Welcome Technology Committee, Faciliators, Recorders, Blogger, and Resource People

The conference infrastructure is designed to provide maximum organization and creativity and to capture content for the new vision. Please read all about it below.

Dear All,

Thank you so much for your participation in the summit, Transforming Texas Libraries, which will take place in Austin, Dec. 3 and 4. I am attaching a draft summit schedule [blog note - this will be the next post]. Please note that we will conduct a training and briefing session for you on Monday, Dec. 3 starting at 9 am. The session will be conducted by Julie Todaro, and the summit’s general session facilitator, Lou Wetherbee, will be on hand. The training session will take place at the Austin Airport Hilton, where all summit activities will occur. For all you Austin folks, parking will validated.

The training session will cover roles, responsibilities, group planning, and technology resources, as well as the work flow during the summit. Julie Todaro will send you all an agenda for the training session as well as handout material.

Overview of the summit

The Transforming Texas Libraries summit, a two-day event to be held in Austin, Dec. 3 and 4, is a kick-off event. The Texas library community (along with representatives from outside stakeholder groups like the Texas Education Agency, the Higher Education Coordinating Board, and local governments) is undertaking a grassroots planning process. Essentially, we want to look at what libraries of all types—school, public, and academic—should be doing in the coming years. What are essential services? How can we best support education and economic development? In order to arrive at innovative and forward thinking approaches, we are relying on the voices of many veteran and new people in the education field. We are also seeking outside opinions.

The summit is designed to have participants (about 115 invited individuals) work together over the course of a couple of days to come up with some recommendations in key areas and to help us form a united vision. These recommendations will then be disseminated widely over the coming months to interested groups and the library community at large for feedback, improvement, and detail.

The summit, as the starting point for discussions and the forum to create the initial draft recommendations, will be tailored to get the best creative thought out of participants. We will have some national library leaders start the event with a provocative discussion about what libraries needs to be doing to continue being viable. These speakers are known to be provocative to our community, and we hope will get the blood pumping!

All participants will be assigned to work groups, who will then hammer out some recommendations in specific areas but then will also have the flexibility to recommend changes, needs, services, programming in other areas as well. These breakout sessions will be facilitated by members of the University of Houston Libraries.

Facilitators will be responsible for leading the discussion in the workgroups, both Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. You will work on getting the workgroups to enter into a productive and innovative discussion on the issues at hand. Facilitators will also have a role in the Tuesday afternoon session in helping make sure that the feedback from all of the groups is reported to the general assembly. Facilitators will also meet with Steering Committee members and Julie and Lou throughout the process to make sure we are all on track.

Recorders will be responsible for capturing the discussion on a laptop computer. Ed Seidenberg has developed a template (based on the questions the workgroups will be addressing) to make it easier to follow the group process. The comments being recorded on the laptops will be projected on a screen in each workgroup room, so that participants can follow the notes being taken.

All workgroups must submit their template(s) to the Technology Committee by noon on Tuesday, as the Technology Committee will assemble one document from all the groups.

There are basically six categories of issues, with each issue containing up to three questions. Each workgroup will be tasked with answering the questions in one of the six issue categories. After answering the “assigned” category, the workgroup can then answer as many of the other questions as they’d like. Recorders will all receive training on the template during the session on Monday. Each recorder will be given a flash drive, where the template will be stored. You will then, in turn, give the flash drive (with the completed templates) to the Technology Committee on Tuesday.


For now, let me provide you with a full list of the recorders, facilitators, and Technology Committee members for the six breakout workgroups.

Technology Committee

Melinda Townsel (ACC)
Chris Jowaisas (TLSAC)
Ted Wanner (TLA)
Kathy Pustejovsky (TLA)

Facilitators

Diane Bruxvoort (U of H)
Damon Camille (U of H)
Lee Hilyer (U of H)
Nancy Linden (U of H)
Anne Mitchell (U of H)
Mike Thompson (U of H)

Recorders

Ann Mason (TLSAC)—work group recorder
Danielle Plumer (TLSAC)—work group recorder
Tine Walczyk (TLSAC)—work group recorder
Dawn Vogler (TLSAC)—work group recorder
Christine McNew (TLSAC)—work group recorder
Pam Spooner (ACC)—work group recorder
Erica McKewen —recorder for Tuesday afternoon session

Conference Blogger

Ellie Collier (ACC)

Resource People

Beverley Shirley (TLSAC)
Deborah Littrell (TSLAC)

Thanks to the University of Houston Libraries, the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, and Austin Community College for the incredible availability of talent! And, thanks to each of you. I will be sending the list of discussion questions to the whole participant list shortly.

All my best,
Gloria Meraz
Director of Communications
Texas Library Association