Chemistry Division
Special Libraries Association

SLA Chemistry Division
Annual Business Meeting
June 11, 2001

A quorum being present, the meeting was called to order at 8:10 a.m. by chair Dana Roth. The list of attendees appears below. Starred names are division members.

Ann Abate of the SLA Conference and Meetings Focus Group presented an award to Dana Roth for the program "GIS and Special Libraries" in the Broad Appeal category.

Dana welcomed the SLA Board proctor, David Stern

1. Minutes

The minutes of the last annual business meeting, as published in the Chemistry Division Newsletter v.16 n. 4 (Fall 2000) pp. 3-5, were approved with two corrections: under ARCHIVES, change Dana Roth to Dan Chandler and add Dana Roth's name to the list of those in attendance.

2. Treasurer's Report

Kevin Lindstrom distributed a report to those present and reported a balance of $38,484 as of April 2001. The balance last year was $39,929. Dana said that one of his goals as chair was to encourage expenditure of funds for the benefit of division members.

3.Division Program

Dana thanked the Royal Society of Chemistry for its generous sponsorship of the annual meeting breakfast. He went on to thank all of the generous sponsors for their contributions and he acknowledged the hard-working program planners for their contributions this year. These names appear on the division www page, with the exception of Gary Wiggins and Jennifer Kostelnik, who replaced Bartow Culp on the Chemistry Reactions Databases program.

4. Next Year's Conference

Chair-elect Marilynn Dunker reported that the Tri-Societies Meeting (SLA ASIST, ACS) will be held in conjunction with the SLA meeting in Los Angeles in 2002. It will be on Sunday July 9 and the proposed theme is "Dealing with Chemistry Information Going Electronic." There will be a call for papers in the coming months. Nancy Simons is serving as co-program planner. She reported some ideas under consideration for the remainder of the program: open url protocols, searching polymers, searching the genome databases. She asked members to contact her to offer ideas for good programs.

5. Membership

Jennifer Kostelnik reported a decline in members: 362 this year. Dana reported that the Board discussed retention and recruitment of members at its last meeting.

6. Mentoring and Professional Development

Bartow Culp reported that he, Svetlana Korolev, and Jennifer Kostelnik are working on a mentoring program, using ideas from some other SLA divisions. This program could offer a particularly appealing benefit to recruitment and member services. He reported that the Continuing Education workshop, held for the third time, continues to attract an audience and to raise funds for the division.

7. Publications

Dana reported that the Board adopted the Sci-Tech News as the official publication of the division. Jim Oliver has agreed to edit a www publication for the division. He mentioned some ideas for content such as papers, short news and reviews articles, bibliographies and his hope that members will contribute. He will post a message to CHMINF-L to solicit contributions.

8. Strategic Plan

Susanne Redalje reported that it is time to review the plan to keep it a living document. She offered to work on this. The text is posted on the division www page.

9. WWW Page

Susanne Redalje next reported on her activities as the division web master. The division page has a new format, with the newsletter included. The new version of the page is a "work in progress" and she encouraged members need to bring problems to her attention.

10. ByLaws Committee

Dana thanked Sandra Plisch for all the hard work she has devoted to creating a draft revision, which is also on the division www page. an SLA committee chaired by Dorothy McGary must review it next, and then division members will vote on it at the next annual business meeting.

11. Division Secretary Suzanne Fedunok reported on Board Actions since the last Annual Business Meeting:

• a. The division newsletter will appear in the SLA Sci-Tech News.
• b. Funding to support expenses for the chair, chair-elect and program planner to attend the Mid-Winter and Annual Meetings was increased to $1000 per individual per meeting.
• c. The division contributed $500 toward the SLA David Bender Scholarship.

New Business

1.Nominating Committee

Tina Chrzastowski reported for the committee, which was chaired by Barbara Best-Nichols.

• Chair-Elect: Suzanne Fedunok
• Secretary: Denise Callihan

There being no further nominations from the floor, it was moved and seconded to accept the slate.

Motion carried.

2. CHMINF-L

Gary Wiggins thanked the division for its support of CHMINF-L.

There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 8:25 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Suzanne Fedunok
Secretary
July 4, 2001

ATTENDANCE (division members *)
Shackle, Linda *
Kirkman, Jackie *
Miles, Don *
Callihan, Denise *
Steinmetz, Brian
Roth, Dana *
Miller, Thurston *
Beckman, Roger *
Fedunok, Suzanne *
Lindstrom, Kevin *
Dunker, Marilynn *
Plisch, Sandy *
Redalje, Susanne *
Parker, Robert
Mimnaugh, Ellen *
Mimnaugh, Peter
Baldwin, Ted *
Whitley, Kathy *
Peters, Marion *
Powers, Robert *
Lanham, Erin *
Mendelsohn, Loren *
Chrzastowski, Tina *
Kostelnik, Jennifer *
O'Brien, Sylvia *
artin, Jim *
Currano, Judith *
Marshall, Christopher (RSC)
Harmon, Patricia Ann *
Battiste, Anita *
Stern, David
Keil, Christina *

SLA Chemistry Division
Board Meeting
June 13, 2001

Present: Suzanne Fedunok (Secretary/Chair-Elect), Jennifer Kostelnik (Membership), Nancy Simons (2002 Program), Marilynn Dunker (Chair), Loren Mendelsohn (ASIST Liaison), Kevin Lindstrom (Treasurer), Denise Callihan (Incoming Secretary), Dana Roth (Past Chair), James Oliver (Publications), Tina Chrzastowski (Nominations) Visitors: Sue Cardinal, Ted Baldwin, Bill Armstrong, Jim Martin, Svetlana Korolev (Mentoring)

1. A quorum being present, the meeting was called to order at 7:45 a.m. by the chair, Marilynn Dunker. Outgoing chair Dana Roth presented Marilynn with the official emblem of office, the Barney umbrella.

2. Highlights of the minutes from the June 10 board meeting were read by the secretary.

3. SLA Division Cabinet Meeting. Marilynn reported the merger of the IT division and the Communications division. July 1 is the deadline to submit proposals to SLA for its research endowment. The award-winning GIS program this year got funding from this source. See the SLA www page.

4. Publications
Jim Oliver will be the Newsletter editor. The position of Bulletin Business Manager no longer exists.

5. Sponsorship
Dana Roth will fill the post of the newly created sponsorship committee chair.

6. Photographer
Marilynn suggested the appointment of an "official photographer" post. Incoming secretary Denise Callihan will take on this responsibility, which includes forwarding photos to the division www site and for use in the Division section of the Sci-Tech News.

7. Conference Plans
Nancy Simons reported there will be a full-day Tri-Society's Symposium on Sunday June 9, 2002. The theme is "Electronic Chemistry Collections: Issues of moving from print to electronic." There will be a call for reviewed papers soon. A luncheon and a no-host dinner are also scheduled. The CE course on chemistry for the non-chemist librarian will happen on the morning of Saturday June 8 and there will be a CE course on science for the non-scientist librarian in the afternoon. There will be no CE courses on Thursday. The traditional programs planned are: Winners Websites, Vendor Roundtable, Corporate Roundtable, and the co-sponsored Academic Librarians Roundtable. The Poster Session was so well attended it will be held next time. Ideas for other programs include: "Teaching" or "Training" Chemistry, Spectroscopy Databases, Polymer Databases, Genome/Proteome Databases, Implementing Open URL Technology, Science (or Chemistry) Goes to the Movies. The division may co-sponsor a program on "How to say No" and another on Electronic-only collections.

8. Conference Award for New Members/Students
Svetlana Korolev, Jennifer Kostelnik, and Bartow Culp will work on the award for the 2002 conference. It was suggested to name the award for a chemistry librarian, and the board discussed making more of award opportunities.

9. Travel Expenses
It was moved and seconded that starting with 2002 all Chemistry Division officers -- Chair, Chair-Elect, Secretary, Treasurer, Program Planner(s)-- receive a sum equal to the Early Bird Annual Conference Registration to help defray expenses to attend the annual conference. Motion Carried. Officers will use the Reimbursement Form on the division www page or apply to the Treasurer.

10. Virtual Meetings
Marilynn suggested the division hold a mid-year educational program -- the "Best WWW sites" was suggested, to keep momentum going between annual conferences and to offer another benefit of membership. The board decided it was too late to do anything before the next annual conference. The Chair-Elect will pursue this idea for the future.

11. Membership Survey
Marilynn proposed that another membership survey be conducted this year, given the concern about recruitment and retention of members and about keeping the strategic plan relevant. Tina Chrzastowski and Jennifer Kostelnik volunteered to do this.

There being no further business before the board the meeting adjourned at 8:40 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Suzanne Fedunok
Secretary
July 4, 2001

SLA Chemistry Division
Executive Board Meeting
June 10, 2001

Present: S. Fedunok (Secretary), Jennifer Kostelnik (Membership), Ann Eagan(ASIST co-liaison), Loren Mendelsohn (ASIST co-liaison), James Oliver (Publications), Marilynn Dunker (Chair-elect), Susanne Redalje (Strategic Plan/WWW Master), Sandra Plisch (Bylaws), Bartow Culp (Professional Development), Tina Chrzastowski (Nominating), Kevin Lundquist (Treasurer) Guests: Susan Cardinal, Svetlana Korolev, Denise Callihan, Christina Keil, Kathy Whitley, Ted Baldwin.

A quorum being present, the meeting was called to order at 2:45 p.m. by the chair, Dana Roth.

1. Minutes
The minutes of the last meeting were approved as published in the SLA Chemistry Division Newsletter v.16 n.4 (Fall 2000) pp. 5-7.

2. Archives
In the absence of the archivist, Ann Eastham, there was no report. There have been problems getting in touch with the previous archivist, Dan Chandler, to retrieve the files.

3. Conference planning
Conference planning went well, Dana reported. He thanked all involved. The division got $4500 from sponsors and grossed $5425 from the Continuing Education course. This is about the same as the last conference. Tina Chrzastowski reminded board members to thank the sponsors at the exhibit.

4. Sci-Tech Liaison
Dana reported that the Chemistry Division newsletter now appears in the Sci-Tech Division newsletter.

5. ACS Liaison.
In the absence of the liaison, Chuck Huber, there was no report.

6. WWW
Susanne Redalje proposed a project to archive content of the division www site. Questions to be answered: Update schedule? Procedures? Payment? (Dana said Cal Tech can make CD's, but the board wondered about permanence of the medium), Compatibility? ACTION: Susanne and Ann will be responsible. The Board suggested a contact be made with SLA regarding its plans to archive SLA division content. Using the CHMINF-L list to find out if others are doing this was suggested.

7. ASIST Liaison
Neither liaison attended the ASIS conference this year, but Loren Mendelsohn did contact an ASIS counterpart to discuss the Tri- Societies meeting next year. ACTION: Loren and Marilynn Dunker will confer.

8. Membership
Jennifer Kostelnik reported the number of members is down this year. Most drops were due to job changes. The division needs to work on recruitment and retention of members. Overall SLA membership is also down. The Board discussed what to do: posting invitations to join the division on CHMINF-L, contacting the drops to find out why they left the division, a mentoring program and the need for other such ?personal touch? benefits of membership. Christine Keil commented on the number of chemistry job openings, to suggest the ?newcomers membership market? is not saturated.

9. Mentoring
Svetlana Korolev reported that Sci-Tech and some other divisions have active mentoring programs. ACTION: She and Bartow Culp and Jennifer Kostelnik will work to develop a mentoring program for the division.

10. Publications
Dana reported that the Chemistry Division newsletter now appears in the Sci-Tech Division newsletter. The Board discussed ideas for content of the newsletter. ACTION: Jim Oliver agreed to be in charge of content and Susanne Redalje will mount the content on the division www page. Deadlines for the www version are to match those of the paper version. Ideas for content were discussed: theme-oriented special issues, conference and meeting reports, review articles, summaries of CHMINF-L postings, point-of-view articles. The board agreed that submission of peer-reviewed articles is not likely.

11. New Members Award
The board voted last year to award $1000 to support a first-meeting student attendee at the next annual conference. The recipient was to be selected on the basis of an essay submitted to the division to be published in the newsletter. No award was made this year, perhaps because there are only eight student members in the division. ACTION: The board decided to extend the award to include first- and second-year meeting attendees with chemistry or chemistry-related jobs or education and to offer the amended award for the Los Angeles meeting next year. Bartow Culp, Svetlana Korolev, and Jennifer Kostelnik agreed to work on this in conjunction with the mentoring initiative.

12. Professional Development
Bartow Culp reported that 31 people, fewer than before but still a good number, registered and paid $175 each to attend the "Chemistry for the Non-Chemist" course this time, the third year it was given. The course is a good revenue generator for the division. He suggested participants be contacted to join the division. Tina suggested that registration include division membership ($10). The board discussed making it an all-day course. The Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics Division plans an all-day CE course on "Science for the Non-Scientist" which will compete for attendance with the chemistry course. ACTION: Marilynn and Bartow will decide whether to hold the course again next year. If so, it will be on Saturday, because the Tri-Societies meeting is all day Sunday.

13. Strategic Planning
Susanne Redalje recommended a review of the plan to keep it fresh and alive.

14. WWW
Susanne reported significant use of the new welcome page. She reminded board members that the newsletter is separate from the www page. The page will link to it. Dana thanked Susanne for her hard work as web master.

5. Bylaws
Dana thanked Sandy Plisch for her work on revision of the bylaws. She distributed draft copies. The document is another year from adoption. A committee chaired by Dorothy McGary must review it and the text will appear in the Newsletter before members vote on it at the next business meeting. ACTION: Dana Roth volunteered to succeed Sandy, who is leaving the division. Sandy received a certificate of appreciation for her service to the division.

16. Actions of the board since the previous meeting were noted for the minutes: the decision to contribute $500 to the Bender endowment fund (noting that the division was not listed among the contributors on the SLA www page); the division newsletter will appear in the Sci-Tech News, and a small get-well gift was sent to Dana Roth.

New Business

1. Nominations
Tina Chrzastowski reported the slate, in the absence of Barbara Best- Nichols, chair of the committee.

• Chair-elect Suzanne Fedunok
• Secretary Denise Callihan

2. Guide to Reference Books
Bartow Culp solicited advice from members about what to include in the chemistry section of the next edition, which he has agreed to write. In the past there has been a roundtable at SLA to review the draft.

There being no further business before the board, the meeting adjourned at 3:40 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Suzanne Fedunok
Secretary
July 4, 2001