2023-02-02 Executive Board Meeting Minutes

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Minutes
WAML Executive Board Meeting 
February 2, 2023
9:00am PST / 12:00pm EST

Call meeting to order: 9:03am PST

Officers in attendance: 

  • Katherine Strickland (President)
  • Jessica Benner (Vice President)
  • Evan Thornberry (Past President)
  • Rebecca Seifried (Secretary)
  • Bruce Godfrey (Treasurer)

Other attendees: 

  • Dorothy McGarry
  • Chrissy Klenke

Approval of Minutes from last meeting:

Officer Reports & Check-In

  • Katherine Strickland (President)
    • ACTION: Kat will email her officer report next week.
  • Jessica Benner (Vice President)
    • Emailed Kathy (cc’ing Kat) today to ask if she would like to organize something to print in the IB after the conference event in honor of Stan Stevens. 
    • Mainly working on conference preparations with Evan. My trip to Vancouver was a blast and Evan is an awesome host!
  • Evan Thornberry (Past President)
    • Working on conference planning. See agenda item below.
  • Rebecca Seifried (Secretary)
    • Scheduled the Appointed Positions and Committee Chairs meeting for 2/14.
    • Updated language (currently highlighted in yellow) in the Transition Checklist for outgoing President and incoming Vice President about the Secondary Signatory.
      • ACTION: Becky will email the E-Board to ask for feedback on the Transition Checklist changes.
  • Bruce Godfrey (Treasurer)
    • Made a second request to the Bank of America re: second signatory form. If by 2/7 he hasn’t received the form he may follow-up on site.

Actions approved over email by E-Board since December 2022 E-Board meeting

  • On 12/13/23, all members of the E-Board approved the contract and deposit invoice (in the amount of $1,033.50 CAD) from UBC Conferences & Accommodation to reserve a block of rooms for WAML 2023. 

Appointed Position Reports

  • No reports submitted.
  • Chrissy (IB Editor) is working on her semi-annual report here.
    • Provided feedback that it would be helpful to have more documentation and guidance about what webpages the Editor is responsible for updating (and when). This information could be passed along more smoothly than it has in the past.
    • Suggestions:
      • Prepare documentation just for the Editor, e.g. based on the Transition Checklist used for officers.
      • Add something like “Remind the Editor to update X pages and the Web Admin to update Y pages” to the Transition Checklist.
    • ACTION: Becky will add the topic of transition documentation to the 2/14 meeting agenda.

Updates from task forces, committees, etc.

  • Continuing Education (Jon Jablonski)
    • ACTION: Kat will reach out to the rest of the Continuing Education Committee to gather ideas about how the group might be reshaped.
  • Web Communications (TBD)
    • ACTION: Jessica will email all current members of the Web Communications Committee and Amy Work to share our proposal about reshaping the committee and ask for feedback.
  • Scholarship Committee (Philip White)
    • ACTION: Jessica or Evan will reach out to the other members of the Scholarship Committee to ask if anyone would like to be chair and gather ideas about how to get new people involved.

Old Business

  • Listserv platform alternatives (Evan)
    • See notes from 11/3/22 meeting
    • The current plan is to test out Gaggle Mail and Groups.io. There was talk about using Google Groups to communicate, but unsure if it requires all users to have a Google account.
    • Groups.io works well for ROLGGE for what they want to do, which is send emails. The group used the free version for a while, but used some leftover grant funds to pay for a 5-year subscription.
      • Subscription cost is $20 per month
      • Possible to purchase a 1-year subscription ($240)
    • Becky uses Google Groups regularly and it seems external members aren’t a problem. Unsure if external (non-Google) addresses can log in to access the archived conversations. Also unsure how URLs are assigned to the group (e.g. @groups.umass.edu or @googlegroups.com).
    • Suggestion to set up a test group.
    • Matt has sponsored Nick to be an admin on the existing UW listserv – this isn’t urgent so long as Matt stays at UW. Ideally looking for an organizationally agnostic solution.
    • ACTION: Evan will set up a test group using existing WAML Google account.
  • Policies and Procedures (Jessica)
    • Streamlining IB Appointed Position titles
      • News and Notes Editor is now IB Features Editor? – confirmed.
      • Adding IB to the front of all relevant titles (Policies and Procedures section 2)?
        • Decision: add ‘IB’ to each relevant title and then add to the description a full reference to Information Bulletin. Information Bulletin Editor will stand as is.
    • Web Administrator duties: 2.1.g.5 “Facilitates new and relevant material for inclusion in the toolbox.” The website says ‘Seeks’.
      • ‘Facilitates’ is more reflective of the current duties.
      • Decision: Keep ‘facilitates’ and update the website term.
    • ACTION: Jessica will apply decisions we’ve made to the Policies and Procedures.
    • ACTION: Jessica will email the E-Board a summary of changes to be made to the Policies and Procedures.
    • ACTION: Once the E-Board approves the Policies and Procedures changes, Jessica will email them to Kevin.
    • ACTION: Once Kevin applies the changes to Policies and Procedures, Becky will announce the changes to the membership.
  • Conversation with Stanford (Kat)
    • ACTION: Kat will try to schedule a meeting with Kim Durante to formalize a deposit system for members and to talk about the WAML-Stanford relationship and to ask if it would be possible to give a non-Stanford person privileges to upload digital content.
  • Status of Map Toolbox group (Kat)
    • There is a meeting scheduled for February to talk about editing the toolbox. Believes monthly meetings will be established.

New Business

  • Honorarium for the New Mapping Editor (Evan)
    • See discussion from 10/5/22 meeting
    • The position did not have an honorarium when Ken was in it. The position had been recommended to be removed because of a lack of volunteers, but the committee recommended adding compensation if it were to continue.
    • Suggestions:
      • Apply Archivist honorarium ($350) to the New Mapping Editor position instead. Rationale: the Archivist position duties have changed.
      • Reduce Archivist honorarium, or add duties to a different position.
      • Move forward with assigning a $350 honorarium to the New Mapping Editor position (if it’s in line with the amount of work of the other positions at this level) and then revisit the Archivist honorarium separately at a later time.
      • Assign this year’s archivist honorarium to the New Mapping Editor just for the 2022-23 year.
      • Wait to get more clarification from Stanford about the self-submission process for archiving, then revisit the change to the honorarium for the New Mapping Editor.
    • The position description for New Mapping Editor was not updated at the same time as the others because it was thought it would be eliminated. The E-Board should review this immediately. Jessica proposes to review the New Mapping Editor description and honorarium now, and revisit the Archivist honorarium later.
    • What would be the process to add an honorarium to this position? The E-Board would review the position (probably working with Mike), update the description and add an honorarium, and then the E-Board can approve all the changes at once.
    • Is another honorarium within the budget for WAML?
      • Original goal was to keep it to $2,500-$3,000 – currently we are at $2,800.
      • Honoraria, web hosting etc. is paid entirely by membership fees. Nick has indicated that membership is trending downwards. We currently have about $20,000 in the accounts so could handle additional costs for a few years, but don’t want to over-budget.
    • When is the honorarium paid?
      • Typically paid out at the conference in recognition of the work that was done the previous year. 
      • There is precedent for retroactively paying honoraria for work done – could revisit this if we approve a permanent honorarium for the position.
    • ACTION: Evan will propose a temporary solution for the New Mapping Editor honorarium via email.
  • WAML Indexer – to continue or not continue? (Chrissy)
    • From Chrissy: “Laura Shelly informed us last Oct. that she is retiring. I would like to have a discussion on what I should do. Do we need an indexer since the IB is online? An index for the IB is nice to have but is it a necessity since the IB is not online? Ken Rockwell, hired her 12 years ago to index all of the WAML IB’s and when I took over in 2017, we just continued it. I don’t know what to do and I would like for the Exec Board to help guide me.”
    • Background: The first invoice Chrissy received from Laura was in 2020, when she sent the indexes she had completed (in several formats). Chrissy submitted the indexes to the Archivist at the time, but did not receive a response. For now, is keeping them in Google Drive.
      • Note that the E-Board never received Laura’s resignation letter. Chrissy shared a draft of the letter dated September 21, 2022. 
    • Have all the previous print IB’s been indexed? Yes, she completed indexing through volume 53 and the compilation supplement for volumes 46-53 – the last invoice was dated 9/19/22. The IB is entirely born-digital from here on out.
      • Note the website (https://waml.org/waml-information-bulletin/) lists the latest index as v46-48 and needs to be updated to v46-53.
      • Chrissy has only been receiving the indexes from vol. 51 on – isn’t sure where the indexes for 49 and 50 are.
      • Our current issue is 54 – this is the first issue that is not being indexed.
    • Value / function of the index:
      • What is in the index? Names, topics.
      • Value of the indexes? Super helpful for the print version, perhaps less so for digital. But it seems that this could be a useful thing to have. 
      • What is the current way to search the IB? Type term in Google and add “Site:http://site.com” to search that domain.
    • Suggestions:
      • Contract a manual indexing less frequently, perhaps every 5 years or 10 years.
      • Test some open-source indexing software with v54.
      • Compare newly indexed items with a Google site search to compare results – are items actually findable via Google?
    • Bruce reports that we have been making 1-2 payments each year ($250-$500) to the indexer.
    • Can we do something to thank Laura?
      • ACTION: Kat will recognize Laura Shelly’s service in the next IB.
      • ACTION: Kat will think of a way to thank Laura Shelley privately, such as an official letter or flowers.
    • Motion: Becky motions to permit Kat to request reimbursement up to $100 for gifts of thanks for Laura; seconded by Jessica; in favor: Jessica, Becky, Evan, Bruce; abstain: Kat. Motion approved.
  • WAML 2023 Update
    • Evan and Jessica did some investigating in Vancouver in January. We have a draft schedule and some semi-finalized plans for food related activities. Still working on the Field Trip and getting the budget info needed to make final decisions on a few things. 
    • Call for submissions posted online: https://waml.org/conferences/waml-2023/waml-2023-call-for-submissions/ 
    • We have an announcement prepared that we want to send out in the next few days that includes a link to book accommodations and a space on the website for submitting an abstract for talks and workshops.
      • Let’s all take a look at the draft and see if there is any feedback.
        • Highlight in-person requirement for presenters in the title.
        • Add information about registration fee (even if just ballpark) so in-person attendees can budget.
      • Note about Sponsor packages
        • We will have the Gold and Silver but want to shake it up and let folks Sponsor individual things too (maybe a Bronze Level?).
    • We wanted to have a fuller discussion of the Hybrid options for the conference with all of you to get perspectives other than me and Evan.
      • Business meeting etc. will be hybrid.
      • We have decided NOT to have hybrid presenters (virtual presenters) this time.
        • Should we just record the sessions and make them available for viewing later?
        • Should we have a Zoom Room that people can join and watch the talks live? Should it be a webinar or just a plain Zoom Room?
        • Should we both have a Zoom Room for people to watch live AND record the sessions for later viewing?
      • Feedback:
        • Conference planning feedback: 74% of survey respondents wanted a hybrid option.
        • Group is leaning towards the engaged Zoom room option so that virtual attendees can engage synchronously, without recording. 
      • Registration fees:
        • Suggestion to have a smaller registration fee for virtual attendees.
        • Could there be a reduced fee for members / higher fee for non-members and a way to have people pay for both membership and conference at the same time? Chrissy reported that this strategy helped get people to renew their memberships on time (i.e. a single payment).
      • Call will go out next week. Hoping to have all costs finalized by May, and the registration / program to go out in June.
      • Will be reaching out to the iSchool to see if they can help out (maybe give them free registration and a meal at the banquet).
  • WAML Elections (Evan)
    • By March 1, Kat needs to appoint a 3-member Nominating Committee. In past years the Past President has been the chair, and at least one other member has been from the E-Board (but this isn’t a requirement) – they just need to be WAML members.
    • April 30 – deadline to discuss slate of candidates with the President.
    • May 15 – deadline to share slate with the Secretary.
    • ACTION: Kat will invite 2 WAML members to be on the Nominating Committee.

Potential Social Media Announcements

  • We will have an announcement related to WAML 2023, accommodations and call for participation.

Next Meeting

  • WAML Appointed Positions and Committee Chairs meeting: Tuesday, 2/14/23 at 1:00-2:00pm Pacific / 4:00-5:00pm Eastern
  • E-Board Meeting: Thursday, 3/2/2023 at 9:00-11:00am PST / 12:00-2:00pm EST

Meeting adjourned: 11:21am PST

Minutes submitted by Rebecca Seifried (Secretary).

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