From: TLA Board [TLABOARD@LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] on behalf of Romans, Larry [larry.romans@VANDERBILT.EDU]

Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 3:01 PM

To: TLABOARD@LISTSERV.UTK.EDU

Subject: [TLABOARD] #7 Legislation Committee Report

Attachments: ROTHACKER Resolution.doc; TLA 2009 resolution PATRIOT.doc

TLA Legislation Committee Report                                                                                       #7

The committee met Oct. 28, 2009, at Vanderbilt Divinity Library.

Vandy Owens presented us with a new logo for Tennessee Library Legislation Day (TLLD). The groups offered suggestions for a revised version that Vandy hoped to send to us by Thanksgiving.

The Committee discussed options for photographing those who attend TLLD. Like last year we plan to have group shots in front of the TLA banner. Vandy will contact last year’s photographer before the next meeting to see if he will take the photos again this year.  Jason Vance is looking into ALA’s READ software, that would allow us to overlay a READ poster on photos of the legislators. If we can’t arrange it for this year (2010 TLLD), we’ll work on having it in place for 2011.

We with work with Annelle Huggins to determine the best and easiest ways to match legislators with advocates.  We plan to work to find advocates for each House and Senate member. We want to using the TLS e-mail list and we plan to contact local and regional libraries.

We talked about having a cake for TEL during the luncheon with legislators. The committee has decided to have a small cake with candles for {someone} to blow out and to share at the head table, but to offer regular dessert to the rest of the attendees.

We want to download the entire membership with e-mail addresses into the Cap-Wiz database, with the ability for members to opt out of receiving occasional e-mail messages about pending legislation and regulations. We want to develop Cap-Wiz as a legislative tool for state and local library-related issues.

We plan to work with the Public Relations Committee to pick a typical day or week for a “Snapshot” of Tennessee libraries. We plan to work with Annelle Huggins and the PR committee on what questions we want to ask and what data we want to tally.

We need to work with James Staub to find out who has which committee records. We are committed to creating a notebook to help future members of the Committee benefit from what earlier members have learned.

One major issue remaining is who to get as the main speaker for TLLD. We plan to look at speakers from the ALA speakers list.  We also may ask a legislator to give a talk on how to win friends and influence legislators. We want to be able to identify issues most important to librarians, and we may ask a representative of the Department of Education to speak.

The Committee will meet again on December 5 right after the meeting of the TLA Board of Directors.

Attached are two resolutions we plan to bring forward, one honoring Mike Rothacker and one urging reform of the USA PATRIOT Act, which we are introducing jointly with the Intellectual Freedom Committee. We will present a third resolution as a surprise.

Vandy Owen

Larry Romans

Larry Romans,
Head, Government Information and Media Services;
Political Science and Communication Studies Bibliographer.
Vanderbilt University Libraries,
Nashville, TN 37203-2427.
larry.romans@vanderbilt.edu;
(615) 322-2838.
American Library Association,
Executive Board, 2007-2010