Board Meeting Minutes 10/25/2023

Richmond Academic Library Consortium (RALC) Board

Meeting Minutes

October 25, 2023

Opening:

The regular meeting of the RALC was called to order at 3:00 pm on 10/25/2023 date by RALC president Pamela Foreman. The meeting took place virtually via Zoom. Present at the meeting were:

Approval of Agenda: Approved, quorum established.

Approval of Minutes: Approved with no corrections.

Treasurer’s Report: Chris Welch- no Budget Summary Report, rough numbers at a 20k balance 5k with dues coming in. A snag with invoices going out due to the directors list, report once received will be shared. Scholarship and web hosting fee and workshop fees will be reported on when numbers are received by Chris.  

Committee Reports

Professional Development & Networking Committee- Loftan Hooker, Spring Panel May 1^st, have over 50 registered and 40 attended. Evaluation sent to everyone who came, and people said that they appreciated the Jewish American Experience in Richmond. Everyone who presented was paid.

New Business:

RALC Website—operation, maintenance, action(s) to be taken:  Molli Gonzalez can do content update and meeting minutes posted on the site. Molli would like to continue doing the content management but could use help with site administration. There has been an issue with domain name and a standstill with the update since the administrator host has changed. Suggested using a generic email for RALC that could be passed along to the admin.

Announcements:

Robin McCall- Union Presbyterian Seminary repairs have been done to the atrium. Interim employee replaced, person retired in the Spring has come back and a faculty search will begin for the Charlotte campus. This person will be faculty and will not be a direct report to Robin McCall, some concerns with the lack of MLIS requirement. Hired new reference librarian. Have gotten a new president.

Suzanne Sherry- Brightpoint is fully staffed for 8 weeks, 11 people for two campuses. Also, the campus is getting a new president, five candidates in the search. Change to be expected January 1^st.

Irene Herold– VCU libraries has the university archivist starting next month. Digital Serials librarian started; brand new position open. Two vacancies opening for library faculty positions and one for next fiscal year for PR department.  Four retirements. Reflection Room finished, refresh of first floor furniture. Reducing the number of computers on the public floor, determining what will be needed in the future (56% reduction).

Hong Wu– J Sargeant Reynold personnel changes. Removing desktop computers as well, 1/3 of the computers so that students may study with their own devices. 120 new laptops to loan, along with 50 graphing calculators. March ACRL external review of the library in June they received the report and there was a very positive review of the staff and website. Areas of improvement are 2019-2021 went from one of the highest funded libraries to one of the lowest funded. Urged to hire more staff and increase pay as well as increase materials. Urged to move to Academic affairs will be recommended to be a part of the Archive the Dream program.

Tim Hurley– Continued construction on the Academic Innovation Center at Richard Bland, with purchasing of the furniture. Successful part-time library assistant search has been completed and candidates have been made offers.

Pamela Foreman– Wilder Library working with a skeleton crew, concerns on opening and closing of the library. Hoping to have success for the open applications. Figuring out what is going on with Freshman and Sophomore student success, deep dive into student data to figure out their needs and how they can be addressed with library resources. Doing well with enrollment with a focus on retention.