CARL-DIAL (Diversity in Academic Libraries)
Business Meeting Minutes
California State University, Northridge
February 4, 2005 -- 10:00 AM – 1200 PM

Members in Attendance: Barbara Miller, CSU Fullerton & DIAL Secretary; Collette Davis, CSU Fullerton; Jacqueline Solis, CSU Northridge; Karin Durán, CSU Northridge, Melanie Chu, CSU San Marcos; Jina Wakimoto, CSU Northridge, Shahla Bahavar, USC; Judith Samuels, Santa Monica College & DIAL Historian; Claudia Holguin, SJSU Graduate School of Library and Information Science & DIAL Recorder, Fullerton Campus; Jie Tian, CSU Fullerton & DIAL Co-Chair; Stephanie Ballard, CSU Northridge & DIAL Co-Chair

Introductions and Resource Sharing

Stephanie welcomed us to Cal State Northridge and announced that the refreshments were courtesy of Dean Susan Curzon who would not be with us due to a previous engagement. Stephanie also announced that Melanie would be joining us via speaker phone. With this meeting agenda she is trying an experiment and if it does not work we can go back to the old way. She has moved the announcements to the beginning of the meeting because they are usually get lost at the end of the meeting. She also requested that we share a little bit about our background and motivations for being active in DIAL as a way for her to get to know us better.

Members shared the following items:

    From Jie:
  • CSU Fullerton has a monthly featured reference book display that is themed to the various monthly celebrations such as Asian American Heritage Month in April and Hispanic American Heritage in September.
    From Claudia:
  • The ACRL Rare Books and Manuscripts Section is actively working to get more librarians of color and from other underrepresented groups involved in Special Collections and has developed a diversity action plan.
  • She also shared several articles from the UCLA Bruin. One covered the declining student concern over racial issues and another was headlined:”Panel tackles educational inequalities.”
    From Jina:
  • She is co-curating an exhibition of Korean Art: Images and Text at the CSUN Art Gallery. The opening is in September and she will be sure to get the announcement out closer to the opening date.
  • The CSUN campus will be recruiting for a cataloger in the near future as she is moving to Colorado.
    From Karin:
  • She noted that as a founding member of DIAL she helped write the first bylaws.
  • She distributed a handout about the Hispanic Serving Institutions Grant that is now in its third year. CSUN secured sufficient funding to hire a full-time Hispanic Institutions Grant Librarian and a full-time Archivist and to spend about $40,000 a year on the collection including funds for identifying, buying and processing archival collections. They are also trying to digitize some of these collections to make them more accessible. They have the Rudy Acuña Papers including all his court case information, the Culture Clash Collection, and they are in negotiations with someone associated with Low Rider Magazine.

    Related web site: http://library.csun.edu/hsi/
    From Barbara:
  • The ACRL Racial and Ethnic Diversity Committee is sponsoring a session at ALA Annual that will examine research on diversity in libraries. As soon as she has more details she will pass them on to the DIAL-L.
  • She also announced that Services to Latinos Round Table is encouraging a more diverse participation in CLA by calling for presentations on diversity topics at the California Library Association’s Annual Meeting in Pasadena in early Nov. 2005.
  • The incoming president of ACRL, Camila Alire, is looking for people to serve on ACRL committees for the coming year. Please contact John Ayala jayala@fullcoll.edu if you are interested.
  • In October of 2006 all the Ethnic Caucuses will be meeting in Dallas, TX, (JCLC) and there is a call for presentations open until May 31, 2005.
    Related web site: http://www.ala.org/ala/olos/libassocofcolor/jclc06callforproposals.htm
  • On a local note, at Cal State Fullerton we have several positions open: Acquisitions Librarian (tenure track), and three positions open at Saddleback College.
    From Stephanie:
  • CSUN is also recruiting for another position as their Associate Dean is leaving for UCLA.
  • She also stated that the Spectrum Initiative is looking for students for their scholarship and she has a packet of information about Spectrum and posters. She also announced that after the end of the meeting, for those who can stay, there will be a tour of the Oviatt Library starting with the new Tseng Family Wing on the 2nd floor which is the result of the largest donation to any CSU has ever received ($18,000,000). It will have rotating exhibitions.
  • She also attended a faculty retreat last week and attended a program called “Ally Training,” a campus-wide program to support lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgendered, intersexual, queer, and questioning communities. She went to the session to brush up on the terminology in this area. A brochure was distributed.

Approval of Agenda: Some discussion. Mission was added to the Bylaws Statement Committee and an Announcement from Archivist.

Approval of Minutes: Approved as corrected.

Shahla asked on behalf of Sofia, DIAL webmaster, who could not be at the meeting, if we would like her to post our minutes on our web site. It was decided that after corrections are made, the minutes will be posted to the web was well as distributed to the DIAL discussion list. Sofia requested that if you are not on the discussion list and you would like to be on the list please send her a message at lesinska@usc.edu. Stephanie suggested it would be a good idea to have everyone on the discussion list. Shahla also wanted to know if she should send an announcement about DIAL-L to CARLALL? Melanie suggested she should send one announcement for both the web site and DIAL-L. Shahla reminded us that she is the owner of DIAL-L (dial-l@usc.edu) and Zofia is maintaining the DIAL web site on the USC server.
Related Web Site: http://isd.usc.edu/~lesinska/DIAL/

Program Committee

Melanie joined Claudia and Judith on the Program Committee. Summer Program ideas discussed:

Something to do with genocide/holocaust (Judith).

Shoah Foundation Archive which USC is helping to digitize and which can be visited from any venue we might select (Shahla provided an article). Related Web Site: http://www.vhf.org/

Shahla also offered an auditorium at USC that holds 50 people and she is willing to be the contact person with any speaker who is associated with USC.

Judith suggested the Simon Wiesenthal Center as a venue.
Related Web Site: http://www.wiesenthal.com/

The program could include presentations from genocides in other countries as well.

Others noted that we had already visited the Wiesenthal recently; but, Judith is not suggesting a tour of the Center, just its use as a venue.

Jie suggested the Southeast Asian Collection at UC Irvine which would provide an Asian dimension. We could ask Judy or Christina for help or contact the archivist there, Anne Frank, to see if she is interested.
Related Web Site: http://www.lib.uci.edu/libraries/collections/sea/sasian.html

Jina emphasized the importance of pulling in other less well known groups such as the Rape of Nanking.

Barbara suggested following up on the oral history idea suggested by Susan. For example the Farm Worker project at CSUN. Perhaps this is another program.

The theme of the program: genocide but the problem is how that term and the term holocaust are used for certain groups and not for others.

Other groups are the Armenians, the Komer Rouge

Melanie suggested that the program committee meet electronically to explore further ideas and bring back a more solid proposal to the next meeting. As well as maintain a list of future programming ideas.

Judith suggested that others with programming ideas should let the committee know.

Jie recommended that the program committee propose some time lines. We had tentatively discussed a date of late May or early June and members still in agreed with the time period before ALA starts on June 23rd, though we need to be careful about commencements and Memorial Day (May 30th).

Shahla will add a message to the announcement she is sending to CARLALL asking those interested in working with the program committee to contact Program Committee Chair, Judith Samuels, (jcsamuel@dslextreme.com)

DIAL Historian’s Request

Judith reported that Susan Shapiro had given her the box of DIAL memorabilia dating back to the end of 2003. She would like to have some older materials in DIAL history to put it all together. So if you have any materials or know of anyone who might have materials, please contact Judith. There may be an article on our history in the future. Stephanie has given Judith a copy of the previous bylaws written in 1993. Jie will send Judith a copy of the program from our program at the Buddhist Temple. Shahla has the program assessment and will send it. Deborah Schaeffer (dschaef@calstatela.edu) is another person that was there at the beginning. Judith will contact her for the next meeting.

Bylaws/Mission Statement Committee

Discussion occurred earlier in the meeting about how to digest the Bylaws and Mission statement; suggestions included a retreat or a special meeting. When we have a complete draft, it will be sent out for review. Jie Tian, Susan Luévano, Collette Davis and Barbara Miller are members of the Bylaws/Mission Statement Revision Committee. Barbara noted that they all either live in Fullerton or work at Cal State Fullerton and can probably meet there to work on the Bylaws and Mission Statement. They will be consulting with Mardi Chalmers in Northern California.

Shahla also pointed out that we need to clear up our name issue. Are we Diversity in Academic Libraries (our web site) or Diversity in Academic Librarianship (CARL web site)? Mardi used librarianship because that is what was on the CARL web site. We need to clarify this definitively. Libraries makes more sense and that is what the <L> stands for in CARL; we need to get the word out officially to CARL that the <L> in DIAL stands for Libraries.

CARL South Regional Leadership Meeting

This meeting will be held February 11, 2005. Meetings are held yearly in the North and South to update members on CARL and CARL interest group activities. There is a report on the state of CARL followed by short reports from each interest group and then time is set aside for people to meet informally. Stephanie will represent DIAL and Barbara is thinking about attending. Shahla will send Stephanie information about our Pre-Conference last April. Shahla will also send Stephanie a copy of the announcement we are planning to send to CARLALL. Our DIAL brochure needs updating. Susan Luévano has the master. Stephanie asked that it be sent to her, but who would do that was not identified.

UCLA-DRMC (Diversity Recruitment & Mentoring Committee)
Related Web Site: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/chu/drmc/

Stephanie is interested in learning about and working more closely with this group. Barbara, as an alumnus of the UCLA program, profiled this group of which she is a member. It is comprised of faculty, students, alumni, and library professionals who are interested in the diversification of faculty and student body in the Department of Information Studies. The meeting that is conflicting with our meeting today is not a regular DRMC meeting. Rather it is a larger meeting called the Diversity Summit. The DRMC was formed as two committees at the first Diversity Summit. One was tasked with recruitment and the other with the mentoring of a diverse student body. The overlap between the two groups made consolidation inevitable. They hold programs at libraries, career fairs, and on the UCLA campus and mentor prospective and current students in the UCLA Information Studies Program. In the past the DRMC has held joint meetings with DIAL at UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Fullerton.

Friday, March 11, 2005, will be their next meeting. Stephanie would like to attend as she is interested in DIAL collaborating with the DRMC. Barbara will be at the next meeting. Claudia, Jie and Collette may attend. Stephanie will send out a link to DIAL-L to the DRMC web site. Jie noted that the meeting will be held at the UCLA Chicano Resource Center and hosted by Yolanda Retter Vargas who spoke at our Summer Program at the Buddhist Temple two years ago.
Related Web Site: http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/library/

Stephanie is interesting in involving DIAL in mentoring programs. She asked for names of people who would be interested in mentoring. There is also a need for a contact person to liaison between DIAL and the DRMC. Stephanie is willing to do it, but others are welcome to volunteer. Jina pointed out that the UCLA mentoring program is not run by the DRMC. She related her experience with that program. The matching process seems less than perfect. The discussion turned to mentoring issues in general and Stephanie suggested that mentoring be a separate agenda item at our next meeting.

CARL 2006

CARL 2006 Conference will take place in Asilomar CA on the Monterrey Peninsula in April 2006. Shahla noted that our previous pre-conference program took over a year of planning. Stephanie suggested that we may want to form a committee at the next meeting to look into possible DIAL programs, collaborative opportunities with DIAL North and other CARL interest groups. Barbara observed that we also had been discussing meeting with DIAL-North while we are there.

Meeting Feedback and Reflection

Stephanie requested our feedback on the meeting today. The consensus was that the new agenda format worked well. Shahla suggested that a list of action items be produced in addition to the minutes. Discussion centered around whether the action items should be part of the agenda or the minutes.

Next Meeting: April 15, 2005, Cal State Fullerton