SCOPA Meeting Minutes
5 February 2001
Present: Ellen Doon (chair), Richard Boursy, Cindy Crooker (recording), Michelle Light, Stephanie Schmitt, Rochelle Smith, Diane Turner, Jae Williams
Absent: Calvin Hsu
Upcoming Forums
"LC 21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress" has been scheduled on Monday, February 12, from 3:30-5:00. This report was issued by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences on 26 July 2000 and just released in print as of 31 January 2001. The forum will feature presentations and comments by three members of the National Academy's Expert Committee: James O'Donnell, Chair, and Committee members Ann Okerson and James Blackaby.
Mary Brown, chair of the Library Science Department at Southern Connecticut State University, will speak on Thursday, March 1, from 10:30-12:00.
Not yet scheduled:
Scott Bennett will repeat the talk he gave at ALA, "A Golden Age for Libraries." He will also give a valedictory talk before his retirement.
Audrey Novak will give a further update on Orbis2.
Ellen sent an email to Kris Hammond, of the Intelligent Information Laboratory at the University of Chicago, but has not received a reply.
There seems to be quite a lot of interest in the proposed summer series which would feature state-of-the-art reports from librarians at various departmental libraries, clustered together by discipline.
New Librarian Orientation
Ellen gave an overview of the New Librarian Orientation scheduled for the morning of Thursday, April 5th. We will cancel the session if it looks like there will be fewer than 5 attendees. Ellen will go into further detail about the content of the orientation at a future meeting.
Mentoring
Step reviewed the history of the mentoring program. She has received one new request for a mentor. It is not clear why more librarians have not availed themselves of this program. Richard suggested that perhaps they are receiving adequate mentoring from their supervisors and, if they are not, are reluctant to seek another mentor. It was decided to continue to advertise the program and see if participation increases.
Website
Jae volunteered to maintain the website. Step will meet with her to show her the ropes. It was decided to keep a list of current and past forums on the website, but to get rid of the calendar. Upcoming forums can go up on the website as soon as they are scheduled. An announcement should appear on YULIB-L 2-3 weeks ahead of time, followed by a reminder right before the forum.
The next meeting is on February 19th.
Minutes submitted by Cindy Crooker.