BRASS Notes

Elizabeth Malafi, Editor

Message from Past BRASS Chair

Thank you all for another spectacular and productive year that has seen the forward movement of BRASS.  Looking back BRASS gained the support of two new sponsors: Mergent Excellence in Business Librarianship Award and the SimplyMap Student Travel Award.  The 2016 ALA Annual Conference in Orlando contained numerous outstanding BRASS events (& meetings) like the well-attended and received Friday Pre conference (Business Data for Librarians) and the Monday morning program (Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitudes: Travel and Hospitality Landscape and Library Resources). The BRASS Education Committee established a web badge with the BRASS logo for the Best of the Best Business web sites.  This activity will bring more well-deserved exposure to BRASS.  These are just a few highlights looking through the rear-view mirror.  Unfortunately, there are many other achievements not mentioned here that have been brought to fruition by our BRASS colleagues.  All of these add to the success of our section. In closing, I want to extend a special thanks to the members of the BRASS Executive Board and for all BRASS members who have worked diligently this past year in continuing to uphold BRASS to its’ level of excellence.

Paul Brothers
BRASS Past Chair

Message from Current BRASS Chair

Hi BRASS Members! I just wanted to say hello.  I will be serving as BRASS Chair over the next year with my term ending after ALA Annual in Chicago.  It’s an honor to serve as Chair and I look forward to working with everyone.  A big thanks to Paul for his service as Chair and to all the folks who served on Exec, Board, and committees this past year and a huge thank you to those who volunteered to serve on committees this year. You all make BRASS the wonderful organization that it is.

Please make sure to follow BRASS-l to stay current on BRASS activities during the year.  As you are making your travel plans this next year, just a reminder that BRASS does not have any required meetings at Midwinter.  We have an all-committee meeting on Sunday morning during the conference from 8:30 – 10:00 a.m. for those who are attending.  Of course, at Annual, we have a full slate of meetings and events.  Stay-tuned for more information on those in the spring.

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about BRASS!

Louise Feldmann
BRASS Chair 2016-2017
Louise.Feldmann@colostate.edu

Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The Lightning Talks Forum, entitled “Innovation and Risk Taking in Business Academic Librarianship,” was held at the Annual Conference in Orlando.  The program was well received and well attended—we counted 95 in the audience.  The forum featured seven presentations by academic librarians on topics and experiences related to academic business library instruction, consultations, and information needs assessment.  Evaluation forms showed that 96% of responding attendees felt BRASS should hold more “Lightning Talks” forums and 100% felt that the information provided at this session was interesting and/or relevant.  Committee members worked hard on arrangements throughout the year, however, special acknowledgements go out to Ilana Barnes Stonebaker who coordinated much of the planning.

The committee is sponsored a Virtual Forum on the same topic open to all BRASS members on Friday, August 12 at 2 p.m. EST.  Amanda Howell coordinated arrangements and moderated the question and answer session while Jared Hoppenfeld introduced the speakers and moderated as well.  Another Virtual Forum will be scheduled for October.

Karen Chapman and Janet Franks are the new co-editors of Academic BRASS.  They will be sending out a request for submissions in the near future.  Special thanks to Charles Allen who served as editor of BRASS and Van Houlson who just stepped down as chair of our committee.  We appreciate their collegiality, hard work, and commitment to service.

Susan Norrisey and Jared Hoppenfeld, 2016 – 2017 Co-Chairs

Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
We had a great meeting at Annual and welcomed 5 guest attendees who are interested in joining the committee… which brought up the issue of both participation as well as the size of our committee which is rather small. We discussed this and some ideas that came up regarding how the committee is marketed and maybe we need to look into improving that to garner more interest. One idea was to set up a dedicated Facebook page; we are also looking into the idea of creating an online forum or knowledge base, separate from the listservs, that provide public librarians with access to information about what we do as well as a means of marketing BRASS to nonmembers.

We also discussed potential forum topics for our committees program next year. Based on the fact that many of our guests were there because they wanted to pick our brains on how we are providing services to local small businesses and entrepreneurs, we think a program on creating services and building resources for the local business community would be a great topic.

Sal DiVincenzo, 2015 – 2017 Chair

Membership Committee
The ReferenceUSA BRASS Member Reception at Cuba Libre Restaurant in Orlando was a success, with 75 attendees.   A big thank you to ReferenceUSA for their continuing sponsorship of this very popular kick-off to the conference.

The Membership Committee is scouting locations for next year’s reception in Chicago.  Send your recommendations to Cynthia Slater and Greg Tong.

At the Membership committee meeting Sunday, June 26 we discussed outreach and retention. We’re looking for your ideas!   Send them to Cynthia and we’ll include them in our next committee meeting.

Cynthia Slater, 2015 – 2017 Chair

Nominating Committee
The BRASS Nominating Committee is in the process of recruiting candidates for the next election to run for BRASS Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect and BRASS Member at Large.

Todd Hines, 2016 – 2017 Chair

Program Planning Committee
Our face-to-face meeting at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando was very productive.  We had a lively discussion and brainstorming session to better shape our program proposal, with a valuable feedback from Katrina Stierholz, Director of Library and Research Information Services at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Our program proposal “Demystifying the Federal Reserve” was approved by RUSA and planning and preparation for the 2017 BRASS program is in full swing. We hope to see you in Chicago!

Natasha Arguello, 2016 – 2017 Chair

Publications and Communications Committee

  • Elizabeth Malafi is our new BRASS Notes editor.
  • Downloads for the BRASS ALA Schedule of events remained strong, so the committee will continue to publish it next year.
  • The committee continues to have extensive conversations around the topic of better promoting BRASS members, their resources, and their accomplishments
  • Genifer Snipes compiled the #bizref posts from ALA Annual into Storify – https://storify.com/rusa_brass/brass-ala-best.  Thanks to all who were active on social media during the BRASS events at ALA annual.  We continue to work to increase our social media participation
  • Annette Buckley has done extensive work on the BRASS website in order to get the site to a point where it is much easier to maintain

Chad Boeninger, 2015 – 2017 Chair

Vendor Relations Committee Report
BRASS is fortunate to have sponsors that support the section activities and awards.  Longtime friends of BRASS include, S&P Global Market Intelligence, Emerald, InfoGroup/ReferenceUSA, Morningstar, Global Financial Data, and Springshare. BRASS was happy to welcome Mergent, the new sponsor of the Excellence in Business Librarianship, and SimplyMap, now sponsor of the Student Travel Award at ALA 2016.   

The Vendor Relations Committee works with sponsors to support BRASS awards and activities.  Thank you to outgoing member Lydia Lafaro, 2014-2016.  Continuing committee member is Rebecca Smith, 2015-2017. New members are Jason Dewland, 2016-2018 and Leticia Camacho, 2016-2018.

BRASS Awards Link http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/brass/awards

Ann Fiegen, 2015 – 2017 Chair

Award Committees

Emerald Research Award Committee
I am updating the documentation for the committee. In September, a timeline will be sent out to committee regarding review applications and deciding the winner. We will use emails to exchange ideas, and use ALA Connect to comment on applications.

Chubing Tripepi, 2016 – 2017 Chair

Morningstar Librarian Support Award Committee
The nomination form has been updated for the Morningstar Librarian Support award! I’m preparing nomination campaign materials to review with the committee in September. We might use ALA Connect rather than scheduling a virtual meeting.

Ed Rossman, 2016 – 2017 Chair

SimplyMap Student Travel Award
The BRASS SimplyMap Student Travel Award will begin soliciting nominations soon.  The deadline for submission is January 29, 2017.  Congratulations again to the 2016 recipient Katherine Glasoe and to SimplyMap for their support.

Bobray Bordelon. 2016 – 2017 Chair