Committee Reports

BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee recently met virtually. The committee’s main task for the year 2014 is organizing the forum at ALA Annual. The committee members have been hard at work. After soliciting submissions for the forum, we conducted a poll and selected the following speakers: Ilana Barnes, Jason Sokoloff, and Lisa O’Connor. Barnes is writing a paper about her experiences teaching a required information literacy course to a large number of students (and the problem of scalability), Sokoloff is covering concerns associated with assessment, and O’Connor is doing something really fascinating: discussing the internal psychological motivations of why people seek knowledge or think that would be effective behavior.

BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee recently met virtually. The committee’s main task for the year 2014 is organizing the forum at ALA Annual. The committee members have been hard at work. After soliciting submissions for the forum, we conducted a poll and selected the following speakers: Ilana Barnes, Jason Sokoloff, and Lisa O’Connor. Barnes is writing a paper about her experiences teaching a required information literacy course to a large number of students (and the problem of scalability), Sokoloff is covering concerns associated with assessment, and O’Connor is doing something really fascinating: discussing the internal psychological motivations of why people seek knowledge or think that would be effective behavior.

The committee also started to divide up supporting logistical work for organizing the forum.

Charles Allan, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
We have added a new Public Librarian’s Briefcase article, No. 29, 1st Quarter 2014, “What’s in a name? Naming Rights as Revenue Generators.” In addition to the ALA URL, we have created a tinyurl: http://tinyurl.com/brassnr. The 2nd Quarter’s topic for the Public Librarian’s Briefcase is a case study: the grant process and program elements for a major grant on Financial Literacy received by Melissa Jeter and The Toledo Public Library.

We are still kicking ideas around for our 2015 Annual program.

Ed Rossman, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Program Planning Committee
BRASS 2014 Program: Mad Men: The Business of Advertising
Monday, June 30, 2014, 8:00-10:00am

Many companies spend millions on advertising their brands and products, yet the data can be hard to find. Specialized sources, available at many large libraries, focus on these statistics. The information they contain can be used by business students, researchers, or the general public. In addition, media planning, a component of a company’s marketing plan will be covered. Entrepreneurs need information on placing ads (and on how much it costs); reference librarians assisting these users will also find the content of the program very useful.

The session kicks off with breakfast, 8:00am-8:30am, sponsored by S&P Capital IQ.

Speakers:

  • Wendy Diamond, Business and Economics Librarian, California State University, Chico. Ms. Diamond has been a featured speaker at two prior BRASS annual programs (2001 and 2008) on marketing. She is the co-author of: Marketing Information: A Strategic Guide for Business and Finance Libraries (2004).
  • Dale Skarl, Search Engine Marketing Manager for MGM Resorts International.

Patricia Kenly, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The RUSQ column on “Outstanding Business Reference Sources 2013” was published in December 2013 issue. Becky Smith was the selections editor.

Suzanne Sweeney presented the list of winning Business Reference titles at the RUSA Book and Media Awards Reception at Midwinter.

We currently have twenty-one business reference titles nominated for the coming year. We hope to get several more nominated before the spring, when we will meet again online to begin the review process. Jordan Nielsen and Mark Siciliano are co-coordinators of the nominations process this year.

The Publishers Forum this year is being co-coordinated by Janis Tyhurst and Penny Scott, with assistance from Brittany Geissinger and me.

The forum will be titled “Hitting the Jackpot: Sources for Local and Regional Business Information.” The discussion will focus on the various types of local business information that are available through a variety of sources. We have contacted the following vendors and they have agreed to demonstrate their products specifically concerning the types of data they have for Las Vegas and Nevada in general.

  • Euromonitor Passport Cities (localized city economic profiles and analysis on consumers)
  • Demographics Now (US Census data)
  • Data Planet (U S States statistical datasets)
  • ProQuest ABI Inform Dateline product (local and regional business journals)

Ed Hahn has created a LibGuide for Business Reference Sources Committee (BRSC): Outstanding Business Reference Sources: Yearly Selection of Recent Titles which we hope to link to from our BRSC page.

Susan Hurst, 2012-2014 Chair

BRASS Discussion Group Committee
The BRASS Discussion Group moderated the all BRASS meeting at the ALA Mid-winter in Philadelphia in January. The meeting kicked-off with President Andy Spackman covering official business, approval of notes, and reviewing current plans for BRASS at ALA Annual in Las Vegas. The discussion portion of the meeting’s topics varied from the very restrictive policies of the Harvard Business Review, an update of the maker lab at Chicago Public Library, and other topics.

The Discussion Group plans on having two online discussions prior to the annual conference in June/July, monitor BRASS-L for dates, times, and topics.

Jason Dewland, 2012-2014 Chair

BRASS Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee is happy to report that our first BRASS-sponsored free webinar “Industry Research Using the Economic Census and Other Government Sources” presented by Jennifer Boettcher from Georgetown University and moderated by our member Peter McKay from the University of Florida was a huge success. The recording is available for here.

The registration for the 2014 2014 RUSA BRASS preconference “How Business Librarians Support Entrepreneurs” is now open: http://ala14.ala.org/ticketed-events#RUSA.

The winners of the Best of the Best Business Websiteswere announced by Louise Feldman at the RUSA Book and Media Award Ceremony at ALA Midwinter. This year we focused on the websites indispensable to entrepreneurs. The 2014 winners are:

  • SCORE.org
  • Entrepreneur.com
  • Entrepreneurship.org

To see the list of recipients, please visit the RUSA Awards Page.

At the virtual midwinter meeting the committee members discussed style guidelines for updating the BRASS Business Guides. The target deadline to complete the transition to topical guides is June 20, 2014.

Natasha Arguello, 2012-2014 Chair
University of Texas at San Antonio
http://connect.ala.org/node/65121
http://brass.libguides.com/

BRASS Membership Committee
BRASS Membership Committee will be hosting the BRASS Member Reception, Friday, June 27, 2014 5:30-7:30 PM, location TBA at ALA Annual in Las Vegas. This is a great opportunity for BRASS members and anyone interested in BRASS to meet and network! There will be hors d’oeuvres and beverages for your enjoyment. Sponsored by InfoGroup.

Membership is exploring ways to engage current members and recruit new business librarians to our great section. One is making Facebook more appealing as a place to get some of your BRASS information. Another is to offer ways for BRASS members to connect locally for more day-to-day operational support.

Kelly Janousek, 2012-2014 Chair

BRASS Vendor Relations Committee

  • We were successful at getting increased funding for the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award and Gale Student Travel award.
  • BRASS also has a commitment from InfoGroup for the Member Reception in Las Vegas.
  • S&P Capital IQ has committed to supporting our Monday Program breakfast.

Chris LeBeau, 2013-2015 Chair

BRASS Publications and Communications Committee

  • Kelly Evans has updated the BRASS publications list
  • Chad Boeninger has sent several reminders to the BRASS-L list, and to individuals, regarding the list guidelines.
  • Genifer Snipes reports since ALA Annual in Chicago, we have added thirty followers (or “Likes”) to our Facebook page and have been seeing increased interaction with posts.
  • Annette Buckley has made significant updates to the BRASS web pages and roster.
  • Pauly Iheanacho: Update from BRASS Representative to RUSA Publication and Communications Committee.

Chad Boeninger, 2013-2015 Chair

BRASS Section Review Ad Hoc Committee
The BRASS Section Review Ad Hoc Committee would like to thank everyone for making the review successful. Thanks to all who contributed in giving thought and time to making our section more efficient, engaging and enjoyable for all BRASS members.

Paul Brother, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
We regret to announce that the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award will not be given this year. The committee received no nominations. We strongly encourage BRASS members to consider which of their public librarian colleagues might have benefited from this excellent opportunity to be recognized and receive travel funds for the next annual conference, generously sponsored by our friends at Morningstar. Please plan to nominate deserving colleagues next fall!

Karen Chapman, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Business Expert Press Award Committee
The BRASS Business Expert Press Award has received seven nominations. The committee reviewed the files of the nominees and made the selection of the recipient.

Desirae Zingarelli-Sweet, the Business Librarian of James Madison University of Virginia, is the recipient of the 2014 BRASS Business Expert Press Award. Ms. Zingarelli-Sweet has done an outstanding job in library instruction and collaboration with business faculty. She has been working with 1,500 business students helping them with their research projects via library instruction sessions and individual consultations. She has updated business research web pages adding new resources and has worked together with the Library Director to create a Graduate Student’s position to help with the demanding business research requests. Committee members believe that Ms. Zingarelli-Sweet will make a strong contribution to the profession of business librarianship and to BRASS.

Kaiping Zhang, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee
The BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee received six applications. The committee is happy to announce Ilana Barnes, Business Information Specialist and Tao Zhang, Digital User Experience Specialist, at Purdue University, as this year’s recipients of the BRASS Emerald Research Award. Barnes and Zhang are assessing how students engage with CrowdAsk, a crowdsourced business library help system in a business information context and is a paradigm shift from the traditional library reference help model. Barnes and Zhang will look at the return on investment for business libraries interested in implementing the system or others like it. The committee was impressed with Barnes and Zhang’s proposal in terms of providing valuable insights into innovative reference service models. This research has the potential to study a new type of reference model, crowd-sourcing, while providing insights into user engagement opportunities within the scope of undergraduate business information literacy.

Elizabeth Stephan, 2013-2014 chair