Bylaws Committee - The Bylaws Committee reminds you to complete your IFRT ballot by Wednesday, April 5. The ballot includes bylaws revisions that bring IFRT in line with current ALA practices and schedules. The committee asks that you vote to accept all revisions. - Cyndi Robinson, chair.
Coalition Building Committee - The Coalition Committee is looking forward to the IFRT Awards Reception on June 24, when we recognize the Oregon Library Association for their dedication to Intellectual Freedom. It's an opportunity to remind ourselves that we do work with very devoted people, who deserve appreciation. Maybe even ourselves. The Gerald Hodges Award is a wonderful way to acknowledge that. - Wanda Mae Huffaker, chair.
Executive Board - The Executive Board has approved a new membership benefit, free intellectual freedom webinars for all IFRT members. They've been working with the treasurer on a FY 2018 budget proposal to be voted on at annual conference. There is a new logo for use on social media and the IFRT website as well as on monthly newsletters. Chair, Cyndi Robinson is also drafting a handbook or timeline to outline the work of the roundtable in order to sustain continuity during leadership changes. - written on behalf of Cyndi Robinson, chair.
Immroth Award Committee - The Immroth Award Committee read through multiple nominations and voted to give the award to Robert P. Doyle. Bob was notified and we wrote a press release for ALA to distribute to all members. We will be working on plans for the upcoming award reception at ALA conference in June. - written on behalf of Michael Furlong, chair.
Membership Committee - The Membership Committee met by conference call on February 17. The main order of business was getting plans ready to send communications to new, renewing, and non-renewing members of IFRT. These emailed letters will outline benefits of membership and ways to get engaged in the work of IFRT, as well as determine why lapsed members have chosen not to renew. This membership communication procedure is intended to be one that will be continued into the future, regardless of committee member turnover. Another topic of discussion was updating the IFRT membership flyers. - Steve Norman, chair.
Merritt Fund Committee
Nominating Committee
Oboler Award Committee
Program Committee - The Program Committee is working with panelists to keep them updated on program information and researching to develop panel questions that invokes the highest quality conversation on the topic of "Intellectual Freedom and Open Access: Working toward a common goal?" In addition to research regarding panelists, we are researching to put together a poster on the same topic to accompany the session. We have submitted the poster idea for the 2017 ALA Annual Conference Poster Session and plan on displaying it at the uncommons to continue dialogue as well as having it available to look at during the program. - Ian Ross Hughes, chair.
Publication Committee - The Publication Committee met via conference call on March 15th to assign tasks for the IFRT report and discuss how we can support the newsletter. We also began designing a social media policy for board approval and decided to digitize and put older IFRT reports on the website along with the newsletters. This year's IFRT report will be published online in early June 2017. - Eric Johnson, chair.