The annual conference will be in San
Diego. The Genealogy Committee will plan this program and it will be on genealogy
for the Spanish speaking population in America. This report was a discussion by the
whole group.
Access to Information Committee. The chair, Sam Boldrick, was not present. Ann
Reinert reported that there will be a forum on access to information issues at the
annual conference.
2. Reports from History Section Representatives to RUSA committees.
RUSA Membership Committee. Phoebe Janes indicated that much of the meeting
time was taken up by an "interrogation" by the deputies charged with doing the 5
year review of the committee. Some statistics were passed around which show that
RUSA membership, along with membership in most other parts of ALA has declined.
RUSA membership is down 2%. 31% of the decrease is because of the cost, 24%
because the people are no longer in reference, 21% have retired, 14% felt their
needs were better met elsewhere, and 5% gave no reason. So, this committee is to
work hard on membership retention and recruitment. CODES is establishing a
mentoring program which seems to be designed to help people navigate and get
involved in ALA activities. It seems very time consuming for the mentor. Many
people want mentors; few have indicated a willingness to be one in this proposed
program. People want mentoring for professional life generally, not just for ALA
itself. Ann Reinert described BRASS' efforts to help new members. RBMS in ACRL
has a buddy system that matches people up to have meals together at ALA. We need
to plan on staffing the RUSA booth at the annual conference for four hours. People
interested in doing this should let Phoebe Janes know. Report by Phoebe Janes.
RUSA Nominating Committee. Ruth Carr met with the nominating committee for
lunch in Chinatown.
RUSA Organization Committee. The review of the Membership Committee was
done by people doing committee reviews for the first time. The Membership
Committee is doing fine. The MOUSS interlibrary loan, document delivery, and
copyright committees and their work are going to become an interlibrary loan
section. There is an overlap checklist which is being drafted to
use in committee reviews to assess overlap between entities in RUSA. The
Publications Committee has approved new standards for web pages. Professional
competency guidelines have been approved. Report by Jim Niessen.
RUSA Planning and Finance Committee. RUSA has $16,000 more net revenue than
expected. MARS had a successful pre-conference, as did our section (ours made
$1000). But RUSA has had an $18,000 drop in advertising revenue. RUSQ lost over
500 subscriptions, one-third of the subscriber base. The value ofthe principal of the
RUSA endowment decreased by $23,000, as well as the interest income. One-third
of the personal members of the section are not renewing their memberships. The
fourth quarter budget report for 2002 was passed around the table. We had some
discussion about what is being published in RUSQ; some voiced the opinion that
more practical articles would be more welcomed by the readership. It was felt that
the articles being published are being done to assist librarians who need to get
tenure to achieve that; these articles seem not to be so useful to others in the
profession. We voted not to give the endowment $20,000. In addition, later on in
the meeting we voted that Nancy Godleski should tell the RUSA board that our
Section is displeased with the decline in the mount of the principal in the
endowment and questioned whether this endowment is being managed as well as
it could be. Report by Ann Reinert.
RUSA Publications Committee. RUSQ is not having enough articles submitted to it.
In addition, in the last six months nine of the last 16 articles submitted were
returned. They can only publish as good articles as they receive. Volume 42 will
have the best bibliographies in history reviews done both at this midwinter
conference and the 2002 midwinter conference. RUSA update will become a web
only publication. Articles resulting from ALA programs may be published in RUSQ
or as occasional papers. Improvements to the web site for the public and for
members only are being considered; we are asked to look at the page. Report by
Joseph Straw.
RUSA Standards and Guidelines Committee. Standards and guidelines are reviewed
every seven years. They are on the website. The next one of our Section's to be
reviewed is the one on genealogy and family, history bulletins and newsletters,
which is to be done in 2004. There is a checklist used in reviewing standards and
guidelines which is, itself, being revised. Report by Cindy Krolikowski.
RUSA Conference Program Committee. As there is a huge amount of genealogy
reference work to be done in American libraries, the Genealogy Committee is
encouraged to consider offering a program every year at annual conference (rather
than? in addition to? a pre-conference?). It is felt that hundreds of people would
attend, either out of the need for such continuing education professionally, or out of
personal interest. It is quite legal for our section to offer more than one program at
each annual conference. The Genealogy Committee may also do a workshop at
Midwinter conference. We had some discussion about the typical meeting time/day
slots used by our Section's various committees. These are as follows: Instruction
and Research Services, midwinter and annual, 9:30-11 Sunday; Bibliography and
Indexes, midwinter, 2-5:30 Saturday, and at annual, 4:30-5:30 Saturday; Local
History, midwinter and annual, 9:30-11 Monday: Historical Events, midwinter and
annual, 2-4 Sunday; Genealogy and Local History Discussion Group, midwinter and
annual, 9:30-11 Saturday; History Librarians' Discussion Group, midwinter only, 24 Monday; Genealogy Committee, 4:30-5:30 Saturday to work on the preconference, 2-4 Saturday, 9:30-11 Sunday; Executive Board, midwinter and annual,
8-9 Saturday and 8-11 or later Tuesday; Genealogy Publishing Company Award,
midwinter only, 2-4
Saturday; Nominating, no set day or time; our program is usually Sunday afternoon
at the annual conference and the committee putting it on does not have a meeting at
that annual conference. Some of all this is out of our control. The RUSA program
time on Monday afternoons. is a no conflict time. Our goal is to eliminate overlaps in
our own Section's activities as much as possible. Report by Carla Rickerson.
3. RUSA Board of Directors Report. RUSA’s Professional competencies document is
being sent to the ALA Board for approval. The 2004 ALA ballot will be electronic
rather than paper. Sunday there was a heated discussion about advertising on the
home page of RUSA and it was voted not to have any there. MOUSS is changing its
name to reflect something that indicates more front-line reference services. The
document delivery and interlibrary loan parts of MOUSS are going to become a
section of RUSA on their own. The remaining MOUSS people are considering what to
change their name to. Brainstorming occurred on topics, actions, and tools
that RUSA could produce. There is to be another Board meeting Tuesday afternoon,
Jan. 28 onreference initiatives and assessment re the strategic plan, finances, and
council. Report by Nancy Godleski.
7. ABC-Clio History Librarian Award. Jim Niessen distributed a proposal for a
$3,000 award to a history librarian which ABC-Clio is prepared to offer every other
year at this point. The top of the page ofthe proposal contains the requirements of
ABC-Clio. The bottom of the page contains two possible options for the award, one
proposal restricting it to History Section members only and the other with no
restrictions. We discussed whether and how submissions from a group of persons
who collaborate on a project may be considered, whether there is a conflict of
interest in accepting a monetary award for a project done on company time, and
whether the award should be restricted to Section members or not. We concluded
that the award should not be restricted to Section members, that the conflict of
interest question regarding acceptance of a monetary award for a project done on
work time would be up to the applicant(s) themselves to determine, and that if a
group project won the award how the group divided up the prize was their own
concern. Thus, the text of the second proposal was voted on and approved. We will
need to appoint a committee to receive submissions and determine the prize
winning completed service or tool, completed free digitized primary resource(s),
completed electronic finding tool, or completed instructional tool which encourages
creative scholarship. Report by Jim Niessen.
The meeting adjourned close to 11 a.m. Respectfully submitted,
Agnes Widder, secretary