March 17, 2003 SCOPA Meeting Minutes (Draft 1)

SCOPA Members Present

Mary Caldera (chair), Huei-Ju (Polly) Chang, Stephen Jones, Nancy Kuhl, Shawn Steidinger, Daniel Dollar. Absent: Eric Friede, Cecile Mandour.

Announcements

Daniel Dollar announced that SCOPA meeting agendas are now being posted on the web on the Committee’s web page “SCOPA Minutes and Reports,”: http://www.library.yale.edu/scopa/meetings03.html.

Shawn Steidinger announced that Yale Library will host the New England Voyager Users Group meeting on Wednesday, June 4. No agenda has been set for this meeting. SCOPA’s possible participation in this day-long conference will be discussed at a future committee meeting.

SCOPA forums invitation wording

In an effort to make announcements for SCOPA forums more welcoming to all library staff, the committee members agreed to rephrase the standard note about attending forums that appears on all forum publicity. The new statement is: “SCOPA forums are open to all library staff.”

Daniel Dollar raised the related issue of the appropriate text for the subject line for forum e-mail announcements; he suggested we consider including only the speaker’s name and the event date in the subject line, eliminating the words “SCOPA Forum.” After some discussion of pros and cons, the committee agreed to keep “SCOPA Forum” in the subject line and to add the speaker’s name and the event date as room allows.

SCOPA Introduction on YULIB

The committee discussed a draft of the proposed e-mail to YULIB stating SCOPA’s mission and inviting feedback and forum ideas. Changes were suggested; Nancy will revise the statement accordingly and resubmit it to the group for additional discussion. A “title” for the announcement was discussed (“Reintroducing SCOPA,” “What is SCOPA?” and “Remember SCOPA?” were proposed), but no decision was made.

The related issue of adding a “suggestion box” to the SCOPA web page was raised. The committee agreed to add some feedback method to the site (either an e-mail link or form). Daniel will investigate the options and report back at a future meeting.

SCOPA New Librarians Orientation

Shawn announced that, pending confirmation, the next orientation will take place on April 2 at 12-1:30 in the spoon (confirmed 3-18-03). The committee discussed previous orientation agendas, topic assignments, personal invitations, and related issues. Shawn will submit a formal list of assignments to all committee members next week.

Forums

Mary confirmed April forums:

4/10: Preserving Authentic Electronic Records & the InterPARES Project 2-3 p.m. Speaker: Kevin Glick

4/30: A History of the Yale University Library 10:30-11:30 a.m.

Speaker: Judy Schiff

Because of previously scheduled forums, conferences, and campus events, Mary suggested that May be “closed” to new forums.

Forum topics currently being planned or under active consideration and newly proposed topics included: Copyright discussion; SCOPA Grants; discussion of librarians and political activism by an editor of “The Progressive Librarian” or a member of the Progressive Librarians Guild; Yale’s new digital initiatives and other “cutting edge” projects.

Further discussion of upcoming forums was postponed until next meeting. 

Next Meeting

Mary mentioned that she might be unable to attend the next meeting; if so, she will send a note to the committee calling for a convener.

The next meeting is scheduled for March 31, 2pm, SML 410.