Maine State Library, Augusta

President, Nancy Grant opened the meeting and introduced two guests, Mary Moore, Freeport High School Media Specialist and Eileen Broderick.

Nancy gave everyone a decorated rock, a symbolic reminder that we are the foundation for school libraries in the state and that we need to solidify our roles. She reminded everyone that a Spring Conference meeting, led by Pam Goucher, first VP, would follow the MASL meeting.

Nancy reviewed the joint board retreat with MASL and MLA, focusing on the district consultants grant for PR for libraries in the state. We need a liaison between MASL and the district consultants. If someone is willing to fill this role, but has trouble making all the daytime meetings, Sylvia Norton is willing to sit in occasionally.

Nancy and Sylvia will be attending the ALA conference in Atlanta. They asked for input on awareness or assistance pieces that board members might want them to take to ALA or bring back from the conference.

• Issues discussed included:
• What's going on in other states regarding laptops and technology,
• Confusion about librarians' role,
• Need for ALA to do PR about our role,
• Importance of what we teach to make students information literate,
• Need for instruction in search strategies,
• How what we teach fits into assessment.
  
• There was further discussion about what we can do at the local level,
  
• Offer online tutorials,
• Offer workshops providing models for MASL members, especially a series of workshops for middle school librarians,
• Educate within our schools and within our profession,
• High school librarians offer guidance to ed techs in middle and elementary schools,
• MASL suggest guidelines about options available for local situations,
• Have a presence at the ACTEM fall conference and post conference day in October,
• Continue to offer follow-up assistance to teachers and administrators with Seed training and the laptop module of the Gates training
• Librarians and Tech Coordinators are working together on a grant to get laptops with software.

SECRETARY'S REPORT: The minutes of the April meeting were approved.

TREASURER'S REPORT: The Treasurer's report was approved. Board members were asked to think about budget items for fall.

Acknowledgements for our assistance were received from the MSBA Committee and the
Maine Community Foundation.

1ST VICE PRESIDENT'S REPORT: Pam Goucher reported on the last Conference meeting. She reminded board members of the information available on our web page. The conference committee is looking for someone to work closely with Pam to take on the operation of next spring's post conference (May 6, 2003). Program chairs are also needed (2 MASL, 2 MLA) to be contact people for workshops leaders. Being a program chair is not a big task; most of the work can be done by e-mail. A request was made that scheduling of school library workshops offerings be better balanced. It was felt that is better have more and shorter programs.

Ideas for keynote speakers were discussed. It is hoped that a well-known educator would draw teams of teachers and librarians to come together to talk about how to make information literacy work through collaboration.

Suggestions included : Rob Freed who wrote The Passionate Teacher and The Passionate Learner He is doing a workshop at Poland High School (charges approximately $1000 - 1500/day) Gerry Crocker will e-mail him to inquire about booking right away. Seymour Papert and Robert Marzano were also suggested.

OLD BUSINESS:

The media specialist shortage in Connecticut and the certification of teachers as librarians were discussed. They have a 6 week program with a strong mentoring piece.

Members were urged to watch this trend and others like it.

The September board meeting will be a full day meeting, probably in Augusta. As Sept. 7 is a religious holiday, Nancy will put a date choice on e-mail for the first or second weekend in September. The October 5 meeting will be in Freeport; the November Fall Conference will be at UMPI.

Gretchen Asam reported on her work preparing for Fall Conference with keynote speakers, Marilyn Arnone and Ruth Small, authors of Turning Kids on to Research which is a kind of overlay to the Big Six approach. Conference costs were discussed (speakers' fee, flights, rooms, liability insurance through Nancy Sargent at MMA). Accommodations for MASL members and indication of interest in buying the authors' book could be on the registration handout. Other issues discussed were discounted registrations for teachers who come with a MASL member, and interest in a preconference activity/assignment such as reading an article. Feedback on the assignment could be solicited on ME-LIBS. A reservation has been made for 25 people at Eureka Hall In Stockholm, Me for Saturday night. The food service at UMPI will provide for lunch and nibblements (a continental breakfast and cold cut luncheon buffet, would probably be $15/per person). The cost of registration and whether to have a MASL bus or to encourage car/van pooling were also discussed. (Travel time from Orono to Presque Isle is 3 hours, Augusta to Orono is about 4 ? hours). A motion for MASL to hire a bus was not pursued. It was suggested that student scholarships and MASL professional development scholarship could be available.

Applications for summer work on Comprehensive Assessment were given to Gerry Crocker. She will contact applicants and set up work dates. The CBEA (Casco Bay Educational Alliance, including Yarmouth, Pownal, Freeport, North Yarmouth, etc.) is doing similar work. Pam Rolfe is the Coordinator for Local Comprehensive Assessment and Policy Advisory committee. Because of federal eligibility, there was a significant change to the MASL grant workshop. Sylvia Norton contacted ALA and Susan Collins about the eligibility requirement problem and made a big effort to bring in those school districts who did qualify. 12 people are registered for June 11 at Herman. Turner was cancelled. The grant application has just been posted. Heidi has some questions for MASL about how to help with specifics.

The MASL Board has present position openings. Guests, Mary volunteered to be the NEEMA representative; Eileen volunteered to be a Member at Large. It was suggested that we make a motion to create a new non-voting board position that is a liaison to the Maine State Library and the Maine Department of Education. Since this position would have to be added to the by-laws, it will be raised at the Fall Conference and brought to a vote at the Spring Conference.

NEW BUSINESS:
It was announced that while CIPA will not require public libraries to use a filter, school libraries will not be exempt. At least the document says that filters do not work! It was suggested that MASL members make a collection of the things that get blocked and send them to Gail for the web page.

Sylvia reported on LMS endorsement. Authorization, eligibility, conditional certificates the NCAT and Praxis exams, and internships were discussed. MASL recommends setting up the LMS certification like all the other certification areas. The recommend need for a Master's degree is a minimum of 24 hours of graduate study in library science, our content areas of children's literature, cataloging, collection building, etc.

A change in the scholarship application deadline to March 15 was approved.

Donna Chale has new email, Dchale@midmaine.com; Tamara Blesh's new e-mail is tblesh@maine.edu.

Susan Allison wrote to the editor of the Lewiston Sun Journal. The paper made her an offer to expand her comments to a regular column with an emphasis on information literacy. She will have a forum to
discuss issues like the difference between guided searching versus Internet surfing. Kudos,

Susan! Many comments have been received praising the work of the Standards Committee.

The meeting was adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,

Margaret McNamee,
Secretary

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."