West Tennessee Academic Library Consortium

Spring Meeting, 2007

Crichton College

March 17, 2007

The spring meeting of WeTALC directors was called to order by President Pam Walker a March 17, 2007 at Crichton College.  There were no formal minutes to be accepted since the Fall meeting consisted of a lengthy presentation by Gale’s trainer, Sara Tarpley.  Spring reports had been circulated by email prior to the meeting. Those present for the directors’ meeting on March 17, 2007 included Steve Baker, Lan Wang, Pam Walker, Hope Shull, Scott Cohen, Pam Dennis, Darlene Brooks,  and Margaret Cardwell. 

Pam Walker reported that WETALC in a non-dues paying affiliate member of Tenn-Share.  Pam will represent WETALC at the annual Tenn-Share meeting in the fall.

Scott Cohen reported that he has been attending the TLA meetings as the WETALC affiliate member.  Pam Walker volunteered to assume that responsibility as well.

There was much discussion about various library products, vendors, consortial pricing, and satisfaction with products that some of the group were already using.  Among those discussed were Serials Solutions, ProQuest, Worldcat, Endeavor, Sirsi, Windows Vista, Ariel, and Digital Senders, etc. 

The directors and the rest of the group came together at 11:30 for the program “The Future of Academic Libraries.”  Hope Shull, Scott Cohen, and Steve Baker, as the panel, responded to questions from Pam Walker and others about the fate of libraries in the 21^st century.  Topics touched on outsourcing, the more public role of all library staff, what the physical space of the library will look like, and periodical and book discarding in the era of electronic documents.  Steve Baker referenced an article by written by David Lewis, the Dean of the University Library at IUPUI.  He emailed the link to this article on Monday, March 19, 2007. 

After a delicious lunch provided by Crichton College Pam and Alice conducted a tour of the library facilities at Crichton.

The following week Pam Walker volunteered to continue as moderator for the coming year as the group had failed to select someone new.  

Respectfully submitted,

Margaret Cardwell