Minutes for October 8, 2014 NJLA History & Preservation Section Meeting held at Monmouth County Library, Manalapan, NJ.

The meeting was called to order at 12:09 PM on October 8, 2014. In attendance were Section President Danny Klein, Vice President/President Elect Deb Schiff, Secretary Ken Kaufman, and Members at-Large Kim Adams, Sarah Hull, Laura Poll, and Gary Saretzky.

Also in attendance were Adele Barree, Janet Birckhead, Bob Egan, Mary Hussey, James Lewis, Paul Martinez, Elizabeth McDermott, Jessica Myers, Fred Pachman, and Elsalyn Palmisano.

Introductions were made.

Minutes

Review of the minutes for June 3, 2014 and September 4, 2014 were adopted.

Committee Reports

For the upcoming “Chronicle”, Sarah mentioned providing a focus on activities related to American Archives Month and Family History Month. She welcomes member submissions celebrating these events. Submission deadline is November 7th with a release shortly thereafter.

Deb outlined the conference proposals developed by the Program Committee. They include topics on successful grant writing, genealogy basics, archive use by students, overcoming digitization project challenges, and innovative archives promotion, as well as the standard author’s session. Deb is still seeking a speaker on promoting archives, which Paul offered to look into a possible lead. Elsalyn asked about the focus of the grant writing presentation. Sarah answered that it would cover successful grants obtained in public libraries. Fred suggested that we reach out to the Reference Section for co-sponsoring the genealogy program. The deadline for submitting program proposals is November 21st.

Regarding the Susan Schwartzburg Award, Jessica asked the membership to think of candidates that may have been overlooked in the past, particularly those colleagues who have been personal influences. E-mail her with these influences. Regarding the ALA’s Banks Harris Preservation Award, Fred proposed we submit the names of past Schwartzburg winners.

Danny put out a call for appointments to the By-Laws and Nominations Committees. Ken Kaufman volunteered for By-Laws, leaving two vacancies. The Nominations Committee needs one more person to join Danny, Deb, and Jessica. Danny will send out a general request to fill the remaining vacancies.

Old Business

Fred will contact the NJLA Executive Board to see if there are any plans for a 125th anniversary celebration. He recalled the success of the 100th anniversary event at a Hilton facility. The Section has the option of petitioning the Board on raising the issue.

Danny is working on setting up a Drupal training date at Piscataway Public Library for membership involved with using this tool for Section communications. Janet expressed interest in attending.

Danny gave an update on the local history census. The first phase will be to develop a mailing list of public libraries in New Jersey. Fred suggested we use the Official Directory of Libraries and Media Centers as a source. In turn, the results of our efforts could then be shared with the directory publisher. Elsalyn reiterated the importance of utilizing the data compiled through the CAPES program.

Danny outlined how we can start thinking about a social media committee. We need to look at the best platforms and decide on content. On content, Sarah stressed that we consider how we want to promote ourselves and how much effort will be required to keep the content fresh. Ken, Mary, Paul, and Sarah will start having a conversation about pipeline and content.

New Business

No new business was introduced.

Announcements

Bob announced that historian and author, Eric Foner, will be speaking later in the day at Raritan Valley Community College.

Adjournment

Without objections, the meeting was adjourned at 12:57pm.

Archives Week

The meeting was followed by a presentation by Gary Saretzky, titled ‘Ere the Shadows Fade: New Jersey’s Civil War Era Photographers’. The talk was a part of Archives Week at Monmouth County Library.