Executive Summary Minutes Board Meeting 2-9-2021

Massachusetts School Library Association 
Executive Board meeting 
February 9, 2021 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Virtual Meeting

Attending:
Michael Caligiuri,
Jennifer Dimmick, Secretary
Patsy Divver, Co-Director Metrowest Region
Maria D’Orsi, Co-Director Metrowest Region
Deeth Ellis, Co-Director Boston Region
Michelle Fontaine, Treasurer
Pat Fontes, Awards
Alida Hanson, Professional Learning
Laura Harrington,
Morgan Koehane, Co-Director Boston Region
Emily Kristofek, Office Manager
Laura Luker, President
Daisy Magner, SLIS Student
Ingrid Mayyasi
Claudia Palframan
Greg Pronevitz, Director of Outreach
Reba Tierney, Forum Co-Editor
Pamela Vallee, Co-Director Central Region
Jen Varney, President Elect
Alix Woznick, Professional Learning

Welcome, call to order,  --- Laura Luker
Reports and minutes of January meeting were approved.

Update: board vote unanimously approved purchase of Whova sponsor module. This will make it very easy for vendors to contribute sponsorship funds in exchange for some brand exposure and marketing opportunities. 

Mary Moen and Debbie Froggatt had proposed a session for the conference including administrators on the topic of school library rubric, and we suggested a separate PD for that and they agreed.

Awards committee update --- Wendy Garland, Ingrid Mayyasi, and Pat Fontes

• Announcements have gone out.
  
• Award winners are encouraged to fill out their information forms ASAP, especially headshots
  
• Jarrett Krosoczka will speak on Saturday night and the awards committee is planning to create a video to stream for the awards celebration.
  
  
  

Treasurer’s update  --- Michelle Fontaine

Advocacy --- Georgina Trebbe

• Worked hard to include a reference to school libraries in the “Top 5 reasons you should care about the MBLC Legislative Agenda”: “Databases: Are an essential resource for school libraries. Cuts to MBLC funding resulted in the loss of Opposing Viewpoints. When funding was restored and increased slightly, MBLC was able to bring back Opposing Viewpoints and add new databases.” It’s great that this made the list since databases are less important to public libraries.
  

Outreach --- Greg Pronevitz

• Outreach Link -- MBLC announced its Legislative Agenda for fiscal year 2022 and library teachers are specifically mentioned:“ ...School library teachers utilize MBLC-funded online resources to support both in-person and virtual curricula with students and faculty.” Greg recommends that the MSLA Board endorse this legislative agenda to support library funding through the MBLC.
  
• Advocacy Action Committee - working on something to share with legislators in advance of the virtual library legislative day. Working with EveryLibrary on this and we are focusing on an “ask” for a state-wide school library census/audit (e.g., staffing, resources, etc.). Discussion ensued on the topic of what the census/audit would include. Senator Lesser is the co-chair of the library caucus, and Natalie Higgins and Brian Miller are House co-chairs. If anyone is in one of their communities and is willing to work with Greg to try to get them to be a sponsor of this initiative, please reach out to him. The board agreed to move ahead with this as the “ask” and would work with this sponsor to craft the appropriate legislative language. 
  
• MBLC awarded $300,000 in CARES Act funds which will enable MLS to expand purchases of individual eBook titles, eBook content sets, simultaneous use licenses, and licenses for high demand items through the Commonwealth E-Book Collection. The content is for K-12 students and includes everything from read-a-longs, to picture books, non-fiction, young adult fiction, graphic novels and more.
  
• The board voted to endorse the library legislative agenda.
  

Office manager report --- Emily Kristofek

• Membership and registration for the conference both happened this month, so it’s been very busy in the office. 
  

Conference --- Alida Hanson and Alix Woznick

• Registrations are open.
  
• Using Whova but we also need to use something for the streaming the actual sessions; possibly Google Meet or Zoom.
  
• Subcommittee is working on fun activities, and they have some great ideas.
  
• We need hosts for each session at the conference to manage the streaming process for the presenters (chat, etc.).
  
• We have 3 author panels.
  
• Coming up with plans for educating attendees on how to use Whova, ideally incorporating that with the fun/engaging activities being planned by the subcommittee.
  
• We could set up affinity group spaces (asynchronous) in Whova -- reach out to the committee with your ideas. 
  

Other news/topics from board members --- Patsy Divver - Love Shack in a Book Rack, Thursday for 4-6 PM. Will discuss award winners, books people love, etc. 

Western Mass Librarian PLC meets Thursday, February 25 from 5pm to 6:30, contact Claudia Palframan  (cchpalframan@gmail.com) for more info and a link.

Deeth Ellis - will be on a panel on March 5 with David Leonard from BPL and some academic librarians at NEASIST (New England Chapter of the Association for Information Science and Technology) conference It Took a Pandemic: Reinventing Libraries in an Era of Change

Patsy Divver - with our new virtual format for the conference, we’ve never been able to include admins during award presentations, but perhaps this year we could include them. Discussion ensued about the mechanics of how best to invite, include and share with administrators.

Respectfully submitted,
Jennifer Dimmick