Category Archives: Meeting Minutes

Aug 2021 Board Meeting

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SANDALL Board Meeting Minutes

Zoom

Monday August 16, 2021, 9:00am

Meeting Facilitator: Havilah Steinman Bakken

Invitees: Eriberto Ramirez, SANDALL President; Havilah Steinman Bakken, SANDALL Vice President; Kelly Keach, SNADALL Treasurer; Julianne Odin, SANDALL Secretary; Chris Pickford, SANDALL Executive Board Member

  • Call to order: 8/16/2021 at 9:05am
  • Motion unanimously approved to create a Google/Gmail account for SANDALL to enable a Google Drive shared by the board
  • Recruiting members
    • Kelly will be sending member notices to pay before the end of August
    • Havilah will reach out to SCALL about advertise our membership with them
  • Removing members from listserv
    • Keep on agenda
    • Idea to just send general notice about dues and removal from listserv for nonpayment
  • Gaggle: Kelly will check with Lisa about updating
  • Motion unanimously approved to make Chris Pickford archives committee chair
  • Motion unanimously approved to transfer SANDALL archive from USD LRC to San Diego Law Library and to appropriate $500 to facilitate the transfer
    • Chris Pickford will ask for more funding if necessary
    • Target date: September
  • Eddie will plan the AALL Board Visit
  • Holiday Party
    • Eddie will look at Anthony’s Fish Grotto and send menus to the Board to look over
    • Alternative: Bali Hai
    • Raffle: see if a vendor could sponsor gift basket (CEB), maybe ask members for donations; Havilah will take point
    • Gift bags for attendees?
    • Thinking of a late November date
    • Possibly also having a Virtual Happy Hour in addition to Holiday Party
  • Havilah will send request email to Sand Diego City Library about the possibility of doing an in-person tour of the Downtown Rare Book Room
    • Focus on archeological museum
  • Cans4Books: Havilah will reach out with ideas for SANDALL collaboration (advertise to listserv, SDLL serving as a drop point, possibility an event in the spring)
  • Meeting adjourned at 9:58am

Feb 2022 Board Meeting

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SANDALL Board Meeting Minutes

Zoom

Wednesday, February 2, 2022; 3:00pm

Meeting Facilitator: Eriberto Ramirez

Invitees: Eriberto Ramirez, SANDALL President; Havilah Steinman Bakken, SANDALL Vice President; Kelly Keach, SNADALL Treasurer; Julianne Odin, SANDALL Secretary; Chris Pickford, SANDALL Executive Board Member

  • Call to order: 3:03pm
  • Soliciting grant applications from members for SCALL Institute
    • Havilah will develop new grant application form and send it out to membership via email. The email will also mention that SANDALL has an additional VIP registration to the SCALL Institute to give out. Havilah will also reach out to Heather Parker about updating the grant application form on the website.
    • Julianne is also a SCALL member and will make sure to update the SANDALL board about future SCALL activities.
  • Holiday Party
    • Eddy still waiting on check from CEB for reimbursement and will be following up with them.
  • Future Events
    • Havilah will plan a virtual happy hour with some conversation starters for February 23 at 4pm.
      • Julianne will provide a Zoom link for the event and will recap SCALL’s prior virtual happy hour for board via email to give some ideas about what it could look like.
    • Eddy will look into scheduling an in-person event for March.
  • AALL Board Visit
    • Tentatively planning a virtual event on May 4, 2022.
    • Havilah will fill out visit request form on the AALL website once we have more details.
    • Board will develop ideas over email and meet to discuss on March 2 at 3pm.
  • Gaggle
    • Havilah will block the phishing emails that come into the listserv.
    • Kelly will talk with Lisa about Gaggle again, including about adding and removing members from the listserv.
  • Archives
    • Julianne will email Chris Pickford about facilitating the transfer of the SANDALL Archives from the USD LRC to SDLL.
  • Approve SANDALL Grant
    • The Board voted to approve Eriberto Ramirez’s application for a grant on condition that Havilah reviews the application. The vote passed with three votes in favor (President Eriberto Ramirez abstained from the vote).
  • Succession planning
    • Havilah will send out job descriptions to Board for review and track changes.
    • A more in-depth discussion of succession planning will be on the agenda for the next Board meeting.
  • Meeting adjourned at 3:48pm.

July 2021 Board Meeting

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SANDALL Board Meeting Minutes
Zoom
Monday, July 19, 2021, 3:00pm
Meeting Facilitator: Ian Kipnes
Invitees: Ian Kipnes, Havilah Steinman Bakken, Chris Pickford, Eriberto Ramirez, and Kelly Keach
Call to order
The 2021 Annual Business Meeting will be Wednesday, August 4, at Noon. The zoom link is – https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87117430538
We have reached a quorum for incoming 2021/2022 board members.
Executive board member job descriptions drafted by Lisa Foster and Marianna Sterna have been officially adopted by existing board, and will be provided to each new board moving forward to ensure a smooth transition.
Board chose two members to recognize John Adkins and Loren Stamper as Emeritus members.
After business meeting, planning for events will continue by incoming executive board. We are hoping to bring the holiday dinner back.
Adjourned

Feb 2021 Board Meeting

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SANDALL Board Meeting Minutes
February 2, 2021 1:30 PM
Meeting Facilitator: Ian Kipnes
Invitees: Kelly Keach, Chris Pickford, and Eriberto Ramirez
Call to order
President: Ian Kipnes
• Eriberto Ramirez – We’re going to have a trivia event in May and give away gift cards as prizes. We also have our business meeting coming up in June.
• Ian Kipnes – If any members have gone to any fun events that might be a great addition to the newsletter.
• Chris Pickford – Lisa is still running a virtual connect and sending welcome emails when we have new members.
• Kelly Keach, Treasury Report – We don’t have to pay for local insurance anymore, we’re covered by AALL now. We currently have $15,253.13.
Adjourned

September 2019 Board Meeting

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SANDALL Board Meeting Minutes

Breakfast Republic

Thursday, September 19, 2019; 10:00am-11:00am

Meeting Facilitator:  Chris Pickford             

Invitees:  Erin Grimes, Kelly Keach, Sasha Nuñez, Ian Kipnes

Call to order

President – Chris Pickford

  • New approach to Connect. Only quarterly (three to four times a year).  Overseen by committee. Can solicit volunteers on listserv. Lisa Foster is willing to spearhead.
  • Breast Cancer walk. Everyone approves. Once the team is signed up, people can pledge money. Erin will send out invitations/memos on listserv and social media.

Looking for comments from the different chapters of AALL

Vice-President – Erin Grimes

  • Holiday party. Bo-Beau was great last year. Again this year? Cost per person was $35 last year, which still seems reasonable. Erin will get in touch with Bo-Beau. Currently looking at calendar for best time – second week of December?
  • SANDALL Events. Midway Museum – could we do library tour? Would anyone be interested in the Gemological Society? We could set up two tours to see which ones people can go to? One in fall, one in spring before the Institute.
  • SANDALL Institute. It is usually in winter, but can do it in the spring as well. Chris recommends holding it at Morrison Foerster again.
  • Idea for topic: legal analytics.
    • Bobbi Lieber has contacts in legal analytics and will get back to Erin.
    • If anyone has any ideas let Erin know, will reach out and gauge interest.
    • Get in touch with Val.

Treasurer – Kelly Keach

  • SANDALL Membership. SANDALL has 85 members right now. A couple people joined in last couple weeks.
  • Board turnover issues. Emails are still going to Kacie, we need to fix that. Kelly is still trying to get the password so can see financial statements on Chase online. We won’t receive new dues until April/May because of bylaw change. (Chris notes that we need to get the form updated. Heather Parker handles that.) Kelly is going through the dropbox from Kacie, behind on putting things in dropbox. Will stop by Chase this afternoon to get that sorted out. Will update financial statement once he has a better handle on the situation.
  • Insurance. October 1: will send check to AALL for insurance.
  • Gaggle. Check on bill for Gaggle? Probably not much.

Secretary – Sasha Nuñez

  • Minutes. Board agrees to vote to approve minutes from the Annual Meeting at the next board meeting.

Miscellaneous

  • Website needs to be updated with minutes and bylaws.
  • The board still needs to work on a manual for board position descriptions.

Adjourned 11:00am.

Jan 2020 Board Meeting

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SANDALL Emergency Board Meeting Minutes

San Diego Law Library – DT, Board Room

Monday, January 6, 2020; 9:00am-9:30am

Meeting Facilitator:  Chris Pickford             

Invitees:  Erin Grimes, Kelly Keach, Sasha Nuñez, Ian Kipnes

Call to order

President – Chris Pickford

  • Erin Grimes leaving SANDALL. Ian will step into Vice President role, and will look at bylaws to see how to officially replace the floating board position that is Ian’s current position. Other than that, it should be straightforward to keep everything synchronized.
  • New librarian Eddie Ramirez has shown some interest in being chair of the revived social responsibility committee. He may be interested in being brought on as floating board member through special election.
  • Should we also put out a general invitation via Lee and Suzanne, as the elections committee, to anyone else who may be interested in being the floating executive board member?
  • Additional Vice-Presidential duties—organizing events. Michelle Knapp organizing at Gensler for SCALL. Still thinking about events including Gemological Society tour, Midway behind-the-scenes tour, Chinese-American Museum, Comic-Con Museum.

Adjourned.

June 2019 Annual Meeting

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SANDALL 2019 ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING MINUTES

Thursday, June 13, 2019 at 12:00

Introductory remarks

Thanks to sponsor CEB (Suzanne not here today)

Ten new members – into medium sized chapter!

Upcoming conferences – we’re hosting the joint Pacific Chapter, Chris is heading up planning.

Recognition & Member News

Article of the Year Award:

Betsy Chessler for “Here & Now – Work Life Balance and Stress Management for Library Professionals” (May 2019 Newsletter)

Vice President Report:

Bike the Bay event – would like to do it again this year

First official event: Oct. 12 David Stotland talking about best practices for disabilities

Experimented with Facebook Live for that event

Holiday event

Spring Institute at Morrison Foerster, mindfulness workshop. 4 speakers.

Working with Heather Heen on joint reception at AALL.

City Taphouse (1/2 mile from convention center), free event Saturday the 13th, will get it on the listserv.

Directories put together by Betsy Chessler available.

Secretary

No additional votes on bylaw amendment

With 41 yes, 3 no, amendments have officially passed

Treasurer

Financials: 15000 to our name between checking savings paypal

As of yesterday 83 members

76 members last year

1900 in membership dues

Holiday party made 300

Spring institute made 300

Upcoming joint chapter reception 2000 sponsorship from Thomson reuters

Past President

Thank you to Kacie for filling in Treasurer role after Christine’s departure.

Our practice has been to put out dues renewal in the fall, but after bylaw meetings decided to change our practice and honor bylaws (dues July 1) or put another change into bylaws as part of the amendment process. Decided to align our practice with what it says in the bylaws. This membership will carry over until next renewal.

In light of fact we did have a successful approval of the bylaws amendment, will no longer have past president position but will now have executive board member with 1 year term. We will have special election for that position. Short term, not so specific yet besides being voting member of the board.

Finally: thank you to all board members over 3 year term. All wonderful to work with, value from working with them and learning with them. Michelle Knapp, Michelle Villagran, Robert Wickton, Laurel Moran, Derek Antler, Marianne, Christine, Kacie, Chris, and me! Got advice from many people who served on the board before. Wonderful experience, thank you for friendship and mentorship.

/Marianne

Photos from holiday party at Bo-Beaus and spring institute.

Proposed bylaws amendments passed

Committee Reports and recognition certificates

Archives: current status of archive – 2 collections. Print collection at USD, digital collection stored at Cal Western network server. Some materials also at LRC. This year not done very much in digital collection, had put up SANDALL newsletter from 1998 to 2008. Still preserving digital copies.  For the coming year, we are going to keep collecting printed materials especially what you give away at different events (brochures, posters). We’d also like to collect minutes, correspondence, directories. Not scanning at this point the newspapers or any other collections, but will be scanning any materials board need or would like to have available for research or other purposes. Request a new member for archival committee. Could help with having a third server to preserve and store

Employment: Isabela, Melissa Abernathy, Rachel Green, Allan Harjala

Members of employment committee continued research in legal and non-legal science employment opportunities. Put out weekly list and send to SANDALL members.  1000+ positions between July 2018-2019.

Connect:  Lisa Foster

What we do typically, what we’ve done for the last years, outreach to the library schools. Cohorts in SoCal area, interested in law library or think you might be? Come to a meeting to network. We try to have monthly meetings, break in summer. Ones we’ve held this past year: October, November, March, May. Light this year. Ways to invigorate this program? Could have mentoring committee where individual members could be in 1-on-1 mentorship with new librarian or student. Profiles on work they do, key hobbies, and match up. Work out their own arrangements about how they want to communicate. Enthusiastic response. Probably start in Fall. Then maybe quarterly CONNECT meeting instead of monthly.

Membership: Lisa

Going to be shifting our practice on membership renewals as mentioned previously to ensure we’re in alignment with bylaws. Numbers: as of May we had 80 dues-paying members, 2 emeritus members, now we have 83.

Gov Relations (Marianne subbing for Rachel)

Rachel puts out Washington e-bulletin acknowledged joint activism by SANDALL, SCALL and NOCALL. Recognized in June 2018 e-bulletin regarding our support of inclusion of law libraries in CA state budget. Cowrote with Judy James and David McBaden. June of 2018 gov brown signed SB840 with 16.5 million allotted to CA county law libraries. AALL Washington e-bulletin recognized SANDALL four times for activism efforts in this fiscal year.

Grant Committee (Marianne subbing for Marie)

1 application during open call for funding requests. Valerie Gragg received the grant. $1000 conference grant to attend ABA equal justice conference in KY.

SANDALL Newsletter (Melissa Abernathy couldn’t make it)

Nominations (Suzanne was called away)

Special elections, another one coming up. Survey ballots through September and March, April, May. Very active this year.

PR: Erin Grimes

We have a FB, LinkedIn and Twitter, mostly those engagements have gone up. For all new members, encourage to add. Can send email for handles. LinkedIn page—we moved onto/created company page. Only have 19 members who like/follow, will send out email with link. Facebook 81 follows. Twitter 94 followers, linkedin 157. Anything to promote – events at library or for SANDALL – send to Erin or Michelle and they would be happy to promote it. Call for new committee members.

Service Recognition

Marianne Sterna, Kacie Neu and Lisa Foster (outgoing members)

New Officer Installation and Oath

Erin Grimes (vice president)

(Kelly Keach was ill today)

Raffle!

April 2019 Board Meeting

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SANDALL Board Meeting Minutes

San Diego Law Library – DT, Board Room

Wednesday, April 10, 2019; 9:00am-10:00am

Meeting Facilitator:  Marianne Sterna             

Invitees:  Lisa Foster, Chris Pickford and Sasha Orman

Call to order

Past President – Lisa Foster

  • Status of SANDALL Bylaw changes and next steps. The board is waiting to hear back from AALL’s bylaws committee to ensure that approves of the proposed bylaw amendments. The next step is for an email (not via listserv) to go out to all members, with the proposed amendments and statement of purpose attached, on or before May 14. As board secretary, Sasha will send that out using Kacie’s up-to-date member list. The next step after that is sending a ballot out to all current members on or before May 30. The board made plans to send a yes/no approval or disapproval ballot via SurveyMonke with a deadline of June 12 by 5PM (one day before business meeting). Anyone attending may cast a vote at the business meeting if they didn’t already cast a ballot online. Lisa will tabulate the votes halfway through the business meeting.
    • For the amendments to pass, we need votes from 50%+1 of SANDALL members and 2/3 of that quorum need to approve.
  • Grants committee nominations. The board unanimously approved Valerie Gragg’s SANDALL Grant application for the full amount. She is a new member who has never received grant. The grant will allow her to attend the American Bar Association’s Equal Justice Conference in Kentucky this May.

President – Marianne Sterna

  • Procedure Manual and Job Descriptions. Marianne has received no response from former board members on job descriptions they have for their positions. It is agreed that such descriptions are something our organization needs. Marianne will continue to work on this, starting from scratch. Lisa added that these descriptions should be less than a page, and some should be simpler (i.e. treasurer and secretary). Responsibilities listed in bylaws and policies & procedures should be instructive as well. We must ensure that current version of those documents are available and viewable on the SANDALL website.
  • Heather Heen w/ Thomson Reuters, 2019 AALL Pacific Chapter Reception Host in Wash D.C. Marianne has requested a travel grant for AALL, and Chris will likely attend as well. Lisa said that SANDALL is due for a conference chapter registration grant from AALL, and that we should send an email to gauge interest. We also need to arrange a place, time and date before the email is sent. Usually Pacific Chapter Receptions are held the Saturday before the conference starts. It’s usually an appetizer event walking distance from the conference. Plans are to contact a DC chapter board member for suggestions on reception venues.

Vice President’s Report – Chris Pickford

  • SANDAL Spring Institute — details, assistance needed, registrants, vendors. The Eventbrite registration deadline is Monday at noon, but extra food should be ordered for those who register late; we should also cover speakers and vendors in the lunch tabulation. Art supplies for the Zentangle presentation have been ordered, and Chris is reaching out for more sponsorships for raffle prizes. This year’s exhibitors are CEB and Jan Raymond Legislative History Intent. Lexis is sponsoring breaks and snacks. Morrison Foerster will provide drinks.
    • Going forward, we should create an informal timeline for implementing a winter/spring institute—a time by which to contact vendors, choose a venue, etc.
    • Should there be a presentation during lunch (i.e., a roundtable discussion on mindfulness)?
    • Tech: Morrison Foerster should have everything necessary in their room, but presenters should send any PowerPoint presentations ahead of time so that they can be loaded onto a computer.
    • Sasha is creating the brochure. We also need to create signage for vendors.
    • Chris will deliver opening remarks including a thank you to sponsors, what inspired the institute, and a thanks to everyone for coming. Thanks to Heather for website work, and to Betsy and Morrison Foerster for the hospitality. We need to ensure that our sponsors are on the website. He may also touch on the anti-swag movement.

Treasurer – Kacie Neu (on leave)

Secretary Report – Sasha Orman

  • Minutes from 01-08-19 meeting. The board reviewed the minutes from the January meeting and noted that “Agenda” needed to be changed to “Minutes” at the top. The board will approve the minutes via email after the meeting pending this change.

Adjournment

January 2019 Board Minutes

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SANDALL Board Meeting Agenda

San Diego Law Library – DT, Board Room; Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019; 9:00am-10:00am

Meeting Facilitator: Marianne Sterna

Invitees: Lisa Foster, Chris Pickford, Kacie Neu, Sasha Orman

Call to order

Past President – Lisa Foster

  • Discussion on SANDALL bylaws regarding an official membership year. Our practice has been putting a call for renewal out in October with a deadline to sign up, but our bylaws say something completely different, which means that we have not been following our own bylaws. Should we change our bylaws to reflect our practices?
  • Heather Heen with Thomson Reuters: Hosting the 2019 AALL Pacific Chapter Reception Washington D.C. It is SANDALL’s turn to be responsible for the AALL Pacific Chapter reception. This doesn’t mean we spend any more than our share.

Our membership feels strongly about having a reception. We have contacted Thomson Reuters regarding sponsorship money; the remainder is split up based on members. As current president of SANDALL on a year we are hosting, it was decided that Marianne should attend.

  • Social responsibility. This will be a topic of conversation at the business meeting. Our membership has not taken interest in general social responsibility events—book drives, beach cleanups. We can always try to revive this concept later, but for now we need to pick our battles and focus time and effort on points of higher interest such as advocacy and our job list.
  • Grants. We should remind our membership that we do grants. We do not need to specify how much we have allocated, just ask people to explain what they’re looking for and why. Example: Michele Villagran was able to use a grant to fund her AALL speaking engagement.

President’s Report – Marianne Sterna

  • AALL matters: Listserv and Liability Insurance. We’re within our allocation of listserv members, but are nearing our maximum before we have additional costs. If we communicate with people using more than one email that they’re being counted as more than one member, this could open up our capacity. Regarding liability insurance, Lisa and Kacie took care of this after our last meeting.
  • Board structures: Other chapters and ours. Before our next board meeting, Marianne plans to reach out to other chapters for comments on how they are structured. She is also questioning if other chapters have had trouble getting people to run for board seats. People might be more open to committing if it was less of a time commitment. This could be an issue to draft a proposal for and take to a vote at the upcoming business meeting. One idea could be to make the vice-president role a two-year term. We could also replace the “past president” year with a member-at-large role, with no specific responsibility other than being voting member.

Related to this issue, it was discussed that there should be more guidance and formalization on the responsibilities of each board member role, particularly written job descriptions that we can hand to prospective board members detailing what they can expect. A checklist of required and optional duties could be helpful for creating job descriptions. This will be discussed further at the next board meeting.

  • Moving toward online webinars for training sessions. The San Diego Law Library is going to be doing online webinars and could have the capability to share that with SANDALL. The Stotland seminar had eleven attendees, but had issues with sound. If we were to capture a recording, it would have lasting value.

Vice President’s Report – Chris Pickford

  • SANDALL event for late February. Options for a museum tour include the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum or the Comic-Con Museum, or the Midway. Last year at the Natural History Museum, we were able to bypass entry fees.  
  • Spring Institute: theme, venue, speakers, date.
    • Theme: This year’s institute theme will be of health and wellness, mindfulness for library professionals. Three organizations that we can contact to find out about: Infinity Wellness (has done CLA events and MCLEs, can cater their talks toward a certain audience); UCSD mindfulness center; Zentangle (meditative relaxing art, has done programs at public libraries).
    • Finances: it is time to communicate with vendors to sponsor lunches or honorariums for speakers. We do not have a grant this year, so we are working with our own budget. We do not want to charge more than like $50.
    • Date: We need to make sure our date does not conflict with other things like SCALL institute. We should decide whether we will invite AZALL and other partner organizations.
    • Venue: Considerations so far include Mission Valley Public Library or USD.

Treasurer’s Report – Kacie Neu

  • Memberships. As of January we have 79 members, 12 of which are new or returning. For liability insurance we paid for 97, just to be safe. New people pop up sometimes, and we would rather have room to grow. We should talk to Heather Parker about adjusting our new membership form (e.g., how did they find out about us? What is their job title?).  
  • Holiday Party financial results. Our fees were a little higher, we were still in the negative but overall it was a great event and a win. Even so, are there things we could do differently to avoid some of these costs next year? We may charge more. $5 probably won’t be a deal breaker for most and would help narrow the gap. We may also offer the option of paying by check to bypass PayPal fees.

Secretary’s Report – Sasha Orman

  • Minutes from 10-11-18 meeting. Everybody approves.

Miscellaneous

Our newsletter deadline is the 15th. Does anyone have anything to contribute? We would love to get content (photos, articles, information).

Adjournment

May 2018 Board Minutes

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SANDALL Committee Chairs Meeting and Board Meeting Minutes

San Diego Law Library, 1105 Front Street, San Diego

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Committee Chairs Meeting: Noon to 1:00 p.m.

Board Meeting: 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Meeting Facilitator: Lisa Foster

Attendees:: Dr. Michele A. L. Villagran (phone), Christine Mathias, Laurel Moran (arrived at 1:20 p.m.), Marianne Sterna, Allan Harjala, Melissa Abernathy, Suzanne Smith.

 

Call to order

 

Committee Chair Reports:

  • Archives – Izabela Aleksieva was unable to attend.
  • Connect – Lisa Foster gave the report regarding outreach to library schools in Fall 2017. Connect meetings were held in September, October, November, January, March, and April. Attendance has been low and when the program resumes in the Fall of 2018 we will try to have a discussion theme for each meeting to create more interest.
  • Employment – Allan Harjala reported. This year Allan, Melissa Abernathy, Rachel Green and Sean Saxon comprised the committee. They researched and compiled legal and non-legal library and information science opportunities that might be of interest to SANDALL members and provided that information in a weekly listing. The weekly lists included 1,034 advertised positions from July 2017 to April 2018.
  • Government Relations – Rachel Green was unable to attend. Her report was submitted in written form. She reported that 2018 was busy, supporting legislative efforts at both the federal and state levels. This included support of H.R. 5305, the FDLP Modernization Act of 2018, and advocating for permanent funding for California County law libraries. The committee worked on this advocacy in collaboration with CCCLL, NOCALL, and SCALL. The committee also promoted AALL’s Online Advocacy Training and Virtual Lobby Day, and sent out four Washington ebulletins.
  • Grants – Marie Templo-Capule was unable to attend. The Grants committee received only one application for a grant during this year. This application will be discussed at the board meeting immediately following the committee chair reports.
  • Membership – Lisa Foster reported that SANDALL currently has 73 dues paying members and 4 emeritus/lifetime members, for a total of 77 members. This is a reduction of about 10 members from the same time last year. Outreach efforts were made by Lisa Foster and Treasurer Christine Mathias following the Fall 2017 membership drive to former members who did not renew, resulting in some additional renewals. Welcome emails were sent by Lisa Foster to new members, including information about upcoming events and how to join the listserv.
  • Newsletter – Melissa Abernathy reported regarding the newsletter, which is being published using the Mail Chimp marketing service. The newsletter had a 31.78% open rate this year for the five issues published in May 2017, September 2017, November 2017, January 2018, and March 2018. The most popular issue was January 2018 highlighting the “History of SANDALL” event. The mailing list for the newsletter has 159 members. Thanks were given to Lisa Foster, Marianne Sterna, Anna Russell, Emily Ngo, Ian Kipnes, Michele Villagran, Laurel Moran, Christine Mathias, Kelly Keach, Michele Knapp, Rachel Green, Izabela Aleksievea and Dan Kimmons for their photos and written submissions this year.
  • Nominations – Suzanne Smith reported for the Nominations Committee, and shared that she and fellow committee member Leigh Inman have made extensive efforts, but still have not identified any candidates for the open Vice President and Secretary positions. Possible solutions for this situation were discussed, including the posting of a candid message to the membership on the listserv about the situation.
  • Public Relations – Christine Mathias took over as Chair of this committee last year. She reported that she and Erin Grimes have been working on a social media plan based on SDLL’s plan, which is comprehensive. She thanks Michele Villagran and Erin Grimes for their contributions to the creation of this plan. Christine encouraged everyone involved in event planning to forward information to her about events for posting on SANDALL’s social media platforms.
  • Webmaster – Heather Parker was unable to attend the meeting.

 

Lisa Foster closed out the Committee meeting by noting that there are updates that need to be made the Committee Information section on the SANDALL website. Those updates will be made with the assistance of Webmaster Heather Parker after Marianne Sterna (as the President Elect for the coming year) checks in with all of the Committee Chairs in June to determine if they intend to continue serving on their committees next year.

 

Board Meeting commenced at approximately 1:00 p.m.

 

President’s Report – Lisa Foster

  • Listserv hosting issue. AALL has been notified of SANDALL’s intention to leave the AALL hosted L-Soft listserv platform later this year. The Board discussed the recent two week free trial of Gaggle, a group email service that would be significantly less expensive than staying with the AALL-hosted platform. The Board agrees that Gaggle was user friendly and appears to meet SANDALL’s listserv needs, and would be a viable alternative to the AALL hosted listserv. Because the SANDLL listserv will remain with AALL until the fall, there is still time to test other possible group email services that we could use, if any are identified.
  • Grant Recommendation for Michele Villagran (Michele Villgran recused herself) for this portion. The Grant committee recommended an award of a $1,000 grant to Michele Villagran for expenses associated with her attendance at the SLA Annual Meeting in Baltimore. Michele will be speaking at the conference, and has contributed much time and effort to SANDALL during her three years on the Board. The board members present voted to award the grant to Michele.
  • Feedback from dues increase proposal. Lisa Foster reported that two emails were received from SANDALL members in response to the message posted on the listserv regarding the proposed dues increase of five dollars for regular and student members. Both emails were in favor of the increase. One of the emails suggested the Board explore creation of an institutional member category. The Board will look into this matter next year, which require compliance with the same process that was used for the dues increase proposal.
  • Board recruitment (VP and Secretary). The Board discussed the lack of candidates for the open Board positions, and the consequences of not having a fully staffed Board next year. Failure to fill the Vice President position will require that the Board scale back event planning for the coming year. Feedback is needed from the membership about the reasons why members are not willing to run for the Board, and whether changes to the current structure might encourage more participation. Laurel Moran mentioned that at the SDLL, the director requires employees to be actively involved in SANDALL as a requirement of paying the employee’s dues. Outreach to other library directors about ways to encourage SANDALL participation was discussed. A listserv message will be drafted by Lisa Foster for review by the rest of the Board regarding the situation, and seeking feedback from the membership.
  • June 4 Annual Business meeting. The business meeting date was changed to June 8th due to a conflict with schedules. Laurel Moran will form a committee for article of the year—to be awarded at the Business Meeting. Lisa Foster will do a PowerPoint and prepare certificates. Food will be from Corner Bakery.
  • 2018 AALL and SLA conferences – SANDALL members attending/presenting; Joint Reception for Western Pacific Chapters. Michele Villagran will be presenting at AALL and SLA. Our chapter will only have three or four attending AALL (as of those who responded to Lisa Foster to date). The Joint Reception of the Western Pacific Chapters will be July 14th from 6 to 8 p.m.

 

Vice President’s Report – Marianne Sterna

  • Programming
    • Spring Social will be canceled and the raffle held as part of the business meeting on June 8th. Only 2 persons had signed up. Connect will not be held on 5/19 and will resume in the Fall.

 

Past President’s Report – Dr. Michele A. L. Villagran reported that she will have a busy summer before starting on San Jose State’s faculty. She will remain a member of SANDALL.  SJSU offers minimal support for committee and other work but she will continue to assist on PR and social media and remain active in the association.

 

Secretary’s Report – Laurel Moran

  • March 21, 2018 meeting minutes – previously approved and posted.

 

Treasurer’s Report – Christine Mathias

  • Financial report. Total assets $15,045.27 and no liabilities. The Joint Institute brought in $908.89 and there were additional payments for the Holiday Party that boosted us to having revenue on that event as well.

 

Future Agenda Items & Meetings: June 8th Business Meeting at San Diego Law Library 12:00 p.m.