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Who we are > Minutes of recent committee meetings

Minutes of recent committee meetings

Annual General Meeting
Wednesday 12 July 2006
Minutes

1. Present: 65 members were present
2. Apologies were received from Cheshire Libraries, University of Derby, Stirling University and Swansea University.
3. Minutes of the 2005 Annual Meeting were accepted as a true record. Proposed Thelma Goodman, seconded Jean Bradford.
4. Matters Arising None
5. Chairman's Report In recent times, libraries have been subject to a state of permanent transition and the world of interlending has certainly been no exception to this rule. Members of the FIL Committee have been keeping busy over the past year. Some Committee members have faced steep learning curves as they have taken on new roles. The Committee is always happy to receive feedback and suggestions from the FIL membership so please feel free to approach us with any ideas that you might have.

Networking has always been an integral feature of interlending and document supply. Bearing this in mind, the FIL Committee has continued to organize workshops and events for members around the country. A main aim of these events has been to enable document supply librarians to get together and share ideas, as well as to keep informed about developments as they arise. A one day workshop was held at Derby on September 29th 2005. The event was jointly organised by FIL and Libraries and Information East Midlands (LIEM). Sessions included a short presentation on the work of FIL, a British Library update and an outline of the work of LIEM. During the afternoon, presentations were given on the topic of IDS work as seen from different perspectives - a University Library (Derby), a large public library authority (Derbyshire) and a special library (British Geological survey). This was followed by group discussions on the topic of how we might improve ILL services through regional co-operation. Feedback has indicated that nearly all those present found the day very useful and interesting.

FIL's annual visit to the British Library's Document Supply Centre at Boston Spa took place in March 2006 and was attended by over 50 FIL members from all over the country. Presentations included a talk by Annick Ireland on Recent Developments at the British Library and a presentation on the Picture collection by Hedley Sutton, who is the Reading Room Manager of the Asia/Pacific and Africa collections. This was followed by a panel discussion on the topic of resource sharing and the future of union catalogues. Last, but not least, the event proved to be a suitable occasion for the official book launch of Interlending and Document Supply in Britain Today edited by Jenny Brine and Jean Bradford. The book was published in February 2006 by Chandos and is highly recommended as a useful reference tool for Interlending and Document Supply practitioners. We are very proud of Jenny and Jean for putting in so much work in editing the book and would like to acknowledge the effort put in by all the people who wrote chapters for the book.

We must apologize to you for the late appearance of Issue 46 of the FIL Newsletter. This was due to unforeseen delays in the production process. We hope that these problems have now been resolved so that future issues can be produced on a more regular basis. Issue 47 of the Newsletter is near completion and should appear shortly after this conference has taken place.

One of the major issues affecting UK interlending operations this year has been the recent demise of UnityWeb and the subsequent development of UnityUK and Talis Source. The use of Union Catalogues is very important to most people who work in document delivery, so the changes are being monitored closely.

Secure Electronic Delivery continues to be a much debated process, and we welcome the presence of British Library staff on our FIL Committee as they are able to advise us of up to date developments as they occur.

The FIL website plan was drafted by Jenny Brine. Thanks go to Alan at CILIP for arranging with a website designer to get the web pages up and running.

Mike McGrath has been working on a Promotion plan which is designed to increase FIL's influence in the wider community. Our membership now stands at 235 but we are always looking for new members. If current FIL members know people either in the UK or abroad who have some involvement with document supply and who might benefit from joining FIL, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our Membership Secretary is Tracey Jackson, who, in addition to carrying out her duties in this role, has also made a substantial contribution towards the organization of this conference.

One of our remits over the past year has been to strengthen our links with CONARLS. It has been arranged for a FIL Committee member to attend the CONARLS meetings and, in return, a representative from CONARLS has attended the FIL Committee meetings.

Penny Street, our IFLA representative, has been working hard to promote interlending on an international scale. She recently attended a meeting of the IFLA Standing Committee in Rome, working, amongst other things, on a Best Practice document.

Finally, the time has come to say goodbye to several valued members of our Committee. Linda Cameron and Nina Whitcombe haven’t been able to join us at the conference this year, but I would like to thank them in their absence, on behalf of FIL, for all the hard work they have contributed over the past four years. Our secretary, Jenny Brine, is also standing down as she will be taking on a new post at Lancaster University very soon. We will certainly miss all the work that Jenny has done for FIL and indeed for the world of interlending in general. On behalf of all the members of FIL I would like to thank all three of them for their dedication and hard work.
6. Statement of Accounts (presented by the Chairman in the absence of the Treasurer). The FIL accounts for the year to 31 December 2005 showed a healthy balance. It was suggested that FIL consider opening a deposit account to earn interest on the account; the Committee would consider this. The 2005 conference had made a small profit and it was hoped the 2006 conference would do so too. The Committee planned to use some of the money in the account to finance sending a FIL member to the ILDS Conference in Singapore in 2007. The accounts would be audited in due course. The accounts were accepted – proposed Jean Bradford, seconded Angela Faunch.
The Chairman thanked the Treasurer for the enormous amount of work she had done on the accounts during 2005 and 2006.
7. Newsletter Newsletter 46 had appeared late, due to production problems. Newsletter 47 was with the layout designer, and articles for Number 48 were coming in. The editors appealed for short news items as well as longer articles. It was hoped that two issues would appear over the next year.
The Chairman thanked the current editors Marjory Lobban and Peter Robinson for their work, and past editor Ros Doig for her efforts in producing issue 46.
8. Elections for the Committee The number of vacancies on the committee matched the number of vacancies, so no election was required. The following were declared elected:

9. Any Other Business
a. The Chairman thanked members who were leaving the Committee – Jenny Brine, Linda Cameron and Nina Whitcombe.
b. Thelma Goodman asked that the next Annual Conference be held in the North of England or Scotland.

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