ULA Board Meeting
September 11, 1998
Utah State Library

Reports

• Conference 2000:Conference Chair for the 2000 conference reported that the Program Committee voted to use the Ogden Conference Center and for setting the conference for the second week of May.
• The Executive Secretary distributed a membership report which shows that currently ULA has 706 members.
• The Financial report was given by the Executive Secretary.
• Copies of the boards tax exempt certificate were distributed. This should be used by all board members when making purchases for the organization to save paying sales tax. Membership forms were also distributed to be taken back to board member’s libraries.
• Chris Anderson’s contract as Executive Secretary has been extended another year.
• Copies of the ULA budget for 1998-1999 were distributed. More changes may be needed as the Great Issues Forum was not included in this budget. There was some discussion about mailing costs and trying to keep them down through the use of the ULA Home Page and joint mailings. The budget was approved unanimously.
• The Web Page needs to be used by the sections and roundtables to post information and be dynamic.
• The 1999 joint MPLA/MLA conference will be held June 13th-16th at the Big Sky Resort in Montana. Speakers will include Ted Turner, Terry Tempest Williams, and Dorothy Broderick. The theme will be "Making Certain it Goes On."
• Future MPLA conference will be held in Omaha, Nebraska 2000, Phoenix, Arizona 2001, Fargo North/South Dakota 2002, Lake Tahoe, Nevada 2003, and Wyoming 2005.
• MPLA commended ULA for hosting a great conference in 1998!
• The Great Issues Forum: Redefining Human Connections through Technology will be held at the State Capital November 10th.
• ALA has changed its bylaws to change all ALA Councilor’s terms from 4 to 3 years. A proposal was made to change the ULA bylaws to read "The ALA chapter councilor shall be elected to a three year term by the association in those years evenly divisible by three, beginning in the year 1999 and to assume the office at the close of the ALA annual conference of that year."
• The 1999 ULA Conference in Cedar City will run Thursday and Friday. Pre-conference programs will start late on Wednesday, so that individuals can travel in the morning. The theme is "Reflect, Renew, Relax." There will be a display on the history of Utah Libraries at the conference. Program forms to submit a program idea are on the Home Page.
• Continuing Education fall workshops will be held at Weber State and In Price. The schedule has been sent out to libraries and is also available on the home page.

Board Discussion

• Several options were suggested to continue to support the Doug Hindmarsh Professional Development Fund. The vote to support the fund was unanimous. Funding sources will be discussed at future meetings.
• The bylaw proposal was approved unanimously to state that the chair will serve for two years to provide continuity. The vice-chair will serve as a representative to the programming board for two years but will not move to the chair position automatically as this would imply a four year commitment. Sections will stagger election periods, two of the four sections will have elections each year.
• The Legislative Committee suggested some structural changes in a written report. Suggestions include the President Elect becoming an ex-officio member, a longer term for the Legislative Chair so that ULA appointments and legislative sessions coincide, fill the Federal Relations Coordinator position so that someone stays on top of federal issues, and hire a lobbyist to lobby for public library construction dollars. A white paper will be prepared and presented to the board.
• The proposed budget for the Great Issues Forum will be submitted to the Program Board.
• The board meeting adjourned at 3:30 p.m. The next meeting is scheduled for December 4th at the Park Library (a Salt Lake County Library).