DIAL-South

Business Meeting at East Asian Library, USC

Friday, March 3, 2006

 

Attendees: Shahla Bahavar, USC; Stephanie Ballard, CSU Northridge; Claudia Holguín, UCLA; Sophie Lesinska, USC; Susan Luévano, CSU Long Beach; Marla Peppers, Occidental; Judith Samuel, Cal Lutheran; Susan Shapiro, MSMC; Jie Tian, CSU Fullerton

 

Introductions, Announcements and Resource Sharing

 

The meeting was called to order by co-chair, Stephanie Ballard. We were graciously welcomed by Ken Klein, Head of the East Asian Library, and Joy Kim, Curator of the Korean Collection.

 

Co-chair, Sophie Lesinska, explained that we were holding the meeting from 9-11 a.m. for two reasons: 1) The meeting room had been booked for another meeting starting promptly at 11:00 a.m.; and, 2.) The lack of early information about the starting time of the Ethnic Studies Conference at USC. The Ethnic Studies Conference, which several DIAL members were planning to attend, was scheduled to start at 1:00 p.m.

 

Nine people attended the meeting. Stephanie welcomed Marla Peppers, Head of Instruction and Reference at Occidental College, a new face at DIAL business meetings. Among her other duties, Marla is currently the Occidental campus coordinator for the Mellon Librarian Recruitment Program, the first grant-funded program addressing librarian recruitment and diversity issues at the undergraduate level. Marla announced that Occidental has just been awarded a two-year extension to their grant. She will be presenting at JCLC in October.

 

Several other members had good news to share. Judith Samuel has accepted a full-time position at Cal Lutheran as Information Specialist/Manager of Collection Development. Claudia Holguín has been granted her MLIS degree from San Jose State and is currently working in a temporary position at the UCLA Music Library.

Susan Luévano announced that CSU Long Beach has recently purchased Proquest’s Black Studies Center, a digital collection based on the NYPL Schomburg Center for Research into Black Culture’s collection of primary research materials. Jie Tian called our attention to two author events she helped plan taking place this spring in CSU Fullerton’s Pollak Library. The first event, Memory and Migration, Conversations with Chinese Women Writers, consists of three author presentations in March, April and May. The second program brings two local poets to the library. She has sent detailed information to DIAL-L.

Approval of agenda and the minutes

 

The agenda and the minutes from Jan. 13, 2006 were approved. A copy of the minutes will be posted on the DIAL website and a copy will be e-mailed to Judy Lee, CARL Interest Group Coordinator.

 

 

Co-Chairs’ Report

Stephanie attended the CARL regional meeting at CSULB on 2.28.06. She made copies of the list of officers to hand out. She reported that DIAL’s newly approved bylaws and the group’s current name are now posted on the CARL web site. (In the past, DIAL had been known as Diversity in Academic Librarianship.) She discovered that DIAL is one of the largest interest groups, with the names of over 100 CARL members on the list. There are currently 610 CARL members.

 

At the moment there are 207 CARL members registered to attend the biennial conference at Asilomar, with hopes to attract a total of 240 attendees. Seven DIAL-South members are attending and will meet with their DIAL-North counterparts over lunch on Saturday. Shahla and Stephanie are both taking part in the conference. Shahla is presenting in the Information Commons pre-conference and Stephanie is presenting a paper in the Poster Session.

 

Stephanie reported on the last meeting of the DRMC Diversity Summit Committee. The committee is trying to expand the event into a conference and is hoping to attract 200 attendees at the Summit in September, 2006. Marla is on one of the planning committees. The next planning meeting is on March 24. She also handed out a printout of the 2006 Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC) web page. Susan Luévano, Barbara Miller and Marla Peppers are presenting at the October conference, but no new details are forthcoming.

 

 

Program Planning

 

First, members reported on their research into program venues and upcoming museum exhibitions this summer. The objective was to find places that could include an exhibit or tour with a place to socialize. We would like to use the program to attract new DIAL members. The venues investigated were:

  • Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach – Susan Luévano
  • Autry National Center: Museum of the American West and Southwest Museum of the American Indian – Susan Shapiro
  • Korean Collection at USC – Sophie Lesinska
  • Chinese-American Museum – Stephanie Ballard
  • New Americans Immigration Museum and Learning Center in San Diego – Melanie Chu

 

The two most promising venues were the USC East Asian Library and Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach.

 

Sophie reported that the librarians in the USC East Asian Library were very interested in participating in a DIAL program. The Korean collection is very strong and varied in format, including Korean films and other media, maps, etc. It might be possible to combine a tour of the collection with a program on a subject of interest to academic librarians. Some tentative ideas were: a panel discussion on collection development of international books and media; starting an international map collection; showing a short Korean film, followed by a discussion or a panel, etc. Unfortunately, dates over the summer are restricted – the East Asian Library isn’t available from mid-July through mid-August. We thought this venue might be best for a winter or spring program.

 

Susan Luévano reported that the current exhibit of kinetic art by Jesús Rafael Soto at the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach is being extended until August 6. MOLAA has a café, a sculpture garden, programs every Sunday afternoon and dances in the evenings. DIAL-South hasn’t had a program featuring Latin culture and this venue will let us combine a museum tour with a social event. At the last meeting, a Sunday program was suggested as a way of attracting new recruits. We decided to hold the summer program at MOLAA. Family and friends are welcome. Susan will look into details and a firm date. Tentative dates are May 21, June 4, and the Sundays in July.

 

Other Business

There wasn’t time for other business.

 

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be held on May 12th at Occidental College.

 

 

 

Submitted by Susan Shapiro, DIAL-South Secretary, 2005-2006