Minutes
WAML Executive Board Meeting
May 4, 2023
9:00am PST / 12:00pm EST
Call meeting to order: 9:02am
Officers in attendance:
- Katherine Strickland (President)
- Jessica Benner (Vice President)
- Evan Thornberry (Past President)
- Rebecca Seifried (Secretary)
- Bruce Godfrey (Treasurer)
Other attendees:
- Kenneth Rockwell
Approval of Minutes from last meeting:
- March 9, 2023
- Approved by email May 4, 2023
Officer Reports & Check-In
- Katherine Strickland (President)
- Emailed Mike Smith a letter notifying him of his appointment to the position of New Mapping Editor.
- Jessica Benner (Vice President)
- Took care of most action items from last month. Still to do: Policies and Procedures. Ongoing: Web Communications reshaping.
- Working with Evan on conference planning. Close to being able to open the registration.
- Evan Thornberry (Past President)
- No updates aside from what’s in the agenda.
- Rebecca Seifried (Secretary)
- Drafted an email announcing Mike’s appointment to share with the WAML membership. Will wait for him to respond to Kat’s email.
- ACTION: Becky will send an announcement about Mike’s appointment to be shared with WAML membership referencing the IB post, once Kat hears back from him in response to his appointment letter.
- Bruce Godfrey (Treasurer)
- Last month was tax month – submitted non-profit related tax forms to California and the IRS.
Actions approved over email by E-Board since March 2023 E-Board meeting
- Phil White, on behalf of the Scholarship Committee, requested additional funding for this year only to award two scholarships of $1,000 each, totaling $2,000, in consideration of the expense of traveling to Vancouver for WAML 2023. The E-Board approved this request on 4/13/23 (Yes: Kat, Jessica, Bruce, Becky; Abstain: Evan).
Appointed Position Reports
- Amy Work sent a notice of resignation from the position of Social Media Manager on 4/21/23. She will continue to perform her duties until we find a new appointee.
- How should we try to recruit a new Social Media Manager?
- If we’re happy with the job description, we could make an announcement on the WAML listserv asking for volunteers.
- Kat is planning to meet with Amy to debrief. Kat could draft an email announcing this and share with E-Board for feedback.
- Or we might wait until after the conference; someone may express interest there. There is time during the conference schedule to make an announcement (like at the Business Meeting).
- Jessica is in the process of guiding the Web Committee reshaping; involvement in this group is not reflected in the position’s current list of duties. If we formalize this role, it should be added to the position’s description.
- How should we try to recruit a new Social Media Manager?
Updates from task forces, committees, etc.
- Phil White (Scholarship Committee)
- Phil has also asked to step down as chair of the Scholarship Committee. Evan consulted with Phil about whether to advertise this in the call for election nominations; agreed not to do that. Susan has agreed to take on the role of chair for the rest of this year while Phil is away. The plan is to start looking for a chair for the committee after the conference.
- From 3/9/23 email: “I think it would be good to discuss with the board in general finances around the scholarships. I’ve met with Jessica and Evan a couple of times the past two weeks and we’ve discussed a few ideas for raising funds that we’d like to run by the full board”
- Jessica, Evan, and Phil talked about ideas. Code4Lib has an “Angel Fund” – anyone can donate money to this fund to use for scholarships. This could be included on the registration form so that individual members can contribute; Jessica has also been inviting sponsors to contribute if they wish.
- Kat suggested having a page on the website so that people who don’t attend can also contribute.
- We don’t have to call it “Angel Fund” – perhaps “Emerging Legends,” “Legends Fund”, etc.
- ACTION: Jessica will talk with Kevin about setting up a separate PayPal link for a scholarship fund (name TBD: Angel Fund, Emerging Legends, Legends Fund, etc.).
Old Business
- Secondary Signatory (Jessica)
- Jessica completed the Secondary Signatory process with Bank of America.
- ACTION: Bruce will confirm with Bank of America that the Secondary Signatory paperwork is complete.
- New Mapping Editor announcement (Jessica and Kat)
- Jessica drafted the letter to Mike Smith confirming his appointment to New Mapping Editor and sent it to Kat for approval on 4/26/23.
- Kat emailed the letter to Mike (cc’ing the E-Board) on 5/4/23 (final version here)
- Transition Checklist (Jessica)
- Jessica emailed Chrissy (IB Editor) to ask if she is willing to draft a Transition checklist document for her appointed position that can be used as a template for others to reference. She is using a checklist from Tom Brittnacher (now copied to the E-Board drive in the folder “Transitions Checklist Working Space”).
- Kat will also get a checklist from Amy about the Social Media Manager position.
- Suggested format:
- What do you need to know as an incoming person
- List of regular duties/tasks (in timeline format!)
- Outgoing tasks
- ACTION: Kat will request a checklist from Amy for the Social Media Manager position and create template checklists for each of the Appointed Positions. She will look into creating a separate shared drive for appointed positions.
- Nominating Committee (Evan, Heather, Kim)
- Shared an announcement calling for nominations on the WAML listserv. Evan also reached out to individual people and got a few potential names. The E-Board is welcome to share names with Evan so he can reach out to them, particularly for the position of President-Elect.
- Suggestion to look at the current membership list.
- Reminder of upcoming deadlines:
- April 30 – deadline to discuss slate of candidates with the President.
- May 15 – deadline to share slate (and bios and statements of purpose) with the Secretary.
- No later than the first week of June – elections close.
- ACTION: Becky will prepare the ballot in accordance with Policies and Procedures 3.2 Ballots.
- Shared an announcement calling for nominations on the WAML listserv. Evan also reached out to individual people and got a few potential names. The E-Board is welcome to share names with Evan so he can reach out to them, particularly for the position of President-Elect.
- Web Communications Committee reshaping (Jessica)
- See our last in-depth discussion about this in the November 2, 2022, minutes
- Idea 1 – the group could be integrated into Amy’s work as Social Media Manager.
- Idea 2 – the group could be morphed into an “Appointed Positions” committee (which it nearly is already, based on membership).
- Create a “Communications Committee” (dropping the “Web”) including all Appointed Positions and optionally 2 at large members.
- Jessica emailed the Web Communications folks (Ken, daniel, Chrissy, Jon, Georgia, Nick, Kevin, Amy) and will coordinate a quick Zoom meeting in May or June.
- Email: “We would like you to reform as a committee that meets regularly and reports back to the eBoard periodically. Since this was previously an adhoc group, we were thinking that this group can reform (and include Amy Work – WAML’s Social Media Manager) around all the various communications and the website.”
- Any strong preferences for either month?
- Ken’s schedule is flexible and can meet anytime
- Other Appointed Positions that weren’t included in the email: Mike, Ilene.
- What is our goal with this committee?
- One goal is to get the Appointed Positions to meet casually 2x/year to check-in with each other, improve cohesion, and provide an opportunity to ask questions of each other.
- This doesn’t necessarily need to be a formalized committee.
- Who convenes this meeting and sets an agenda?
- Evan (when President) convened the first gathering of Appointed Positions, but there was no designated chair.
- Discussion about the frequency of meetings and reporting expectations. Much of this is at the discretion of the current President; e.g. the E-Board started meeting monthly under Matt’s presidency. Appointed positions are only required to give a report once per year; committee chairs are expected to give a mid-year status report.
- Suggestion to reduce the frequency of E-Board meetings to every other month.
- MOTION: Becky motions to dissolve the Web Communications committee, according to the Policies and Procedures section 5.1.a.8. Jessica seconds. All in favor, motion passes and the Web Communications committee is dissolved.
- ACTION: Jessica will remove the Web Communications committee from the Policies and Procedures as part of her review of this document.
- ACTION: Becky will notify Kevin Dyke that the Web Communications committee should be removed from the website.
- Ideas for how to move forward:
- We could create a new Communications Committee that includes Appointed Positions and external members that are focused on communication, with the requirement to convene a meeting, have someone chair it, and send us a report each February. But what is the work of this committee, separate from their current assigned duties?
- We could standardize guidance in the Policies and Procedures regarding how often committees meet.
- We could add a “Communications Check-In” agenda item to a mid-year E-Board meeting and encourage future E-Boards to carry on this new tradition. Jessica can pilot next year!
- See our last in-depth discussion about this in the November 2, 2022, minutes
New Business
- WAML conference update (Jessica and Evan)
- We have estimated costs for the banquet and the proposed field trip.
- Field trip: visit the Chinatown Storytelling Center and then go on a 1km walk through Stanley Park led by a Salish tour guide. Breakfast, lunch, and optional dinner. Attendees will be responsible for their dinner and transportation costs.
- Could people be able to opt for just 1 of the 2 activities? The schedule has firm start and stop times (11-4), so people can do what they want before and after.
- Concern about accessibility: 1km walk isn’t accessible for everyone. There are other potential activities in Stanley Park that folks could opt for.
- Summary – we are close to having costs finalized and almost ready to open for registrations.
- All presentation and workshop submissions are in. Heather Ross will be the Virtual Chair.
- Three students from the iSchool who have volunteered; deadline for them to volunteer is end of May.
- Almost at the limit of rooms; we can still request more.
- Discussion: moving Archivist honorarium to New Mapping Editor (Evan)
- Evan talked with Kim, who was fine with our proposal.
- Evan suggests waiting to hear back from Mike before we make any decisions.
- TABLED.
- WAML maps in UCSB Library
- Tom Brittnacher emailed the E-Board asking for advice on what to do with a collection of stolen maps that were transferred to WAML. The original owners could not be located for a large portion of the maps, and they moved with Jon Jablonski to UCSB Library. The UCSB Library no longer has space for them, nor the resources to locate their owners.
- Evan recalls that many of the former owners did not admit to having had maps stolen (at least in the Smiley case). There were two thieves at the time; these may be from Brubaker.
- Would be helpful to get a list of the items currently in UCSB’s holdings.
- ACTION: Evan will follow up with Tom Brittnacher and request a list of items in the map collection they are holding on behalf of WAML.
- Could this be something the David Rumsey collection would be interested in?
- Tom Brittnacher emailed the E-Board asking for advice on what to do with a collection of stolen maps that were transferred to WAML. The original owners could not be located for a large portion of the maps, and they moved with Jon Jablonski to UCSB Library. The UCSB Library no longer has space for them, nor the resources to locate their owners.
- Theresa Quill is the incoming co-editor for Journal of Map and Geography Libraries and asked for their WAML member contact list in order to find potential peer reviewers.
- What is our policy on sharing member emails? We’re not clear, but all are hesitant to share this information.
- Alternate ideas:
- Theresa could send an email to the WAML list or to MAPS-L.
- We could potentially share a list of conference participants – people could opt-in on the registration form for WAML.
- They could offer an opportunity for people to ‘pitch a journal article’ at WAML; could be individual sessions, or a collaborative icebreaker activity.
- ACTION: Kat will follow up with Theresa, suggesting she reach out to the listservs (cc: Jessica and Evan)
- ACTION: Jessica will share ideas with Theresa about organizing a journal session/ice-breaker at WAML.
Potential Social Media Announcements
- Reminder to renew your passports ahead of the conference.
- Conference registration is coming in 1-2 weeks.
Next Meeting
- E-Board Meeting: Thursday, 6/1/2023 at 9:00-11:00am PST / 12:00-2:00pm EST
Meeting adjourned: 10:54am
Minutes submitted by Rebecca Seifried (Secretary)