ARLIS/NA Mid-Atlantic Chapter, Spring 2019 Meeting, Wednesday, March 27, 2019, ARLIS/NA Conference, Salt Lake City, UT
Attendees:
Alexandra Reigle (Smithsonian), Anna Tomlinson (NGA), Heather Slania (MICA), Anne Evenhaugen (Smithsonian), Sophia Lee (UMD), Lee Ceperich (VMFA), Nick Curotto (VMFA), Courtney Tkacz (VMFA), Katherine Monroe (ARL), Mary Wassermann (Philadelphia Museum), Yuki Hibben (VCU), Delia Tash (Penn State Abington), Sarah Osborne Bender (NGA), Vada Komistra (NGA), Amanda McKnight (Barnes), Roger Lawson (NGA), Anne Simmons (NGA), Kathy Woodrell (LC), Anna Boutin-Cooper (Franklin & Marshall College), Sian Evans (MICA), Cristina Fontanez (NDS (VCU), Gregory Most (NGA), Shira Eller (GWU), Donald Juedes (JHU), Stephanie Grimm (GMU)
Business Meeting:
I. Introductions (Stephanie Grimm)
- Call to order at 8:04am
- Introductions & new members
- Reminder to check online directory for changes/updates
- Send any email address updates to Roger Lawson for listserv as needed
II. Approval of fall meeting minutes (Stephanie Grimm)
- Minutes approved without changes
III. Chair report (Stephanie Grimm)
- Updates from Chapter Leaders meeting:
- 15 chapters have approved membership dues change and 1 chapter has yet to vote; hope to get yes and process in place before September when ARLIS/NA renewal period begins; reported that 60% of members are not active at the chapter level
- Gregg Most will serve as consultant for any chapters interested in fundraising
- Lots of spam coming across chapter listservs; society looking to upgrade their technology matrix to also help chapters host webinars or Gotomeetings
- Updates from Executive Board:
- First (mostly) green conference – no printed programs, recycled lanyards
- Single stall, all-gender restrooms are available in the sales office to everyone
- Travel awards are not seeing enough applicants
- Programming ideas from other chapters
IV. Website and Communications Report (Courtney Tkacz, Web Manager; Chris Needham, content editor; Roger Lawson, listserv)
- Courtney reported that website traffic remains steady with most popular pages the directory and join/renewal page which makes sense during renewal period; first year-long report on statistics will be presented at Summer meeting to start to see usage trends
- Courtney upgraded WordPress and implemented automated monthly backups
- No report from Chris as he wasn’t in attendance
- Roger reported 133 subscribers to the listserv
V. Treasurer’s Report (Anna Tomlinson)
- Anna and Vada completed the transfer of all accounts; paperwork was sent to Vanguard earlier this week and once that’s complete, WALRC funds will be fully accessible
- Membership remains steady, and there are 3 new student members
- Joint conference actually made about $450 in revenue
VI. Summer & Fall meeting locations (Stephanie Grimm)
- Summer: Winterthur suggested during Richmond meeting
- Fall: ?
- Winterthur was suggested but we don’t have any chapter members there; Kathy Woodrell often corresponds with them so she offered to reach out; meeting date would be a Friday in the summer (June)
- Backup location could be the Moore Library since they just had a new renovation and maybe some other locations in Philadelphia; Stephanie will reach out to Kim Lesley
- Discussion about a Smithsonian or DC event, with possible tour of the Hirschhorn as another backup option
- If Winterthur pans out, should consider the backups as the Fall location
VII. Other business (Stephanie Grimm and Gregg Most)
- WALRC update
- WALRC funds are only directed to support conference travel at this time
- Travel awards will only be available for professional members, not students
- Funds will be spent down but it’s an invested fund so should last for a long time
- Chapter meeting support (versus national conference) has not been discussed with WALRC members
- Backlund Award
- Travel award only available for students, so there will be a slight tweaking of the award name and committee structure
- Committee will still have representatives from each region and last year’s winner; call for committee will come later this year (awarded in November)
- Funded through donations
- Chapter Officers handbook
- No update — will confer with Kim Lesley
VII. New business (Stephanie Grimm and Gregg Most)
- Chapter Dues change
- No final decision yet as one chapter still has to vote
- Professional development support discussion
- Related to larger fundraising discussion in chapter + other ARLIS/NA chapters
- Some chapters offer open-ended funding for workshops, etc. that aren’t conference related; some offer only to officers as incentive to serve in leadership
- Discussion about supporting research awards for travel to other repositories, transcriptions, etc.; concrete outcome and product; could require posts on website or webinar organized by chapter; need guidelines about requirements and expectations; need exploratory committee for guidelines and then ongoing committee for granting awards; maybe expand role of Backlund committee?
- Gregg suggests dedicated fundraiser for these initiatives, especially since Backlund not fully funded last year; could ask WALRC about seed grant for this but would need ongoing support
- Annually we need $1,500 to cover annual conference donation and Backlund award; no current fundraising committee
- Roger suggested sending out examples of fundraising ideas from other chapters
- Put out another call for fundraising committee
VIII. Call to adjourn at 8:53am (Stephanie Grimm)