Please mark your calendars for the fall 2018 SEPTLA meeting!
- When: Thursday, November 8
- Where: Missio Seminary (formerly Biblical Theological Seminary)
More details will be shared soon. Hope to see you there!
Southeastern Pennsylvania Theological Library Association
Supporting theological education in eastern Pennsylvania and central New Jersey
Please mark your calendars for the fall 2018 SEPTLA meeting!
More details will be shared soon. Hope to see you there!
1:00 p.m., August 21, 2018
Video Conference
Present: Virginia Dearborn (Communications Committee chair), Mark Draper (Resource Sharing Task Force chair), Robert McInnis (secretary), Patrick Milas (treasurer), Elizabeth Miller (president), Bethany O’Shea (Research Services Interest Group chair), Myka Kennedy Stephens (past president)
Not present: Chris Schwartz (Cataloging & Metadata Interest Group chair), a Continuing Education Committee representative
Elizabeth called the meeting to order at 1:05 p.m.
Not all members expected were present at the time the meeting was called to order. Bob asked if we needed a quorum of the Executive Committee to be able to conduct business. The Bylaws do not state that the Executive Committee needs a quorum to meet.
Elizabeth welcomed everyone to the meeting.
The agenda was approved with the correction that the minutes to be approved were from the August 1, 2018 meeting.
Virginia moved that the minutes from the August 1, 2018 Executive Committee meeting be approved with no changes. Bob seconded.
Elizabeth adjourned the meeting at 2:08 p.m.
10:00 a.m., August 1, 2018
Video Conference
Present: Virginia Dearborn (Communications Committee chair), Bob McInnis (secretary), Patrick Milas (treasurer), Elizabeth Miller (president), Bethany O’Shea (Research Services Interest Group chair), Chris Schwartz (Cataloging & Metadata Interest Group chair), Myka Kennedy Stephens (past president)
Not present: Mark Draper (Resource Sharing Task Force chair), a Continuing Education Committee representative
Elizabeth called the meeting to order at 10:04 a.m.
Elizabeth adjourned the meeting at 11:32 a.m.
Thank you for attending the Spring 2018 SEPTLA meeting! Please take the survey and let us know your thoughts: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FX88MK5
The Cataloging and Metadata Interest Group will be discussing two topics as times permits at the Spring 2018 SEPTLA meeting.
Thanks,
Chris
In attendance: Myka Kennedy Stephens, Elizabeth Miller, Mark Draper, Bethany O’Shea, Christine Schwartz, Virginia Dearborn, Patrick Milas, Ondrea Murphy
Myka welcomed those in attendance to the meeting. She opened with a request for someone to take meeting minutes. Ondrea from NBTS offered to take the minutes.
Approved by general consensus.
Myka announced a change in the executive committee membership. Jen Gundry has stepped down from her position as Past President effective immediately. Samantha Rice the current SEPTLA secretary was nominated to assist with Past President duties that included taking minutes of executive committee and other duties as assigned.
The motion carried.
Approval of the August meeting minutes with minimal typographical errors corrected was approved.
Patrick presented the Treasurer’s Report: $2917.48 Checking & $6706.69 Money Market.
Mark reported that the committee had not had a chance to meet officially due to schedule conflicts. He would like to extend the process in to the spring. He has asked that the committee report back for the February executive committee meeting. By that point he will have had a chance to meet with committee etc.
Mark proposed that a discussion of where member institutions are via electronic resources take place at the spring meeting. He believes a broader conversation should occur to confirm what is most needed by larger group.
Group discussion ensued about polling the membership before the spring meeting. Several suggestions from committee members included surveying the membership about their institutions use of electronic resources.
Mark also shared his pulling into the discussions Gerald Lincoln. Both Evan Boyd and Donna Campbell were other members suggested by committee.
Mark ended report that he would be meeting with his committee before the next executive committee meeting and would have more to report.
A. Survey results – only 11 responses.
Virginia asked what the preferred format of Teamwork be for next issue – will discuss as the next Executive meeting.
Discussion about sending out another survey to allow members to identify themselves as interested in being a mentor or mentee.
Specified interest in more discussion of resources for distance education students.
B. Bookmarks – Update needed and probably time for a new printing.
Elizabeth spoke about taskforce reaching out to other institutions about joining SEPTLA so to wait for printing. Virginia mentioned giving a mock-up version to make available to print in-house until the next printing.
Ondrea updated committee that Cairn University would be available as the host institution for the spring meeting. Stephanie Kaceli requested a May date for easier scheduling. BTS could be an alternate location if necessary.
Two possible dates decided on by Committee: 5/2 & 5/11.
The morning program will feature a FOLIO (EBSCO) presentation followed by a question and answer session.
Mark suggested adding time for discussion for the Task Force. Discussion continued regarding polling the membership before the spring meeting.
A. Interest Group updates
TSIG – Christine Schwartz shared her committee report. Possible topics for spring include discussion about NACO training.
RIG – Patrick Milas to continue transition and discussion with new Chair, Bethany O’Shea.
Membership Task Force – Elizabeth Miller shared about the progress of the Task Force and future action items to be worked on.
B. Upcoming Meetings
Next Executive Committee Meeting to be held in February.
Meeting Adjourned
10:30 a.m. Teleconference
Attendees: Virginia Dearborn, Mark Draper, Patrick Milas, Elizabeth Miller, Ondrea Murphy, Bethany O’Shea, Myka Kennedy Stephens
Excused: Chris Schwartz
The Executive Committee voted to approve the agenda for the meeting.
The Executive Committee voted to approve the minutes of the December 6, 2017 meeting.
Myka reported that Samantha Rice is no longer able to serve, as she no longer works at a SEPTLA member library. Virginia took the minutes of this meeting (Secretary’s duty). Elizabeth offered to help Myka with the next member survey following the Spring meeting (another Secretary duty). (Note: More frequent surveying of the membership is one of the recommendations brought forward by the SEPTLA Future Task Force.)
No minutes were received from the Fall 2017 meeting. Ondrea will try to get them from Samantha. If those minutes are not available by March 9, Myka will draft minutes based on the agenda and the exec committee will try to flesh them out. There was some discussion about the legal need (if any) for minutes as a non-profit organization. Generally, they are more of a “best practice” with the exception of documenting changes in the role of Treasurer for working with the bank.
Elizabeth volunteered to serve as Interim Secretary. There was a motion to approve Elizabeth as Interim Secretary, and the motion passed.
[Bethany joined the meeting]
The Treasurer’s Report dated March 2, 2018, was summarized by Patrick Milas, who reported that SEPTLA’s business account balance was $4,042.48 and the money market account balance was $6,712.99. View the Treasurer’s Report
The committee approved the report.
Elizabeth shared the report with the exec committee and there was discussion about the report and each of its recommendations.
Broadening membership criteria: As the report named several SEPTLA institutions, including Princeton, as offering both undergraduate and graduate programs, Virginia made the correction that Princeton Theological Seminary does not have an undergraduate program. Myka noted that the current SEPTLA by-laws use this language in regard to member institutions’ degree programs: “primarily at the graduate level.” Jim Sauer, who is involved in TCLC, had suggested to the task force a recruitment technique of using individuals who have contacts at potential new member institutions to send personalized letters (and chocolate) to those contacts. There was some further discussion about recruitment and whether a membership drive or something more structured and permanent was a better fit for SEPTLA.
Increase dues to $100 per institution: There are currently 17 member libraries, down from 18 because of the formation of United Lutheran Seminary. Everyone, including Patrick, agreed that it is important to know what the additional funds would go toward and to make sure that an increase wouldn’t negatively impact membership.
Explore alternate approaches to programming: We’re already doing some of these things. Greg’s talk from the Fall 2017 meeting is on SEPTLA’s YouTube channel and embedded on the SEPTLA website. ATLA is offering greater support for virtual meetings as well as producing its own webinar series. There was some discussion about Vance Thomas (Director of the Library at Central in Shawnee, KS) as a resource for producing instructional videos. When we met this fall, Elizabeth had mentioned that he presented at ATLA. Myka mentioned that increasing dues might help fund a Zoom meeting purchase for SEPTLA but that, alternatively, ATLA might be able to give online meeting support for no (or lower) cost.
New leadership model: One possibility put forth by the task force was to offer a stipend for a leadership position in SEPTLA. Elizabeth will find out what the one example group the task force had identified does. She thinks it was more like an hourly rate for administrative assistant-type duties. Other possibilities discussed were rotating leadership roles alphabetically (by institution) and/or encouraging co-leadership in executive committee roles.
There was some more discussion about the entire task force report. Myka offered to contact all recommended potential new member libraries to invite them to the Spring meeting as guests. Bethany raised a concern about how the task force’s recommendation to increase dues and possibily offer a stipend might be received. Myka will add “Do you know anyone at a non-member library?” to the next post-meeting membership survey. Discussing possible new leadership models will be saved to a future meeting when we (hopefully) have new members; e.g. a larger total membership. In order to avoid another lack of nominations for vacant or soon to be vacant executive committee positions (Secretary and President), Myka will seek volunteers/nominations prior to the Spring meeting.
The Membership Task Force Report will go out to the membership. Potential new member institution names currently in the report will not be posted online.
Mark shared that the task force wants to determine what current SEPTLA members are using (ILS, discovery, etc.). Evan Boyd is currently putting together the survey. Virginia will be in touch with him on behalf of the Communications Committee regarding promoting the survey to the membership. Mark spoke with the head of the Digital Theological Library consortium (DTL). Are there things SEPTLA members could be doing together to reduce duplication of effort across member libraries?
Ondrea said that the date of the next meeting will almost certainly be May 11, 2018 and take place in the library at Cairn University. There’s a chance that EBSCO may be willing to fund refreshments for the meeting. Ondrea will confer with Stephanie Kaceli (Cairn).
Virginia reported that 1&1 has notified us of upcoming changes to our hosting package which will take effect on April 6, 2018. She will follow up with 1&1 for clarification. The next newsletter (Teamwork) should go out the week of April 6. Constituent pieces will need to be collected by March 23. Although we got some feedback from the membership following the fall meeting regarding newletter formatting, the format for the next issue still needs to be determined.
Chris was unable to attend today’s meeting and there wasn’t really time left to discuss anyway. She will email the committee an update next week.*
Bethany will also submit an update via email next week.**
Myka looked into online printing options for a new SEPTLA bookmark. It may end up being much smaller, which will require a revision of what information goes on it. She will include a question about it on the post-meeting membership survey.
The meeting was adjourned.
*Cataloging and Metadata Interest Group Report
For the SEPTLA spring meeting, the main topic for the Cataloging and Metadata Interest Group meeting will be a discussion of the new look to the RDA Toolkit–the RDA Toolkit Restructure and Redesign Project (3R Project). I plan to show portions of a video illustrating some of the changes. We will also look at the current RDA Toolkit user interface for comparison. The rollout for the redesigned toolkit is scheduled for June 13, 2018.
As time permits, we will also discuss a second topic, Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO), in particular the ATLA/NACO funnel project. We have discussed this issue in the past, but it would be nice to revisit it to see who within SEPTLA is participating or planning to participate in the near future.
**Research Services Interest Group Report
At our Fall Meeting, several members expressed interest in seeking more information on the creation of instructional videos. Elizabeth Young Miller suggested contacting Vance Thomas, Library Director from Central Baptist Theological Seminary for advice. There’s a recording of an ATLA presentation on the topic available on the ATLA website.
Lancaster Bible College
October 4, 2017
Present: Clint Banz, Hannah Bingman-Forshey, Evan Boyd, Russ Buchanan, Donna Campbell, Meredith Castor, Julie Dawson, Virginia Dearborn, Melvin Hartwick, Jim Humble, Myka Kennedy Stephens, Gerald Lincoln, Patrick Milas, Elizabeth Miller, Ondrea Murphy, Gregory Murray, Bethany O’Shea, Lydia Putnam, Samantha Rice, Donna Roof, Jim Sauer, Michael Skor, Marvin Smith
SEPTLA President Myka Kennedy Stephens called the meeting to order at 2:30 p.m. The staff of Lancaster Bible College were thanked by all gathered for their generous hospitality and accommodations for the meeting.
The minutes of the last general membership meeting on April 21, 2017 were presented. No changes were put forth. They were approved as is.
Patrick Milas gave the Treasurer’s Report. The balance of the checking account was $2,955.76. The balance of the Money Market account was $6,703.27. The total balance was $9,659.03. Discussion followed about what the funds are used for. SEPTLA has a few regular expenses incurred by the website and for biannual meetings. The rest is being saved for when the ATLA Annual Conference is next held in our area.
Ondrea Murphy gave the Continuing Education Committee’s Report. Sites and topics for the Spring 2018 meeting were suggested.
Virginia Dearborn gave the Communications Committee Report. Progress is being made toward an online newsletter and membership networking tool.
Melvin Hartwick gave the Cataloging and Metadata Interest Group Report. Chris Schwartz will continue to serve as chair of the interest group for another year.
Bethany O’Shea gave the Research Services Interest Group Report. She is the newly elected chair of this interest group.
Since the last meeting, United Lutheran Seminary (ULS) was formed by the merging of Lutheran Theological Seminary Philadelphia and Lutheran Theological Seminary Gettysburg. United Lutheran Seminary’s membership in SEPTLA was affirmed due to the active status and good standing of both predecessor institutions at the time of ULS’s establishment. Evan Boyd, director of the library, was welcomed by all present.
Also since the last meeting, Patrick Milas volunteered to serve as Treasurer. As stipulated in the Bylaws, Patrick was appointed Treasurer by the Executive Committee during their meeting on May 22, 2017. Patrick’s appointment was confirmed by the general membership present.
Myka Kennedy Stephens asked for volunteers willing to serve in a few vacant positions. Jim Humble stepped forward to serve as a member of the Continuing Education Committee. James Sauer and Samantha Rice stepped forward to serve as members of the Membership Task Force. The opening for Archivist remained unfilled.
News was shared by the institutional members present: Biblical Theological Seminary, Palmer Theological Seminary at Eastern University, United Lutheran Seminary, Reformed Episcopal Seminary, Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary, Lancaster Bible College, Lancaster Theological Seminary, Moravian Theological Seminary, Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and Princeton Theological Seminary.
There was no additional business to be discussed.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:00 p.m.
These are extremely challenging times, my friends. Many of our member institutions are in transition – staff transitions, facility transitions, and larger institutional transitions. In the face of so much change it is hard to know what, if anything, is stable enough to stand upon. Sometimes we might feel that if we could find a resting place, somewhere away from the change to catch our breath, it would help us recover our strength to continue moving forward.
I would like to offer that SEPTLA has the capacity to be such a resting place. As a 50+ year organization, SEPTLA remains committed to bringing our institutions together for fellowship, collaboration, and continuing education. While we are not immune to change and are experiencing our own transitions, our shared commitment to theological education and librarianship in this region provides a constancy that many of us can turn to for support and encouragement.
Serving as SEPTLA’s president for these past two years has been a rewarding experience, and I thank you for the opportunity. In that time, we received the findings and recommendations of the Future Task Force and began the work of acting upon those recommendations. Our meeting in May at Cairn University developed out of some of those suggestions. We will be exploring our capacity for resource sharing as a consortium through a dialogue facilitated by the Resource Sharing Task Force, in addition to hearing about new EBSCO products like FOLIO and ATLAS Plus.
Our Membership Task Force will also be presenting its findings and recommendations during our Business Meeting. The Executive Committee, having heard the report on March 2, is eager to hear feedback from the membership about its recommendations.
The spring meeting also brings with it officer elections. We will be electing a new secretary and a new president—I will have served the two consecutive terms allowed in the Bylaws. There are also two positions open on the Communications Committee: Archivist and Newsletter Editor. Please consider volunteering for one of these positions. SEPTLA is a friendly and supportive organization for those interested in serving.
I look forward to seeing you at Cairn in May,
Myka Kennedy Stephens
SEPTLA President, 2016-2018