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ACRL Board of Directors’ actions, June 2007: Highlights of the Board’s Annual Conference meetings

C&RL News, September 2007
Vol. 68, No. 8

During the 2007 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., the ACRL Board of Directors met on June 23 and 26 and took the following actions.

Strategic Area: Higher Education and Research
Goal Area: Learning—ACRL and its members are recognized as collaborative leaders in teaching lifelong learning skills, improving techniques for assessing learning outcomes, and in creating environments for discovery.

Confirmed the ACRL Board of Directors’ e-mail vote of March 15��–March 22, 2007, approving the establishment of an “Information Literacy Competency Standards in Higher Education Review Task Force.”

Approved revisions to the “Research Competency Guidelines for Literatures in English.”

Approved revisions for Tipsheet #4: Developing Subject-Specific Information Literacy Standards.

Goal Area: Scholarship—ACRL and its members are recognized as authorities on knowledge management; and the creation, collection, preservation, access, and exchange of information.Confirmed the ACRL Board of Directors’ e-mail vote of March 2–March 9, 2007, approving the appointment of Joseph Branin as the editor of College and Research Libraries, for a three-year term to begin July 1, 2008, and the appointment of Craig Gibson as the editor of ACRL Publications in Librarianship, for a five-year term to begin July 1, 2008.

Approved the “Standards for Proficiencies for Instruction Librarians and Coordinators of Instruction Programs.”

Approved the Scholarly Communication Agenda for 2007–08.

Goal Area: Advocacy—ACRL has greater influence on the higher education and research environment.

Approved the establishment of liaison relationships with the following organizations through the ACRL Council of Liaisons:

• American Anthropological Association
• American Association of University Professors
• American Council of Learned Societies
• American Sociological Association
• Association for Educational Communications and Technology
• Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education

Directed staff to send a letter, as amended at the meeting, immediately via e-mail to the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) regarding the “Guidelines for Establishing Shared Regional Depository Libraries.”

Established a Task Force on Positioning the 21st Century Library in the Competitive Academy: Why We Can’t Wait.

Asked a small group to meet by September to recommend changes to ACRL’s instrument for collecting statistics that may affect the 2007 ACRL Trends and Statistics survey.

Approved preconference proposals titled “Library Instruction 2.0: Building Your Online Instruction Toolkit,” “Assessment of Academic Library Effectiveness: Using ACRL Standards for Continuous Evaluation,” and “Mindfully Resolving Conflicts: Facilitation for Diversity Issues” for presentation at the 2008 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, Friday, June 27, 2008.

Strategic Area: The Profession
Goal Area: Continuous Learning—ACRL provides continuous learning opportunities enabling members to strengthen their effectiveness and achieve recognition as valued contributors to their academic and research communities.

Approved workshop proposals titled “Assessing Learning Outcomes in Programs Large and Small: A Hands On Approach,” “Injecting Fun into Library Orientation: How to Engage and Capture your Students through Interactive Presentations,” and “Using Organization Development to Create a ‘Work Place of Choice’” for presentation at the 2008 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia, Friday, January 11, 2008.

Approved March 30–April 2, 2011, as the revised dates for the ACRL 15th National Conference in Philadelphia.

Approved recommendations for revisions to ACRL’s Annual Conference programming process for implementation by the Professional Development Coordinating Committee (PDCC) in time for the 2009 ALA Annual Conference, including the following:

• elimination of ACRL Board of Directors approval from the conference programs planning process;
• revision of PDCC charge giving it responsibility to manage the solicitation, application, selection and funding process for annual conference programs, and to investigate ways to consider and accommodate program ideas that arise from alternative venues, outside of the sections or committees, such as proposals from individuals;
• direction to staff to develop additional training explaining the variety of mechanisms for networking and professional development available at conferences in addition to programs, as well as ensuring that section and committee chairs are aware that annual programs are not required;
• direction to PDCC to increase the funding to groups who jointly plan and sponsor a single program; program planners are allowed to submit requests for honoraria that exceed the present limit, to be considered on a case-by-case basis;
• direction to staff to periodically review the honoraria limit to ensure it’s in alignment with typical speaker fees;
• creation of a mechanism for conference program planners to work with ACRL staff to judge the viability of reproducing a program as an online offering, education of members as to why online offerings cannot be free, and exploration of options for allowing sections to front the cost of an online program for all interested members of the section;
• affirmed staff’s work on implementing new institutional pricing options for online educations and suggested the PDCC be given input to the menu of online offerings.
• direction to staff to develop a standard program proposal document that requires planners to include outcomes or impact statements and a standard evaluation form that all approved programs will use.

The Board also asked PDCC to report back to the Board no later than the 2008 Annual Conference with recommendations for the implementation of a track of programs that would undergo a refereed selection process. PDCC is to submit a report to the Board annually.

Approved the proposed slate of ACRL programs for delivery at the 2008 ALA Annual Conference.

Approved a request to video-record and make available online the 2008 ACRL President’s Program.

Goal Area: Leadership—ACRL members achieve recognition as leaders and advocates for academic and research libraries.

Approved revisions to the “Standards for Faculty Status of College and University Librarians.”

Reaffirmed the “Statement on the Certification and Licensing of Academic Librarians.”

Agreed to continue presentation of the Academic/Research Librarian of the Year Award at the biennial ACRL National Conference and asked the Executive Committee to develop a plan for presenting the 2008 award and to recommend ways that awardees could also be announced and recognized at the ALA Annual Conference when the award is presented at an ACRL National Conference.

Reaffirmed the “Statement on the Terminal Professional Degree for Academic Librarians.”

Reaffirmed the “Joint Statement on Faculty Status of College and University Librarians.”

Goal Area: Information Technology—Academic and research librarians are leaders in using information and academic technologies to create and manage information resources and to deliver library and information services.

Endorsed the ALA “Principles for Digital Content.”

Strategic Area: The Association
Goal Area: Membership—ACRL’s membership growth builds on retaining core membership while recruiting from new and diverse communities.

Approved the establishment of an ACRL Balancing Baby and Book Discussion Group.

Approved the first of two required votes to place Bylaws revisions that allow for the creation of a wider array of subgroups, collectively known as Communities of Practice, on the 2008 ballot for a membership vote. Placement on the ballot will require the Board to vote to approve these revisions a second time at the 2008 ALA Midwinter Meeting.

Approved the minute s of the ACRL Board of Directors meetings held at the 2007 ALA Midwinter Meeting.

Goal Area: Sustainability—ACRL will have the fiscal resources, staff expertise, and organizational structure to advance the association’s strategic plan.

Approved a revised charge for the Colleagues Committee to state explicitly the committee’s fundraising responsibility for the ACRL National Conference.

Approved a revised charge for the Friends Fund Subcommittee of the Budget and Finance Committee clarifying the subcommittee’s responsibility for fundraising of annual gifts in support of ACRL initiatives that are not otherwise funded by ACRL operating funds.

Established the Friends Fund Disbursement Subcommittee of the Budget and Finance Committee, charged to review requests for funding from Friends of ACRL donations and recommend to the ACRL Budget and Finance Committee which requests should be funded. Funding decisions will be based on the goals and objectives set by the ACRL Board of Directors and ACRL’s Strategic Plan.

Asked that the Budget and Finance Committee act on other recommendations of the Friends of ACRL Review Task Force final report, including the creation of a subcommittee of the Budget and Finance Committee to investigate the potential for developing a Major Gifts program for ACRL, by the 2007 fall ACRL Executive Committee meeting.

Approved the first of two required votes to place various Bylaws revisions on the 2008 ballot for a membership vote. Placement on the ballot will require the Board to vote to approve these revisions a second time at the 2008 ALA Midwinter Meeting.

Charged the Budget and Finance Committee with analysis and research of dues models used by other associations.

Approved revisions to the Leadership Recruitment and Nomination process for selecting candidates for the ACRL Board of Directors, including a revised charge for the Leadership Recruitment and Nomination Committee (LRNC) and a revised composition for a four-year pilot period beginning with the 2009 election cycle, to include a chair (the previous year’s committee vice-chair), vice-chair, one member from the University Libraries Section (ULS), one member from the College Libraries Section (CLS), one member from Community and Junior College Libraries Section (CJCLS), one member from Sections Council, one member from Chapters Council, and one at-large member. The type-of-library Sections and the two Councils will each determine the process for naming their LRNC member. The vice-president/president-elect of ACRL will appoint the vice-chair and at-large member. Terms of LRNC would be staggered to ensure continuity on the committee. The ACRL Board will appoint a task force to begin an assessment of the pilot in Year 3.

Approved the FY2008 budget with total revenues of $2,118,408 and total expenses of $2,714,033 for ACRL (not including CHOICE) and total revenues of $3,273,076 and total expenses of $3,055,127 for CHOICE.

Established a Task Force on Not-for-Profit Entrepreneurial Best Practices.

ACRL is a division of the American Library Association