SCOPA Meeting Minutes
May 20, 2002

Present: Steve Jones, Cecile Mandour, Jae Williams (recording), Todd Fell, Richard Boursy, Pamela Mann, Eric Friede

New Librarians' Orientation

The meeting started with a discussion of the new orientation procedures. The final version will become part of the web site for use by future SCOPA members when planning the New Librarians' Orientation. Jae sent out a draft document via email, and asked for comments or changes. Richard suggested some wording changes to make the document flow better. He also questioned the need for the SCOPA chair to ask department heads about interns, fellows or visiting librarians. He suggested that Diane could make this query at LMC. Other SCOPA members agreed that this was a good suggestion.

Steve suggested that while placing more emphasis on the social aspect was a good idea, it hindered the usual official introductions. He suggested stressing the need for introductions in the orientation procedure document. Jae suggested a way to accomplish this may be to put up a sample agenda that included formal introductions on the web site as part of the documentation.

Jae will discuss these ideas and the draft document with Diane and get back to the committee.

Summer Meeting Schedule

The next meeting will be on Monday, June 24 at 3pm. Place TBA. Future summer meetings will be schedule at the June meeting.

Forums

Jae reported that Thomas Blanton, Director of the National Security Archive, will give a talk titled, "Freedom of Information in an Age of Terrorism: The Open Society and its Enemies" from 2-4pm on June 4. The forum will be held in the Law School Room 127.

Todd reported that James Welbourne of the NHFPL has agreed to speak. The forum will likely be schedule for the week of June 24. The topic has yet to be decided.

Steve reported that he is still working on the New Haven area directors of libraries, and that he will try to get something finalized to build on the interest of the Welbourne talk.

Steve also suggested that the topic of so-called "independent libraries" in Cuba may be interesting. He enjoyed the speaker that addressed this topic, as well as her experiences with the Cuban National Archives, as part of her presentation as a candidate for the Head of Preservation. SCOPA will wait until the results of that search are finalized before pursuing this topic further.