Oversight
Committee
Meeting
Minutes
April
9, 2007
Baltimore,
MD
Oversight Committee members present: Patricia
Hammond, Diana McDuffee, Jan Orick
Absent: Linda Gorman
Ex Officio members present: Dan Wilson
RML Staff present: MJ Tooey, Janice Kelly, Terri Ottosen, Dale Prince, Sheila Snow-Croft, Beth Wescott, and Toni Yancey
Guests: Nancy Patterson
In the absence of an elected chair, the meeting was called to order by Janice Kelly at 10:00 am. Meeting packets were distributed. Members provided introductions and described their role in the advisory structure. (See attached meeting agenda)
Oversight Committee Reports
Kelly provided an overview of the new advisory committee structure and reviewed the anticipated role of the oversight committee in that structure. The committee is to bring ideas and suggestions from the four program committees to this group. The members can suggest and recommend program ideas, methods of operation, assessment and evaluation needs and more. The oversight committee will meet in person once each year and can meet virtually as many times as is needed throughout the year.
Reports were provided by each of the four advisory committees, with Terri Ottosen representing the consumer health committee. Ottosen explained the composition of the committee, distributed and explained the minutes of the meeting held in December and discussed some of the new classes planned. Ottosen received feedback on her planned patient informatics class, veteran health class and peer to peer tutoring plans. (See Consumer Health Committee Minutes and Description of New Classes
The Outreach to Health Professionals Committee was represented Diana McDuffee, Toni Yancey and Sheila Snow-Croft. Yancey provided a review of the January committee meeting held via web conferencing, the composition of the committee and plans for new classes and new target populations for training and exhibiting. New focuses include dentists and veterinarians. New classes include outreach for health sciences librarians and evidence based health care especially for health practitioners serving in urban, underserved areas. (See Committee Minutes and Outreach Maps.)
The Technology Committee was represented by Pat Hammond and Dale Prince. Prince presented a report to include meeting by email, rotating membership, and piloting Ning for communication. It was decided not use Ning for communication due to fire walls and other issues and to keep all members for the five years of the contract. He also described the role of the technology coordinator in educating Network members on new technology. Hammond described the new standard adopted by the Medical Library Association (MLA) Hospital Libraries Section involving new and expanded technology resources. She also recommended that the report from the NN/LM Hospital Internet Access Task Force be made available again on the web. (http://nnlm.gov/archive/20060919133544/index.html )
The Network Access Committee was represented by Jan Orick and Beth Wescott. The committee has had several discussions through email. Orick prepared a report of the trends in access and concerns of the committee members in regard to e-licensing, open access, models for access, training, new technology, and copyright. (See RAC Access Committee Report and RAC Access Committee Observations and Concerns.)
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Review of year 02 objectives.
The draft Year 02 objectives and outreach narrative prepared for the budget packet was distributed to the group. Each coordinator provided a brief overview of their year 02 program plans. (See attached Year 02 Activities/Objectives and Year 02 Outreach Plan) Kelly provided a brief review of the upcoming Year 02 budget highlighting a breakdown of costs by personnel, operations, and awards. The Year 02 budget is 3% less than the appropriation for Year 01 and 23% less than the negotiated amount for Year 02 in the contract. She did mention that even with the budget cut, a new community outreach coordinator was hired, to begin employment on July 9, 2007.
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Evaluation
It is anticipated that evaluation will be a major role for the oversight committee. The committee can help plan and execute the evaluations as needed. Discussion centered on evaluating the education program as to course development and method of delivery. Snow-Croft described the online class she is now presenting as part of the MLA CE Institute on Web-Based Instruction. Yancey and Prince described their experiences with one - four hour web conferences and the pros and cons of using technology for training. The committee was asked to consider this, consulting their respective committees, and to make recommendations at a future meeting. It was suggested that no survey is needed at this time since we are offering a variety of classes. One recommendation was to add a class on resources for those persons working on their institutional animal safety review committees. Any additional class needs can come through the program committees. (See List of Classes Offered by NN/LM SE/A Staff.)
Another area of concern is the SEA Currents newsletter. Discussion revolved around how to ensure that members are receiving it now that it is a blog. Prince is experimenting with a new method of distributing the blog for those who do not use an aggregator. Wescott is looking into how other regions distribute their newsletters.
Prince described his involvement as a trainer of the OERC (Outreach Evaluation Resource Center) class Measuring your Impact. He will be presenting the class around the region, and asked members to send suggestions for class locations. Copies of the three evaluation workbooks were distributed.
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Disaster Planning/Emergency Preparedness
Kelly provided an overview of the SE/A’s involvement in disaster planning, recovery and preparedness since 2004. (See Emergency Preparedness in Region 2) Dan Wilson provided an overview of the work of the Disaster Planning Task Force that met in Ocean Springs, MS, on February 28, 2007. (See Why Disaster Planning is Important in our Region) Once the committee has completed its original charge, the oversight will review future directions. Future directions included renaming the task force from “disaster planning” to “emergency preparedness,” and the distribution of a simple template at the exhibit booths at the MLA Chapter meetings. (See template)
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Funding
Kelly distributed the funding plan for Year 02. (See Project Funding and Administration) She asked committee members to review the plan and to send recommendations for new funding opportunities, or changes to the current offerings, that would better assist Network members. Yancey reviewed plans for changes to the exhibit award, our most popular award, for Year 02. For Year 02 we will target educators to include science, biology, chemistry and health teachers, as well as school nurses and home schooling personnel. In addition, we will target veterans, veterinarians, and minority consumer groups. (See attached Exhibit Award and Schedule of Meetings)
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Advocacy
Kelly described some of the advocacy activities of the SE/A that includes site visits, letters to hospital administrators and funding. Wescott and M.J. Tooey reported on the documents under development by Region 8 that will soon be available on their website. Tooey also reported on the MLA Vital Pathways Task Force work. Hammond recommended referring to the HLS new technology standard, as well as describing how the role of the hospital librarian has changed, in future letters to administrators.
Kelly stated that this is the group that would recommend the need and appointment of any new task forces. Task forces may be considered either along membership lines (focusing on issues such as hospital library advocacy, the role of the resource library, etc.), or along topical lines (such as emergency preparedness).
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Election of a chair
It was decided to rotate the chair of the committee each year among the four program committee representatives. Hammond volunteered to chair the committee for Year 02. The chair will determine the time and agenda items of the next meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:15 p.m.
