Newsletter

Election season is upon us! The 2022 CARL Nominations & Elections Committee reminds you to please remember to vote in the upcoming CARL election (and that other one, too). The following CARL Executive Board offices are up for election this year:

• Vice-President/President-Elect - 3-year term (Vice-President, President, Past-President)
• Director-at-large (CSU) - 2-year term
• Director-at-large (UC) - 2-year term
• Membership Director - 3-year term

According to CARL Bylaws, Article IV, Section 2, every member of CARL has the right to hold any office within the Association. Officer duties are described in the CARL Bylaws https://carl-acrl.org/documents/bylaws/CARLBylaws.html and CARL Standing Rules https://carl-acrl.org/documents/carl-standing-rules.pdf.
 
Terms for these offices begin in January 2023, with a request to attend the December 2022 board meeting. Elected officers must plan to attend four CARL Executive Board meetings per year (either 4 virtual or 2 virtual/2 in-person).

Members must be current on their CARL dues, with an expiration date of 8/31/2023, in order to vote. To check the status of your membership or renew, go to https://carl.site-ym.com/login.aspx and log in to your account. Contact Jennifer Silverman (JSilverman425@gmail.com) with any questions or issues with your membership status.
 
Feel free to contact any member of this committee with questions about the election. We look forward to hearing from you!
 
Thank you,
 
2022-23 - Nominating and Elections Committee
Kelly Janousek, CSU Long Beach
Timothy Chu, UC San Diego
Shamika Simpson, Long Beach City College
Rachel Jaffe, UC Santa Cruz

The California Academic Reference Librarians Discussion Interest Group - South (CARLDIG-S) invites you to save the date for the 2022 Fall Program, Pivot! Adaptation & Flexibility in Reference Services, an online program that will take place Friday, December 2nd via Zoom. 

This program offers an opportunity for library professionals to share their experiences with change, adaption, and flexibility in a fluid academic environment. The COVID-19 pandemic proved reference professionals nimble as we navigated modality changes, budget constraints/cuts, loss of personnel/vacancies, and work life balance. As various libraries continue to discover a new normal, please consider sharing how pivoting impacted your services, individual selves, and user experiences.   

We will be holding the following session formats:

• Lightning Rounds (7-10 minute presentations)

• Feature Presentations (20 minutes plus 5 minutes for questions)

Accepted presentations will be confirmed by Friday, October 28, 2022.

For more information, please visit CARLDIG-S LibGuide at: https://carldigs.libguides.com/home or contact 2022 CARLDIG-S Chair Elect, Leanna Pagano, at lpagano@callutheran.edu.  

We look forward to seeing you!

For 2022-2023, the SCIL business meetings are scheduled the first Friday of every month, 10:00-11:00 am. The majority will be remote, always using the same Zoom link - but we will try to schedule hybrid at least once per quarter so those local to an area will have an opportunity to meet up with others.

SCIL Works 2023 is scheduled as a remote half-day conference on Friday, February 10, 2023. The call for proposals and volunteer opportunities are forthcoming. Keep an eye on your email!

If you have any questions or need the Zoom link, contact SCIL Chair, Kat Koziar at katherine.koziar@ucr.edu.

Where do you currently work, and what is your job title/role? 

I work at the University of Southern California where I currently serve as the Acting Head of Leavey Library and the Acting Head of Reference & User Engagement. Within these roles, I work to increase awareness and usage of the Libraries’ collections, resources, and services. I am also an Associate Professor for the Masters of Management in Library and Information Science through the USC Marshall School of Business. 

I initially joined CARL at the beginning of my career in order to attend conferences, meet academic librarians from across the state, and try my hand at leadership after attending a CARLDIG-S Fall Program. Over the years, I have enjoyed presenting at CARL conferences and serving on the executive board for CARLDIG-S (California Academic Reference Librarians Discussion Interest Group-South). There is nothing like meeting, engaging with, and learning from colleagues who are living out similar experiences in their day-to-day work and practice. 

Are you working on anything special right now or in the near future you'd like to share with other CARL members?

What new approaches to your work have you tried recently? Have any of them been particularly successful or challenging?

I recently orchestrated the shift from an in-person reference desk module to a completely virtual reference model. Accordingly, we have increased our outreach so that the USC community is aware of these virtual-only services including a Library Ask Me Anything event we hosting as a welcome for students on the first two days of classes. While the data is still being collecting, promotion of this service continues to be the most challenging area. Additionally, we are finding that adding additional features (like integrated Zoom in LibChat) is a slow process when the Libraries does not have administrative control over our Zoom license.

What’s something you recently read/watched/listened to that you can’t stop thinking about or is helping you process recent events? Why?

I recently attended an academic conference which supports programming, outreach, and curriculum for students at various transitional phases of their collegiate career. One thing that has stuck with me is the notion that student success is everyone’s business; it should not be relegated to just one office or one person’s job responsibilities. In the same manner, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility work is also everyone’s business and should not be left up to one committee or one person. These matters should be commonplace in how we approach and complete our work so that our colleagues and students are better supported.  

Ned Fielden retired from San Francisco State University in June 2022. After stints at SF City College and Sonoma State, he joined the library faculty at SF State on the tenure track in 1995, just as the internet was attracting interest from the public. Early books from McFarland were titled Internet Research and Search Engines Handbook. For many years, he taught semester-long, credit-bearing information literacy classes at SFSU.

A longtime CARL member dating from graduate school at UC Berkeley, he served as CARL president in 2011 and led the launch of the CARL mentoring program. At SFSU, he served in a variety of university roles: member of the Academic Senate’s Executive Committee, chairing the Professional Development and University Sabbatical committees, as well as the University Tenure and Promotion Committee. He was a longtime member of the San Francisco chapter’s CFA’s Faculty Rights panel, handling faculty grievances and RTP appeals, where he served as chair for two years.

Written articles and book chapters were published in a variety of venues, from professional journals such as the British Journal of Information Literacy to the disability journal New Mobility. He spent a sabbatical at the University of Cambridge in 2007 and presented over a dozen papers at conferences internationally, mostly on the topic of library history: from Auckland to Davos, Trondheim to Oxford. He has contributed photos to the CARL Flickr group.

Publications, Presentations, and Awards

• Welcome
• Amend/Approve Agenda
  • Rachel asked if anyone had any last-minute additions to the agenda - no one had any additions. 
  • Annette asked if we could keep the agenda format the same, even if we are speaking on points out of order - Rachel and Ken said this should be okay. 
  • Rachel moved to approve. Ken seconded. 
• Amend/Approve Minutes from June meeting
  • Rachel approved minutes; Annette seconded. All in favor, no opposed.
• Nominations & Elections Committee (Kelly, Rachel)
  • Open offices:
    • Vice-President/President-Elect - 3-year term (Vice-President, President, Past President)
    • Director-at-large (CSU) - 2-year term
    • Director-at-large (UC) - 2-year term
    • Membership Director - 3-year term
  • Kelly shared that she has candidates for most positions, but is missing some. In a better position than last year. 
  • Kelly asked Ken if the new websites have a voting/election option, otherwise we need to go back to using Survey Monkey to make it easier (previously used Qualtrics)
• Proposed Bylaws Change: ACRL membership requirements for CARLEX officers (Article VI, Section 1)
  • Original
    • Section 1. Elected Officers. The elected officers of the Association shall be President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, Membership Director, and four (4) Directors-at-Large, all of whom shall be members of ACRL and CARL.
  • Proposed revision
    • Section 1. Elected Officers. The elected officers of the Association shall be President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, Membership Director, and four (4) Directors-at-Large. The President, Vice-President and Director-at-Large appointed ACRL Liaison shall be members of ACRL; all elected officers shall be members of CARL.
  • Rachel went over the proposed language. Ken and Rachel discussed if the board needs to approve this language before it goes on the ballot – Ken suggested we should and it can be approved via email. 
  • Ethan asked about the cost prohibitive nature of the new language. Rachel said it aligns with the language in ACRL’s bylaws. Jennifer said there is financial assistance for those who may need it. 
  • Kelly shared that most librarians at CSUs have membership, because of the tenure process
  • Jennifer shared that all elected officers in CARL had to be ACRL members and most officers were not, so that’s the need for the change.
  • Laura moved to vote for the change, Ken seconded. Motion to add new language to ballot approved.
• 2024 Conference Planning (Allie & Rachel)
  • Allie Carr, Lee Adams & Talitha Matlin will not be continuing; will need to form a new committee for 2024
    • Allie shared that Lee, Talitha, and Joseph have been planning the conference, for the past 3 years, Allie has been involved since 2008
    • For 2024: They are ready to step down from planning but are willing to give guidance and help
    • Suggested succession planning should be built in for future, as it has been a long-term issue
    • Working with the hotel/contract is very difficult
  • Rachel asked for suggestions for bringing in new people/recruitment 
    • Allie recognized that the past year or two has been difficult for recruitment
    • Having the team as part of the board members responsibility might be the simplest- but will make it harder to recruit board members. 
    • The CARL Conference is the highlight of membership, so it should be a focus
    • Smaller tasks are easy to get volunteers
    • Each conference is 1.5 years of work/planning, so timing is very important for a call for volunteers
    • Kelly J. shared that there’s always been at least 1 person on the board that’s been on the main planning team. If we can’t get an elected member to take it on, maybe an ex-officio.
    • Historically, it always fell on the VP – Allie said it could still be that way, but they still need help. It’s a lot for one person. Kelly J shared it was usually 5-6 people on the conference planning committees.
    • Jennifer asked what CSLA does, because they have yearly conferences. Jennifer asked Rachel about the possibility of a stipend, since we do have the funds for that. Or hiring a professional of some kind to do the planning, because we do have funding for it.
    • Rachel said we are a bit behind schedule, so we need to get going ASAP, and wonders if we should hire someone for this year because we are behind. 
    • Allie said we are not behind at all, because the timeline is out of date. We can revise the timeline, but a year out we need to send out a save the date, then do a theme. 
    • Allie suggested the treasurer needs to be involved as the budget person. The IG person can work with IGs to get their members involved in volunteering for planning and submitting. Maybe a VP and David with the website, then anyone else who wants to – this is a great start. 
    • Proposal review – people are generally willing to do that, because it’s a short timeline.  
    • The conference planning team does not get charged for registration, because they work during the conference. 
    • Allie said that the onboarding process of hiring someone else wouldn’t be worth it, because we’d need to train them so much. Kelly J said we looked into this years ago and it wasn’t worth it.
    • Kelly J shared that CLA and ALA said it’s a nomination to be on these committees. We need to look for the people who really love to do this work. 
    • Rachel asked Allie if she would be willing to draft an announcement to send to CARL to recruit new conference planners. 
    • Annette shared she’s interested (but not ready to commit), asked Allie about how much time is needed: Allie said about 8 hours in spring, 4-12 (6-8 at most)  hours per week from sept-march. It’s not significant, but it’s a lot. Equivalent of a course release time. 
    • Kelly J said the membership director is helpful for speeding up the registration process. Allie said we can send her questions via email
  • ACTION: Allie will write a call for conference planning members.
• Outreach to/from California School Library Association (Kelly)
  • Dr. Leslie Farmer, Board of the School LIbrary Association and looking for a CARL liaison/ partnership – 10 hours/year. 
    • Rachel, Ethan, and Kelly don’t think we should make it an official position.
    • Rachel suggested a 1 year pilot to try it out.
    • Ethan shared the mentorship program has tried to get school librarians twice and it has not been successful. 
    • Ken said this might be a good opportunity for subject specialists to get involved. 
    • Laura has a candidate she can reach out to. 
  • ACTION: Kelly will reply to Dr. Farmer’s email and put a call out for interest via the listserv. 
  • ACTION: Laura and Shamika have candidates they will reach out to as well.
• Interest Group Coordinator Report (Edeama)
  • Edeama reached out to all IG leaders and  felt very welcome. There was a need for that connection. They had questions.
    • SCIL had policy questions about financial policies / CARL supporting IGs. How can CARL support with membership engagement. 
    • Broadening outreach, across all IG groups – a once in a while meeting that brings all IGs together. Maybe once/semester.
    • ALIGN meeting: listserv vs. actual membership, also had financial support questions
    • CARLDIG-S: Community, issue of burnout in the profession, inequities, going in circle and nothing is changing. IG group meeting would be great, “CARL IG Forum” – share ideas, concerns, similarities, breakout sessions for leads.
  • IG leads are willing to work together, to form community and break silos. 
  • Inequities in pay system at different institutions - can CARL start a discussion about this?
  • Edeama will write up notes and share with the group.
  • Edeama is willing to set up a doodle poll - wants to take action urgently, while we have momentum. Edeama asking for at least 2 members of the executive team can join - or we can bring IGs to the next meeting. 
  • Rachel suggested a November meeting where we can invite IG leaders. 
  • Edeama acknowledged Shamika’s support in connecting with IGs. 
• Communications Officer Report (Beth)
  • Summary of Listening Tour & Proposed Next Steps for CARL Communications Officer Role
  • Beth went over the summary, highlighting areas of note: membership, social media, collaboration/communication. 
    • Identified social media (twitter/instagram) as a focus - create policy, campaign ideas, proposed in January
    • Canva account to share branding/visuals with interest groups
    • Long term documentation to help different roles
    • Blog instead of newsletter was suggested. New web platforms we are considering have that feature.
    • Long term: Intern to create graphics
  • Beth offered to create a draft social media policy and Rachel suggested we can all participate in that process, including IGs too. 
  • Rachel shared that there is a lot of interest in CARL, we just need to get out there. 
  • Jennifer is in the process of creating an instragram for her library and has a lot of materials from UCS for creating this process, willing to share with Beth. 
  • Beth suggested creating a communications group. 
  • Edeama gave some clarification of why the DIAL IG has a few instagram handles and confirmed that communication needs to be improved.
  • Ken suggested a communications representative in each of the IGS.
  • ACTION: Beth will reach out to IG leaders about a possible communications position.
• ACRL (Laura)
  • Nothing to report
    • Rachel shared that she did not get a request to file a report and Laura said she will follow up.
    • Laura followed up with ACRL about Rachel’s question during the meeting and the person at ACRL was new and said they haven’t heard anything about it either, so we should be okay.
  • ACTION: Laura will follow up with ACRL about Rachel’s question if we need to file a report this year. (Laura completed this action item during the meeting)
• Awards Liaison Report (Ken)
  • Outstanding CARL member awarded (2 winners)
    • Rayheem Eskridge, Allison Carr - notified
• Web Assessment Committee (Ken, David, Kelli)
  • Ken followed up w/Nebraska Library Association contact about Star Chapter and Wild Apricot and had a live demo for Star Chapter. 
    • Star Chapter was good, but basic. It was less expensive.
    • Wild Apricot - no trial, but they have fantastic documentation. They have more features and flexibility with web design. It’s more per month, $110/month or $99/month with 1 year commitment or $93.50/month with 2 year commitment
  • Wild Apricot is the new management system – it has been decided. Ken is going to connect with them and get details about how to initiate their system. 
    • No timeline for when this will happen, so we’ll have to discuss this in the future. Ken will add this information to the final report. 
    • David discussed that a transition process/plan will be in the future.
    • Jennifer said we will need a vote for funding Wild Apricot, when that time comes. Ken said this is much cheaper than our current system YM, so we will have funding. Our YM subscription ends in May. Figuring out the transition will still need to be determined. Ideally at renewal time.
  • The board accepts the recommendation of the Web Assessment Committee considering our next organizational management system. 
  • ACTION: Ken is going to connect with Wild Apricot and get details on how to initiate their system.
  • ACTION: Ken will add Wild Apricot decision to the final report
  • ACTION: Ken and David will determine a plan to transition
• Membership Report (Jennifer, Ken)
  • Issues with liststervs. Various issues with YM. Unclear wording about when memberships expire. Overall good renewal rate (see report below).
  • MailMan platform stopped working, Jennifer thanked David for getting things back online.
  • Jennifer shared YM is clunky and is excited to work with Wild Apricot.
  • Automated renewal email went out: 150-ish renewed, which is very good. This process is clunky with YM and Jennifer hopes it will be easier with Wild Apricot. 
  • Ken is going to create a guide for the IG leaders to clean up the IG listservs, as they are all out of date
• Treasurer Report (Jennifer)
  • We need to reach out to CPA in January each year to get taxes done on time. 
  • Jennifer added the report below
  • Jennifer shared about the issues with contacting the CPA - we were very late in getting our taxes done and had to pay an extension fee, but it wasn’t very high. The CPA mentioned that the best way to make sure we get our taxes done in time is that we reach out in January, before they get busy.
  • Laura got the debit card, it is activated and she is a back up to use the CARL credit card, to make purchases.
• Membership Committee Update (Ethan)
  • Ethan said everything is running smoothly. Nothing to report. Please send mentors or mentees his way.
• Newsletter (Kelli)
  • Any ideas for an update from the Board? Deadline is passed, but please send Kelli anything for the newsletter. It comes out in October. 
    • Jennifer suggested forms to get people to send her items for the newsletter. Mentioned the “movers and shakers” as an example for reaching out and gathering content. 
    • Kelly J looks at movers and shakers for Californians to recruit them to CARL.
• EI Coordinator (Liz)
  • Liz is not present
• Strategic Planning/Visioning (All)
  • Shamika and Kelly J completed the strategic focus survey and Shamika had some general questions: do we need a specific survey format, when to send it out - perhaps in the newsletter? - how long should we have it open? Shamika is looking for suggestions on this. 
  • Kelli and Shamika discussed questions above and will share via email. 
  • Shamika shared the Strategic Focus Survey: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17GSofaJNeaR7tAMBDgjasj3yThBZoNUZs2Y1VXy3D7Y/edit
• Review Action Items (Annette)
  • Annette shared link and reviewed action items. Made edits to suggested items, as needed.
    • Kelly J reminded members to fill out Appendix A.

• Vice President
  • Kelli and I completed the Strategic Focus survey. Currently the survey lives in a document. What form platform should we use to create the survey? When should we send out the survey? Should we also include the survey in the CARL newsletter?
• Treasurer
  • Laura is now a signer on the bank account and has a copy of the debit card. Changed CARL’s address to my library at USC. Submitted Statement of Information.
  • Insurance renewed and backdated. Tax return completed. Waiting on Registry of Charitable Trusts.
• Membership Director
  • 16 retired/students and 136 members as of 9/15/22
• No Report: Past President; President; Vice President; Secretary; ACRL Chapters Council Delegate; Director-at-Large, Community Colleges; Director-at-Large, Private Colleges and Universities; Director-at-Large, UC; Director-at-Large, CSU

• No Report: Newsletter Editor, Web Coordinator, Mentorship Committee Chair

PRESIDENT
Rachel Jaffe
UC Santa Cruz
jaffer@ucsc.edu

PAST PRESIDENT 
Kelly Janousek
CSU Long Beach
kelly.janousek@csulb.edu

VICE PRESIDENT
Shamika J. Simpson
Long Beach City College
ssimpson@lbcc.edu

SECRETARY
Annette Young
Cypress College

TREASURER
Jennifer Silverman
West Coast University

MEMBERSHIP DIRECTOR
Jennifer Silverman (interim)
West Coast University

ACRL CHAPTERS COUNCIL DELEGATE
Laura Wimberley
CSU Northridge

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE, COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Edeama Onwuchekwa
San Diego Community College
eonwuchekwa@sdccd.edu

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE, CSU
Laura Wimberley
CSU Northridge

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE, PRIVATE COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES 
Beth Namei
Claremont Colleges

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE, UC
Ken Lyons
UC Santa Cruz
kbplyons@ucsc.edu

NEWSLETTER EDITOR
Kelli Hines
Western University of Health Sciences
khines@westernu.edu

WEBSITE COORDINATOR
Dave Drexler
CSU Fresno 
ddrexel@csufresno.edu

MENTORING PROGRAM COMMITTEE CHAIR
Ethan Annis
Dominican University of California, San Rafael
ethan@ethanannis.com