Saturday, January 16, 2010

On the evening of Saturday, January 16, the Career Fair will open with a reception for the over 300 graduate students and junior and senior undergraduate students expected to attend the 9th Annual AMS Student Conference. ASLI will be sharing a table with ProQuest and providing information on Atmospheric Science Librarianship, MGA, and AtmosPeer. The reception will be held 5:30-7:30 p.m. in the Georgia World Congress Center.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

ASLI is sponsoring a free day-long workshop on information sources for everyone working on atmospheric science and climate change topics.  There will be a drawing for a year’s membership to Atmospheric Science Librarians International.

Reservations for the workshop should be made by January 8, 2010 at http://hosted.lib.uiowa.edu/asli/.  If you have questions, please contact echandho@gmu.edu or kari-kozak@uiowa.edu

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Linda Musser
Chair, Atmospheric Science Librarians International (ASLI)
Earth and Mineral Sciences Library
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA

World Cat lists
Linda Musser, Librarian, Penn State University
Recorded presentation
Time & Chaos
Amy Butros, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library
Recorded presentation
The David Johnson Collection
Doria Grimes, Contractor, NOAA Central Library (Retired)
Recorded presentation
The Verner Suomi Collection
Jean Phillips, Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Moderator:
Linda Musser
Pennsylvania State University

Dave Jones
Founder, President & CEO
Stormcenter Communications, Inc.
Catonsville, MD

Thursday, January 21, 2010

ASLI Business Meeting
Present:
Linda Musser (Outgoing Chair), Gene Major (Incoming Chair) Jinny Nathans, Anita Colby, Jean Phillips, Amy Butros (Secretary), Chris Sherratt, Kari Kozak, Judie Triplehorn, Stephanie Wright, Gloria Aversano, Lisha Li, Peter Grimm, Maria Latyszewskyj, Sabrina Miller.

Meeting was called to order by Linda and she then passed the duties of ASLI Chair to the new Chair, Gene Major. First order of business was the approval of minutes from the last ASLI Business Meeting, at 2009 Conference in Phoenix. The Minutes were approved as distributed. Gene passed out the Business Meeting agenda.

Chair Report – Linda Musser
Linda reported that most of what she wanted to cover she placed in the ASLI News. She asked the members present if we should continue the ASLI News? There was agreement that we should, and people should send any comments to Gene.

Treasurer's Report – Gloria Aversano
Gloria distributed a detailed report. She mentioned that we currently have a balance of $901.78, the second page of report explains income details. She thanked the members who wrote her checks. Gloria reported on the new category of “unrestricted gifts”. She submitted an IRS change of name to file the taxes, and will do them in the next month. Madeline contributed a gift again. There is no Verity credit union branch in Florida, so Gloria kept the ASLI account where Brian had established it. She can use the Miami Fire Department’s credit union, as a shared account, but her access to the system is limited, she can only do deposits in person. They do not accept non-US bank checks, so she has had to mail the checks to the main branch. The fee for non-US checks is $5.00, not as expensive as other institutions. Discussion on charging non-US members extra, suggestion to maybe just monitor how many non-US members we get, then decide if it’s a major expense. We should have a note on the website about encouraging members to pay for membership in US dollars, if possible, and something about the delay in processing memberships paid in other currencies.
New Business – Gloria Aversano
The restaurant added a service charge of 18% to our tab for the Wednesday night member dinner, which was not included in their original estimate. Gloria and Gene had to go back to the Restaurant for clarification, and it appears that the “Tax and Tip” note was not covered, when we thought it was, it was not that explicit in our agreement. The restaurant owner reduced the additional charge, but our Treasury will be impacted by $107 to cover this additional cost. Anita reported that cost of the Award plaques was a bit more this year, and she will be sending Gloria all her receipts. Gloria requested that all who ask for reimbursement send her their requests in an “invoice” format.

Website Report - Brian Voss
Linda reported for Brian: our website is still being hosted by Go Daddy, and we are paid up and OK until Spring 2011, so we should not have a website charge this year. Related publications will be going up soon, and also the AMS publications. If you have any items for the website send them to Brian.

Membership Report – Judie Triplehorn
Evelyn was chair of membership until November, Judie is now the chair, and she reported that we have 40 domestic members, 8 international and 4 corporate, at this point only 14 people have renewed membership. Judie asked us all to promote ASLI membership, and to use the new ASLI brochure. Judie reminded all that we have special forms for individual members and organizational members. Judie distributed brochures at many of the AMS exhibit booths, and members staffing our booth handed out many brochures to visitors. Jinny told Judie that she can give her a list of schools that had exhibit booths at this meeting. If you get no response from emails to Judie, she has a possible email problem, then do resend your message. Jinny volunteered to help Judie with the letter soliciting new members, which can be emailed with brochure as attachment. Sabrina suggested that the brochures be sent to library schools. Linda suggested we remind ASLI members attending other professional meetings to take brochures with them and promote membership in ASLI at the other professional meetings. Chris suggested looking at LibGuides on the web to find names linked to atmospheric topics, and volunteered to search relevant topics to find LibGuides and the contact names listed on them. The 3 ASLI membership forms, individual, corporate and sponsor will be on the website, Judie will send them to Brian.

ASLI Choice Report - Maria Latyszewskyj
Maria announced the new members of the ASLI Choice Committee: Anita Colby and Steve Quillen, who join returning members Chris Sherratt and Judie Triplehorn, with Maria as Chair. The committee had a difficult time this year, mainly due to publications schedule, new books coming out late in December. They have a new category of Popular Work, and 3 scientific categories. Selection was difficult due to December release date for some publications. Some members could not see some titles in time, they did not have access to the publications, so committee was not able to award in some categories.
Maria thanked Anita for ordering plaques and brining the certificates. This year we had only 2 coauthors accept in person, one accepted earlier. There was a great photo and publicity that appeared in the online AMS blog of the day. Maria will be submitting info to BAMS for write up of Awards. The Committee may look at changing award criteria due to publication timing (AMS publications made available in January) and access to titles for all members, maybe look at electronic versions.

ASLI Booth – Anita Colby.
Anita staffed the AMS Student Table on Saturday; she shared the space with Garry Sawchuck from ProQuest. Anita was able to discuss librarianship as a career with the students because there were a number of undergrads who were interested in career options. Maria spoke to them about MGA, Gerry gave out AtmosPeer pens. Anita scheduled staffing, and staffed the ASLI booth. She thanked AMS for covering cost of booth and furnishings. Booth was staffed with 9 ASLI volunteers for 24.5 hours. There were several brochures and handouts from different ASLI institutions, plus the Choice titles and book displays. We suggested to those who stopped by the booth that they give the brochure and pen to their librarian. Tragic how many visitors to the booth mentioned that they no longer had a librarian, mainly due to budget cuts. Stephanie has volunteered to organize the booth staffing in Seattle, maybe with Brian. They could handle the AMS student conference, and booth, until the rest of the members arrive. Anita documented procedures for booth set up to help future conferences organizers. Gloria suggested that in situations where the visitors to the booth mention the loss of their librarian, we should ask them who in their company/organization took over the librarian role, and then ASLI members could target that person, possibly education departments or other appropriate positions that may be doing librarian roles. Linda suggested offering complimentary membership for one year as incentive for state climatologists. There was agreement that we should at least target the state climatologists group.

AMS Liaison – Jinny Nathans
AMS sponsors the ASLI Booth in addition to the meeting room and AV costs, which are all built into the convention center contract, and that is around $4,000 to cover all. ASLI pays AMS around $1250 per year. Since we did not order food this year, we had no room expenses, and we increased our registration so we did much better financially.
AMS continues to be delighted to host ASLI, and looks forward to the relationship for years to come. For the 100th AMS anniversary, in 2020, the meeting will be in Boston. If you have feedback or questions do contact Jinny.

MGA Advisory Board – Maria Latyszewskyj
The MGA Advisory Board Meeting was held on Wednesday, January 20, with Ken, Christopher, Jinny, and Judie attending. Maria is chair for 3 years. They reported on MGA news and activities. No changes to MGA thesaurus. Focusing on promoting AtmosPeer.
Jinny commented that AtmosPeer has the potential to be a really good product. AMS has put their conference proceedings on that site (not preprints, just the recorded presentations) with title, author, abstracts, when available, and presentation recordings. ProQuest got some funding to build the product, but none to promote it. It has been endorsed by ASLI, but has not appeared in BAMS yet. Jinny asked that we help solicit interest in the AtmosPeer site. Maybe members of the MGA board can think of ways to promote it. We should send input to Gerry about our use of AtmosPeer and how we promote it. There was general agreement that we should add a link to it on the ASLI website, with some descriptive text about it being a free, open source, site. Maybe ask Gerry for briefer guides to handout to our patrons. Stephanie was thinking of creating a guide, there was a suggestion that she send it to Gerry when done.
Jinny responded to Gloria’s question about MGA history and how it was originally created by AMS, then taken over by CSA, and with ProQuest’s purchase of CSA, it is now ProQuest staff (Gerry & Brian) who represent MGA, are part of our program and bring us MGA news. Chris commented that the MGA database is probably a threatened product on our campuses and in other institutions, and we should tell people about scoping, or how to discuss product promotion and evaluation. Chris asked about best place to post or promote coverage and usage of MGA. Judie reported that Gerry is willing to provide a write up of coverage for any interested institution, which is very helpful information for anyone considering cancellation, or resource comparison. Maybe have a paper in ISTL, like a database review.
Jinny commented that there was resistance to changing MGA name due to Dr. Spagler being 95 years old, and this was his creation. Discussion on wording of resolution followed.
Judie made a motion: we propose that AMS re-examine the title for MGA, it needs to be more appropriate, include the word climate, and be more descriptive for all disciplines covered to improve its viability.
Amendment to Motion wording: we move that AMS reconsider the title of MGA immediately.
New motion, the above briefer wording, was passed unanimously. Linda suggested that we alert members not present about our motion, and that we look at the overlap between GeoBase and MGA. Chris will work with Linda, or Bob, and Kari to explore coverage and overlap of such databases.
Sabrina suggested a post on Facebook about AtmosPeer. Most government organizations do not access Facebook, but it may be a good place for students.

Atmospheric Science 101- Kari Kozak
Kari reported that the workshop was a learning experience and that it would help her with conference planning. She thanked everyone who helped make the session possible. Attendees were a small group, so there were many discussions with people participating and sharing their experiences. Kari will be emailing attendees to ask them about their experience in the class. Stephanie commented that what she found most useful was being able to talk with others and share experiences, to find out what everyone else is doing. Chris thought it would be a good idea to have a general sharing session in our meeting, maybe on our second conference day. Having the introductions on the first day are valuable, but it would be good to add a more lengthy sharing session after that. Linda suggested that members send out what they plan to share on ASLI list before the meeting, so even those who could not attend can share their news.

Amendment to Bylaws: Article IX: Publications & Archives (Linda): This Amendment to add a section on our Archives came from the executive board. Amy confirmed that what the bylaws detailed was accurate, since she had spoken to our NOAA central contact, Steve Quillen, and Doria. Linda spoke with Doria also, and there will be a catalog record for the archives. The Motion carried unanimously to add the Archives section to Article IX, and the Bylaws will be changed by the new ASLI secretary.

News: Linda reported that Eileen accepted a new job and may not be able to run as our secretary.

Announcement of our slate: Nomination for Chair-Elect: Kari Kozak. All voted in favor, Kari was elected. Action from Nominating Committee: Chris nominated Stephanie Wright for secretary, nomination was seconded. Votes for Eileen: none. Votes for Stephanie for secretary: unanimous.

New Business: Maria asked if we would like to comment or react to the Library of Congress classification change. Chris put forward a motion that ASLI go on record and state that there will be difficulties associated with the Library of Congress change in the classification schedule concerning climatic change. Chris amended it to add that they (LC) be invited to respond. There was agreement that it would have been great if we were consulted about this change. Motion passed unanimously. Linda posed the question what do we do with our photos. Maria mentioned that she and Doria had sent their photos to the Archives. Gloria reported that she had taken a lot of photos and was going to post them, but will send them to Brian. Board should explore posting of photos, such as ASLI Choice Awards, to the ASLI Website. Amy suggested that the Executive Board discuss the format of photos to be archived, digitize paper photos, digital only, and also what gets posted. Jinny suggested that the new secretary explore formats for photo sharing and archiving.

Recognition of Outgoing Officers: Anita Colby, Past Chair Amy Butros, Secretary (Note: Gene recognized and thanked the officers at the ASLI dinner, and awarded them very nice NASA mugs.) Maria recognized all officers, thanked them for their work and gave them gifts (publications, books & calendars).
Motion to adjourn – the meeting adjourned at 5:20 pm.

Friday, January 22, 2010