Minutes

Public Libraries Division Membership/Business Meeting

TLA Annual Conference

Wed, April 4, 2018

3:00 PM

Call to Order: Meeting called to order at 3:02p.m. by Jennifer Schwartz.

Greetings and General Introductions: Introduction of new Chair Diana Slavinsky. Diana is a Librarian Supervisor with the Plano Public Libraries.

Reminder: PLD Membership party will be immediately following this program at Frankie’s Downtown. Free food and drinks thanks to the generous sponsorship of Ingram & Biblionix.

Announcement of Election Results – New Officers: Chair-elect – Liz Sargent, Houston PL; Secretary – Melissa Mote, Georgetown PL; Councilor– Maggie Fox; Alt Councilor - Lutricia Bratton, Houston PL; Treasurer-Morgan McMillan, Lake Travis PL. Jennifer mentioned they would be working on a nominating committee for officers for next year soon.

2017 Annual Assembly Minutes: Minutes approved by acclamation.

2018 TLA Conference Programming Report: Kevin Marsh reported on the programs so far for the 2018 TLA Annual Conference. At this time, there have been six successful programs, with seven programs to go:

Don’t Let Stress Take You Out of the Game

Book Buzz (1 & 2)

Interact with Diverse Cultures

Authors for Your Book Club

TX Authors for Grownups

Act Out Your Library

Treasurer’s Report: No Treasurer’s Report at this time, however Colleen Cunningham states it looks like we had the same number of attendees as last year so we should be in good shape. Jennifer informed the meeting attendees that we have to wait until after the conference for some of the amounts to be reported in order for us to plan for the next conference. We usually have figures by the end of May.

Membership Committee Report – Dianna Landes: Membership is going well. She does not have an exact number, but reports it is a good number. If you know someone who is not in PLD but is a public librarian or is concerned with public libraries, please encourage them to join. She is interested in knowing what you feel are the benefits of being in PLD and what you see getting out of being a member of PLD. She will also be working on next year’s membership party and would love to hear ideas for what you would like to see PLD do, locations, opinions, etc as soon as possible. She also asked if people would people be interested in adding a mixer component or games, not mandatory, but would welcome people who come alone to meet new people or feel more comfortable being there. Please email ideas to:

Membership Party TLA 2018 - Diana Slavinsky: Frankie’s on Main Street, 5:30p immediately after this program.

Scholarship Committee Report – Jennifer Schwartz for Jennifer Coffey: Jennifer Coffey’s term will be ending this year. We are working on a new chair to elect for that committee. Jennifer Schwartz does not have Jennifer Coffey’s report, but can report we were able to allocate more funds towards stipends to help people attend events such as TALL Texans.

Social Media Committee Report – Jennifer Schwartz on behalf of Travis Walvoort: This committee is new and just formed last year. There is a lot of good communication through listserv, but thought it would be nice to introduce a social media presence so this team created a Facebook page. The FB page currently has an active following of over 300 members. This team also designed and had approved by TLA a logo for PLD and their mission for next year is to start a presence with other social media sites beginning with Twitter. The Twitter link will be posted to the FB page in the near future. Travis will be the committee chair for the next couple of years.

TLA Program Committee: Joanna Stone with the TLA programming committee reported they are planning for 2019 TLA in Austin. The conference theme will be “Connecting to Innovate, Inspire, and Impact”. Goals for the 2019 conference are: Connections are at the heart of learning. Libraries are at the heart of those connections. So we want to empower library professionals to make informed decisions and strengthen self-knowledge and awareness, broaden community impact, and serve diverse communities. She will be working with Jennifer and Carmen Abrego to plan next year’s events. If you have thoughts or feedback about next year’s conference or this year’s conference you may reach out to Joanna, Carmen, or Jennifer. Jennifer Schwartz asked about next year’s conference and session lengths. Joanna reported session lengths will focus on hour long programs. If there are special types of programs or workshops that require more time, they will consider them, but keep in mind your general sessions should be an hour.

Program Committee Report: Jennifer reported that PLD usually sponsors between 10 and 12 programs and works with other divisions to help them sponsor programs. Roughly a month ago, she sent out an email asking for ideas from the membership. The program committee for PLD will meet tomorrow to flush these ideas out, prioritize, and see where we will go from there.

Carmen Abrego, PLD Program Committee chair, mentioned a few ideas that came through the listserv:

-Nerding Up Your Library – Libraries as community learning centers

-For Teens By Teens

-Story Bar Live

-Received a couple centered on library volunteers

The Program Committee would like to leave TLA 2018 Conference with a good idea of programs for next year’s conference so please send ideas to them now. You can email ideas to Carmen:

Legislative Liaison Report —Colleen Cunningham: Colleen did not have an official report but mentioned there were discussions of which party members would be leaving, Net Neutrality discussions are still going on, discussion on higher education. It was a really quick meeting and they ran out of time. She will bring her notes to the Executive Board meeting tomorrow for an official report. Reminder that PAC is selling their quilt raffle tickets.

Meetingwas then turned over to Kevin Marsh for the PLD Program – Science Fiction: Libraries of the Future.