Library and Information Science Student Organization (LISSO)

University of Kentucky

Meeting Minutes: June 4, 2012

Officers present: Debbi Lloyd, Mercedes Hopewell, Jessica Herrington, Justin Conder, Ida Sell

Total present: 5

Call to open: 5:45pm EST

New Officers and Duties:

Debbi checked with all new officers had made some contact with their predecessors and understood their primary responsibilities. She is available to answer any questions about officer duties. We will also aim to institute a new president and treasurer by the end of the coming semester, replacing Debbi and Ida.

Budget and T-shirt Sales Status:

The LISSO bank account is expected to hold $118, once the T-shirt shipping costs have been removed this week. The t-shirts have arrived and are planned to be packaged and shipped over the coming week. Debbi intends to send out notifications to customers as packages are being shipped.

Additional Topics and Changes:

It was suggested that we reinstitute the dues drive at the fall picnic. All members that pay their dues on that day will have their name entered into a prize drawing. Prizes suggested were $25 gift cards to a restaurant or a store of interest.

Previous club administrations have networked with local businesses, asking for donations, such as food for events. While it would be nice to continue these connections, it has become more difficult as the current officers do not have the same local connections. Debbi and Ida will try contacting previous officers for help locating previous contacts.

The LISSO Christmas party will be continued this December. It was tentatively decided to ask Dr. O’Connor to host the party at her house. The party will be a potluck.

With the shortage of students preparing for the comprehensive test, it was discussed to change the dinner into a general LISSO night instead, as well as abandoning any exam previous exam preparation activities.

It has been decided that LISSO will try to limit all events to about one or two major events per month, in order to be more focused and to promote each event better. These will be in addition to the monthly meetings. All events will also include some form of RSVP, although it has not been decided what application will be used.

The collaborative calendar for all SLIS organizations is still in progress. Debbi is working to decide on what program or application to use.

There was discussion of creating some type of forum in order to better engage all students, especially those that are online, as well as provide a place for new students to find answers about graduate school. This could also be supplemented by a FAQ page for new students. This could include any topics of interest to SLIS students, including some library blogs that could be of interest.

The fall picnic has been tentatively planned for Saturday, August 6, 2012, which is the weekend immediately after classes begin. There was some concern that Woodland Park does not accept reservations for the gathering areas, which are taken on a first-come-first-serve basis. Other venues are being considered, as well as the possibility of planning for early arrivals to hold our place. An email reminder will be sent in July for people to save the date of the picnic, with an RSVP notice to come once all location plans have been finalized.

In addition to the new student orientation, Debbi suggested talking to professors with face-to-face classes and organizing a schedule of representatives to inform these classes about all SLIS organizations. LISSO would like to distribute a handout detailing the FAQs and additional information about the club, including contact information.

It was suggested to discontinue the LISSO blog, as updates and interest have waned. One possibility is a collective email update sent to the listserv, including meeting minutes and highlighting any events for the month.

In general, our plans for the fall semester are set as follows:
August:            Fall picnic and the launch of the forum
September:       Bowling/Karaoke Night
October:           Attending the Zombie Parade as a group, including meeting for dinner beforehand
November:       Board Game Night in the Cats Den
December:       Christmas Party Potluck

Another officer meeting has been planned for Monday, August 6, 2012 in order to finalize all the picnic plans and to further discuss the events and meetings of the fall semester.

Call to close: 7:45pm EST

Library and Information Science Student Organization (LISSO)

University of Kentucky

Meeting Minutes: May 7, 2012

Officers present: Debbi Lloyd, Mercedes Hopewell, Jessica Herrington, Justin Conder, Dr. Wade Bishop, Ida Sell

Total present: 8

Call to open: 4:35pm EST

An agenda was distributed to those present.

Welcome new officers: -Mercedes Hopewell as Vice President,
-Jessica Herrington as Secretary,
-Justin Conder as Communications Manager;
-Ida Sell will continue as Treasurer for the present time, until a new officer has been elected.

New officers should set meetings to discuss their position responsibilities and the official transfer of duties with their predecessors, on an individual basis. Debbi is available if any officers would like her to be present at any of the meetings. The Vice President will also be added to the bank account. All new officers should send Debbi the information to be added to the LISSO officers’ listserv.

T-shirt Sales:

T-shirt sales are currently at 21 orders, with 36 total shirts and 8 dues payments, and with one week remaining for additional orders. Our current profit from the sales is $147, which recovers all costs from the graduation barbecue, and should completely cover the Fall picnic next semester. There was discussion of using the official university alumni list in order to communicate with all SLIS alumni in the future.

T-shirts are estimated at 2 weeks to print, and then Debbi plans to pick them up rather than paying for shipping. Volunteers will be needed to help sort, distribute, and ship the shirts when they arrive, and a request for people will probably be sent out at the beginning of June. All shirts will be shipped in flat-rate boxes from the postal service, unless they are to be picked up in person.

Additional topics that were discussed:

SAA may consider selling bags for fundraising, similar to the t-shirts sales.

All SLIS organizations may consider a collaborative book sale.

Mercedes suggested a collaborative game night, since the games were popular during the barbecue. Possible venues suggested were the Cats Den or the back room at Amazing Wonders.

Mercedes also suggested becoming involved in a local screening of the movie Bully. There was discussion of a panel, with panelists possibly including representatives from various disciplines on campus. This could be an opportunity to expand the visibility of SLIS beyond the academic settings.

There will a meeting of all SLIS organization presidents later on in the year. Any suggestions for collaborative efforts for all organizations should be brought to the attention of any attending president.

The Children and Teens Services (CATS) group will be restarting this year, after being defunct for several years. Mercedes Hopewell will be president and any who are interested in becoming involved should contact her.

The Fall picnic is planned for July. We need to call and reserve the area near the grills soon, in order to ensure we get the location we need.

Dr. Bishop asked for a student representative for the department planning committee. Debbi has volunteered.

The meeting of all new LISSO officers has been set for Monday June 4^th, at 5:00 pm EST. It was suggested that the meeting be held somewhere with food available for dinner, such as Pazzos or MacAllisters, but the location has not been decided at the present time.

Call to close: 5:10 EST

April 2012 Minutes

Library and Information Science Student Organization (LISSO)

University of Kentucky

Meeting Minutes: April 2, 2012
Officers present: Debbi Lloyd, Ida Sell, Heather Burke, Wade Bishop, Mercedes Hopewell

Total present: 6

Call to open: 4:36pm EST

An agenda was distributed to those present. The president sent out the agenda to the officers prior to the meeting for approval.

First up for discussion was the T-Shirt fundraiser for this year. We finalized which designs from the competition we are using (Ida Sell and Mercedes Hopewell's designs were chosen, and we will be reprinting the "Banned" shirt from previous semesters.), and are awaiting the proofs from the printer. After receiving proofs, we can then use the artwork to show SLIS students and faculty the available options and begin to take orders. We have just received approval to sell on campus.

We specifically requested color proofs from Central Screen printing. The T-shirt colors will be as follows: Black print on heather gray for Ida’s “Yeah, we socialize,” and white print on black for Mercedes’ book logo. The “I’m with the Banned” will be white on blue. We went with solid rather than multicolor text. The Treasurer will use the art proofs to show people options on Google Merchant.

The end of the semester party at Dr. O'Connor's home is steadily approaching. We will be providing refreshments and meat/vegetarian option for the event. Jason Boczar, our communications officer, is working on a survey for RSVPing and to determine who will be coming, their guests, meat options, and what they might be bringing.

The President introduced an item not on the agenda next, which is that we have a winner for the leadership award (Julie Vanhoose). There were 36 responses overall. Lousetta Carlson will prepare a plaque for Ms. Vanhoose, and we will contact her regarding her presence at the Spring awards banquet on April 27th. We also may encourage attendance for the awards banquet on Facebook . The last day to register is April 19th. The reception is at 6pm EST and dinner at 6:45pm EST.

Open officer positions: Jason Boczar will be graduating in August and Mary and Ida in December, so we will need to entertain nominations for new officers. The officers have agreed to transition out over the summer to ease the new officers into their roles. By fall, we will have additional positions open. The officers who will be leaving will email the listserv with a short description of their titles and duties. Those interested will email us about the position they want to run for, and if there is more than one, we will hold an election. The only position that needs to be available on campus in person is president. We are entertaining the possibility of using AdobeConnect for meetings to support this. There would still need to be ability to cover for president in case of illness, emergency, etc.

Dr. Bishop mentioned concern over the length of the email, but the president assured him that it will be concise as we can redirect them to our constitution on the Student Center website. We will also try and contact the face-to-face professors for this semester/next Fall to see if we can present to the class. Dr. Bishop would like us to notify when these dates will be. Ida Sell asked about the possibility of doing a combined open officer list with the other organizations, as we are always striving to be inclusive.

Next on the agenda was our Facebook page: Is there something we can do to increase traffic? Options outside Facebook were discussed as alternatives: Dr. Bishop suggested a Blackboard for the organization, and the president agreed and hopes to pursue it this Summer to have ready to beta by Fall. Mercedes also suggested Group Spaces, which is more exclusive than Facebook and would send members an email every time there was an update as well as allow them to customize what types of information they want to receive. Blackboard could also accomplish this, and since all SLIS students are LISSO members, our board would be auto-loaded on their dashboard. We may then retire our blog due to inactivity.

Those present moved to events for the beginning of next Fall: There is an all-SLIS organizations Ice Cream social in the planning stage for next August. Locations suggested for the event were Woodland Park or some large space on campus. We will need to collaborate further with SAA, SLA, and ALA regarding their participations and thoughts on the event.

There was then a discussion of our organization's culture, i.e., what values we in LISSO strive to promote and maintain. The following values came up in comments several times: inclusivity, social engagement, leadership, collaboration, and inspiring positivity. We hope to plan all our events to that end.

As for this Summer, while no official events are planned, there may be a possible end of Summer cookout in the park (maybe with other SLIS organizations). The president will send out an email about this and perhaps institute an end-of-Summer meeting (most likely in July) for planning. There would be less paperwork to fill out and better parking off campus, so we may try to reserve the pavilion at Woodland Park for this and similar future events.

We maintained good funds this semester because most events were not money intensive. In addition, we will soon have funds coming in from T-Shirt sales and are therefore in a good place financially to throw an off-campus event.
Fall orientation is another event we need to plan for coming up next year. It is important that LISSO have a string presence with incoming SLIS students. We will discuss the orientation further at the next meeting.

Our next meeting will be May 7, 2012 at 4:30 PM EST in the SLIS Conference Room (314).

The President closed the meeting at 5:19pm EST.