Communications Committee
August 15, 2006
Minutes

Present: George Anglin, Paula Covington, Tracy Primich, Henry Shipman, Suellen Stringer-Hye, Celia Walker and Ava Wilson

1. Web Ticker The ticker is now being operated out of Sitemason. There were a few glitches noticed—some articles were being published before their post dates—but generally it has been very successful. Celia will talk with Cindy Franco, who has worked with Sitemason and may know what the issue is. We will add information about open houses in the libraries.

2. Faculty News Project Celia reported for the project team (led by Kitty Porter). The group last met on August 11 and their minutes are on the Communications Committee Wiki. They plan to propose an RSS feed that users can sign up for from the Web Ticker. They want to draw faculty and other readers. Topics will be events, services and resources. More details may be found in the minutes. They hope to have the feed up and running by the end of September.

3. Other Tasks and Goals Members looked over the tasks and goals list to see where priorities need to change, updates be made, and to determine our next big project. We have addressed communication within the library and are working on our external communication with the faculty news. Suellen will begin work on a Style Guide project team after the web refresher project is completed. She will meet with the Library Directors Council to discuss the program and ask for representatives from the library web editors. Celia reported that work on the elevator talk was slow; she will send what she has to the committee members for input.

Paula and Tracy discussed the need for a tab on OAK to allow the library to offer links to class-specific resources and the development of templates for bibliographers to easily create tailored guides for classes, for those classes that do not have instruction sessions as well as for those that do. Paula and Tracy will consult with Research Services on the project.

Other changes were made in the Tasks and Goals and the group will complete the review of that document at our next meeting. Celia and Suellen will attend a SOLINET class on marketing for academic libraries in mid-September.