KANSAS CITY ASSOCIATION OF LAW LIBRARIES
ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING
Thursday, January 11, 2001
Charles Evans Whittaker Federal Courthouse

The meeting was called to order by President Janet McKinney. 21 members attended.

The minutes for the August 17 and October 19 member meetings were corrected and approved. 

Deborah Showalter-Johnson read the Nominating Committee Report.  The new Board members as announced are: Vice-President and President elect: Susan Duede; Secretary: Cindy Crary; Treasurer: Linda Roser and Board Member: Camille Reynolds.  The committee report is attached including discussion of the board resolution on what procedure to follow for the tie vote.

Janet then read the Executive Board Year-End Report for 2000.  (Attached)

The other year-end reports are also attached (Treasurer’s, Program, Technology/Union List).

Greg McNown and Ruth Gervais reported on a UCITA teleconference they attended.  Handouts were made available to the members.   The videotape will be available for another viewing.

The website disclaimer needs to be changed and the new committee will be so advised.

There was no new business or announcements.

The gavel was then passed to the new President, Tranne Pearce.  A gift was presented to out-going President McKinney.  The sign-up list for 2001 meeting sites was circulated.  The March meeting will be at the Westport Public Library.  The Bylaws, especially the election sections need to be updated.  The Union List is in process.  There is a plan to share another meeting with the KC Special Libraries Association on “Information Architecture.”  MAALL will be the last week-end in October in St. Louis.  We then played a game “Who wants to be a law librarian.”  The meeting was then adjourned.

KANSAS CITY ASSOCIATION OF LAW LIBRARIES
EXECUTIVE BOARD
YEAR 2000 REPORT                                      

            The Executive Board met six times throughout the year.  Two particular issues before the Board were mentioned by the incoming President at the January 4 meeting – the question of whether the Association’s Union List of Serials should be mounted on the Web site, and if so, how; and whether there was need to establish a bylaws committee.

        The Board seemed to address the issue of the Union List with the assumption that it would be put on the Web site, if it could be done at a reasonable cost and a minimum of difficulty involved in creating and maintaining it.  The options discussed included having it hosted on a third-party site, the various types of software available, and whether it could be set up so that the members could update their own listings.  The Board applied for a grant from the Missouri State Library for the project of converting the list, but the application was denied.  The Board also contacted the library schools of Emporia State University of the University of Missouri-Columbia to distribute a request for a practicum student to work on the project.  There was one response of interest, but it turned out that the timing was not right.  In the end, the Board decided to have the list converted into an HTML file and mounted on the site.

        The issue that prompted the discussion of the bylaws concerned the filling of vacancies.  After reviewing the Bylaws at the first Board meeting, the Board determined that the current language was sufficient.

        Also at the first meeting, the Board discussed whether we could standardize the method of sending meeting notices and minutes.  It was never formalized into a policy, but the consensus was to e-mail notices to those that had e-mail addresses, fax them to those that didn’t, and mount meeting minutes on the Web site, with e-mail messages referencing them.  The Board also decided to hold general membership meetings on the second Thursday of the month.

        Following up on the effort to increase membership that was begun in 1999, the Board discussed contacting inactive members and vendor representatives that were not members.  Past-President Greg McNown took on this project, with little, but some, success.

        Two other projects that were discussed early in the year but were not very successful were the promotion of activities during Library Week (April 17-21) and on Law Day (May 1).

        The Board dealt with the question of mounting the membership directory on the KCALL Web site and eliminating the paper copies.  A motion to mount the membership directory on the Web site pending approval of the membership was passed, and the motion was taken to the membership at the May meeting.  The motion to mount the directory with password protection was passed at that meeting, and the directory was available in August.

        Past-President Greg McNown questioned whether to consider having the general membership meetings at locations other than members’ libraries.  The advantages might be: meeting in a location which is more geographically-central for the majority of the membership, and taking the burden of hosting off those member libraries that are able to host the meetings.  Greg investigated possibilities and discussed the issue at the August meeting.  Nothing definite was decided, but the Board is now aware of other options for meeting locations.

        The last large project the Board took on was a review of the Web site policy statement.  The statement was developed by the Technology/Union List Committee and mounted when the site was redesigned.  The new policy, revised and approved unanimously by the Board, was loaded on the site in mid-December.  Please take the time to read it.

        The final action of the Board was to pass a resolution to break a tie in the votes for the Vice-President/President-Elect position for 2001.

        KCALL was involved with four programs outside the regular meeting schedule.  The first was the AALL Video Teleconference, “Books and  Bytes: Balancing Formats in Today’s Libraries”, on April 13, at Longview Community College.  The Kansas City Westlaw office provided the registration fee, and KCALL invited members of the Heart of America Chapter, Special Libraries Association.  There were 13 attendees.

        KCALL co-sponsored a workshop on legal research for non-lawyers that was presented by the Special Libraries Section of the Missouri Library Association, held at the Charles Evans Whittaker Courthouse on October 3.

        Vice-President/President-Elect Tranne Pearce represented the Association when she spoke before the biennial meeting of the Missouri Department of Corrections Librarians in April at the Lake of the Ozarks.

        Lastly, on December 13, KCALL co-sponsored the satellite teleconference, “UCITA: A Guide to Understanding and Action”, at the Johnson County Community College.  The other sponsoring organizations were the Heart of America Chapter, SLA, and the Health Sciences Library Network of Kansas City.  There was a heavy snowstorm that day, but about seven persons attended.  KCALL owns a copy of the videotape of the conference, so sometime this year there might be other opportunities to view it.

Respectfully submitted,
Janet McKinney
2000 KCALL President
January 11, 2001

KCALL Web Site Management Policy

Mission Statement

The KCALL web site is designed as an information tool for the organization. Its purpose is to promote the image of  librarians as highly skilled professionals and to provide educational materials to a global audience. Secondary purposes include the provision of information and current awareness notices to KCALL members, prospective members and the local Bar.

Content

In keeping with its mission, the KCALL web site should contain, at a minimum, digital versions of the organization’s brochure, the organization bylaws, the names of the Executive Board members, and appropriate contact numbers and addresses. Relevant pathfinders, bibliographies and articles should be solicited from the membership and posted as deemed appropriate by the Technology/Union List Committee and the Executive Board.

Other content may include organization information, such as committee lists, meeting minutes, membership lists, program announcements, and class and meeting notices.  This Website will not be used for commercial purposes.

Content Approval Process

The Technology/Union List Committee will be authorized to approve all content for placement on the Web site.  If anyone has questions or concerns, the Technology/Union List Committee can seek advice from the Executive Board.  The Committee will notify the Executive Board of changes.

 Administrative Responsibility

The Technology/Union List Committee is charged with the responsibility for the KCALL Web site administration, content generation, production and presentation. It is to report to the Executive Board as requested by the President.

The members of the Technology/Union List Committee will assume responsibility for the administration and maintenance of the Web site. The Committee is authorized to solicit and train other members to assist in the process of document markup and image generation.

Updating Procedures

The Technology/Union List Committee will establish a regular cycle for the review and updating of all KCALL Web site content. This review should occur in the two-week period preceeding each regularly scheduled membership meeting.

*The Treasurer shall e-mail membership updates to the Technology/Union List as received.

*The Secretary shall e-mail draft versions of the Executive Board and Membership meeting minutes to the Technology/Union List Committee two weeks after each meeting.  Upon approval, the final version of the meeting minutes will be posted within two weeks.

*The President shall e-mail Executive Board or Committee changes to the Technology/Union List Committee as needed.

*The Technology/Union List Committee shall update the Union List on the Web site as needed.

*Membership news may be sent to the Technology/Union List Committee from the members of KCALL.

*All information for the Web site should be sent in text format or in a Word document to techcomm@kcall.org.

Reporting Procedures

The Technology/Union List Committee Chair will provide status reports to the Executive Board or general membership at the request of the President.

Legal Issues

The following disclaimer shall be placed on the home page of the Web site:

KCALL is a professional organization and is not authorized to provide legal advice in any circumstance nor will it attempt to do so at the request of anyone.  The organization and its members reserve the right to refuse any request for assistance deemed inappropriate.  The information on this Web site is proprietary and not for dissemination beyond its membership.

YEAR END REPORTS:

Treasurer’s Report

The treasurer’s report is on file with the KCALL Secretary.

Program Committee Report 2000

       The four KCALL meetings each included four guest speakers.  Our first meeting and program was held at Bryan Cave LLP on March 16th and our guest was Don Hoffman of OCLC who provided a Power Point presentation on OCLC Services and CORC.  Tracy Byerly of MLNC also spoke about some of the products OCLC is developing.  Handouts were provided.

       Lathrop & Gage hosted our May 18th meeting and program with Vivian Jennings from Rainy Day Books as our speaker.  Ms. Jennings spoke about the advantages of an independently operated bookstore and provided title suggestions that would be of interest to law firm libraries.

        On August 17th we gathered at Spencer Fane Britt & Browne and had Patricia O’Connor, Director of UMKCs Law Library, speak about Law and Literature.  Ms. O’Connor provided handouts and suggestions of good titles that feature aspects of law as well as movies that would be of interest to law librarians.

       Our final meeting was on October 19th at Morrison & Hecker and Joyce Sickel, Senior Medical Librarian for Shook Hardy & Bacon, spoke about medical librarianship providing valuable websites for locating medical related information.

        Our annual KCALL Christmas Party was held at Shughart Thomson & Kilroy on December 6th and seemed to be successful.  Jack Stack BBQ catered our party and due to the number of sponsors, our budget was barely touched for this event.  Thanks to Avis for helping with this event and Tranne and Greg for providing entertainment.  Also, having each firm/organization bring a dessert was a good idea and one that the next Program Chair may want to keep in mind.

        In all, this year’s Programs were cost efficient.  A check was offered to Don Hoffman, who was from St. Louis, and lunch was provided for three of the four speakers.

       Thanks to Glenn Higley for dealing with the Christmas invitations and getting those out.

        Problems 

Few problems arose from this year’s Programs.  There was difficulty getting confirmation from one of our speaker’s.  All speakers were notified well in advance and routine confirmations were done either by email or phone.  We wanted a speaker on Copyright Law from KU, but the cost was too high to justify.  Copyright Law is a topic which the committee agrees would be a good program to have if possible. 

TECHNOLOGY/UNION LIST COMMITTEE REPORT

The Technology/Union List Committee revamped the KCALL's website. We are working on offering the Union List on one of the Web pages. Members of the committee were: Barbara Fullerton, Nancy Stancel, John Pickett, and Mike McReynolds.

Nancy Stancel and John Pickett attend Microsoft FrontPage training.
 
The Web site included a new policy, news about its members, and the reports from the meetings and executive board meetings.
 
The committee is responsible for updating the Web site on a monthly basis.
 
Submitted on Dec. 19, 2000
Barbara Fullerton