ALA Midwinter Conference Reports 
from LIRT Committees and Task Forces

 
Computer Applications Committee  
Continuing Education Committee 
Elections/Nominations Committee 
Liaison Committee 
Long Range Planning Committee
Newsletter Committee 		 Organization & Bylaws Committee 
Program Committee  
Publications Committee 
Public Relations/Membership Committee 
Research Committee

Computer Applications Committee
David Levinson, Chair, Lake Forest College, levinson@lfc.edu
 
Members Present: Barbara Cressman and David Levinson.
Visitors: Vanessa Burford, Jane Ishibashi, Jane Rutherford, Haiwang Yuan.
 
During the meeting, discussion focused on a revision of the committee's role and goals.  Attendees discussed alternative wording for the charge that would avoid becoming dated or tied to specific approaches to new technology. The new proposed charge states, the committee "develops resources for the use of computer technology in library instruction."
 
The subject then turned to an open discussion about current and future activities that might be undertaken.  The current webliography project will be evaluated in terms of timeliness and availability of comparable projects.  In a lively brainstorming session, attendees came up with several projects and topic areas they would like to see explored. Some projects included: software reviews for the LIRT News, creating tip sheets, guides to teaching GUI's (Graphic User Interfaces). Other areas attendees would like to see explored were courseware, designing online help, and interface design for instructional purposes.
 
Continuing Education Committee
Janet Sheets, Chair, Baylor University, Janet_Sheets@baylor.edu
 
Members Present: Melba Kurman, Janet Sheets, Katherine Todd.
 
During the Midwinter meeting, the Continuing Education Committee completed its task of choosing the 20 best instruction articles published in 1997.  Throughout the year committee members Mari Ellen Leverence, Melba Kurman, Kate Todd, and Janet Sheets have been reading and evaluating articles to narrow the list to the 38 articles which we discussed during our meetings.  The Top 20 list will be published in the June issue of the LIRT News.
 
A second task assumed by the committee is the compiling of a bibliography to support the upcoming annual LIRT program.  Melba Kurman accepted responsibility for the final bibliography and, after a discussion with the Program committee, we made plans for assisting her in discovering appropriate references.
 

Elections/Nominations Committee
Carole Hinshaw, Chair, University of Central Florida, chinshaw@mail.ucf.edu
 
Members Present:  Carol Derner, Carole Hinshaw, Kari Lucas, Elizabeth Margutti , Carol Penka.
 
The 1997-1998 Elections/Nominations Committee finalized a slate for the upcoming elections.  Due to complications in identifying candidates for Vice-President/President-Elect, Hinshaw proposed a change to the bylaws to include special librarians in the rotation which includes school and public librarians.  The committee will request that the Public Relations/Membership Committee supply a list of LIRT members each year.  If possible, a break-down of library types would be useful.  An updated list of past committee chairs will be compiled.  Tim Grimes is running for ALA Council.
 

Liaison Committee
Michael Poma, Chair, Creighton University, mapoma@creighton.edu
 
Members present:  May Chau, Elaine Gass, Ellen Kessler, Michael Poma, Sharon Lee Stewart, Jennalyn Tellman.
 
The Liaison Committee continues its role as liaison to non-LIRT library instruction committees.  Following discussion of who may become chair of the committee when the current chair's term expires, committee members looked over the conference meeting agenda and determined who would attend each meeting.  Reports of meetings attended are included in this issue of the LIRT newsletter.  Gale Burrow also attended the meeting briefly, and we discussed the need for additional committee members in order to continue to provide LIRT representation at all BI-related meetings.
 

Long Range Planning Committee
Alison Armstrong , co-chair, University of Cincinnati, alison.armstrong@uc.edu
Tim Grimes, co-chair, Ann Arbor (Michigan) District Library, tgrimes@tln.lib.mi.us

Members Present:  Alison Armstrong , Gale Burrow (Ex-Officio), Marsha Forys (Ex-Officio), Tim Grimes, Linda Sammataro, Diana Shonrock, Maggie Zarnosky.
Guests: Linda Chopra (Chair, 5-year Financial Planning), Barbara Pilvin (5-year Financial Planning).

Barbara Conant resigned from the committee in Fall, 1997, and Alison Armstrong and Tim Grimes agreed to serve as co-chairs through 1998 Annual.  M. Zarnosky volunteered to serve as recorder.  Gale reported on her attendance at the Budget Analysis and Review Committee (BARC), updating the committee on the status of ALA Goals 2000 and "Beyond Goals 2000."  She noted the emphasis on having strategic plans in place. This fits in with the work that LRP is doing with its Environmental Scan which will be used to help form the information base for a strategic plan.  Tim reviewed the role and activities of the Financial Planning Task Force. Linda noted she was in the process of recruiting people to join the group.  Assignments for activities and tasks were given.

In a second meeting, the committee discussed the idea that its role is to take information from the environmental scan, LIRT Retreat, and the PLA Strategic Plan and make a recommendation to Steering or Executive Board about a LIRT strategic plan.  It was noted that the PLA plan was so similar to items discussed at the retreat, that rather than reinventing the wheel, the goal should be to build on a model that works.  The committee will get information from Planning and Goals forms and feed that into the information base.  The Five Year Financial Planning TF gave their report.
 


Newsletter Committee
David G. Sherwood, Chair, Creighton University, davids@creighton.edu
 
Members Present:  Jana Edwards, David Sherwood.
 
After reviewing plans for upcoming issues of the newsletter, the committee's discussions centered on two important issues: methods of obtaining advertising revenue to offset the cost of producing the newsletter, and the need to encourage contributions from public, school, and special librarians.  In order to address the latter issue, the chair will develop existing guidelines for contributors into a more detailed template which will make contributing easier.  The template will be made available to potential contributors and will be posted to the LIRT web site.
 
As a preliminary effort to obtain advertising, the committee will identify publishers who might be interested and send them an announcement that the LIRT News now accepts ads.


Organization & Bylaws Committee
Kari Lucas, Chair, University of California, San Diego, klucas@ucsd.edu
 
Members Present: Chuck Dintrone, Kari Lucas, Mary Popp.
 
The committee will revise the LIRT manual and distribute it to new chairs by June 1, 1998.  Bylaws changes are ready for a vote of the membership at annual conference in Washington, DC.  (See proposed changes to the bylaws elsewhere in this issue.)  Results of the LIRT Retreat will be forwarded to the co-chairs of the Long Range Planning Committee.  The committee requests that chairs submit revised committee charges (refer to LIRT Manual and Bylaws for current wording) to the Organization & Bylaws Committtee chair by March 1,  1998.
 

Program Committee
Cindy Krolikowski, Chair, Wayne State University, ac4979@wayne.edu

Members present:  Anne Houston, Phillip Jones, Cindy Krolikowski.

The 1998 Conference Program Committee met twice at Midwinter. At the first meeting, the format for the program was decided. Most of the speakers are in place. Plans were made to attend both the LIRT and IS discussion forums on Sunday since the National Information Literacy Institute is part of our 1998 program.

Gale Burrows, Vice President/Chair Elect, attended the second meeting. The committee came up with three alternative titles for the program to submit to the Steering Committee for a vote. Also discussed was the need to supplement the current committee membership with new members.
   


Publications Committee
Harvey Gover, Chair, Washington State University,  hgover@beta.tricity.wsu.edu
 
Members Present:  Teresa Ashley, Harvey Gover, Rob Morrison, Zary Mostashari, John Spencer.
 
The committee made the following decisions about the format of the planned bibliography of publishing opportunities outside library professional journals:
  John Spencer volunteered to format the final draft which will, the committee projects, be ready by the annual conference.   Gale Burrow agreed to assist the committee in publishing the bibliography through ALA.
 
The chair will attempt to find out why input received from Mark Knoblauch of the Office for Library Personnel Resources did not include revenue information about Diana Shonrock's book  Evaluating Library Instruction.
 

Public Relations/Membership Committee
Linda Goff, Chair, ljgoff@csus.edu
Saturday, January 10, 1998

Members Present:  Allisa Beck, Judy Clarence, Andy Corrigan, Linda J. Goff, Marie Hayden, Marcia King-Blandford, Pixey Mosley, Carolyn Strickland.

Forty people pre-registered for the 3 Bites with LIRT lunches in New Orleans;  actual attendance was 44.  Andy Corrigan selected the restaurants, and Pixey Mosley took the registrations.  The food was delicious!  Pixey will continue to take reservations, and Barbara Pilvin will select restaurants in DC.

Linda Goff will be booth coordinator for Washington DC.  Andy Corrigan has done this for the last 3 annual conferences and indicated that the $200 allowance from ALA never covers the cost of the minimal furnishings we request.  Executive and Steering Committees agreed to add $200 for a second table and an electrical outlet.  The committee decided to highlight activities of the Round Table rather than just displaying samples of instructional materials.  A laptop with screen-capture software will be available in Washington to display LIRT web pages, but a phone line was too costly.   Marcia King-Blandford will create bookmarks with the URL of the LIRT home page.
 
For last year's conference in San Francisco, the committee collected materials on teaching the web and other electronic-based sources for display in the booth and retired the binders of older material to Archives.  Donna Kanapes will continue to obtain samples of up-to-date instructional material. Marie Hayden will again coordinate booth volunteers.  Allisa Beck will run the prize drawing.  Copies of Marilyn Whitmore's book will be offered as prizes.
 
Between November 30, 1996 and November 30, 1997, LIRT membership increased from 1,074  to 1,094, an increase of 1.862%.  Overall, ALA Membership is down 1.5% with personal members down 2%.  We are the only round table to increase members.  Linda Goff attended the ALA Membership Promotion Task Force meeting Sunday and other round tables wanted to know our secret.  The membership brochure will be reprinted before annual, but a web version is still in process.

Please send suggestions of who you would like to see profiled in the Member A-LIRT column to Judy Clarence (jclarenc@csuhayward.edu) or Marcia King Blandford (mkingbl@utet.utoledo.edu).
  


Research Committee
Jim Kapoun, Chair, Southwest State University, kapoun@ssu.southwest.msus.edu

Members Present:  Sherry DeDecker, Rachel Fenske, Jim Kapoun, Kathy Kie, Nerea Llamas, Eliane Nowack, Gina Persichini, Joan Ruelle, Esteban Valdez.

The research committee reviewed its web page which is now loaded on the LIRT Home Page. The page contains information on web tutorials in the following subject areas:  how to do research, searching the Internet, subject specific guides, how to design a tutorial, and a bibliography. The site is updated regularly.

The committee has embarked on a new project to create brochures on the following topics :

LIRT News, March 1998. Volume 20, number 3.
To report problems, please contact the LIRT News Production editor at edwards@ufl.edu

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