2025-09-26 Business Meeting

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Agenda
WAML Business Meeting
Friday, September 26, 2025
University of Idaho
Moscow, Idaho
3:30 pm PDT / 6:30 pm EDT

Call meeting to order: 3:39 pm

Officers in attendance: 

  • President: Cheyenne Stradinger (president)
  • Vice-President: Sierra Laddusaw
  • Past-President: Meg Miller
  • Treasurer: sam hidde-tripp
  • Secretary: Emilie Ducourneau (acting as temporary fill-in for Jack Tieszen)

We have 65 members,39 in attendance at business meeting, need 43 for quorum (rule of procedure on screen)

Approval of minutes from last year’s meeting:

ACTION: Meg–send out the 2024 and 2025 business meeting minutes to members

Executive Summary (of Executive Board meetings since July)

Emilie (minutes)

Officer Reports

Sam hidde tripp (Treasurer) 

  • Current balance as of the start of the year: $ 25,165.93. Previous years balances:
    • 2024: $27,378
    • 2023: $27,160
    • 2022: $27,806
    • 2021: $26,159
  • Migrating all of the info to the treasurer email so that there can be continuity when treasurer’s change 
  • Bruce is working on getting sam’s name on the Bank of America account
  • Discuss non-profit responsibilities. Migrating over to Stripe
  • Last year, we broke even
  • Currently in a dip, financial-wise
  • Honoraria, webhosting, index, scholarship are all included in the total.
  • Bruce: There was a dip last year because we hadn’t indexed in a while. We paid an indexer to index past IBs. Aside from that, the amount has stayed steady in the last few or so years

Emilie Ducourneau (Acting Secretary) 

  • N/A

Meg Miller (Past President) 

  • New Indexer for the Information Bulletin
    • The position for an indexer for the WAML IB was posted to the American Society for Indexers in January 2024. 
    • A subcommittee including Ken Rockwell (involved in hiring previous indexer), Kat Strickland (Past President), Sarah Zhang (IB Editor) and Jessica Benner (President) interviewed three candidates in March and Pilar Wyman of Wyman Indexing was hired in July. 
    • She was contracted at an annual rate of $600 US dollars for preparation of indexes for 3 issues and updating the cumulative index of the Work. 
    • She completed volumes 54 and 55 in September 2024.
  • WAML Inboxes for specific roles
    • Some challenges with Eventbrite prompted the need for a generic WAML inbox.
      • Our Eventbrite was being run on an individual work email account and Eventbrite requires a US citizen as a signatory. 
      • The conference email address we have been using is a distribution list not a formal inbox. 
    • The Board discussed creating a few specific accounts, e.g., conference and treasurer for specific business needs in the future.
  • Honorarias for Social Media Manager, New Mapping Editor, and Archivist were discussed.
    • The social media manager was sunsetted and some of its duties were absorbed by another committee
  • WAML Listserv
    • Migrating list from U-Washington servers to Google and using Google Groups to manage
    • Shaping it to act as a listserv 
    • Follow up email with more details will be forthcoming 
    • Old messages will go to a dark archive in our records at Stanford
    • Brubaker Maps: Maggie Tarmey had reached out that they could take them on, with changing priorities no longer can, so will proceed with sending email out to solicit homes as was discussed last year
      • Kat will send out an email to solicit suggestions/ interest in what to do with this collection of maps 
  • Ad Hoc committees were struck to create new code of conduct and address EBSCO offer to add IB to index, will be discussed later in meeting

Cheyenne Stradinger (President)

  • 47 people registered to this conference
  • Everyone will be getting a feedback survey soon about this conference

Appointed Position and Committee Chair Reports

Zoe Dilles (Archivist) 

  • The presentations and photos from last year are not yet up (will be put up after the conference this year).
  • Access to previous files is easy, so just ask.
  • Locating/archiving where specific papers are located.
  • 2022 presentations have been recorded and transcribed, not deposited yet.

Ilene Raynes (Book and Geospatial Resources Editor) 

  • N/A

Sarah Zhang (Information Bulletin Editor) 

  • Georgia Brown has stepped down from the role of Features Editor. Emma Slayton will be the new Features Editor starting with the fall issue. Georgia did an interview with Emma in the Summer issue. Thanks Georgia for her contribution to this section!   Michael Smith, who has been the New Mapping Editor for the past two years, has retired. In the absence of this role, Ken Rockwell has agreed to be the Interim Editor. Chrissy Klenke helped with this section in the summer issue. Thanks Ken and Chrissy! 
  • Meg Miller initiated a small ad hoc committee to review all things IB-related after being approached by EBSCO about adding the IB to the index of one of their open databases. The committee members are Meg Miller, Chrissy Klenke, and me. Tom Brittnacher, Zoe Dilles, Kevin Dyke, Theresa Quill, and Georgia Brown have all contributed to the discussions. We have held a few meetings, and the focus has shifted from EBSCO’s proposal to the broader issue of the IB’s discoverability and related matters. Specifically, we are exploring minting DOIs for the IB and indexing it in Google Scholar. The work is ongoing.

Emma Slayton (Features Editor) 

  • Please let me know if you have any updates / exhibits / good news you’d like to share in the IB Features

Nick Beyelia (Membership Manager)

  • Reporting for this meeting represents membership numbers from September 23, 2024 to September 2, 2025. These numbers are likely to change in the days immediately before and shortly after the annual conference as there is typically a rush of renewals surrounding this event. Reporting here is as close to the date of the conference as possible.  

Changes to membership processes

  • The most significant change this year is a switch in the membership timeline. In previous years, reporting was based upon a fiscal year model that began on July 1 and ended on June 30th of the following year. That changed as of last year. Reporting will now be centered around the annual conference as it is often the catalyst for membership activity – both membership renewals and new membership and is the marked event requiring an annual summary of membership activity.   
  • As of September 2, 2025 WAML has a total of 65 members. This comprises 50 paid memberships, 3 honorary year-long memberships that were gifted to WAML Scholarship recipients and 12 lifetime memberships. 
  • Among paid memberships 13 were brand new members and 6 were renewals following lapses in membership. We have maintained the number of lifetime memberships from the previous report with 5 paid and 7 honorary memberships.
  • Membership has increased from last year when an all-time low in membership numbers was reported. It’s not clear if the new membership system may have affected these numbers, however, it is important to note that no personal checks were received to pay dues nor has any member reached out to ask about alternative ways to pay – i.e. a personal check. 

Kevin Dyke (Web Administrator)

  • Working on getting the IB indexed as a proper journal and adding appropriate tags that Google Scholar wants. Have added the ability to save IB pages as PDF. Will work on improving the search bar on the website. Have not looked at autorenewal of memberships. We are moving from using Paypal to the more streamlined Stripe. Successful website editing party held this summer which allowed Kevin to go through and update/fix errors on the website. Let Kevin know if you have any questions.

Jo-Ann Wong (Scholarship Committee)

  • Regretfully could not make it to the conference this year, congratulations to our two winners, Karen and Anna

Kat Strickland (Continuing Education Committee)

  • Folks have expressed interest in meeting virtually (potentially February/ March). Looking for interested members who would help plan. Jessica and Kat have discussed creating some sort of peer-review continuing education committee. Kat will send out a message about meeting the week of February 12-16.  

Georgia Brown (Communications Committee)

  • Kevin finished all the website edits from June’s website editing party. Huge shout out to him! 
  • For the conference this year, I put together a spreadsheet about roommates / carpooling / joining a text group to help with money saving. I also created a What’s App for at-conference communications. I think adding these duties or something similar would be good to add to the Communication Committee Chair duties. 

Liaison Reports

Kathy Rankin, (ALA/MAGIRT) American Library Association’s Map and Geospatial Information Round Table 

  • MAGIRT officers as of July 1, 2025, are Susan Moore, chair; Iris Taylor, vice chair/chair elect; Erin Cheever, past chair; Laura McElfresh, secretary; Pete Reehling, treasurer; Sam Kim, assistant treasurer. 
  • At ALA Annual in June, MAGIRT’s social event was a visit to the Free Library of Philadelphia featuring imaginary places maps, historical maps, and a map overlay tool. The tour was followed by a no host dinner. 
  • The winner of the MAGIRT Honors Award was our Michael Smith, recently retired from UC San Diego where he was the Subject Specialist for Maps, Philosophy, Religion and Jewish Studies. He has held many positions in MAGIRT since he joined in1995, including treasurer for several terms. Michael also has held numerous roles in GODORT, is a past president of WAML, co-hosted a WAML conference, and was the long-time writer/editor of the News and Notes section of the Information Bulletin. 
  • The MAGIRT Chair’s Program at ALA Annual was Walk Around Philadelphia: Discovering the City by Exploring Its Boundaries. The speaker was J.J. Tiziou, who is a local artist and massage therapist who leads the walk. The walk is a participatory navigation experience in twelve segments over four three-day weekends. Print and digital maps are the starting point. 
  • All MAGIRT print publications have been digitized and the print copies have been given away. There has been a problem with access to the Guide to US Map Collections. It was a problem with logging into the ESRI account. 
  • Kathleen Weessies of Michigan State University is doing a MAGIRT-sponsored webinar presentation titled A Map Librarian on the Road: Four Libraries in Four Days. She will share her findings on the question “Are large academic map collections largely the same?” Kathleen will also invite participants to discuss the role of maps in academic research and how map libraries might evolve to meet future needs. This free webinar will be held via Zoom on Thursday, October 23, 2025, at 2 pm EDT. *Respectfully submitted, Kathy Rankin, MAGIRT liaison

daniel Brendle-Moczuk, (ACMLA) Association of Canadian Map Libraries and Archives 

  • CARTO_ACMLA_ACACC held its 58th annual CARTO conference in Kingston, ON at Queens University June 11-13, 2025 with the theme of Confluence: Maps and spatial technologies at the convergence of disciplines, methodologies, and practice. CARTO_ACMLA_ACACC Executive as below: President: Zach MacDonald, Map Librarian, Western University Library, London, Ont Past-Presidents: Francine Berish, Geospatial Data Librarian, Queen’s University Library, Kingston, Ont and Rene Duplain, GIS Librarian, University of Ottawa Library Vice-President: Sherri Sunstrum, Cartographic Specialist, Carleton University Library, Ottawa 
  • CARTO_ACMLA_ACACC plans to have its next conference at the University of Victoria-UVic (Canada) June 1-4, 2026 in conjunction with the Canadian Association of Geographers-CAG. *Respectfully submitted, daniel Brendle-Moczuk, CARTO_ACMLA_ACACC liaison to WAML Geospatial Librarian, University of Victoria, BC, Canada

Chrissy Klenke, (GSIS) GeoScience Information Society 

Geoscience Information Society

“The Geoscience Information Society (GSIS) facilitates the exchange of information in the geosciences through cooperation among scientists, librarians, editors, cartographers, educators, and information professionals.”

How many GSIS members are there? Show of hands. (3)

News:

  • GSIS updated its website recently.
  • This year’s GSA Connects Conference (https://connects.geosociety.org/) will be held from October 19 – 22 in San Antonio, Texas. As in the past few years, GSIS  will not host a Technical Session. So the GSIS annual meeting will be held online.
  • The Annual Meeting will be on Thursday, October 30. At this time, there is no information about the virtual conference on their website. However, it is free of charge. Registration is not required. This is an opportunity for geoscience information professionals to meet with their peers and share challenges, ideas, and discussions about the topics relevant to them as professionals, and honor the best information resources in the geoscience field.I am the chair of the Mary B Ansari Best Ref/Resource Award and will be presenting the award at the virtual annual meeting, along with the award committees. Chris Thiry Geoscience Information Society (GSIS) is planning the 2025 Geosciences Librarianship 101 webinar scheduled for the afternoons of October 28 & 29, prior to the annual meeting. Spread the word if you have any new Geoscience librarians at your institution.
  • One of the major topics we’ll be tackling at the Annual Business Meeting is the dissolution of a professional organization we have shared many members and leaders with over the years. Atmospheric Science Librarians International (ASLI) has served information professionals in atmospheric sciences and meteorology for a quarter of a century. However, due to rapidly declining membership, engagement, and volunteers for leadership roles in the wake of the pandemic, the board of ASLI has made the difficult decision to dissolve, with its remaining funds to be absorbed by GSIS, who will also offer current ASLI members the opportunity to be absorbed into GSIS membership if they so choose.

Ryan Mattke, (NGAC) National Geospatial Advisory Committee

  • NGAC met in October and December of 2024 and in February and June of 2025. Major developments include the release of the NSDI Strategic Plan 2025 – 2035 in October 2024. I have made a summary of the plan available online. The NGAC also released several reports in the past year, including Near-Term Opportunities for Our National Spatial Data Infrastructure and Advancing the Nation’s Geospatial Ecosystem: Guidance and Best Practices for Sharing Priority National Data. The next meeting is at the end of October 2025, where several more reports will be discussed, including topics such as GeoAI, Data Access and Download, and a new(ly) updated FGDC Standards. 

-Submitted by Ryan Mattke / NGAC L

Theresa Quill, NACIS (North American Cartographic Information Society)

  • The NACIS annual meeting takes place in Louisville, Kentucky from October 14-18 and the schedule has been published: https://nacis2025.sched.com/. Most conference presentations are recorded and made available on the NACIS YouTube channel after the fact. Some library-related presentations that WAML members might be interested in include:
    • Floating in a Sea of Paper: How Penn State Geography Deaccessioned Their Map Collection
      Fritz Kessler, Penn State, Daniela Aiello, Penn State
    • How to use millions of historic maps
      Ian Spangler, Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library, Bert Spaan, Lead Developer and Co-Founder, Allmaps Project
    • Paste-Ins to Pixels: Contextualizing Cartography through Student Projects at the David Rumsey Map Center  
      Kristina Larsen, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford University Libraries, Niles Dorn, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford University Libraries
    • Maps That Glow: Teaching with Paper Circuits
      Theresa Quill, Indiana University Libraries, Leanne Nay, Indiana University Libraries
    • Creative Methods in the Cartographic Classroom
      Meghan Kelly, Syracuse University
    • Putting maps in their place (and time): bringing archival research into the cartography classroom
      Jerry Shannon, University of Georgia
  • NACIS is also conducting their annual Census of members as well as voting for elected leaders. Both of these links are limited to current NACIS members.

Vacant, (SLA/G&M) Special Libraries Association’s Geography and Map Section 

Old Business

  • Principal Region and Conference Locations
    • The executive board met and discussed- we determined the wording was already in our bylaws/ rules of procedure that we can meet outside of the principal region, we just need to vote.
    • List of future locations has been added to conference manual
    • Discussed and listed out current handshake agreements and suggestions for potential WAML conference locations. Will make decisions in the upcoming year

New Business

  • Conversation on vote to hold conference outside of principal region:
    • We are choosing not to vote at this meeting as we would like to get feedback from all members, not just those in attendance here in Moscow, ID.
  • Code of Conduct is up on website
  • Propose Ad Hoc Committee for online guide for US map collections support
    • If we hold a guide for the whole of the US, what does this mean in terms of our organization’s identity? Would it be easier to rebrand than expand the principal region?
    • The guide listed facts and figures of US Map Collections and was managed by MAGIRT. The US was divided into regions and each region was managed by WAML members.
    • Discussion ensued about the time spent to create this versus its utility. Is it worth the effort to keep it going? Is there a good reason to update this?
    • Cheyenne proposes that we make an ad-hoc committee. Kevin seconds it. Heather has comments about discoverability. All in favor, none against, no abstentions, motion passes.
  • Next year’s conference is going to be hosted by Craig Haggit at the Denver Public Library in Denver, Colorado! October 7-10th, 2026. 
  • Thank you to Bruce  and the University of Idaho Moscow Libraries for hosting the conference this year! 
  • Bruce thanks everyone for coming. There is a Macbook in the Panorama room. Whose Macbook is this? Everyone claps for Bruce. This is the end of the conference.

Meeting adjourned: 4:37 pm Pacific time. 

Submitted by Emilie Ducourneau on behalf of Jack Tieszen, WAML Secretary 

Action Items:

Meg

  • ACTION: Meg–send out the 2024 and 2025 business meeting minutes to members

sam

  • ACTION: sam needs to add their list of the exact numbers to the minutes 

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