Dues Are Due

Please print the membership forms page and renew for 2000. Reminders will be sent via the USPS in January, too. We have a new treasurer for 2000, so please remember to send your checks to:

Nola Higley, Medical Librarian,
Magic Valley Regional Medical Center
PO Box 409, Twin Falls, ID 83303-0409
208-737-2133; FAX 208-737-2769

Gentle Readers:

The news that Terry Jankowski has filled [open] position [of AHIP Liaison] did not make the last issue of Northwest Notes. The Board did not want this oversight to continue ...

Please contact Terry with any questions concerning AHIP membership. Her contact information follows.

Terry Ann Jankowski, MLS, AHIP
Acting Head, Information Services     Phone: 206/543-3397
Health Sciences Libraries          Fax: 206/543-8066
University of Washington
Box 357155
Seattle WA 98195-7155

Sorry for the slip-up.

Kathy Murray (originally posted to hlib-nw, 8-3-99, by Kathy Murray)

Present: Barbara Crain, Maryanne Blake, Carolyn Olson, Pam Bjork, Kim Granath, Edean Berglund, Kathy Murray, Bob Pringle, Pam Spickelmier, Lisa Oberg, Sarah Safranek, Leilani St. Anna.

Carolyn Olson called the meeting to order at 9:30AM at the home of Maryanne Blake in Seattle.

Minutes of the Oct. 26 board meeting were approved with no changes.

Committee Reports:

Annual Meeting, 1998
Mary Ellen Lemon, Program Chair, submitted a written final report (attached). The meeting lost money but not much, and we only expect to make money on conferences held in big cities where we can be assured of higher attendance. That is why we are switching over to alternating the annual meeting between Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, B.C. Carolyn will send her a letter from the Board thanking her for her service and the excellent job that she did. The next "Message from the Chair" column in Northwest Notes will also include congratulations to Mary Ellen about the meeting.

In the future the income/expenditure sheet should not include "dues paid with registration" as income. Income from CE should be listed separately from registration. Pam Bjork, Recording Secretary, will forward a copy of the meeting's income/expenditures to Leilani St. Anna, the Conference Planning Committee Chair; but from now on the Annual Meeting Program Chair should automatically send a copy of the report to that committee. Pam Spickelmier, Treasurer, has reimbursed Mary Ellen for all out-of pocket expenses. Carolyn will double-check to make sure Mary Ellen turned them all in.

The Conference Planning Committee should be in charge of all the conference details except for the program. It should be working on finding a Seattle hotel that is as nice to work with as the Benson in Portland. We are such a small conference that Seattle is more expensive.

Annual Meeting, 1999
Program Co-Chair Sarah Safranek brought us up to date on the conference plans. The theme of the meeting is "Access in the Millennium." The location is the Seattle Center in Seattle On October 25-27th. Carolyn announced that the board meeting will be on Sunday AM October 24th so we will have to come in on Saturday. The official welcome will be on Monday with the big event in the evening. We will be having an NN/LM, Pacific Northwest Region-sponsored Technology Forum on the program in the morning that day; in the afternoon we will hold a technology fair, where practical applications of new technologies will be demonstrated. The business meeting, a clinical speaker, and dine-around will be on Tuesday and possibly with time also for OHSLA; CE will be offered on Wednesday. Details of speakers and presenters and topics that have been lined up so far are listed in the attached report. Sarah might be able to get Michael Eisenberg to come to speak. WLN/OCLC could be invited to demonstrate their products; many people in the region are not that familiar with OCLC products because they have been using WLN. Another possible vendor display that was suggested was web-based OPAC's. The RLG usually meets at the end of the annual meeting, but Sarah will suggest to Nancy Press that it be on Saturday instead so it does not interfere with CE.

Annual Meeting, 2000
Kathy Murray is working on the slate of speakers for the Alaska meeting. She is talking to Eugenie Prime, who is very entertaining. Cindy Cunningham from Seattle is now with Amazon.com and could speak on e-commerce linked to the topic of libraries. Neither has been officially invited. The Board gave Kathy the go ahead to check further.

Archives
No report.

Bylaws
Jan Schueller forwarded the bylaws report in writing. The 1998 bylaws revisions have been approved by the MLA Bylaws Committee, with only minor suggestions from the committee. The next step is submission to the membership thirty days prior to a mail vote. The Board reiterated that the only official venue for board communiqués is publication on HLIB-NW as part of our official newsletter which acts as our archival record.

The bylaws say that they may be amended by mail so maybe we can do this by electronic mail. However, six members do not have personal email; some only have institutional email. Carolyn will poll the membership in early April to see if there is any objection to using email rather than snail mail to amend the bylaws. Election ballots will continue to be done only through the postal service. Pam B. will send the present and proposed language of the bylaws text to Kathy Murray so she can put it into the newsletter on or before May 1st , the required thirty days prior to the vote. She will also send the text by regular mail to the six people without email. (She will get those names from Barbara Crain.) The Bylaws Committee will send out the vote on June 1st . Pam Bjork will receive the vote and delegate the counting of the votes to someone else.

Chapter Council
Bob Pringle reported that MLA is asking us to complete the chapter history. We need to ask Janet. Schnall to finish the chapter history so we can get it into the MLA newsletter. Bob pointed out that it is good to have a communication link between MLA and the chapter. It is not vital; but it is useful. He does not think there is a need for an alternate. The most significant issue recently has been whether MLA's Credentialing Committee should allow AHIP members NOT to have to have an MLS if they meet other qualifications and have the experience to qualify. Carolyn will appoint an AHIP chapter member to be a credentialing liaison. Janice Bacino, Heidi Sue Adams, Nancy Griffin, Natalie Norcross, Kathy Martin, and Robin Braun were suggested as possibilities.

The chapter council representative should be a board member. If the representative cannot attend the MLA chapter council meeting, he/she should find a substitute who is also a PNC board member.

Conference Planning Committee
Leilani St. Anna stated that the committee has been meeting to work through the conference planning process to standardize it. The committee plans to have the majority of work on registration and budgeting done this year. Peggy Baldwin has in place a database of vendors. The committee has done nothing about a hotel contract. Carolyn asked Leilani to pursue a West Coast contract (West Coast is the company that owns the Benson in Portland and has been so accommodating), but Leilani thought it might be more appropriate for this to be done on the board level because it affects financing. West Coast owns the Vance and the Rooselvelt in Seattle, and someone needs to visit those places and see if they have two big rooms, breakout rooms, sufficient electronic support, etc. Carolyn will check with Caroline Mann, who chaired the last Portland meeting. The Seattle meeting is in 2002 so we need to get something booked soon.

The following cancellation policy was approved by the Board. "Cancellation requests must be received no later than two weeks prior to the meeting date. Refunds will not be issued after that time except for catastrophic emergencies. Refunds will be processed within six weeks after the meeting. Registration may be transferred to another person. No refunds will be issued for CE at any time."

MLA and RML will be given exhibit space at no charge. Exhibitors pay for meeting food events, except for breaks and lunch with exhibitors, but do not pay for their registration. PNC committee meetings should have space on each program. Time will be allotted, but meeting space (if an expense) will not be provided. When possible time for state meetings will be allotted.

Membership
Barbara Crain pointed out that the membership renewal form is on the web page now in HTML and Word. She prefers the Word form because of the convenient box of information. Maryanne volunteered to add a PDF format if necessary. There is no institutional membership for PNC so the forms need to be corrected.

Membership is falling off overall. (Barbara's written report is attached.) Connection and relevance are two of the keys. We need a member from each state on the membership committee. Kathy volunteered for Alaska; Pam S. for Idaho. Barbara will find someone for each of the remaining areas. Suggestions were Heidi Sue Adams for Montana; Ann von Segen, Beverly Shriver for Oregon; Brynn Beals, Cheryl Goodwin, Bonnie Chadborne for Washington. Barbara will provide each committee member with a list and ask them to contact individuals in their state who are MLA members but not PNC members, as well as those who have failed to renew their PNC membership.

Professional Development Committee
Lisa Oberg distributed a written report which is attached. The 1999 CE survey was conducted electronically for the first time. Results are posted on the Professional Development section of the PNC web site. that Members seem to be most interested in technology courses. Currently she is planning two half-day classes for the 1999 annual meeting which will be offered at the Seattle Center facility with no hands-on. Extensive remodeling of the teaching facilities will be going on at the UW fall quarter, and it is not certain PNC classes could be held at facilities there. We might be able to offer an additional ½ day of CE on Sunday which would open up some possibilities. One of our goals was to offer a course in writing job descriptions; Tamara Turner is a possible instructor. Other possible topics are compensation analysis, marketing your library and marketing yourself, performance criteria and evaluations, and writing competencies for hospital libraries.

Publications
Kathy Murray will publish the newsletter by the end of the month. She needs to hear about changes, new hires, interesting projects, etc. in our individual libraries. It would help if the state membership liaison people could let Kathy know about news tidbits. Timely items go out on HLIB-NW as soon as they need to rather than waiting for the next publication.

MLA does not recognize publishing in an electronic format as counting towards AHIP certification. They do count bylined articles in chapter (not state) newsletters. They are not yet giving credit for web development either.

Treasurer's Report
Pam Spickelmier presented a proposed budget (attached) as a starting point for discussion. PNC did not do too badly this year and did not lose as much as it did the previous year. The budget is based on projected dues received to date, whereas we should get at least $4000 in dues this year so that would improve the outlook. Pam is concerned that we might have to cash in a CD to cover expenses. We made less interest on the account last year; board expenses were up because travel is more expensive; the annual meeting lost money; and board travel to MLA will be more expensive this May. The year's printing costs were in conjunction with the annual meeting. Liability insurance only has to be paid every other year. The centennial project was completed in 1998 so there will be no expenses for 1999, which will help offset the annual meeting loss. Newsletter expenses are minimal, and Kathy is covering them. We could lower the scholarship fund if we have to. Overall the budget looks OK. The Board agreed to defer to Pam the decision of whether or not to cash a CD. We can decide about whether to cut back on any other expenses after we see how the Seattle meeting does.

• Review of 1998-9 Chapter map goals (attached to meeting's agenda)
• Goals 1 and 2 have been accomplished for 1998-99.
• Goal 3a for 1998 was accomplished in Boise.
• The Board decided to give Goal 3a for 1999 to the Electronic Resources Committee to work on. Marci Horner is already on this committee. Suggestions for potential members were Ann Marie Clark, Peggy Baldwin, and Leah Starr. Carolyn will contact Ann Marie and see if she will chair the committee. Integrated systems vendors are located on Berkeley's site. Kim is also working on a vendor list for integrated systems and has Yale sites on licensing. The ARL also has licensing sites. Document delivery providers are listed on the RML web site. Leilani will check with Peggy Baldwin about the vendor contact information.
• Goal 3b-The survival kit has been purchased. The Professional Development Committee needs to be developing a workshop for writing job descriptions. Carolyn will include a request in her "Message from the Chair" column that members who have taught or exhibited to others in the biomedical community contact Kathy Murray with that information so it will become part of the official record.
• Goal 3c-The Governmental Relations Committee is not active because there is no chair. Marcia Bachelor and Vicki Croft are possibilities. We need someone to subscribe to ALA's electronic legislative alerting service and forward messages selectively to HLIB-NW.
  Goal 4a-The Professional Development Committee needs to identify successful grant project writers who are willing to assist in grant preparation. Kathy Murray has written several. Lisa will talk to Maryanne Blake for other names. We also need to include professional grant writers.
• Goal 5a2 will be accomplished as soon as the bylaws are up on the web. The Responsibility Manual badly needs updating.
• Goal 5b on establishing guidelines for identifying candidates for office is the responsibility of the past chair. Maryanne will work on them and double-check with Marcy Horner. The Program Planning Manual is available on the web. Barbara will send the database she developed for conference registration to the person doing it for the upcoming conference. Excel would also work for this purpose.
• Goal B.3-Northwest Notes has been sent to the University of Washington Graduate School of Library and Information Science this year and will be sent to year also to the University of British Columbia's graduate library/information science school.
• We gave away a PNC/MLA membership to a health sciences library student at USGSLIS this year. We need to contact Jim Henderson and ask him to see how this might be arranged at UBC.
  

PNC Logo
We need a camera-ready, scaleable, transparent, electronic version of our logo. Kim, Kathy, and Bob will ask contacts they have about pricing. Bob has a possible free source. If that does not pan out, Kathy and Kim will price it out so that it can be built into the budget.

SPEAKERS

PNC members

• No honorarium
• Travel and room expenses are not paid by PNC.

 

Non-PNC members

• Negotiate
• Model a contract after MLA's speaker contract
• Lump sum honorarium, including travel, room, etc. (We will agree to pay "x" amount for travel, and then it will be up to the speaker to look for air deals.)
  Lump sum will pay for a maximum of two nights hotel.
• Car rental not covered.
• Can adopt a per diem from a university as a guideline.
  
•  

CE INSTRUCTORS

• We will encourage course certification but not require it.
• If members are teaching a CE offering at the request of PNC and do not intend to teach the class elsewhere, PNC will subsidize the cost of certification if it is not already certified.
• We will pay PNC members $300 for a half day course (2 instructors=$200 each); $500 for a full day. If asked, these fees also apply to non-members, but the fees will be negotiated as needed.
• PNC will pay for handouts.
• All expenses, including handouts, must be known before publication of the preliminary program, or PNC cannot reimburse for them.
• We need to factor in equipment expenses when setting the course fee.
• We will charge more for technology courses than for didactic ones.
  

Member Participation in Committees
We need to advertise for committee membership. The committees and their descriptions will be listed as part of the PNC membership renewal form where members can circle the one(s) they are interested in. The new committees listed in the minutes of the October 29th meeting will also be included if the membership approves the bylaws revision.

 

Betty Jo Jensen's Retirement
Bette Jo Jensen is retiring; she was PNC chair and program chair. Carolyn will send her a letter and certificate stating that she is a life member. We will also invite her to the evening event at the annual meeting.

Inviting Board Member to Annual Meeting
The PNC Chair invites an MLA board representative to the annual meeting. Carolyn will decide between Bernie Todd Smith, Rosalind Dudden, or Frieda Weise; and let the conference committee know. MLA representative(s) must register and pay for the meeting/meals.

Cookbook
The Board likes the idea of a cookbook for practical ideas for putting technology into practice, e.g. making CD's, making posters, PowerPoint hints, scanning, creating a PDF file, etc. The Electronic Resources Committee has now been assigned to work on this. The cookbook could be located in a password-protected place on our web site that members access, but others would have to pay to get into.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:40PM.

Respectfully Submitted,

Pam Bjork, PNC/MLA Recording Secretary

The meeting was called to order by Carolyn Olson, President, board members were introduced, and the minutes of the last meeting were approved.

Treasurer-Pam Spickelmier
The current balance is $5074.50. We increased the dues this year to $25 which stabilized our expenses and income as long as our annual meetings break even. Our reserves have dropped significantly over the past three years. See the Executive Board Meeting minutes for the complete report.

Chapter Council-Bob Pringle
PNC's web site has helped him find answers to questions that MLA has asked. See the Executive Board Meeting minutes for the complete report.

Membership-Barbara Crain
In an effort to save postage money, a dues reminder was posted on HLIB-NW this year, but only fifty people responded so we are going to go back to sending a paper invoice. Barbara asked for and received a volunteer from each state to help her contact non-renewals: Loretta Andress-Alaska; Kathy Nelson-Idaho; Jan Schueller-Washington; Steve Teich-Oregon; Jim Anderson-BC. It was suggested that we let people pay dues for the coming year on next year's annual meeting registration form. See the Executive Board Meeting minutes for the complete report.

Nominating-Maryanne Blake
Only 62 ballots were returned out of 150. Our new Chair-Elect is Kathy Nelson and Secretary, Janet Bacino. The Treasurer's office was decided on a coin toss because of a tie; Nola Higley was elected. This election really pointed out how each person's vote counts. See the Executive Board Meeting minutes for the complete report.

Archives-Janet Schnall
This is our 39th annual meeting, the eighth in Seattle. The early chapter history has been written and has been posted on our web site. The archives are off-site currently so she needs time to dig up any needed information. Please include names of committee members with reports.

Bylaws-Janette Schueller
We had a major revision of our bylaws this year which was approved in July. It will soon be available on our web site. See the Executive Board Meeting minutes for the complete report.

Conference Planning Committee-Leilani St. Anna
The committee is a resource and support for the local planning group and is streamlining the whole conference planning process. They are gleaning information from past reports and collecting anecdotal wisdom and putting together templates that reflect what they are learning. The committee is looking for a representative from each state to serve on the committee. See the Executive Board Meeting minutes for the complete report.

Electronic Resources
So far this committee has been unstaffed. A sign-up sheet garnered several volunteers to serve on this committee. A chair will be selected by Kim.

Government Relations
Marcia Batchelor volunteered to subscribe to ALA's legislative alerting service and keep us informed.

Professional Development-Lisa Oberg
This committee's way of doing their job is serving as a model for the rest of MLA. The CE survey was done electronically this year, and 74 were returned. Many people are interested in Internet-related classes which are more expensive to put on. We could keep expenses down by combining CE with other groups. See the Executive Board Meeting minutes for the complete report.

Publications-Kathy Murray
Kathy would like to have state reports for the next issue. The web page went up this year, which has been a great help to everyone. See the Executive Board Meeting minutes for the complete report.

1999 Program-Sarah Safranek & Chris Beahler
These two put this conference together on short notice and did a great job. They would like comments on whether to have a conference hotel or not. See the Executive Board Meeting minutes for the complete report.

2000 Program-Kathy Murray
Kathy showed a video of Alyeska Resort. See the Executive Board Meeting minutes for the complete report.

MLA 2000-Jim Anderson
Jim showed a video of Vancouver, B.C. and encouraged us all to attend and take advantage of the favorable exchange rate.

Finances
We voted in a dues increase last year so currently our revenues cover expenses except for special projects or unexpected problems. Our reserve fund has dwindled from $13,000 to $5000 over the last three years. It is important that our annual meeting break even. Do we need as many speakers? Do we need a keynote speaker? Is the group open to meeting in a place like Silver Falls? The Seattle meeting is solvent because we did not pay any speakers; the facility was low cost; and the RML helped with the speakers. In the future planners will have more information about the financial side of conference planning. Rosalind Dudden mentioned that Ken Oyer has developed conference expertise in meeting planning and had been paid a small honorarium by another chapter to advise. We could budget for eighty people and cancel if not enough people sign up.

The annual meeting is THE meeting for many people, so breaking even is preferable to making money on the conference. Any profit is used to build a reserve fund. One of our biggest expenses is board travel. Our goal has been to have one year's operating expenses saved; we are now below that. We need to take a close look at what attracts members to meetings. What makes us pay? We need to economize on less popular things and make enough money to support popular things. Do we want to eliminate scholarships or increase them?

Membership
What about an institutional membership? It was recently abolished because we were actually losing money on it. If it was higher than the individual rate, it might be OK. But what additional benefits would it bring to the institution?

The meeting was called for time at 11:25AM.

Respectfully Submitted, Pam Bjork
PNC Recording Secretary

Present: Kim Granath, Maryanne Blake, Bob Pringle, Pam Bjork, Barbara Crain, Kathy Murray, Pam Spickelmier, Sarah Safranek, Leilani St. Anna, Lisa Oberg.

Carolyn Olson called the meeting to order at 9:00AM at a South Center Campus meeting room at the University of Washington.

Minutes of the April 2, 1999 board meeting were approved with a few name spelling corrections.

Committee Reports:

Annual Meeting, 1999-Sarah Safranek
Sarah reported that we will not lose any money on this conference which has 87 registrants and 14 vendors. The committee is going to survey those who did not attend to find out why. PNC is an awkward sized conference; the rates are really high for a large hotel because we are too small a group while small hotels cannot address our meeting room needs. The conference evaluations will hopefully tell us whether it is a disadvantage to our members not to have a conference hotel. It was more time consuming to have to make room and catering arrangements for the board meeting, for example. It will be interesting to see how these costs factor into the overall conference costs because we have never done it this way before. One idea is for program planning to rotate between member states rather than reside with the local committee. It is cheaper to make meeting arrangements using local talent.

Annual Meeting, 2000-Kathy Murray
Kathy presented a conference schedule template for the meeting at Alyeska Resort, September 16-19th. CE would be on Saturday and Sunday, the 16th-17th. A possible keynote speaker is Linda Stone, but the group suggested a local speaker on tribal medicine as another possibility. A presentation on telemedicine, a clinical speaker, a panel on "Thinking Outside the Box," speakers on Alaskan medicine and the Health Aide program, and a poster session would round out the other days. A group rate which is five per cent off the excursion rate is being arranged with Alaska Airlines.

Annual Meeting, 2001-Beverly Schriver (written report)
The contract with Salishan is signed. Prices for food will be set six months prior to the event. All event rooms will have an Internet connectivity upgrade by the time of the event. There is a Business Resource Center at our disposal for last minute signage, etc. A site visit by 5-6 committee members is being planned for November or December 1999.

Committee chairs have been assigned: Program-Bev Schriver & Steve Teich; Hospitality-Cathy Jordan; Hotel/Room Bookings-Kathy Martin; CE-Dolores Judkins; Registration-Patrice O'Donovan & Madelyn Hall; Treasurer-Judith Hayes; Exhibitors-Peggy Baldwin & Jerry Curry.

The whole planning committee is meeting every six weeks in Portland. Beverly will drive up from Eugene for these meetings and will be reimbursed for gasoline from the PNC/MLA Planning Committee budget. Brainstorming for themes/topics has begun. Kathy Murray has been contacted for an update on the theme for 2000 in Alaska. Beverly and Kathy will meet in Seattle at this year's meeting to share information. Brainstorming for speakers for 2001 will begin with the October planning meeting.

Bylaws-Janette Schueller (written report)
This was the year that the PNC Bylaws, last revised in 1990, underwent a major revision. After input and review by the Chapter board, the revisions were submitted to the MLA Bylaws Committee in December, 1998 and were approved with only minor changes in March of this year.

The Chapter voted on the changes and they were adopted in July. The archives is being researched to determine the complete chronology of revisions. When that is completed, the new version will be sent to MLA Headquarters and posted on our web site.

Chapter Council, Bob Pringle (written report)
The Chapter Council Rep's report for this year is that most of my interaction with MLA has been in passing along requests for updates on whom in the chapter is responsible for what. Occasionally I ask someone to actually report something to MLA. Our web site has been most useful in finding out which committees have chairs, etc., and providing the dates of our fall meeting. Otherwise, my major function seems to have been to ask folks at MLA a few questions for the board, and to work at the Chapter Sharing Roundtable event during the MLA annual meeting.

Conference Planning Leilani St. Anna (written report)

The committee's charges include:

1) provide support and serve as a resource for the Annual Meeting Committee;
2) streamline conference planning process;
3) provide templates, sample documentation, and recommend standard formats to support annual meeting planning and production.

The committee met physically in December, 1998 and February, 1999, as well as conducting business via email. In the past year, we gathered data from past years' meetings, documentation and produced templates. Electronic versions of an Annual Meeting Planning Timeline, Annual Meeting Report Template, Annual Meeting Content Guidelines, and Annual Meeting Fees History have been produced and will placed on the PNC/MLA web site. We will be meeting with the 1999 Annual Meeting Committee to work through the meeting report template.

Areas of concentration for the coming year include documenting 'wisdom' from past meeting planners, documenting the budget process, and evaluating why members do not attend annual meetings and what is important in an annual meeting.

Membership-Barbara Crain (written report)
6 life members; 16 new members; 161 total current membership. This compares to a total of 186 in 1998 and 182 in 1997. There were approximately 54 members who did not renew for 1999.

This January in an effort to save postage money a dues reminder was posted on HLIB-NW and the notice was posted in several forms on our web site. At the beginning of April, 119 1998 members still had not renewed; a follow-up letter was mailed to them. Some members were confused because this letter said "second" notice and many felt that they had never received a first notice.

The dues notice was changed to remove the Institutional Membership option and to have a committee check-off form attached to it.

New members were welcomed via e-mail and recognized in Northwest Notes.

Emily Hull updated the member list on the web site, and members were encouraged to check there for their membership status and correct e-mail addresses.

Barbara will send a renewal reminder to those on the list we think might still be interested in membership to remind them to join or to find out why they did not join. She will send out email to the board with those non-renewal choices before mailing this out. We will go back to sending invoices out snail mail on the first go-round, which will be announced at the business meeting. Invoices will be mailed in November for next year. Barb will ask for committee members at the business meeting from each state to be on the membership committee. Betty Jo Jensen has been voted in as an additional life time member.

Nominations Committee-Maryanne Blake (written report)
Members of the Nominating Committee: Leilani St. Anna, Nancy Ottman Press
150 ballots were mailed to members and 62 were returned.

There were three vacant positions on the board this year: Chair Elect, Treasurer, and Recording Secretary. Two members agreed to run for each open position. For the office of Recording Secretary Chris Beahler and Kathy Nelson were the candidates; Kathy was elected. For the office of Chair Elect, Janice Bacino, and Janette Schueller were the candidates; Janice Bacino was elected. For the office of Treasurer Lisa Oberg, and Nola Higley were the candidates. There was a tie. A coin toss in the presence of the Board decided the office according to the Bylaws procedure. Nola Higley won the tiebreaker.

Professional Development Committee-Lisa Oberg (written report)
Current membership of the Committee includes: Janice Bacino, St. Peter's Community Hospital; Dolores Judkins, Oregon Health Sciences University; Mary Ellen Lemon, Healthwise; Nancy Press, NN/LM; Barbara Saint, University of British Columbia; Doreen Smith, Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.

PNC Web Site
A section of the PNC/MLA web site is maintained by the Professional Development Committee and is available at http://depts.washington.edu/pncmla/ce/. Information available includes roster of current committee members, upcoming CE opportunities in the PNC region and professional development funding opportunities. Suggestions are welcome, as well as CE courses you would like to see included.

PNC CE Survey
Together with Nancy Press and the continuing support of the RML, the PNC CE Survey (http://depts.washington.edu/pncmla/ce/survey99.html) was revised and the 1999 survey was posted to the PNC/MLA web site in December 1998. 74 surveys were returned (of 198 members). The most frequently suggested course topics continue to be using Internet resources such as Web DOCLINE (when it is released), Advanced Internet searching, and using Web plug-ins and helpers. For complete results, see http://depts.washington.edu/pncmla/ce/99results.html

PNC Annual Meeting - Seattle, WA, October 24-27, 1999

Three courses were arranged for the meeting:

1. EndNote...Bibliographies Made Easy--19 attendees
Greg Tananbaum, ResearchSoft, Inc.

2. Search Strategies for the New NLM--38 attendees
Maryanne Blake, MLS, Network Librarian, NN/LM PNR, Seattle, WA
Leilani St. Anna, MLIS, AHIP, Information Management Librarian, University of Washington Health Sciences Library, Seattle, WA

3. Focus Group Interviewing: Qualitative Research Methodology for the Library--16 attendees
Beryl Glitz, AHIP, MLS, Associate Director, NN/LM PSR, Los Angeles, CA
Claire Hamasu, MLS, Outreach Coordinator, NN/LM PSR, Los Angeles, CA

1999 Goals

* Develop a packet for instructors to use as a guide to developing courses.
* Strengthen the PNC/MLA web site with the addition of broader CE opportunities to the Professional Development page, that are regularly updated.
* Identify qualified instructors to explore the possibility and feasibility of arranging classes for several topics that have been suggested by members or are a priority of the PNC Board; including grant-writing, writing competencies and job descriptions and doing performance evaluations.
* Reevaluate pricing structure for PNC classes. Classes have been as reasonably priced as possible, but the increasing demand for Internet-related classes and the corresponding equipment needs make it difficult for courses to be both inexpensive and cost-effective.
* Identify cooperative opportunities to work with other regional groups (local SLA chapters, OSHLA, etc.) to bring national courses to the area by splitting expenses, etc.

Kim will try to find a new chair of the Professional Development Committee because Lisa is stepping down.

Publications-Kathy Murray
Overall content and contributions have improved. This last issue was an exception probably because it was so close to the annual meeting. Kathy received nothing for the issue that was due in October so she did not get anything out. She will bug Janet Schnall for the chapter history, and contact Emily Hull for the number of hits on the PNC site. Committee reports will appear in the next Northwest Notes.

Treasurer's Report-Pam Spickelmier (written report)
January 1, 1999 through October 17, 1999

Beginning Balance $1,167.02

Deposits/Income
Dues $3,623.00
Interest Income - Checking 167.00
PNC Program 215.90
Board Meeting Meal Reimbursement 32.00
Transfer from Certificate of Deposit 2187.11

SUBTOTAL $6,225.01

Expenses
Annual Program Committee Advance & $2,425.78
Reimbursement
Bank Charges 79.77
Canadian Exchange 111.40
Professional Development Grants (3) 450.00
Legal-Professional Fees 103.00
Lending Library 66.00
Liability Insurance 275.00
Printing & Postage 50.82
Travel ( Spring Board Meeting & MLA Chapter 2,201.35
Chapter Council Rep)

SUBTOTAL ($5,699.12)

Ending Balance 10/17/99-Checking $1,692.91

Reserve Fund-Certificate of Deposit $3,381.59

Total Assets as of 10/17/99 $5,074.50

We are going to come close to collecting $4000 in dues this year which is good. We are treading water on our income/expenses. Our biggest expense is board travel which will be worse next year with two board members coming from Montana. The program loss on the Idaho meeting was $700; Seattle might do better. Our reserves have dropped from $13,000 to $5000 in three years. Maybe we need to have two dynamite days of CE and a day to network. Or maybe we need to alternate program with CE from year to year. Dues cover our expenses and a little of the meeting. The three years prior to Pam taking over as Treasurer, the annual meetings had made money; now we have lost money for the last three years.

Task list of unfinished business

Thank you letter to Mary Ellen Lemon from Board	Completed
Double check on Mary Ellen's unreimbursed  receipts  from  conf.	Completed
Ask Archivist to complete chapter history to submit  to MLA	Bob will check
Appoint AHIP credentialing liaison	Terry Ann Jankowski  volunteered
Check on possibility of West Coast hotel contract	PNC not big enough
Recruit membership committee members for each  state	Done at Business Meeting
Recruit chair for Electronic Resources Committee	Carolyn will recruit from  volunteers
Need rep for Gvt. Relations Committee	Marcia Batchelor volunteered
Lisa Oberg needs to talk to Maryanne Blake to  identify  successful grant writers-goal 4a
Update responsibility manual & establish guidelines  for  identifying office candidates	Maryanne will do in  December
Logo	Completed
Board letter & certificate to Betty Jo Jensen	Completed
Invite MLA board representative to PNC meeting	Rosalind Dudden attended
Have conference planning manual avail. on web site  &  process to revise it annually; develop registration  software  template	Progressing
Contact Jim Henderson about free student  membership to  PNC from UBC library school	Carolyn will do

Logo
Maryanne got a camera-ready copy of the logo on a disk, but it is in Mac format. She will get it converted into the right format and in various sizes and have it loaded onto the web site. Bob also got some logos, but it was decided to have the official one be the one that is on our web site and our stationery.

Finances
Discussion continued on why we have had to dip so far into our reserves. The centennial project cost more than we brought in in dues; meeting advances; meetings losing money; and board travel have all contributed. Now we are dealing with higher expenses than the dues increase is covering. We can cover our expenses except when the annual meeting loses money or when we have an expense we have not budgeted for.

It is a wonder that any of our conferences make money because the planners are inexperienced. We are not using our accumulated wisdom. We need to have good written agreements with speakers for what we will pay for and what we will not. Our expectation should be to break even on conferences; we should not be planning on profits from the annual meeting to run the organization. The program planning manual that is under construction is meant to solve some of these problems. We need to standardize our conference reports so it is easier to see from conference to conference what is going on. We need to find someone with expertise on conference budgeting especially. Conference reports should include what went wrong and what should be done differently next time so we can learn from our mistakes. Past chairs cannot remember these details much past the conference itself so it is important to do this right away. Conference instructions will include draft forms of vendor contracts, vendor letters, hotel contracts, speaker contracts, and CE contracts.. We are working toward the local group making local arrangements only.

Meeting location for 2002
Kim will ask Vancouver BC if they are interested. We were contacted by the Midwestern Chapter to piggyback with them. Piggybacking with California is another possibility; they always have their meeting in March. If we had one then, maybe we would not have to have one again in the fall. If Vancouver is not interested in 2002, Kim will check with Heidi Heilemann or Mary Buttner from Stanford about California. Nevada and Arizona also meet with California so we would be a third chapter. We could meet one year in California and one year in Portland.

Carolyn adjourned the meeting at 12:35PM.

Respectfully Submitted,

Pam Bjork, PNC Recording Secretary

Action List

Post new bylaws on web site	Emily Hull
Get chapter history	Janet Schnall; Bob  will pursue
Membership survey renewal form for 1999 non-members	Barbara
Send renewal invoices to everyone	Barbara
Revise CE survey	Lisa
Add Betty Jo Jensen to publications list as life member	Kathy
Ask Dolores to chair CE	Kim
Get logo converted to IBM format	Maryanne
Lisa talk to MAB to identify successful grant writers for  goal 4a	Lisa
Update responsibility manual	Maryanne
Ask Jim Henderson about student membership	Carolyn
Ask about 2002 meeting for Vancouver	Kim
Talk to California group about joint meeting	Kim