2009

Brett Butler Entrepreneurship Award Committee: Midwinter 2009 Meeting Report

DATE: 1/23/2009

GROUP: LITA/Brett Butler Entrepreneurship Award

CHAIR: Martin Halbert

REPORTER: Martin Halbert

CONFERENCE: Midwinter

ATTENDEES: 5

CURRENT ACTIVITIES: The LITA Brett Butler Award Committee met on Saturday, January 24, 2009, at 1:30 PM in the Colorado Convention Center room 712.  Several members were absent because of budget cuts in travel at their institutions.  Attending were: Nancy Colyar (Past Chair), Martin Halbert (Current Chair), Ronald Peterson, Mary Alice Ball (Board Liaison), and Helen Wilbur (Awards Representative).  Absent were: Emily Ford and Billy Kwan.

The committee selected this year’s recipient of the award, and will write this up together with the citation for presentation at the awards ceremony at annual.

FUTURE ACTIVITIES: The group noted again the small number of nominations this year (3), and discussed ways of increasing the awareness of the award.

Publicizing the award on additional listservs was the first priority:

  • CNI-Announce (Martin)
  • DLF-Announce (Martin)
  • MLIS program listservs (Nancy) or school by school (Ronald)
  • PLA Directors listservs (we will contact Mary Taylor)
  • Statewide listservs (Helen, perhaps through LSTA listservs)

We also thought presentations at other non-ALA conferences might help:

  • CNI (Martin and Helen will contact Cliff Lynch)

Next Steps:

  • We will have Mary Taylor coordinate with other committees on publicity.
  • We will engage Cliff Lynch with other thought leaders in nominating process.
  • Get the word out at the beginning of the Fall circa September.
  • Post on Gale website.
  • Martin and Helen will coordinate this at the end of the summer (contact her right after Labor Day).

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: We discussed membership and will be in touch on either renewals or recruitment of new members.