Maine State Library, Augusta

Present: Gretchen Asam,, Pam Goucher, Eileen Broderick, Sylvia Norton, Nancy Grant, Mary Simpson, Francie Aley, Donna Chale, Mary Moore, Susan Allison, Kelly McDaniel, Edna Comstock, Martha Mitchell, Tamara Blesh, Margaret McNamee, Suzan Nelson, and guests Jeff and Ann Small.

The April minutes were accepted. The Spring Conference minutes were e-mailed to Board members and will be considered at the Fall Conference.

Donna Chale presented the treasurer’s report, answered questions and gave reminders to submit figures for the new budget. It was moved, seconded, and passed to accept the treasurer’s report.

Gretchen presented a President’s plaque to Nancy B. Grant with many thanks for all her work.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

STANDARDS
Sylvia Norton reported on the standards work for chair, Cyndi Bufithis. Good feedback was given at the conference. Most of the rough draft’s statements came from Information Power, Chapters 125 and 127, Essential Programs documents, and NEEMA’s white paper on NEASC Accreditation. Once it is approved by the State Board of Education, it will have more authority. Sylvia will e-mail the rough draft to the Board to look at it and make
suggestions. It will be put on the retreat agenda for review.

INFORMATION LITERACY
Eileen Broderick, new IL chair, reported that Gerry Crocker has accepted a position with the Southern Maine Partnership. Gerry asked to remain on the Board mailing list.

LIAISONS TO THE STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
Mary Simpson reported on the State Board of Education meeting which focused on Special Education. Maine is third in the nation for the number of special education students. A proposal for special education program and finance reform was presented. The testing program proposal for paraprofessionals was also discussed. In districts where Title One has been made school-wide, library ed techs will be affected. (See Sylvia’s recent information letter to ME-LIBS for more details). Testing is one of the ways for paraprofessionals to comply with No Child Left Behind qualifications. The other two ways are possession of an AA degree or two years of college or university work. The test consisting of multiple choice questions is administered at Praxis Test centers for a fee of $40.
Francie Aley reporting on the May State Board of Education meeting, said that construction square footage requirements may be upgraded. Construction projects already approved are fine, but future ones have now been put off for two years. Requirements regarding efficiency may well pass.

NEEMA REPRESENTATIVE
Mary Moore reporting on her first NEEMA meeting spoke about a new task force on the future of school librarianship and NEEMA’s white paper for NEASC regarding what Library Media Specialists do. (Carol Gordon’s white paper is on the NEEMA webpage). The NEASC principals’ group responded to the paper by saying “That doesn’t sound like my library.”
MASL feels that school librarians are doing it, but principals aren’t aware of it. It is highly recommended that the Task Force should target principals groups.

Dr. Ross Todd will be presenting at the NEEMA Nov. 2-3 meeting. Budget cuts at the state library levels in CT and VT were discussed. A suggestion was made that samples of year-end library reports be posted to the MASL webpage for members to use as a model to present statistics to principals, superintendents, and school boards.

A notice will be sent to ME-LIB asking members to express interest in AECT’s pilot program for new memberships. The spring NEEMA meeting will be the Saturday before our Spring Conference (as will the USC graduation).

INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM
Gretchen welcomed Kelly McDaniel as new IF chair. She noted that several IF challenges have been made this year. It is important that librarians look at specific wording in challenge policies as their Comprehensive Education plans are updated each year.

MEMBERSHIP
Edna Comstock welcomed Suzan Nelson as new membership chair and reported that MASL currently has 280 members! This figure includes about 20 life members.

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
Edna suggested that the executive secretary position be used as a repository for a current membership list. She also asked that the retreat agenda include a look at the job description of the executive secretary. A motion was made, seconded, and passed to extend life status to Jo Coyne. We will look at making another list for new life members at our next
meeting.

SUPPORT STAFF
Martha Mitchell has been trying to contact ed techs who are heading school libraries. She will be sending a letter to those whose e-mails she has regarding needs, contributions, issues, and programs supportive of their role. A copy of the letter from the Gardner libraries who were cut from the budget but reinstated will be made available on the MASL website. Martha also has a school library curriculum which she will share. Chapter 127 now says that a professional is to “oversee” uncertified personnel. This responsibility can become a contract issue.

TECHNOLOGY
Tamara Blesh thanked the scholarship committee for supporting her Adobe Online Academy work which starts in July. She will find a way to document the online training in terms of professional development. She will give a report to the Board and hopes to offer us a workshop or two. It was noted that Gretchen’s recent e-mail attachment has job descriptions for MASL Board positions.

PAST PRESIDENT
Suzan Nelson thanked the Board for sending her to ALA. She reported on the publicity for Deb Locke’s School Library Media Specialist of the Year award and the Principals Award for the administrator in Madawaska. She asked if we had any statements of concern for the AASL affiliate assembly. Concerns noted were principals’ lack of awareness of what librarians do, state level budget cuts of library jobs, the use of ed techs to save hiring professionals, the hiring of technology integration specialists (many of whom do not know how to connect technology with curriculum and much of whose jobs just duplicates technology coordinator’s or technician’s jobs) instead of supporting librarians who do integrate technology with curriculum.

NEW BUSINESS
The summer board retreat will be held July 22 and 23 at a place to be determined. Several sites were suggested and various members agreed to make contact. Our invitation to Ross was an open one to attend any/all of our meetings, but allowed specific times for him to talk

A motion was made, seconded, discussed and passed that MASL expend a yet unnamed sum to cover the cost of the summer retreat, July 22/23 at a place to be determined with an expense ceiling of $2000.

The MEA Conference will be held at the Samoset Oct. 4, 2003. It will take the place of our October MASL Board meeting. We will have a table for our display presentation. We plan to repeat our research survey and giveaways of books. The conference is free to MEA members.

The question of sharing expenses with MLA for an immediate lobbyist is no longer an issue. There was a very short window of opportunity before June 13 to lobby for the $4 million bond issue. They hired Mike Saxl to help them to reach the right people. A unanimous show of hands supported writing a letter to MLA saying that although our legislative chair is empty at the moment, we support joint legislative committee efforts. We will suggest that if an issue like that comes up again, that they please inform us how we can support this advocacy. Gretchen will write to remind Gary Nichols to submit to the Governor’s office names of people from the school library community to be appointed the State Library Commission.

Reassessment of the Board Handbook was tabled.

Refreshments for the meeting were provided by MLA (from a meeting the previous day), by Gretchen and by the Maine State Library. A sign-up for upcoming meeting refreshments was circulated. Pam Goucher and Suzan Nelson will take care of the Sept. meeting.

The next year’s meetings will continue to be the first Saturdays of the months. After the retreat, the first meeting will be Sept. 6 at the Maine State Library. Look at ME-LIBS for where for the following meetings will be held. The Jan./ Feb. meetings might be ATM meetings. Others may be in Presque Isle, Falmouth, or Augusta.

Sylvia Norton is going on the Board of AASL and also will be chairing Family I-Connect.

AASL will be held in Kansas City Oct. 22-26. Applications for expenses could be submitted to the Walter J. Taranko scholarship fund. Recipients could offer to do conference workshops. There was some discussion about rewriting the scholarship application form

The meeting was declared adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,
Margaret McNamee,
Secretary