MLA YSS Meeting Minutes 1/17/19

Tewksbury Public Library

Present: Marissa Antosh (Duxbury); Katrina Ireland (Northborough); Katrina Ealy (Tewksbury); Carol Gafford (Swansea); Janice Chase (Stoneham); Mary Kate Schulte (Winthrop)

I. Executive Board Updates

                A. MLA Association Manager is leaving. While they are looking for someone to fill the position, most administrative and budget issues are on hold.

                B. They are also working hard on bills they wish to present to the legislature this year. March 5, 2019 is Library Legislative Day. 

II. Conference Committee Liaison updates

                A. As mentioned last month, the schedule is already planned for the conference, and there are 9 great programs on the slate for youth librarians. Guerilla Storytime will also be back again this year.

                B. There will be a pub outing one evening of the conference; stay tuned for more information.

                C. The conference committee needs shepherds to introduce speakers at each session, hand out and collect surveys, and to make sure the sessions run smoothly. If interested, email Carol at carol.gafford@sailsinc.org.

                D. YSS will be creating a basket for the basket raffle this year and the theme is... *Drum roll please* Dr. Who! 

III. Reimbursement Update

                With the Association Manager position vacant at MLA, all administrative duties have been put on hold. In addition to the position, MLA had to recently change banks and they are dealing with some account snafus. Unfortunately, the reimbursements will have to wait a little longer than planned.

IV. March Retreat

                A. Retreat is scheduled for Saturday, March 23^rd at 4:00 p.m. until Sunday, March 24^th at 4:00 p.m. at the Cedar Hill Retreat Center in Duxbury, MA. Cost is $65 for MLA NON-members, $50 for members.

                B.  The theme for the retreat is wellness. Marissa will try getting in touch with the librarian who does laughter yoga. Katrina volunteered handle Yoga Storytime. We’re also hoping to have a mindfulness speaker. If you know of anyone who might be able to present on this, contact Marissa.

                C. Registration will be open soon. Bring an air mattress if you have one so we can fit more people!

V. Nominating Committee          

                With YSS Bylaws updated last year, the position for Secretary is up for reelection every year. Kat Ealy volunteered to put out the call for all those interested, collect responses and use SurveyMonkey to set up the vote prior to Conference in May. Anyone who is interested in running for Secretary, please email Kat Ealy at kealy@tewksburypl.org.

VI. Fundraising for next year

                YSS has not done a fundraiser since the librarian tattoo calendar. The group decided next year YSS will create and sell a planner in lieu of the calendar.  We’re hoping to get photos of librarian and library pets to add to the planner.

VII. Open Discussion

                A. There is a Librarian think tank group on Facebook. The moderator allows you to ask questions “anonymously” and will post them for you to the group to get answers from fellow librarians.

                B. Some book suggestions from those present:

                                i. The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding (YA)

                                ii. Sadie by Courtney Summers (YA)

                                iii. You Don’t Know Everything, Jilly P by Alex Gino (Middle Grade)

                C. The MLA conference used to have authors. Is there some way we can bring it back?

                D. Pop Culture Conference in Long Island, NY…can we copy them? It would be really useful to get everything you need to know about all the fandoms that exist in one spot. Perhaps MLA or YSS could use MOOCs to create a course based around this?

                E. Kat Ealy helps to run the 5-Minute Librarian blog (5minlib.org); she will look into perhaps adding a pop culture tab to the site.

                F. Letterboxing: Go to Atlastquest.com or read The Letterboxer’s Companion for more information on getting started. Kat had a great program in Tewksbury introducing letterboxing and got folks from several states at her program! It’s a good way to engage Brownies (Girl Scouts) who have a letterboxing badge they could complete. To date, there are well over 700,000 letterboxes hidden in Massachusetts alone.

Our next YSS Meeting will be on Saturday, March 23^rd at the retreat in Duxbury. Hope to see you there!