ILF Reference Division Planning Meeting Notes - January 22, 2009

 

Hi All -

 

I thought it might be easy for me to post these notes to share as I type them out for myself and Save them to my files...

 

Best,

 

Alison

 

 

Indiana Library Federation

        Reference Division

   Planning Meeting Notes –

                      From meeting of January 22, 2009 in Anderson.

 

Date Secured:

Friday, August 7^th, 2009.

 

Location:

Yet to be secured – we figured that’d be best to secure the location by March, both for the purposes of guaranteeing us a place and for PR purposes for the event.

 

But – the following locations were discussed as possibilities, with people agreeing to check into the locations:

 

-         Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library: Renee will check.

-         IUPUI: Tony will check.

-         Crawfordsville: Georgeann will check.

-         Plainville: Danielle will check.

-         Ball State: Steve will check.

-         Anderson: Danielle will check.

 

Additionally, each location’s characteristics would be assessed – including:

-         Ability to hold from 60 to 100 people.

-         The set-up should include a central gathering room, either rooms for break-out sessions – or, the central room should be conducive to break-out groups.

-         There should be a screen in each room – and/or in the central room.

-         Technology: There needs to be wireless access. Also, it’s important that we know the cost for internet access at each location.

-         There should be a point-person at the location to handle any problems with technology.

-         Food: Do they require us to use their food source/catering outfit, or can we have a catering outfit to do our food? Can we have food delivered? What are the costs for food at the location? Is there a room for setting up food (like a kitchenette)?

-         Parking.

 

Theme:

It was agreed that it’d be wise for us to keep the focus broad to appeal to the maximum number of people to garner strong attendance.

Also, the importance of having the theme of reference specifically be kept in mind.

We figured that a strong theme will most likely be apparent by March.

 

Speakers:

Related to theme, we agreed that just who would be invited to lead discussions at the un-conference should be more apparent by March.

We also agreed that – true to the un-conference theme, that lots of the discussion should be generated – and led by – participants… That, by nature, the un-conference is de-centralized.

 

Food:

The “what” and “how” of the food will be more apparent by the time we’ve secured a location.

 

Public Relations for the Conference:

We agreed to publicize the event in as many venues as possible – including:

-         ILF’s various associations.

-         ILF’s various divisions.

-         SLIS Programs – including those out of state to maximize attendance - at IUPUI, IU Bloomington, Wayne State University, University of Michigan, Dominican University, University of Illinois, Kent State University, University of Kentucky, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

-         Listservs geared towards educators.

-         Listservs geared towards museum professionals.

-         Society of Indiana Archivists.

-         Midwest Archives Conference.

 

Wiki:

The un-conference will use a wiki as its basis. The wiki will be accessible to both the Reference Division members to plan the conference – but also to those in the “public”. The wiki will act as a tool to recruit, inform, and also be changeable by the public. Both potential and certain conference goers can check and add to content.

We agreed that it would be wise for the wiki to be “seeded” with some base content by us, the Division members, to get discussion going on it. And we agreed that we should have it seeded by March.

We thought to have the wiki out to the public for PR by April.

Jerry will get a wiki up for us – either on PB Wiki or on Google Groups. Done: January 25^th – Jerry sent the PB Wiki out to the group.

 

Registration:

We agreed that it’d be wise to have April as the time to have registration open to the public.

We discussed the possibility of having the registration process open through ILF and the ILF website. Is there a charge to this? Alison will check on this and report back. Update: Alison talked with Jason Gilbert of ILF on January 26^th. Jason said that there is a $5.00 charge per attendee to cover costs. He said it’s an option – but thus far, none of the divisions have used it for registration. He said most have still opted to have their conference registrations either faxed in or sent in via hard copy.

There was also some discussion about the time that it’d take for ILF to process things on their end. Alison will check on this and report back. Update: Alison talked with Jason Gilbert of ILF on January 26^th. Jason said that the timeframe that ILF works with for division conferences is:

-         Web Content is posted 3 to 7 days after ILF receives it.

-         Hard Copy Materials: ILF takes 2 to 3 weeks to get material printed and sent out.

-         Pre-Registration: At Minimum, the Division needs to get pertinent information to ILF 2 to 3 weeks before the conference itself for ILF to properly process.

-         Jason sent Alison the ILF Reference Division Annual Meeting Financial Plan Form to fill out once we’ve secured a location for the conference.

 

Library Education Credits for Library Certification for Public Librarians:

It was agreed whole-heartedly that we need to offer this for attendance of the un-conference. Alison will check on this and report back. Update: Alison talked with Jason Gilbert of ILF on January 26^th. Jason said that he needs an e-mail that explains and details the conference theme, set-up, and target audience. He can then send this e-mail to Wendy Knapp at the Indiana State Library to justify the conference and to get the LEU process going. Alison will send this out to Jason Gilbert in a day or two.