Present: Sandy Heinemann, President; Tom Hehman, Past-President; Carolyn Barkley, Vice-President; Stella Pool, Second Vice-President; Nancy Newins, Secretary; Linda Hahne, Executive Director; Mary Hansbrough, VLA Newsletter;
Steve Helm, Webmaster; Pearline Harmon, Region III; Keith Weimer, Region IV; Maggie Zarnosky, Region V; Mary Mayer-Hennelly, Conference Committee; Louveller Luster, Continuing Education Committee; Neal Wyatt, Intellectual
Freedom; Gail Tatum, Local History, Genealogy; Jacque Dessino, Academic Library Section; Ruth Kifer, Administrative & Management Forum; Sandra Beehler, Collection Management Forum; Wayne Modlin, New Member Forum; Suzanne Leacy and Don Socia, Paraprofessional Forum; Janet Justis, Public
Documents Forum; Jane Schillie, Public Services Forum; Elaine Day, TSAT; Diantha McCauley, Youth Services Forum; Scottie Cochrane, ALA Councilor; Susan Keller, Awards & Recognition; Janis Augustine, Legislative Committee; Barbara Selby and Sue Trask, Publications Committee; Cy Dillon, Virginia Libraries. Absent: Terry Sumey, Treasurer (Excused); Sue Barton, Region I
(Excused); Connie Curtis, Region II (Excused); Jennifer Keach, Region VI (Excused); Craig Gibson, Academic Library Section; Sarah Wiggins, Multi-Cultural Forum (Excused); Carol Sinwell, Administrative & Management Forum; Brent Frank, Trustee & Friends Forum; Nancy Schiff, Volunteer Management Forum; Jan Pace, Collection Management Forum; Sally Reed, Federal
Relations; Linda Krantz, Legislative Committee; Sydney Simpson, Scholarship Committee; Donna Betts, School Library Section. (Note: "excused" indicates advance notification of absence to the Secretary).
Visitor: Andrea Kross.

1) President Heinemann convened the meeting at 10:05 a.m.

2) Minutes from the April 9, 1999 Council meeting were approved as distributed.

3) Executive Director's Report: Linda Hahne reported that VLA currently has a total of 1,120 members; 197 new members and 301 non-renewals. She also noted that the Jobline is heavily used. Some discussion ensued regarding use of the VLA Directory, and various ways to distribute it. Linda will print this year's in larger print. Currently ten scholarship applications have been received. The Paraprofessional Conference was again very successful with 430 registrants. Confirmation letters have been sent to annual conference speakers, and 32 vendor booths have been sold.

4) Treasurer's Report: Linda Hahne (reporting for Treasurer Sumey) distributed and reviewed the 1999 Income and Expense Statements through June 10, 1999. (Appended to the official minutes as attachment #1). Linda noted that the Paraprofessional Conference has received $47,643 with more revenue expected. Given the $44,682 in expenses to date, an $11,000 approximate
proceed is projected for the conference. Sale of raffle tickets plus $328 carried over will contribute $1,466 toward the Paraprofessional Scholarship. Congratulations go to the Paraprofessional Forum for yet another successful conference. President Heinemann expanded on the Paraprofessional Scholarship, which will be funded by the Forum in addition to the two Scholarships presently funded through IAC and BNA. All the scholarships will be administered by the VLA Scholarship Committee which now has paraprofessional membership.

5) Nominating Committee: Tom Hehman reported that the committee is working on a slate of officers to be announced in the coming week. VLA members are encouraged to become active in the association, and to assume leadership roles.

6) Conference Committee: Mary Mayer-Hennelly reported that many concurrent session proposals were received and a tentative schedule has been prepared. Letters have gone our to speakers notifying them that their proposals were accepted. There will be eight programs for each time slot, and there are still a couple of spaces left. The preliminary program will go to the printer in June. President Heinemann noted that this is a good program, despite the difficulty in planning a program for a group with diverse interests. Linda asked that forums planning business meetings should get in touch with her. She also reported that the front half of the
room of vendor booths is sold, and she will be calling vendors in September.

7) Legislative Committee: Janis Augustine reported that the April 16 meeting with Secretary of Education Bryant to discuss budget issues went well. The purpose of the meeting was to alert him to the budget requests for full funding of State Aid and "Infopowering." Secretary Bryant felt that the requests fit in with the budget criteria. Phil Abraham, VLA's legislative liaison, is working on contacting Secretary of Technology Upson in July, and contact will be made with the budget analyst in August. In April at the annual Virginia Public Library Directors meeting, letters were signed to recognize 16 legislators for their efforts in support of Virginia
libraries. All Republican legislators are being contacted by the library directors in their respective districts to ask them to talk to the Governor about putting full funding of state aid and "Infopowering" into his budget. The Legislative Committee is preparing to order presentation items to give to the fifty legislators who helped support VLA in the 1999 session. Sandy reported that the Executive Committee had briefly discussed the question of how to thank legislators for their support. A "letter to the editor" from
VLA to the local newspapers in legislators' districts was suggested and this idea and others will be discussed further. Finally the Legislative Committee will host a program at the VLA Conference on Friday, October 29 from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Senator Trumbo and Delegate Deeds, who represent Bath County, will speak about the upcoming election and the probable issues during the 2000 General Assembly Session. Janis also noted that Linda Krantz will talk about filtering at ALA (June 28, 1999). Mary
Mayer-Hennelly expressed appreciation for Janis Augustine's hard work as well as that of the Legislative Committee and Phil Abraham.

8) Publications Committee: Barbie Selby reported that the committee has revised the Publications Manual. Cy Dillon and Barbie will both participate in an ALA panel on publishing on the web. Cy noted that he is working with the Scholarly Communications Project at Virginia Tech to put Virginia Libraries on the web.

9) Progress Report -- VLA Designated Agenda for 1999: Sandy Heinemann directed a mid-year review of progress toward designated agenda goals. Under "Advocacy and Access Issues" she noted that the 2000 legislative agenda had been approved by Council at the April meeting, and had been distributed via the VLA listserv. Recognition of legislators is underway and good progress has been made by the Legislative Committee and Legislative
Liaison to meet legislative goals (see prior Legislative Committee report). Ruth Kifer reported for the Administrative and Management Services Forum on progress toward initiating a process for researching information on salaries and comparable worth issues in Virginia libraries. Ruth, Carol Sinwell and Nancy Newins will conduct telephone interviews with state associations who
are listed in American Libraries and C&RL News as having established salary minimums or guidelines. She read a list of questions that will be asked to determine how these states collect salary data and determine salary guidelines. The next step will be to plan and to implement a similar collection of salary data for Virginia libraries. In discussion, Wayne Modlin (Library of Virginia) noted that LVA had a committee to address salary issues and that Elizabeth Lewis would be a good person to contact. He also suggested that the Virginia Education Association might have
established salary guidelines for school librarians. Problems such as
regional variations were discussed and Ruth Kifer noted that whatever mechanism is used needs to be credible. Sandy Heinemann mentioned that VLA had done a salary survey ten years ago. Tom Hehman suggested that comparisons could be made in public libraries to local government officials. Cy Dillon suggested that raw salary figures might be published, with readers making their own comparisons. Nancy Newins invited anyone who was interested in the issue to contact Ruth, and that all help would be welcome.

Under "Continuing Education," Sandy reported that at the end
of the 2000 annual conference, the association will be able to evaluate three types of conferences: the past year's joint conference model; the Homestead conference; and the two-day model in Norfolk. She noted that evaluation is ongoing, and that it is difficult to measure success when both financial and program quality issues need consideration. Janis Augustine suggested that Roanoke be considered as a future conference site, and Sandy responded that the pattern is East, Center, West with Roanoke still on the agenda.

The Leadership Workshop at the past annual conference was
discussed and several suggestions were made. Elaine Day mentioned the importance of communicating information about Council members' responsibilities in more than one way, and Janet Justis noted the importance of the year as chair-elect in training the new chairperson. Barbie Selby suggested that units might schedule business meetings to involve more members of the group in activities, and Sandy Heinemann noted that this is often done in conjunction with the unit's program. Louveller Luster commented that the chairs should depend more on unit membership to help with planning and to meet regularly. Several council members noted the need to be more inclusive and suggested e-mail distribution lists for forums. Don Socia commented that everybody works on the Paraprofessional Forum Board, with co-chairs acting as facilitators, and that e-mail is used constantly. Their board meets monthly, and the co-chairs are in place for 2001.

In feedback from the Program Planners Workshop, held in late October at the Library of Virginia, reasons for the low attendance were discussed. Several council members suggested the idea of a pre-conference at annual so that a separate meeting would not need to be scheduled. Barbie Selby suggested that if this workshop were done as a pre-conference, Council members could come for free and it could be opened to interested VLA members for a fee.

Under "Finances," Sandy Heinemann reported that VLA is in
good financial shape, having moved from a deficit budget in October of 1997 to $65,000 currently in the reserve account. The past year's joint conference with VEMA, the Paraprofessional Conference proceeds, and this past year's dues increase have all contributed to the improved financial picture. By the end of 1999 it is hoped that the reserve will be at $90,000 which is well on the way to the goal of $120,000 (one year's operating budget for the association). The endowment for scholarships was discussed in the Scholarship Committee. The Treasurer and Finance Committee are
developing a plan to generate revenue from donations and advertising. Linda Hahne will maintain a database of potential donors, and it was concluded that ads on the VLA web page were not feasible at this time. Names of potential donors should be sent to Linda. Mary Hansbrough noted that a forthcoming article in the VLA Newsletter will discuss donations. Gail Tatum suggested that a donations category might be added to the VLA membership form.

Under "Membership," Carolyn Barkley reported on the Ad Hoc
Committee's activities to date and distributed minutes from the committee's April 20, 1999 meeting (appended to the official minutes as attachment#2). The long-range membership development plan will be presented at the September Council meeting. The minutes packet includes a new flyer, "VLA At Work for You...," which details benefits of VLA membership. This flyer was used when committee members represented VLA at two directors meetings this Spring: VPLDA and VICULA (directors from independent college libraries). Sandy Heinemann commended Carolyn Barkley and her committee on the excellent work done to date regarding membership recruitment.

10) Distribution of VLA Manual: Stella Pool distributed the "final edition" of the newly revised Manual, and received a round of applause from Council members for her and her committee's hard work in completing this time-consuming task.

11) Unit Reports and Announcements: Awards & Recognition (Susan Keller) announced that she needs applications for awards, and the deadline for the four VLA awards in July 1. Public Documents (Janet Justis) reported that the Documents Workshop on June 4 at Old Dominion University Library was quite successful and generated $600 in revenue. Evaluations were positive and since interest was high the Forum plans on repeating the workshop in the
western part of the state in the Fall.

Region V (Maggie Zarnosky) announced a that the first of the series of three brown bag discussions on "How Technology Has Changed Our World: the Customer, the Collection and Me" was held on May 26 with 25 in attendance. She distributed a flyer with detailed information on the second and third workshops to be held on July 22 at George Mason Regional Library and on September 30 at the Newseum in Rosslyn,
Virginia.

Technical Services (Elaine Day) reported that the program on June 7 at the Library of Virginia on "A PERL (Practical Extraction and Report Language)Toolkit for Libraries" was very well attended with 83 attendees. Presenters were Edward Summers (ODU) and Charles McFadden (Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences). The Forum posted a follow-up online toolkit on the web at

http://library.jmu.edu/libliaison/dayel/VLA/Spring99/toolkit2.htm

Paraprofessional Forum (Suzanne Leacy) reported that the Paraprofessional Conference was quite successful with 430 registrants and good conference evaluations. Planning has already started for the 2000 conference. Youth Services (Diantha McCauley) reported that the Jefferson Cup Award recipient for 1998-1999 is Soldier's Heart, by Gary Paulsen. Local History,Genealogy (Gail Tatum) reported that they are planning a
program for mid-September on expanding a genealogy program without expanding the budget.

The meeting adjourned at 12:30 p.m. for a picnic lunch at Barbie Selby's home.

Respectfully submitted
Nancy Newins, Secretary