Proposal to MCMLA Membership: Change the meeting rotation that was in place

1. Rethinking Face-to-Face Chapter Meetings MCMLA Annual Meeting Task Force† Survey Questions and Responses: If MCMLA goes to a cycle of virtual conference one year and face-to-face conference the next year, how likely is it that you would attend: The Face-to-Face conferences: The Virtual Conferences: How important is it to you that the annual meeting rotate throughout the chapter region? • Proposal to MCMLA Membership: • Change the meeting rotation that was in place • Recommend to the MLA Board the need to change the requirement for face-to-face chapter meetings • Members change our expectations of how we “do” our annual meeting (i.e. scale back expectations) • Adopt a cafeteria plan for annual meetings – hold the required chapter business meeting; other segments would be optional • Select one of the following recommendations for annual meeting location & planning: • Alternate face-to-face and virtual meetings annually • Hold face-to-face meetings in limited geographic locations, with planning committees called or appointed from the entire MCMLA membership • Call for meeting planners and hosts annually, with no set rotation or location • The Task Force recommended that the MCMLA Membership implement an alternating schedule of face-to-face and virtual meetings • Results and Conclusions: • Holding a virtual meeting is possible with software currently available on the market • Almost half of survey responders have experience with virtual meetings • A virtual annual meeting will: • Potentially change the culture of the chapter even if held every other year • Impact the income received from the annual chapter meetings, though the full impact is not known at this time • Potentially allow more MCMLA members to participate in the annual meeting. The past few years have seen a significant drop in membership attendance at the annual meeting • The MCMLA Executive Committee has submitted a motion to the MLA Board that the MLA Bylaws and Model Chapter Bylaws be changed to expressly permit virtual chapter annual meetings • MCMLA is exploring the possibility of having a virtual annual meeting conference in 2013 • Objective: • In light of an increase in inexpensive conferencing software coupled with the decrease in both travel budgets and chapter members available to plan our annual meetings, the Midcontinental Chapter of the Medical Library Association (MCMLA) formed a task force to analyze alternatives to our tradition of geographically rotated, locally planned, yearly, face-to-face chapter meetings. • Charge: • Address the following questions: • What benefit does the annual meeting provide to members of MCMLA? • How often should or must the annual meeting be held? • What is the most effective and sustainable format for the meeting – virtual, face-to-face, or a combination? • Where should the meeting be held and how will the locations be set, specifically for physical meetings? • How are the planning committees to be determined especially for virtual meetings? • How can the conference planners utilize the MCMLA committees? • What profit margins, if any, are expected from the meeting? • Methods: • We reviewed the purpose of our face-to-face annual meetings. To do so, we reviewed the chapter and national bylaws as well as member comments from the preceding year’s meeting • We searched the literature for articles on the value of conferences, both virtual and face-to-face • We surveyed chapter members about their experience with and impressions of virtual meetings and conferences • We examined several existing conferencing software products • We held a members’ forum at the fall 2010 MCMLA Annual Meeting Task Force Members: Rebecca S. Graves, AHIP, Educational Services Librarian, J. Otto Lottes Health Sciences Library, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO; Jerry Carlson, AHIP, Medical Librarian, Poudre Valley Health System, Fort Collins, CO; Lynne M. Fox, AHIP, Education Librarian, Health Sciences Library, University of Colorado-Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO; Claire Hamasu, Associate Director, National Network of Libraries of Medicine – Midcontinental Region, Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT; Mary Henning, Librarian, Teaching and Learning Center, Laramie County Community College Albany County Campus, Laramie, WY; Jackie Hittner, Library Services Manager, American Association of Orthodontists, St. Louis, MO; Jeff Kuntzman, Head, Library Information Technology, University of Colorado-Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO Contact Information: GravesR@health.missouri.edu