December 2020 Governance Update

October 2020

The Board of Directors met on October 12, 2020 via video conference. In attendance were Clara Chu (President); Brian Detlor (President-Elect); Ina Fourie (Treasurer); Emily Knox; Agnes Mainka; Soo Young Rieh; Ana Maria Tammaro; James Andrews (SIG Cabinet Chair); Michael Olsson (Chapter Cabinet Director); Lydia Middleton (Executive Director); and Steve Hardin (Parliamentarian). Also in attendance were Naresh Agarwal, PhD, Incoming President-Elect; Maria Bonn, Publications Committee Chair; Sam Chu, Deputy Chapter Assembly Director; Hamid Jamali, EDI Task Force Co-Chair; AJ Million, Deputy SIG Cabinet Director; and Ana Ndumu, EDI Task Force Co-Chair.

Diversity & Inclusion

Ana Ndumu presented the report of the EDI Task Force. Each Board member gave input on the report. It was agreed that there are some recommendations that are immediately possible to address, and others that require more time or support to accomplish. EDI needs to be systematized into ASIS&T and we need to make these efforts visible. The Board decided to make the report available for a Town Hall discussion and continue to support an EDI Task Force to continue this work.

Consent Agenda

The consent agenda, which was approved included the following:

• Draft Minutes of September 14 2020 Board Meeting
• September 2020 Financial Statement
• September 2020 Membership Report
• September 2020 Merrill Lynch Investment Report
• ED Report

President’s Update

ASIS&T President Clara Chu reported on the following items:

• Clara Chu promoted the Opening Session at Annual Meeting and invited all to attend.

SIG Cabinet Update

James Andrews reported the following:

• There has been a flurry of election activity.
• Working on identifying a new SIG Cabinet Deputy Director and Steering Committee Members.
• SIGs plan to meet at Annual Meeting.

Chapter Assembly Update

Michael Olsson reported the following:

• Elections are underway for the next round of Chapter leadership
• Chapter Award selection is complete

Committee Update

• Awards have been decided and announced.

History Committee

The Board decided that HATHI Trust should make ARIST issues available using Creative Commons license CC BYNC-ND.

Publications Committee

Maria Bonn reported on the work of the Publications Committee. She demonstrated the new Information Matters platform and presented the Committee’s funding request. The funding request assumes that the publication will be self-sustaining within 3 years. The Board approved an investment from reserves of $25k in Year 1 and $22k in Years 2 & 3 to support the development of Information Matters.

JASIST Editor-in-Chief

Maria Bonn reported that the EIC search committee had received applications for the position and decided to interview three finalist candidates. The Search Committee recommended that Steven Sawyer be selected as the next Editor-in-Chief of JASIST. Steve stood out as having both excellent qualifications and a clear vision. While the committee recognizes that this is not a very diverse choice, the candidate pool was quite diverse and the selection was made based on merit. The Board agreed to move forward with the appointment of Steven Sawyer as JASIST Editor-in-Chief.