Conant House, April 6, 2002

Present: Nancy Grant, Pam Goucher, Sylvia Norton, Edna, Comstock, Gail Garthwait, Tamara Blesh, Susan Allison, Teri Caouette, Gretchen Asam, Gerry Crocker, Sue Leiter, and Margaret McNamee.

PRESIDENT'S REPORT: Nancy Grant welcomed everyone with plant seed packets and chocolate eggs. She announced that Pam Goucher will host a Spring Conference meeting following this MASL board meeting. Everyone was encouraged to stay.

There will be a joint MASL/MLA meeting Saturday, May 4 from 10-2 at MMA with a focus on PR for all libraries in Maine. A buffet lunch will be provided. Volunteers are needed to stuff conference packets from 3-5. Edna has invited those who stuff to dinner. Ralph Conant is back at Conant House until July.

A brochure describing possible signs for Conant House was passed around. The consensus was that a small, tasteful plaque (probably cast bronze) in keeping with the style of the farm house would be appropriate.

Nancy spoke about a letter from Judith Lucarelli and Pam Rolfe from the Maine DOE regarding the make-up of the Content Advisory Panels for the Local Comprehensive Assessment planning. The panels will consist of classroom teachers from each of the five content areas, classroom teachers from each of the four grade spans (pre-K-2, 3-4, 5-8, 9-12), and content specialists from the DOE and the Maine Math and Science Alliance. The panels will meet monthly for the next two years. Because of the integration of information literacy across the content curriculum (as specified in the Maine Learning Results) and because of the expertise of school library media specialists in information literacy instruction, the board feels that school library media specialists should offer to be part of the Content Advisory Panels. Sylvia will pursue this issue. Anyone interested in offering to be a panel member or anyone with input regarding the inclusion of SLMSs on the panels should contact her immediately.

THE SECRETARY'S REPORT: The minutes were accepted as written.

THE TREASURER'S REPORT: Donna Chale sent a detailed MASL balance sheet for March, 2002. Edna reported that more membership money has been received. The Treasurer's report was accepted. The treasurer’s report was accepted. Income for March is $445, expenses are $919.82, checking balance is $7114.74

FIRST VICE PRESIDENT'S REPORT: Pam reported that conference plans are coming along well. Pam asked for volunteers to serve as hostesses to conference presenters. Duties involve welcoming presenters, making sure they find their rooms, offering to distribute evaluations, etc. Please e-mail her if you are able to help. IKON has offered us the use of a free photocopier for the conference. Vendor coordination for future conferences was discussed. It was decided to poll vendors on their feelings and needs surrounding the conference.

• A strong school library workshop topic for next year's post conference workshops was discussed. USC will be contacted.
• T. A. Barron was booked in Fall, 2001 as the keynote speaker for 2004.
• UMPI is courting MASL to move our conference to Presque Isle. The possibility of moving the place and changing from Spring to Fall was discussed.

ARCHIVES CHAIR: The Archives committee met during February vacation at Conant House.

CERTIFICATION CHAIR: In the absence of a certification chair, Sylvia noted that she has fielded many questions about certification.

CONTINUING EDUCATION CHAIR: Teri Caouette brought a clean copy of the MASL logo which she will scan and send to Edna. Gretchen brought letterhead paper to Conant House.

Teri has been sending continuing ed opportunity information monthly to Gail for the webpage. Gail has been adding information that comes to her, also. Teri will draw up a questionnaire for Spring Conference packets which she will send to Edna for photocopying.

FACILITIES: Sylvia will contact Shelly Swazey to see if she and her committee are willing to revisit the facilities standards work.

INFORMATION LITERACY: Gerry Crocker has lots of information to send to Gail for the webpage. She described the process of creating a personal performance archive needed for the performance based pay scale at her school. She used Charlotte Danielson's descriptors combined with the SMLS job description (on the MASL webpage).

PR CHAIR AND ACTING INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM CHAIR: Gretchen explained two challenges which had been referred to her. Kaffir Boy, was removed, but later reinstated with parental permission and suggestions for alternatives. Gretchen suggested that the curriculum committee draw up a selection and challenge policy for curriculum, similar to media policies on the same issues. The other challenge involves the Captain Underpants books. Author Dav Pilkey states that he creates books that would have appealed to him as a student with learning disabilities. The challenge has not yet been settled.
Gretchen recounted her PR education efforts involving a local newscaster's need to update his image of librarians. Sue Leiter also told of another person's complete re-evaluation of the importance of librarians which she helped to influence. Way to go Gretchen and Sue!

2ND VICE PRESIDENT: This position is vacant; applicants/nominees are welcome!

MAINE ENTRY: About 20 people participated in the ATM meeting about Maine Entry's future. All agreed that some kind of publication will continue to be produced. Retired librarians and journalism students have been contacted about willingness to contribute.

MASL-1: Betsy York reported that her group meets monthly, sometimes by e-mail. They have a dues structure, invite guest speakers, are donating a potato basket to the scholarship auction, and are having a weeding workshop.

MEMBERSHIP CHAIR: Edna reports 250+ MASL members. She is looking into membership cards - paper, translucent or magnetic. She will be working on professional v. paraprofessional membership statistics and the online membership roster. The MASL and MLA membership chairs will both be at the Maine State Library. Since John Clark has been hired to work for Maine InfoNet; he will be available to help with school libraries' automation concerns.

NEEMA CHAIR: Sylvia Norton spoke about the recently completed NEEMA White paper on the place of school library media programs in the NEASC accreditation process. A motion was passed to endorse the white paper. Nancy will post a notice of the board's endorsement to ME-LIBS. Anyone with questions may contact NEEMA President Sylvia Norton who will be meeting with NEASCís Janet Allison to move forward on the changes.

SCHOLARSHIP: Fran Haines has posted scholarship information to the web page. Applicants are being sought! Edna will store auction donations in her garage.

PAST PRESIDENT: Suzan Nelson has been gathering material for a demo display board for Spring Conference. She has one solid applicant package for School Library Media Specialist of the Year. It was suggested that a letter be sent to principals in the fall encouraging submissions for the award. No applicants have been submitted for administrator of the year yet.

STANDARDS: Susan Allison explained that her committee has been using the Maryland standards as a model. She is meeting with David Anderson to work on rubrics for the standards. Susan mentioned an article about "deserted libraries."

STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION LIAISON: This position is now vacant, so we need someone to attend the meetings. However, the State Board of Education web page has been updated to cover information from their meetings.

TECHNOLOGY: Tamara brought information about multipurpose machines (scanner/printer/ copier/FAX) for Conant House. She also spoke about her presentation for conference about using blackboard.com with students and her involvement with professional development courses through EDC in Newton, MA. It was agreed that the greatest need for information literacy instruction is to encourage higher level thinking type assignments and that the greatest benefit of online learning is the interaction among students and teacher. Someone recommended a new search engine (Teoma) which creates results lists by sponsored sites.

Gail is looking for middle school seventh grades who are willing to participate in a study of quality research.

OLD BUSINESS: The plans for the Fall conference are coming along well. A motion was passed to book the new student center at UMPI for November 2 from 8-3 and to investigate a 2 night plus dinner at Eureka Hall package for motels. Gretchen is following plans for a keynote speaker. Several suggestions for possible candidates for 2ND VP were given. Tamara, Nancy and Gail will consult on a letter concerning the involvement of school library media specialists in the laptop project. A copy of the highlights of the Maine Learning Technology Initiative were distributed.

Mark your calendars for the new librarian orientation August 20 in Belfast.

NEW BUSINESS: Nancy distributed a draft RFP for the Information Literacy comprehensive assessment template. She asked the board to look it over and give her suggestions before the draft is sent again to the board and then posted to ME-LIBS. We are looking for a team of 3-5 people (at least 3 MASL members) to work during summer and fall to create a product for testing by December 31, 2002 and presentation by Spring, 2003. MASL will pay $100 per day per team member.

Sylvia distributed a draft of her notice about the grant writing workshops for the Reed amendment moneys to be held with Heidi McGinley in Turner on Wednesday, June 5 and in Hermon on Tuesday, June 11 MASL will help pay for a board member to accompany Nancy Grant to go to ALA in Atlanta, June 14 -17. The 1st VP could not go.

Please bring your Best Practice examples to Spring Conference for the display.

NEXT MEETING: The next meeting will be May 6 at the Spring Conference in Augusta..
Respectfully submitted,
Margaret McNamee, Secretary