Residency Interest Group

Annual Meeting Minutes

Meeting attendees: 

Convener: Patricia A. MacDonald, Associate University Librarian for Administrative Services, Towson University; Incoming Convener: Hannah Lee, Affiliate Assistant Librarian and Pauline A. Young Resident, University of Delaware; Latisha Reynolds, Humanities & Social Sciences Reference Librarian, University of Louisville; Incoming web editor: Natalie Teske Rector, Librarian & Information Specialist; Julie Brewer, Librarian and Coordinator of Personnel and Staff Development, University of Delaware; Incoming web editor: Natalie Teske Rector, Librarian & Information Specialist; Sara Arnold Garza, Residency Librarian, Towson University. 

 Announcements. 

• Patty and Hannah discussed the proposed changes to the ACRL communities of practice which will especially affect interest and discussion groups.   An ACRL Working Group recommends that after August 2013, there will only be sections and discussion groups.  Current interest groups will be able to transition to the type of group that best suits their needs.  The Working Group has outlined the guidelines for the revised discussion groups but these have not been finalized.  As recommended, the revised discussion groups will be less formal; they will be free to members and allowed to continue as long as they have a convener and meet in-person or virtually at least once/year.   No work plans or reports would be required but not funding will be provided from ACRL.  Currently this funding is about $100/year for support such as printing costs.  We do need to request that we can continue to have ACRL host our website if we continue to maintain it as a discussion group.  More information on ALA Connect under the ACRL Leadership Council  http://connect.ala.org/node/142029 .

Website update:

new web committee, discussion of layout and content focus for 2011-2012.  (The maintenance of the website will be a high priority.  If RIG becomes a discussion             group we want to demonstrate that we are keeping the website updated and dynamic.    It was a selling point for the 3 year renewal that was just approved by ACRL)

• New web committee announced: 

Natalie Teske Rector (co-editor): teskenatalie@gmail.com
Jani Okai (co-editor): jf.okai@gmail.com
Ryan Cassidy: infocynic@gmail.com
Shannon Latham: mlle.latham@gmail.com

• Natalie attended the meeting and had several good ideas for the website.  Most of the meeting was spent on discussing the organization and content of the website.  Many thanks to Hannah for outlining the main points of the discussion in an email to the web committee after the meeting.  These include: 
• Natalie suggested adding a Linked In presence and she will investigate and establish the site.          
• Check link for RIG facebook page.
• Adding a list of institutions that have residency programs (Julie said it used to be on the right hand column, but it's disappeared)
• Making some of the tabs a more descriptive (such as combining the What and Where sections of the FAQ page and including the map of residency programs in the Where section; including a "Current officers and residents" dropdown for the "About Us" tab, etc.)
• Linking the RIG brochure to the website
• Including a best practices section on the website (perhaps in Resources or Docs?)
• Updating all of the people on the website to include new residents as well as the new officers of RIG
• Adding more content on RIG's ALA Connect site.
• Adding to the podcasts which were very popular.  Suggestions: interviews with Shannon Simpson about her capstone oral history project and with Kiyomi Deards about her poster on how new librarians used branding and communities of practice (specifically RIG) to develop communities of practice.
• Continue the U-turn column
• Update the Google map of residencies

RIG plan for 2011-2012.

• RIG applied for a grant to sponsor 3-5 librarians to attend the JCLC 2012 conference.  Hannah wrote the grant and we proposed sending a current resident or two, a residency coordinator, a past resident and a library school student. 
• RIG also applied to present a panel program about residencies at ALA 2012. Shannon Simpson wrote the grant and would facilitate the program which also includes a current resident (Hannah Lee), residency coordinator (Gerald Holmes), former resident and library dean.  (Shannon just heard that the panel was accepted – 7/12/2011!)
• Suggestions for promoting residencies:  discuss/present at ACRL Personnel Group and ACRL Leadership Meeting; provide links to RIG brochure.

Strategies for developing a liaison network between current residents and former residents at other institutions.

• “Best practices” for residency coordinators to link current and past residents.

                  (Julie Brewer –University of Delaware Residency Coordinator)

• Julie said that it’s important for every resident to have a mentoring connection at another institution.
• Suggestion to list groups, such as LLAMA or NMRD, that would be helpful for making mentoring connections.
• Mentoring through ALA Connect? 
• Julie will facilitate a discussion of best practices for coordinators with a mentoring piece at the mid-winter meeting. 
• Suggestion to add a Coordinator’s Corner to the RIG website.

 Information sharing: updates on residency programs, projects, and responsibilities.

• Brief updates by attendees due to lack of time.

 Promotion of residency programs.

• Suggestions included promoting to ACRL Personnel Group and ACRL Leadership Meeting.
• Patty and Hannah attended the Professional Options Fair on Thursday evening which followed the Spectrum Scholars Conference.  Many of the scholars were interested in residency programs and RIG.
• Kiyomi Deards presented a poster on communities of practice using RIG as the example at ACRL in Philadelphia.  Patty and Hannah presented it again at the MLA/DLA Annual Conference in Ocean City, MD and they also displayed it at the Professional Options Fair.

 Meeting schedule: discuss time change for annual conference & mid-winter meeting.

• Meeting change:  New meeting time proposed for Saturday 4-5:30pm at Mid-Winter Meeting in Dallas. 
• RIG will continue to identify ALA events where RIG members can meet during the conferences.

 Minutes submitted by Patricia MacDonald (with notes on the website from Hannah Lee)