Participants: Betsy Aldridge, PACCAR; Andrea Avni, Sound Transit; Christine Azevedo, Caltrans; Susan Haake, Caltrans; Inez Hopkins, Idaho DOT; Shubhangi Kelekar, Caltrans; Louise Rosenzweig, Center for Transportation Research, Univ. of Texas; Maggie Sacco, Library Connectivity Pooled Fund Study; Dale Steele, Arizona DOT; Kathy Szolomayer, Washington State DOT; Judie Tripplehorn, Alaska DOT; Amanda Wilson, National Transportation Library; Hank Zaletel, Iowa DOT.
Minutes of last meeting
Minutes were approved as amended.
WTKN Guiding Principles (GP):
Betsy Aldridge asked what are the WTKN guidelines for ILL (mentioned on page 4of GP)? Dale Steele responded that we are still working through the process based on the MTKN guidelines. After discussion we decided to leave the statement intact but follow Betsy’s suggestion to add development of WTKN ILL guidelines to the next meeting’s agenda. Kathy Szolomayer said that draft WTKN ILL guidelines, developed by her predecessor, Steve Cochran, and based on the MTKN guidelines, are posted at the Pooled Fund website blog. Please review and send comments to Kathy via e-mail by December 7.
It is anticipated that the Guiding Principles will be ready for a vote at the next meeting. Regarding voting procedures, Dale and Kathy will check the Bylaws to see how many members are needed for a quorum.
Updates:
Adoption of Bylaws: Kathy reported she had sent the Bylaws via email to members who had not been at the August meeting (when they had been adopted by those present at that time), had gotten a few responses, and was waiting for more.
WTKN listserv: Amanda Wilson said the National Transportation Library (NTL) has set up a collaborative workplace for all TKNs. Each TKN has its own space and can set up a listserv, too. Amanda will send links for MTKN and ETKN workspaces to Kathy. Kathy will send names of WTKN members to Joyce Koeneman to get WTKN listserv set up.
MTKN: Hank Zaletel, MTKN liaison to WTKN, said MTKN does not meet very often; their last meeting was around same time as WTKN. He offered to answer questions about developing ILL guidelines.
NTL: Amanda Wilson reported that the Transportation Librarian’s roundtable is going well and asked for suggestions for new topics. She is also busy prepping for the TRB meeting in January, 2008, and working on special sessions focusing on the TRT thesaurus, recycling transportation information, etc. Kathy thanked Amanda for supporting WTKN and asked how WTKN can help support the mission of NTL.
Pooled Fund Study: Maggie Sacco said the Pooled Fund web site is being redesigned to be more functional, dynamic and interactive, with RSS feeds, etc. They are also finalizing the contract for 3rd year and getting ready to print the Toolkit and Interim Report which will then be distributed as soon as possible.
Strategic Plan:
Dale and Kathy led the discussion on the importance of developing a strategic plan now, at the beginning of the WTKN, rather than waiting. Dale mentioned that if we put the time in now, we will save time later. Kathy emphasized how a plan will help guide the WTKN, especially in terms of identifying deliverables, providing direction, and establishing goals and objectives, etc. Dale said the process could take 3 yrs. but we need shorter turnaround time. Susan Haake said she had worked on a strategic plan for the Caltrans History Committee and the process had taken 8 months (13 meetings). It was decided to form a strategic planning subcommittee.
Susan asked Hank if the MTKN had a strategic plan; he said he would look for one. He said that at the MTKN web site, under “About MTKN,” there is a link to Official Documents, with links to Bylaws, Guiding Principles, and ILL Guidelines. Hank also said that the MTKN is laying the groundwork for developing performance measures that reflect both the quantitative (statistical) and qualitative value of libraries.
Accomplishments for 2008 – nonprofit status for WTKN?:
Kathy talked about what the WTKN would like to accomplish next year. She said that her predecessor, Steve Cochran, had been looking into nonprofit status. She said that the MTKN has nonprofit status. Maggie said that the MTKN has nonprofit status but only in the state of Minnesota; it did not have 501c3 status with the IRS which is important to receive federal funding. Maggie said it was not difficult to get 501c3 status but it was a very time consuming process. Hank said a subcommittee of one was needed to do the paperwork. Christine Azevedo said she had a lot of experience working with the range of 501c applications and that it was hard to get tax-exempt status; bylaws needed to be very specific, there were annual reporting requirements, etc. Kathy and Dale will look into this more and present at a later meeting.
Show & Tell:
Laura Wilt (Oregon DOT) could not attend the teleconference so the “Show & Tell” was postponed.
News/Updates from Participants:
Andrea Avni: Andrea is busy doing cataloging and research for staff.
Betsy Aldridge: They have a new corporate librarian who wants to incorporate her holdings with the Engineering Technical Library’s. They are looking at migrating her collection and determining how much is in OCLC, etc; funding set aside for next year.
Susan Haake: Susan is in the process of buying a new photocopier.
Dale Steele: Dale finished scanning all Arizona DOT research reports starting from the early 70’s to current and will be uploading them on the Internet website. He has also updated Research in Progress (RIP) entries.
Inez Hopkins: Inez is adding Idaho DOT documents as pdfs on their web site for public access. She will be joining OCLC and adding them to OCLC as time permits.
Kathy Szolomayer: Kathy said they are close to getting all the Washington DOT research reports scanned. They are enhancing retrievability by using TRT terms to index reports; their part-time cataloger works on this about 12 hrs/week.
Louise Rosenzweig: Louise has been doing lot of research and literature requests. Their digitizing project is going slow due to staff constraints. She also mentioned they are not in OCLC but send reports to Univ. of Texas Engineering Library and Texas State Library for OCLC cataloging. She said that Texas DOT had a 10-25% budget cut in research budget but she doesn’t know the impact on the Center for Transportation Research.
Maggie Sacco: Maggie is not sure yet if she is going to the TRB meeting in January.
John Cherney, WisDOT, and Cheryl Bodan, PennDOT, are going.
Judie Tripplehorn: Judie is very involved doing Alcan Highway research.
Hank Zaletel: Hank said that Iowa DOT had received a $50,000 Transportation Enhancement Grant from the U.S. DOT/FHWA to work on IOWA DOT’s history collection and he is now working on Phase III of the grant. He encouraged participants to contact him for more information and also referred us to IOWA DOT’s website >> site index >> historical documents. Hank is currently working on a request from his Research Director to develop a library survey which will be sent to the entire Department, asking for feedback on library services, improvements, etc.
Tentative agenda and items for discussion at next meeting:
- Guiding Principles.
- Strategic Plan.
- Future activities that the WTKN would like to pursue.
Next meeting
The next teleconference will be Wed., Dec. 12, 2007, from 9 a.m.-11:30 a.m. (PST).
Minutes submitted by Susan Haake and Shubhangi Kelekar (12-4-07)