Fox Valley Library Council
Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Board

Thursday, October 14th at 1:30 p.m
School Media Center of the Appleton West High School

In attendance: Joy Schwarz, Erin Czech, Evan Bend, Judy Owen, Gretchen Raab, Pete Gilbert

  1. Call to Order
    There were no additions to the agenda. Introductions were made and we greeted one another warmly.

  2. Selection of secretary for the day
    We agreed that no one could replace Elizabeth but that Pete could perhaps scribble some notes if he had enough coffee and donuts. Coffee and donuts were then distributed.

  3. Minutes of the August 25, 2004 Board Meeting
    On a motion by Pete, seconded by Evan, the minutes were approved with one small correction: "Kristy Kreme" should be "Krispy Kreme," fond as we are of the name "Kristy Kreme."

  4. Treasurer's Report
    On a motion by Erin, seconded by Gretchen, the September 30 Treasurer's Report was approved.

    5. New Business:

  5. FVLC Education Grants
    Joy has received two applications for Education Grants. After she and Education Chair Mark Arend reviewed the applications, they chose to fund both applications at $150 each. Since we allocated $300 for Education Grants in the 2004-2005 budget, this pretty much covers it. We agreed that, if there were more applications, we could allocate more money. We reviewed the guidelines for the Grants and decided that travel to WEMA was certainly eligible.

  6. Reports from Directors at Large
    1. Intellectual Freedom (Evan)
    2. Resource Sharing (Gretchen)
    3. Advocacy and Legislation (Judy)
    There were no reports, but we decided that Gretchen did not need to assemble a Resource Sharing Committee unless circumstances demanded it.
    We expressed our deep gratitude to Erin for agreeing to serve as Vice President.

  7. Announcements of Meetings
    We discussed (at great length) the Bylaws and Handbook and whether they needed to be updated to conform with "reality."

    1. Article VI Meetings, FVLC Bylaws http://www.focol.org/fvlc/handbook/bylaws.html: "Written notice of all Fox Valley Library Council meetings shall be mailed to the members at least ten days prior to the meeting."

      We changed this to read: "Notice of all Fox Valley Library Council meetings shall be emailed to the members and posted to the FVLC website at least ten days prior to the meeting."

    2. Policies and Procedures, FVLC Handbook (Updated April 2003) http://www.focol.org/fvlc/handbook/policies.html#announce

      We edited this whole section. What used to say this:

      Meeting Announcements
      Updated: 16-April-2003
      1. The Agenda is prepared by the President.
      2. The agenda must be sent to the business office for duplication 3 weeks before a planned meeting.
      3. Materials (e.g., map) from the hosting library should be sent to the business office at the same time.

      Now says this:

      Meeting Announcements
      Updated: 14-October-2004
      1. The Agenda is prepared by the President.
      2. The agenda and associated meeting materials shall be distributed to the membership before a planned meeting.

  8. 2004-2005 Annual Plan items

    1. Goal E. Item 1: Investigate ways to recruit and maintain membership by non-public libraries. Identify ways FVLC can improve its worth to non-public libraries by conducting an online survey targeting this group.

      We discussed the mechanics of an online survey. Judy noted that school librarians were receiving other surveys this fall, so if we could wait a while, that'd be a good thing. We set February as a target date for release of the online survey, we will use SurveyMonkey again (if Lawrence decides to resubscribe, we'll use their subscription), and will base our survey on our previous membership survey. Bring suggested questions to the next Board meeting.

    2. Goal E. Item 8: Motivate staff at public libraries to invite local school library and/or special library staff to attend FVLC programs with them.

      We discussed various ways to accomplish this goal. We need to identify school and special librarians in given geographical areas, make personal contact with them, and invite them to attend FVLC meetings and programs. We also need to do some PR so that staff at member libraries know they're eligible to attend.

    9. Old Business:

  9. 2004-2005 Programs and Meeting Schedule
    We agreed that the programs look excellent and that we should do some recruiting for the October program.

  10. Status of invoicing for 2005 membership dues
    1. What does the FVLC invoice look like?
      We examined the current invoice and nodded approvingly.
    2. Billing Systems and their member libraries
      We agreed that adding a notice to the effect of "This bill has been paid by your System" would be a good reminder to member libraries that, 1) they are, in fact, members of FVLC, and 2) their Systems are, in fact, swell.
    3. Informational flyer
      We edited Gretchen's excellent informational flyer to add more whitespace. She will make the changes, send it out to the board, and then send to Terri and Evan.
    4. Possible follow-up calls to bills not paid.
      An excellent idea, once we know who the slackers are.
    5. Invoice mailing: what should it include?
      A cover letter from Our Beloved President, the invoice, the informational flyer, and a printout of each library's FVLC Directory listing. Evan will work with Terri to produce this last document.
    6. Evan offered to create a refresher handout for schools about procedures for using their ILL courtesy card.
      Well, no. Not actually.
    7. How soon can we be ready for Pete to arrange for the FVLC business office to issue invoices for members' dues?
      Pete never actually does this (or anything else much). As soon as the various parts of the mailing (see above) are ready, Terri can send out the bills.

  11. FVLC/OWLS/WLS bus to ALA Conference exhibits in Chicago
    Registration will be limited to 50. Evan will check with Beth and Mark and Terri about costs and other details. We hope that Terri will be able to take registrations because an online system seems too complicated.

  12. Web-Enabled Directory
    Evan is working on an easy way to add new people and he will change the "Update" button to a "Confirm" button.

  13. New suggestion form on the website (http://www.winnefox.org/fvlc/comments.html) is getting some use.

  14. The "Challenges to Library Materials" web form
    In our continuing quest to make Evan do all the work, the Challenges form is now directed to Evan.

  15. Next Board meeting date
    Thursday 11 November 2004 at 1:30 p.m. at OWLS/APL.

  16. Adjournment
    On a motion by Gretchen, seconded by Erin, the meeting was adjourned. To our amazement, there were donuts left over.