EMIERT (Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table)

EMIERT Executive Board Meeting
Minutes

October 31, 2013
1:00 p.m. ET

In Attendance:  Leslie Hime, Lori Mestre, Katherine Trouern-Trend (chairing the committee via Skype).   

Approval of Minutes. The minutes from the September 27, 2013 meeting were approved by Katherine and seconded by Leslie.

Website Discussion

• Katherine acknowledged the work by Lori for updating the website and Leslie recognized the work that Katherine and Lori had done in providing suggested resources.  Katherine asked for further categories or information that we would like to see on the website and asked us to continue posting suggestions.  Lori asked for thoughts about her creating subpages for some of the categories on the Resources page since we now have so many links.  That way, even with jump links, they wouldn’t have to scroll so much.  There was agreement to proceed. 


• Katherine also noted that she had asked John (ALA liaison to EMIERT) if Lori could be given privileges to edit the front page of the EMIERT site (http://www.ala.org/emiert/) since there is outdated information on that page that she can’t edit. 

 Membership Updates 

• We are still looking for a chair for the membership committee.  Katherine recently sent out a letter to solicit new and renewing membership, as well as volunteers for committees.  This already resulted in five new volunteers for committees. Those files are in the EMIERT Executive Boards ALA files.  She asked board members to review and comment on them in the next month. 


• Leslie, as vice chair to EMIERT and liaison to the membership committee, asked what her role should be with the committee.  Katherine asked if she could take over sending the membership letters for the October reports until the time there is a new chair in place. Katherine sent out letters based on the August and September reports. Again those files are in the ALA Connect Exec. Board space. 

 Annual Programs

• The date for submitting requests is November 3. Leslie reported on the status to date of potential programs.


• Angelique Simmons would like EMIERT to cosponsor a program called “Get Hip: Highly Interactive Programs for Multicultural Communities” She would co-present with Natasha Dass-Ford. The program would be geared to youth service librarians in urban librarians.  There was a discussion about choices for program times.  The program could either be before or after the EMIERT all committee meeting. Leslie will check with John (liaison to EMIERT) to see if we can co-locate (or have located in close proximity) both the EMIERT all committee meeting and this program, in order to allow travel time between the two. 


• Leslie will also check with Elliott Gertel, Chair of the Jewish Information Committee (and remind him the deadline is Nov. 3) to see if he is still hoping to have a program for annual. 


• The other program being planned for annual is The Coretta Scott King 45^th annual program.  Jonda McNair (chair of the committee) and one of her colleagues are working on this program.


• Katherine asked Leslie if she knew if the AV requests for these programs needed to be submitted by November 3^rd.  Leslie provided the information, after the meeting that the deadline for midwinter is October 8 and for annual it is March 1.

Newsletter

Leslie downloaded a newsletter format in the EMIERT Exec file area in ALA connect.  She asked us to review it and add any other suggestions.  She also asked us to upload our bios to that space, as well as content.  Leslie will try to complete the newsletter as close to the original November 15 deadline as possible, but it may be closer to December 1.  She asked if it were preferable to convert it to pdf for the website and Lori agreed that pdf is the preferred format, especially for linking documents. 

Committees

Katherine reported that the committee and task forces are working on different projects. She also created specific task lists for them. The chairs of the committees will be sending reports on their progress every month.  The first reports will be due Dec. 10.  She mentioned the value of each of us reading those reports so that we will be able to respond to any questions pertaining to committees or task forces at conferences or other venues.  She also mentioned that she is working with John (liaison to EMIERT) to help change titles of various committees, as some of these have changed over the years. She will continue recruiting.

 Webinar

• Last year was the first time EMIERT offered a webinar, so Katherine is creating documentation that she is saving in the files in our ALA Connect space for future reference and access. 


• The next webinar will be Thursday, December 19 at 2:00 EST.  Jonda recruited presenters. Although four people volunteered to present, it was decided to keep it to two presenters.  The topic is:  “Coretta Scott King Meets Common Core”.  The presenters will be Kimberly A. Patton, Youth Services Supervisor at the Kansas City, Kansas Public Library's Main Branch in Kansas City, KS and a YALSA past-president; and Frances Martindale , Early Childhood/Lower School Librarian of The Joukowsky Family Library, Gordon School, East Providence Rhode Island. 

MidWinter Social/Membership meeting

• Tess Tobin contacted a colleague in Philadelphia to ask for suggestions for a venue for the social.  One option is in a hotel “The Soulful Lounge”, which appears to be spacious, has a happy hour Friday and Saturday evenings with a Jazz musician later on.  The second option is a pub/tavern, four blocks from the conference center.  Katherine asked for comments.  Some of the considerations were 1) distance of the hotel venue from the conference center 2) space size at the pub and ability to be heard (if it is noisy, crammed).  Katherine will post the links to both places for us to consider.


• Katherine asked Leslie if the social needs to be included in the November 3 request as well. She will check with Tess about that.


• For annual, Katherine asked if we wanted to do a social again, in lieu of the general membership meeting. It was decided that it would be valuable to have the general membership meeting at a conference room for annual, with the expectation of more people attending.  Leslie will include that in the November 3rd requests for conference rooms.


• It was decided that both the executive/all committee meeting and the general membership meetings at annual will be 1 ½ hours.  

Proposed days & times:

• Executive & All Committee Mtg: Sun, Jun 29, 10:30am-12pm 


• General Membership Mtg: Sat, Jun 28, 10:30am-12pm

Photos

Leslie asked if there were any photos from the Taste of Chicago program in Chicago or from the panels she could use for the newsletter.  Katherine said she might have some, as well as Tess.  Lori also mentioned her difficulty in finding photos of events, awards, venues that she could add to the web page and asked if it would be possible to assign someone to take pictures at ALA events (conferences etc.) that could be used for the web page and newsletter.  There was a suggestion that the people on the Electronic Communications Committee who will be tweeting events might be tasked to take pictures as well.  Katherine will follow up. 

Next Meeting: Wednesday, November 20th, 12:00 p.m. EST