SUMMARY

The ALA Archivist introduced ALAIR, a repository of information, and how to use it. An ALA Council Report noted some changes to how ALA will respond to events with position statements and that there were shifts in how ALA is accommodating discussion groups, publishing processes,  and other activities. We discussed program assessment rubrics, the Shera award, webinars, annual programs, our website, and elections.

LRRT Meeting

2025.09.16

Attending:

Paula Dempsey

Shannon Crawford Barniskis

Amanda Harrison

Katie Klein

Cara Betram

Karen Harker

Julia Maxwell

Jennifer Joe

Agenda:

- ALA archivist Cara Bertram

                                - Amanda H noted that we are updating website, need information on award winners from each year, would like to know what goes in archives that LRRT can use, how should we interact with archives

                                - Cara gave a report on archival work--they document the work of roundtables, but ALA wants to document the history, particularly because we are membership-driven: publications, newsletters, white papers, reports, meeting minutes and agendas, etc: https://www.library.illinois.edu/ala/donate-materials/

                                - We have webinar recordings that can be added, depending on how large the files are, the platform doesn't stream--or these can be placed on a different server, these files are an hour or so long--file storage isn't generally the problem, but downloading might be if the files are large. These files are currently on YouTube. Cara will want to see those files to determine how they are deposited.

                                                - Paula will send those to Cara (or add to Box)

                                - Connect is a nightmare, archivists cannot get anything from it, so we need to actively deposit things into institutional repository

                                - People will need to get an account to use Alair

                                - [https://alair.ala.org/communities/da88260d-1e51-4e23-a44a-943f369c39a4/subcoms-cols](https://alair.ala.org/communities/da88260d-1e51-4e23-a44a-943f369c39a4/subcoms-cols)

                                - Can get trained by Cara on how to do this work

                                - - Dspace, ALAIR is open source, uses "archive it" from Internet Library

                                - text-searchable repository, so don't need much metadata if things are OCR'd

                                - not much in the digital archives from LRRT

                                - Archives has a couple cubic feet of physical materials--up until the 2000s! Came from ALA headquarters

                                - 2009 onward, we have not uploaded minutes

                                                - https://archon.library.illinois.edu/ala/index.php?p=collections/classifications&id=3692

                                - "If you wouldn't post it on your website, don't post it on Alair"

                                - The archives do crawl ALA websites at least once a year, unless we have some site outside the ALA environment.

                                - Next step: organizing training on how to upload materials into the repository

                                - Here is a training document for using the repository: https://www.library.illinois.edu/ala/alair-2/depositing/

- Program assessment rubric: Paula Dempsey

                                - Paula shared report

                                - ALA may want to discontinue Shera award?

                                - it's the 50 year anniversary of that award

                                - The things we do typically cost very little

                                - We discussed increasing the awards, including travel and dissertation funding

                                - We might ask more LRRT members to work ad hoc on things like downloading minutes and drop them into Box

                                - We are submitting this report to ALA

- Council report: Jennifer Joe

                                - Special session Sept. 3, statements working group action item, framework that ALA will use to make position statements for social issues, keeping a 48-72 hour timeline for making ,statements must have to do with libraries--passed council with no discussion

                                - motions 1-3 discontinue subgroups, discontinuing discussion groups, moving to ALA Connect, discontinuing forums, renaming them, so ALA staff need not be as involved

                                - motion 4 was contested, aimed at aligning ALA roundtable officers with ALA elective offices--but ALA has no secretary and members-at-large offices, this was amended so there are secretaries, vice-chair/chair elect, treasurer, president/chair, and roundtable counselor, unclear if we can keep hybrid secretary/treasurer

                                                - Paula will ask about these roles

                                - motion 5: all things published by ALA now must be included in ALA Publishing process, including newsletters.

                                - update on AI policy working group--they are on track to finish a document of recommendations in time for "midwinter" Jan/Feb. But there may be a special session if it's not finished then. We have not seen the recommendations yet.

- Elections: Paula Dempsey, Dec. 12 nomination deadline

                                - Paula will speak to Danielle about this

                                - Jennifer says ALA has not shared information on nominations yet

- Shera awards update: Katie Klein

                                - keeping deadline the same, the 20th

                                - sent to Danielle, updates are being added

                                - need to look at website to see what needs updating

                                - look at papers for the editors

                                - journals were very responsive regarding award

                                - not getting much of a response on student papers

                                - we did get enough applicants to have a reasonable pool of contenders

- Webinar update: Karen Harker

                                - Successful!

                                - Karen will ask Danielle about the webinar details

                                - Have a November webinar coming up, Nov. 14th at 1, Kate McDowell:

                                                -  How can libraries use data stories to build support and resilience? Drawing on her forthcoming book and the IMLS Data Storytelling Toolkit, Dr. Kate McDowell shares ethical, impactful approaches for crafting compelling narratives. Learn to reach diverse audiences, leverage powerful story structures, and build resilience in the face of funding cuts and censorship. This session supports library workers in any role in telling the stories of why libraries and other public information institutions matter.

                                - Working on Maureen Babb for April on research agendas

                                - Jennifer Goodland is working on something for midwinter/early spring

- Mentoring update: Paula Dempsey

                                - 40 people volunteered, 20 new volunteers

                                - Alejandro & Agnes working on that

- Program at Annual

                                - What are we doing? Are we doing a program?

                                - Poor attendance may be related to lack of program description--ALA's error

                                - We are suggesting that we try again

                                                - awards, and presentation of their work, info on mentoring program

                                                - tell Danielle we want to have a program NOW, write up a description immediately and immediately upload it, reserve date before end of Dec.

- website update: where are we? We made some progress, unaware of any continuing tasks, Paula will check, will speak to Danielle.