In attendance were: Colleen Dunham, Cheryl Landes, Mary Harper, Scott Smiley, Julie Kawabata, Sherry Smith, Cher Paul, Annanaomi Sams, Nancy Gerth, Ed Rush, Vivian Bliss, Joyce Helena Brusin

The meeting was called to order at 8:45 a.m.

Minutes
The Minutes of the October, 2006 Meeting were approved.

1. Reports
Treasurer – Scott Smiley provided the treasury report that was included in meeting attendee’s packets. Colleen moved that the Treasurer’s report be approved. Cheryl seconded it. All approved.

Archives – Colleen reported on behalf of Elspeth Pope. Elspeth contacted representatives of the University of Washington’s special collections library and they expressed an interest in providing storage space for the Chapter’s archive material. This will be pursued further.

Institutional memory – Colleen reported on behalf of David Billick regarding the need to create a document of the officer and committee chair responsibilities and procedures. It was mentioned that this could be posted on the Chapter website. Cheryl volunteered to send out an outline of what should be included. It was agreed to set the deadline for the submission of these documents by the next meeting in September 2007.

Newsletter – Colleen reported on behalf of Gayle Davies regarding the Chapter Newsletter. The Spring issue is done. Attendees were recruited to write reports on various aspects of this weekend’s meeting for the next issue. The goal is to produce the next issue prior to the September meeting so that it can include promotional information about the Fall meeting. Sherry mentioned that the Newsletter is looking for volunteer layout help. Sherry will contact the PSU students who attended about the volunteer opportunity.

2. Meetings
Spring 2007 - There was consensus that is was useful to partner with the Washington Library Association. Twelve WLA members in addition to seven indexers attended the introductory workshop that Sherry and Cheryl conducted. There was discussion about how to improve partnering with speakers and guests from other related disciplines to educate others about the value of indexing.

Cher mentioned that the approximate cost of attending this meeting was about $264.00. Colleen reported that the collective travel time was 84.5 hours, so it’s as if we drove for two weeks. There was consensus that the “first time” attendee discount was an effective way to attract potential and new indexers to the meeting.

Scott collected the following attendee statistics – With a total of 26 attendees: first timers: 7 (27%), from east of the Cascades: 11 (42%), from west of the Cascades: 15 (58%), Washington: 13 (50%), Oregon: 8 (31%), Idaho: 4 (15%), Montana: 1 (4%)

The evaluation asked attendees to select their top two future seminar topics from a list of eight. The tabulation results were: Web indexing introduction (7), Adobe Acrobat/PDF (6), Scholarly indexing (6), Business and financial management (5), Facing the Text workshop (3), Medical indexing (2), Speed reading (2), Legal indexing (1) and Publisher contacts/relations was written in.

$105.00 was raised in the raffling of the baby quilt and other donated items. Proceeds will be earmarked for the Publisher Recognition program.

Mary reported that $693.00 worth of Information Today books were sold. Again, they extended the 10% discount to us on all books.

Three Anniversary books were sold. Sherry will coordinate the possible sale of the Chapter Anniversary books as the National meeting in Philadelphia with some of the members who will be attending.

Fall 2007 - Cheryl reported that much of the logistics of the Fall 2007 meeting in Vancouver, Wa. are finalized including the seminar speakers. Sherry will coordinate with Martha for the posting of the Fall meeting announcement soon.

Spring 2008 – This meeting will be held in Eugene, Oregon. We tentatively considered April 5th and 12th as possible weekends. Scott will coordinate with Martha Osgood in choosing the final date.

Spring 2009 – Julie reported that the Board is considering holding their 2009 meeting in Portland, Oregon. She also confirmed that the National ASI Board revised their by-laws and that the new Chapter Manual specifies that Chapters are required to conduct one meeting per year. During a year when the national meeting is held in the Pacific Northwest there was consensus that one Chapter meeting would be sufficient.

Future meetings and collaboration - Annanaomi mentioned that a bi-state library association will be meeting April 16-18, 2008 in Vancouver, Wa. in case the Chapter would like to consider some type of collaboration such as a introductory workshop again. She estimated that 600-700 librarians would attend.

Other organizations and events were mentioned for possible partnerships such as ASIST, ASTD and Book Fest in Seattle. The Portland Wordstock will be November 11, 2007.

3. Scholarships
Colleen mentioned that since one of our goals is to ensure that a shortage of finances does not prevent someone from attending a meeting we consider offering scholarships. There was discussion about two for one offers, sweat equity-volunteer activity in exchange and other ways to help defray the costs of attendance. Colleen and Cheryl expressed interest in sponsoring scholarships.

4. Ergonomics at meetings
There was discussion about the value of the workshop by Sue Dryer and how to extend ergonomics into every meeting. There was discussion about software that cues the indexer to get up and do short exercises and possible contacting of vendors to secure complimentary items, raffle items or discounts on ergonomic aides to members. Colleen volunteered to bring ergonomics awareness to each meeting. Ed offered to assist.

5. Officers/Elections
David Billick will coordinate the officer nomination process. The next election cycle will be in late Summer 2007 for 2008 Secretary and Vice-President positions.

6. PNW Excellence in Indexing Award
Cheryl described the STC submission and judging procedure. Sherry suggested ensuring anonymity and asking members of another Chapter to judge the indexes. Colleen mentioned that the winners would be good indexes to use in further usability studies. Mary mentioned that it would be helpful to newer indexers to have excellent examples of indexes for trade books and less complex, esoteric material than the Wilson award usually selects. There was consensus about developing the concept further.

7. Grant proposals for indexing projects
Nancy shared her efforts with a local museum in securing grant money for indexing projects. She’s learned that there is money available for this and 501 3c non-profit organizations are usually required to be the recipients. There was discussion about how the Chapter might explore possible collaboration with indexing of newspaper and historical collections. There was discussion about sources of grant funds such as the History Channel, library associations, corporate newsletters. CREHST may be interested in partnering with a grant writer for this purpose.

Action items
.....Elspeth will pursue the University of Washington archival storage space.
.....Cheryl will create and distribute an outline of what information officers and committee chairpersons should include in the archival records.
.....Officers and committee chairpersons will submit documents to Archives by the next meeting.
.....Officers and committee chairpersons to draft policies and procedures by the next meeting.
.....Sherry will contact attendees of the National Conference in May about the sale of anniversary books.
.....Sherry will coordinate with Martha the posting of the Fall meeting information on the website.
.....Scott will coordinate with Martha the choosing of the date for the Spring 2008 meeting.
.....Sherry will contact the PSU students about the newsletter layout volunteer opportunity.
.....Scott will attempt to recruit some Indexer Inn volunteers for the Fall 2007 meeting in Vancouver, Wa.
.....Sherry will contact the Denver Chapter about potential partnership in an Excellence Award process.
.....Colleen will develop a proposal for how scholarships for meeting attendance costs might be offered.
.....Colleen and Ed will develop ergonomics awareness for future meetings.
.....Nancy, Sherry and Annanaomi will research the grant proposal concept for historical indexing projects.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:40 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Mary Harper, Secretary