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

BRASS Notes

John Gottfried, Editor

Message from the BRASS Chair

The election results are in—congratulations to our new office holders!
RUSA
-President-Elect – Chris LeBeau
-Director at Large – Jennifer Boettcher

Jennifer was also elected as an ALA Councilor! Jennifer, way to go!!!
BRASS
-Vice Chair/Chair-Elect – Greg Fleming
-Secretary – Ilana Stonebraker
-Member-at-Large – Annette Buckley

We are grateful for your investment of time, energy and effort to BRASS and RUSA…and for making our section and division a great place to serve and grow professionally!

I hope everyone is getting ready for the Annual Conference (AC) in sunny Orlando, FL (Friday, June 24 – Tuesday, June 28, 2016).  BRASS has some great activities, programs, meetings, and, of course, the Monday night BRASS Dinner planned to make for a great conference.

If you have never been to a BRASS Pre Conference BEFORE then try to make this one your FIRST! Business Data for Librarians will be held on that Friday. You can still register in advance and save some money from the on-site registration! I recently registered and I hope to see many of you there.

The RefUSA BRASS Membership Reception will be on Friday night at Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar.

The BRASS Forum (Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee) on Saturday will feature “Lighting Talks” on a variety of intriguing and innovative topics.

The Sunday morning BRASS Discussion Group will meet, as usual, and this will be an excellent opportunity to learn many new and wonderful things happening in Business Librarianship as well as being informed of recent job openings and other important items.  There will be a coffee and refreshment break sponsored by MINTEL and then feel free to stick-around and meet some of our new colleagues at the BRASS New Business Librarians’ Discussion Group gathering.

The Monday morning BRASS Program will be a great opportunity to learn about the hospitality and tourism industry resource information landscape. I plan to get into the spirit by wearing a Hawaiian shirt, Crocs and shades! Come join the laid-back, enlightening experience!  S&P will be graciously providing coffee, juices and refreshments, as in the past.

Be sure to make your flight reservations to leave on Tuesday and NOT Monday!  You don’t want to bypass the Monday night BRASS Dinner immediately after the BRASS Exec. Committee meeting which will be from 4-6PM. This dinner is a great opportunity to catch-up with colleagues, meet new ones, and network in order to increase your professional capabilities to better serve your patrons back at your libraries.

Take a look at the BRASS website for more details and continue to monitor BRASS-L to keep up with RSVPs for the BRASS Dinner at Cafe Gaugin (first one going out around May 9) and other important scheduling email related to this fantastic upcoming AC!

These are just several of the many happenings—can’t name them all here!—coming up at the AC and I hope you book your reservations accordingly to not miss any of the great things planned!

Best regards and I hope to see you all in Orlando,

Paul Brothers
BRASS Chair 2015-2016

Business Reference Services Discussion Group
The BRASS Discussion Group facilitated a virtual discussion on March 25th. 27 BRASS members were in attendance for this lively discussion about a myriad of topics, including RUSA Voices, the Springshare blog functionality and the new S&P interface. For more details, check ALA connect for the recording and the chat transcript. Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the discussion.  The next virtual discussion will be at 2pm EST on May 13th with an open agenda.

Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair

Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
For the past 6 months our committee has been actively engaged in preparing for the BRASS Academic Forum that will be held at ALA Annual: “Lightning Talks on Innovation and Risk Taking in Business Academic Librarianship.” We collaborated in many ways—holding virtual meetings, using Google tools, creating a sub-group, and email—to determine criteria, draft messages, solicit presenters and evaluate finalists. Our committee reviewed 24 proposals and selected 7 for the BRASS Academic Forum. Because there were many good proposals that could not fit into the Lightning Talk format, we will sponsor a Lightning Talk webinar after annual to include several more by innovative academic librarians. I look forward to this risky new event for BRASS at ALA Annual!

Van Houlson, 2015-2016 Chair

Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee is in the process of nominating and selecting reference resources that will be reviewed in an upcoming issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly.

The Business Reference Sources Committee has also selected its program to present at the annual Publisher’s Forum which will take place at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando. The title of the forum will be: “One Part Social, One Part Commercial: A Recipe for Supporting Social Entrepreneurship.” The publishers will include Berrett-Koehler, Emerald, and Greenleaf.

Ed Hahn, 2014-2016 Chair

Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee continues to pursue our goals to provide for the educational needs of business reference librarians and other librarians involved in business reference services. The Committee Teams continue to work on individual projects:

  • Pre Conference Planning Team
    • Work continues on developing the 2016 BRASS Preconference “Business Data for Librarians” at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando June 24 from 8:30am – 4:00pm. Our speakers are working on their individual presentations and the Team will continue to work on logistical details as well as facilitation for the Q&A portion of the event. Advertising for the Pre Conference has met with considerable success and we anticipate a hearty group of participants this year. Join us if you can! (http://brass.libguides.com/2016brasspreconference)
    • The Committee has decided not to offer an in-person Preconference at ALA Annual 2017, instead focusing our efforts on a possible webinar series as an educational offering of similar depth with the benefits of lower cost and increased flexibility to potential participants. Emerald Group Publishing is interested in offering a Preconference at ALA Annual 2017 and the Education Committee will continue our involvement with member Bridget Farrell serving as a liaison (as well as Vendor Relations liaison Ann Fiegen) to this symbiotic venture.
    • This team benefits from the efforts of Tom Ottaviano, Peter McKay, Charles Allan and Eimmy Solis.
  • Best of the Best Business Websites Award Team
    • Award winners were announced at Midwinter. The team continues to explore the possibility of changing the award from a print certificate to a web badge; the proposal is pending consideration by the Executive Committee.
    • This team benefits from the efforts of Monica Hagan, Cara Cadena and Bridget Farrell.
  • Webinar Team(s)
    • Originally the Committee had two webinar teams – the Free Webinar Team and the Paid Webinar Team. It is likely that the 2016-2017 season will see these teams combined, however, as the Education Committee pursues the possibility of a webinar series offering. This will be discussed along with the report the Paid Webinar team will give at ALA Annual 2016 regarding the results of their environmental review for webinar offerings in the business reference space.
    • The Webinar teams benefit from the efforts of Phebe Dickson, Robbie De Peri and Christina Sheley, Kelly LaVoice, Hiromi Kubo and LuMarie Guth.

The BRASS Education Committee is further pleased to announce that Robbi De Peri has accepted the role of Co-Chair of the Committee for the 2016-2017 term. The Committee welcomes this additional leadership and looks forward to her continuing ideas and insights. The Committee looks forward to ALA Annual 2016 and the year ahead!

Ashley Faulkner, 2012-2015 Chair

Membership Committee
The ReferenceUSA BRASS Member Reception, generously sponsored by InfoUSA, will be held at Cuba Libre Pointe in Orlando at 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. on Friday June 24. Pointe Orlando is conveniently located near the Orange County Convention Center and conference hotels.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet BRASS members and network over appetizers and drinks!

RSVP at http://evite.me/P6PT8wpNEZ

Jennifer Boettcher and Cynthia Slater, 2015-2016 Co-chairs

Vendor Relations Committee
BRASS is fortunate to have sponsors that support the section activities and awards. As annual approaches be sure to thank our long time BRASS friends S&P Global Market Intelligence, Emerald, InfoGroup ReferenceUSA, Morningstar, Global Financial Data, and Springshare. New in the last year are Mergent, the sponsor of the Excellence in Business Librarianship, and SimplyMap, sponsor of the Student Travel Award.

Ann Fiegen, 2015-2016 Chair

AWARD COMMITTEES

BRASS Mergent Excellence in Business Librarianship Award
The BRASS Mergent Excellence in Business Librarianship Award committee is looking forward to officially recognizing this year’s recipient, Jared Hoppenfeld of Texas A&M, at the RUSA Achievement Awards Ceremony during ALA Annual in Orlando. Congratulations, Jared!

Celia Ross, 2014-2015 Chair

BRASS Notes

John Gottfried, Editor

Message from the BRASS Chair

The BRASS Board will be having an online meeting on Tues. Feb. 23 from 1-3PM CST.

I also want to thank everyone for all the time and devotion they have committed to making BRASS the best section in RUSA! I’m looking forward to the Annual Conference in Orlando and I hope you all are as well. We have a great selection of programs, forums, meetings and social gatherings to look forward to as that time approaches.
Warm regards,
Paul Brothers, BRASS Chair 2015-2016

Business Reference Services Discussion Group
The BRASS Discussion Group facilitated a virtual discussion on November 13th. In attendance were 43 BRASS members. Topics included changes in SLA, the formation of RUSA interest groups, and much more. There was also an in-person discussion held at Midwinter in Boston on January 10th. Roughly 15 members were able to attend this discussion, which was focused around collections. Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in these discussions. The next virtual discussion will be on March 23th at 2pm EST. It will be an open agenda.

Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair

Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
Our committee has been holding virtual meetings the last few months in order to plan for our Academic Forum at Annual in Orlando: “Innovation and Risk Taking in Business Academic Librarianship:  Lightning Talks”. The Forum will feature up to seven academic business librarians discussing innovative practices, products or services. The Committee will select seven librarians to make 5-7 minute presentations with time after for discussion. We are willing to consider proposals with an element of risk, and even those describing a project that did not succeed. A call for proposals has been sent out, but we encourage all business librarian to submit their proposals using the form linked here: https://goo.gl/kv64mJ

Van Houlson, 2015-2016 Chair

Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
The committee continues to work on updating the Public Libraries Briefcase and adding informative articles. The latest entry, “Understanding Financial Ratios for Small Business,” is a fascinating article written by Ray Cruitt. We will be meeting shortly to discuss new ideas to make it easier to exchange information about business reference resources with business librarians who support small businesses and budding entrepreneurs. Looking forward to Orlando…our committee will meet on June 25th at 3pm.

Salvatore DiVincenzo, 2015-2016 Chair

Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee is in the process of nominating sources that will be selected for an upcoming issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly.

The Committee has also selected the program to be presented at the annual Publisher’s Forum, which will take place at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando. The title of the forum will be “One Part Social, One Part Commercial: A Recipe for Supporting Social Entrepreneurship.”

Ed Hahn, 2014-2016 Chair

Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee continues to pursue a variety of exciting goals.  In addition to ongoing work to continually update BRASS Business Guides, four committee teams have been working on completing their individual projects:

  • Pre Conference Planning Team
    • Work continues on developing the 2016 BRASS Preconference “Business Data for Librarians” at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando. Our speakers have provided us with brief descriptions of their intended content, and we have used this information to send out advertising text to relevant listservs, social media outlets, ALA Connect and others. We will continue to advertise over the coming months, as well as working out the details of our interactive presentations. This looks to be an amazing Preconference! If you haven’t already, consider joining us on June 24th, 2016.
    • This team benefits from the efforts of Tom Ottaviano, Peter McKay, Charles Allan and Emmy Solis.
  • Best of the Best Business Websites Award Team
    • After running another successful nomination and voting process, the Team is now completing the process of contacting Award winners. In addition, the Team developed and submitted a proposal to consider changing the award from a print certificate to a web badge; this proposal has been submitted to the Executive Committee.
    • This team benefits from the efforts of Monica Hagan, Cara Cadena and Bridget Farrell.
  • Free Webinar Team
    • Having facilitated a very successful 2015 RUSA Free Section Webinar “Supporting Entrepreneurship: The Kauffman Foundation’s Research and Resources”, the team is currently responsible for soliciting ideas and speakers for a possible 2016 free webinar.
    • This team benefits from the efforts of Phebe Dickson, Robbie De Peri and Christina Sheley.
  • Paid Webinar Team
    • The Team continues to investigate whether there is any need for further business reference webinars and whether this would be an appropriate or feasible undertaking for the Education Committee. Plans are to discuss this issue in greater depth at our Committee Meeting at ALA Annual 2016.
    • This team benefits from the efforts of Kelly LaVoice, Hiromi Kubo and LuMarie Guth.

The BRASS Education Committee has had a wonderful year learning and exploring ourselves, and we hope the business reference community feels we have provided similar opportunities to all of you!

Ashley Faulkner, 2012-2015 Chair

Nominating Committee
The BRASS Nominating Committee is excited to announce a slate of strong candidates for BRASS office:

  • BRASS Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect:
    Chad Boeninger
    Greg Fleming
  • Secretary
    Jared Hoppenfeld
    Ilana Stonebraker
  • Member at Large
    Annette Buckley
    Ed Rossman

Many thanks to the candidates, and to those who submitted nominations. BRASS will be in good hands.

Andy Spackman, 2015-2016 Chair

Program Planning Committee
Over 865 hotels with 103,230 rooms are scheduled to open in 2016, according to hotel research firm STR (http://www.hospitalitynet.org/performance/us/147000409/4073575.html). Want to learn more? Come to the BRASS ALA Annual Program “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes: Travel and Hospitality Landscape and Library Resources,” which will be held Monday, June 27th 8am to 10am at the ALA Annual Conference in beautiful Orlando, Florida. Breakfast sponsored by S&P Capital IQ.

Ilana Stonebraker, 2015-2016 Chair

Publications and Communications Committee
The P&C Committee will be holding a virtual meeting in February where we will discuss the following:

  • Social Media Policy
  • Appointing a new BRASS Notes Editor
  • Using RUSA Voices for BRASS
  • Discussion of BRASS-L content policy
  • Update of BRASS website projects

Chad Boeninger, 2014-2016 Chair

Vendor Relations Committee
There have been several changes in sponsorships for BRASS awards:

  • We are pleased to announce that Mergent is the new sponsor of the BRASS Excellence in Business Librarianship Award. The award is increased to $4000.
  • SimplyMap is now the sponsor of the BRASS Student Travel Award.
  • ReferenceUSA has confirmed they will continue to sponsor the BRASS members’ reception at ALA Annual in Orlando 2016.
  • Our long-time friends S&P Capital IQ continue to sponsor the BRASS continental breakfast prior to the BRASS program.
  • Mintel will once again sponsor the BRASS Discussion Group coffee.
  • Emerald has reached out to BRASS again about continuing the popular Emerald event as part of Annual, and early planning has started for 2017. We continue to thank Emerald for their sponsorship of the BRASS Emerald Research Award.

Be sure to let all our sponsors know how much we value their commitment to BRASS activities!

Ann Fiegen, 2015-2016 Chair

AWARD COMMITTEES

BRASS Mergent Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award
The BRASS Mergent Excellence in Business Librarianship committee is pleased to announce that Jared Hoppenfeld, business librarian at Texas A&M University, has been selected as this year’s recipient. A longtime BRASS member, Jared has published widely on topics relevant to academic and public business librarians, including “Information-Seeking Behaviors of Business Faculty,” the most-downloaded article of 2014 in the Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship. A 2015 article, “Engaging with Entrepreneurs in Academic and Public Libraries,” was selected to be included in a special entrepreneurship-themed issue of Reference Services Review.

Business students at Texas A&M University also benefit from Jared’s expertise and creativity. After identifying a gap in the business information literacy schedule, Jared proposed a new program targeting first year students and now nearly all business students receive instruction starting their freshman year. Additionally, his current work with the national Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) has impacted not just his constituents at Texas A&M University but EBV programs across the country. He was the driving force behind the creation of the EBV Info Portal which coordinates among a growing number of database vendors, as well as staff, faculty and librarians at other EBV institutions.

For these contributions and other efforts, the committee is pleased to name Jared this year’s winner of the BRASS Mergent Excellence in Business Librarianship award. This award is generously sponsored by Mergent and consists of $4,000 and a citation. An award ceremony is planned for ALA Annual in Orlando. Congratulations, Jared!

Celia Ross, 2014-2015 Chair

Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Katherine Glasoe is the recipient of the 2016 BRASS Student Travel Award. Katherine plans to graduate from Simmons College with her MLS in May 2016 and intends to pursue a career in business librarianship. She has gained practical work experience with her position as a Technical Services Assistant at Harvard Business School’s Baker Library, an internship with The Brattle Group, and with her position as a Graduate Student Library Assistant at Draper. While maintaining a busy work and academic schedule, she serves as the current President of the Simmons College student chapter of SLA. One of her goals is to become an active member of BRASS.

Diane Zabel, 2015-2016 Chair

Global Financial Data Academic Business Librarian Award
Ruth D. Terry, Business and Government Information Librarian at the University of Alaska Anchorage, is the recipient of the Global Financial Data Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award. Projects in her first year as a business librarian include using assessment results to shape library instruction, a mini-grant project to embed information literacy into specific courses, and using metrics and input from faculty to improve the collection. She has also been active as the co-chair of the new BRASS business librarians group, as secretary for the Anchorage chapter of the Alaska Library Association, and as a member of the Alaska Governor’s Council on Libraries. We wish Ms. Terry all the best in her new career and hope that this travel grant for the ALA annual meeting will help her to enhance the development of her career and to further contribute to the profession of business librarianship.

Julia Martin, 2015-2016 Chair

Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
The Morningstar Award committee met through email and publicized this award through various listservs, state association websites, and ALA Connect. We received 3 outstanding candidates and chose Susan Wolf Neilson as our recipient of the $1250 award to help with travel to this year’s Annual ALA Conference.

The committee worked well together and did a good job in selecting the award winner.

Committee members:

Patricia Hull
Kelly Jeanne Evans
Edmund A Rossman
Cynthia H Slater
Janet Tom

Patricia Hull, 2015-2016 Chair

BRASS Notes

John C. Gottfried, Editor

Message from the BRASS Chair

Hello everyone,

If you are attending the ALA Midwinter in Boston, please join us at the All Committee Meeting.

Best wishes to all of our BRASS members during the upcoming holiday season!

Paul Brother
BRASS Chair 2015-2016

Business Reference Services Discussion Group
The BRASS Discussion Group facilitated a virtual discussion on September 18th. 40 BRASS members were in attendance for this lively discussion about consultation and instruction data (what you collect, how you collect it, how you use it) and collections (new vendors and databases). Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the discussion. The next virtual discussion will be on at 2pm EST on November 13th, with an open agenda.

Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair

Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee is in the process of nominating sources that will be selected for an upcoming issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly.

The Business Reference Sources Committee is also in the process of selecting a program to present at the annual Publisher’s Forum which will take place at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando.

Ed Hahn, 2014-2016 Chair

Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee would like to report that we have been hard at work on a number of exciting projects. As well as continual improvement to the BRASS Business Guides, the Committee has broken into Teams focused on completing four major projects this year:

  • Preconference Planning Team

We have found three excellent speakers for the 2016 BRASS Preconference “Business Data for Librarians” at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando. Bobray Bordelon will be presenting an overview of ‘Data in Libraries’, Todd Hines will be exploring ‘Financial Data’, and Andy Spackman will discuss ‘Marketing Data’. There will also be a panel Q&A so all who attend will have an opportunity to dive into issues of particular interest in-depth. With expert speakers and an emphasis on interactivity, this Preconference promises to be extraordinary! (June 24th, 2016 – Save the date!)
This team benefits from the efforts of Tom Ottaviano, Peter McKay, Charles Allan and Eimmy Solis.

  • Free Webinar Team

The 2015 RUSA Free Section Webinar “Supporting Entrepreneurship: The Kauffman Foundation’s Research and Resources” was a great success! At peak, the webinar had 39 participants. Wendy Torrance, Director, Entrepreneurship, and Alex Kraus, Research Assistant in Research and Policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, delivered an engaging overview of the many resources the Kauffman Foundation provides for both entrepreneurs, and the librarians who serve them. They also provided a brief look at the research the Kauffman Foundation spearheads and supports. Librarians who participated in the webinar returned to their work with new ideas not only to help their patrons, but to potentially continue to grow their own understanding of entrepreneurship and related research.
This team benefits from the efforts of Phebe Dickson, Robbie De Peri and Christina Sheley.

  • Best of the Best Business Websites Award Team

Nominations were solicited, votes tallied, and the Education Committee has our winners! They will be announced at ALA Midwinter’s RUSA Book & Media Awards Reception. In the meantime, the Team is exploring alternate possibilities to print certificate awards.
This team benefits from the efforts of Monica Hagan, Cara Cadena and Bridget Farrell.

  • Paid Webinar Team

We did not sponsor a proposal for a RUSA Paid Webinar this year because we did not feel we had a strong proposal in hand in time for the submission process. Instead, the Team is investigating the webinar landscape and current continuing education options for librarians with an interest in business reference services and resources and exploring if there is any area of need the Education Committee might be able to address further.
This team benefits from the efforts of Kelly LaVoice, Hiromi Kubo and LuMarie Guth.

BRASS Education Committee is excited to continue providing for the educational needs of business reference librarians and all librarians involved in providing business reference services.

Ashley Faulkner, 2012-2015 Chair

Membership Committee
We are working on with a special sponsor to make the party at Orlando magic. Stop by Reference USA and let them know BRASS is looking forward to it.

We also want to know why members are leaving BRASS. What makes members decide to join BRASS, and what makes them stay? Please go to our Poll and let us know:
http://connect.ala.org/node/246773

Jennifer Boettcher, 2014-2016 Chair

Publications and Communications Committee
The BRASS Publications & Communications have had conversations about working with the editor of RUSA Voices to blog about BRASS member activities, accomplishments, and events. We have reached out to the editor of RUSA Voices, and he is quite amenable to the idea of us working together.

Chad Boeninger, 2014-2016 Chair

AWARD COMMITTEES

Emerald Research Award Committee
The Emerald Research Award Committee is currently seeking nominations for the $5000 award described below. Please let colleagues know about the award. Feel free to distribute the announcement to your local listservs.

Are you a librarian in need of funding for a business research project?

The Emerald Research Grant Award, sponsored by Emerald Group Publishing Limited offers one award of $5,000 and a citation to an individual or team seeking support to conduct research in business librarianship. The awards will be presented at the RUSA Awards Ceremony at the 2016 ALA Annual Conference in Orlando, FL. Recipients will be required to attend the RUSA Awards Ceremony.

Candidates must submit a detailed proposal outlining their proposed research project; methodology, scope and timetable; how this project fits into the existing literature; and projected outcomes, including a statement outlining how this research will benefit the library profession. Proposals will be reviewed for thoroughness, potential to positively impact the library profession, and potential to provide a useful addition to the existing library literature. Proposals will be accepted from both individual researchers and those working collaboratively. At least one member of a collaborative team must be a member of ALA. The recipient(s) may be asked to present their findings at a public BRASS event within two years of receiving the award (at the discretion of the BRASS Executive Committee). The recipient will also be required to acknowledge the Emerald Research Grant when publishing or presenting their research.

The deadline for proposals is December 4, 2015.

Please send your proposals to leticia_camacho@byu.edu

For complete information about the criteria for this grant award, please visit: http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/emeraldgrant

Leticia Camacho, 2015-2016 Chair

BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship award
The BRASS Excellence in Business Librarianship committee continues to solicit nominations through December 4th, 2015.

After learning earlier this year that Gale Cengage Learning would unfortunately no longer be supporting this and other awards the RUSA Board and staff, the BRASS Executive Board, and our committee have been working together to find alternative funding for the award. Funding will be available through RUSA for the coming year, regardless, although we hope to be able to announce a new sponsor soon.

Funding issues aside, the BRASS Excellence in Business Librarianship award itself remains as prestigious as ever. The award recognizes a business librarian who has made a significant contribution to our field. Take a look around you (or in the mirror!) and if this sounds like you or someone you know, then please take a look at this page for more information on how to submit a nomination:
http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/businesslib

Celia Ross, 2014-2015 Chair

Global Financial Data Academic Business Librarian Award
Global Financial Data is now sponsoring the new academic business librarianship award. The committee looks forward to hearing about all the great things new business librarians are doing. Please consider applying yourself or recommending a colleague:
http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/gfd_academic_business_librarianship_travel_award

Thank you GFD for this opportunity!

Julia Martin, 2015-2016 Chair

Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
BRASS Members. Please nominate a public librarian for the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award. This is for a deserving public librarian who serves the business community with great reference service. This can be through programming, website development, or other business help. I am sure you know some great public librarians who serve the business community and who need financial help to get to ALA.

Let’s spread the word to all our chapters, systems and libraries.

Patricia Hull, 2015-2016 Chair

BRASS Notes

John C. Gottfried, Editor

Message from the Outgoing BRASS Chair

Dear BRASS members:

The reports below provide specifics about the current BRASS committee activities. Thanks to everyone who was able to attend ALA Annual San Francisco. We held a Preconference, Public Librarian Forum event, Publisher’s Forum, BRASS Discussion Group and the successful BRASS Program—Not Elsewhere Classified: Different Approaches to Researching Emerging Industries.

I’ve enjoyed serving as BRASS Chair. As of the end of Annual, Paul Brothers has assumed the Chair duties. We’re looking forward to another engaging year from BRASS under Paul’s leadership.

Todd Hines, Chair 2014-2015

Business Reference Services Discussion Group
The BRASS Discussion Group facilitated an in person discussion at ALA Annual on June 28th. Many BRASS members were in attendance for this lively discussion about resources, data services and instruction practices. Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the discussion.

The next virtual discussion will be on September 18th at 2pm EST with topics to be determined.

Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair

Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
Our committee began planning the BRASS Academic Forum for 2016 in Orlando next year and currently are interested in soliciting ideas from the BRASS membership. We are strongly considering a series of “lightning talks” that would feature the experiences of academic librarians. These could be examples of collaboration, database usage metrics, programming, outreach, research, collaborative tools, software, video tutorials, student consultations, or any theme that might fit the business landscape in Orlando (hospitality, tourism). We are interested in creating a forum that would give more librarians an opportunity to make a professional contribution than would be the case with the usual panel format.

Van Houlson, 2015-2016 Chair

Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee identified 10 sources to be reviewed for its outstanding business reference resources 2015 column. Of these ten sources, two were identified as outstanding, seven as notable, and one significant new edition. The reviews will be published in the winter 2015 edition of Reference & User Services Quarterly.

The Business Reference Sources Committee also presented the annual Publisher’s Forum at the ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. The title of the program was “Money Smart, Sources for Promoting Financial Literacy to Your Community, and included presenters from Mergent, Morningstar, Standard and Poors Capital IQ, and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. There were 39 attendees at the forum.

Ed Hahn, 2014-2016 Chair

Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee is happy to report that we have reached several major milestones:

  • We completed a migration to LibGuides 2.0 platform (thank you, Springshare, for your generous support!) and merging former Best of the Best Business Websites and Selected Core Resources guides into single topical BRASS Business Guides. This year we implemented editorial review process and project planning documents to keep track of our progress. Teams of two reviewers worked with individual authors to provide comments and suggestions for each guide. The committee developed a style guideline checklist to ensure a unified look and feel of the Business Guides. One of the goals was to convert all URLs from Text to Links to support automatic link checking. Maintaining quality BRASS Business Guides is the top responsibility of our committee.
  • The 2015 preconference “Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs” was a success, even though John Schlipp from Northern Kentucky University, one of the presenters on using patents for business analytics, didn’t arrive in San Francisco due to inclement weather. Fortunately, he was able to present over an impromptu WebEx session, and Linda Kocis from Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, his co-presenter, filled in the blanks on site. The San Francisco-area IP attorneys Alex Feerst and Genevieve Rosloff offered an engaging discussion of common IP issues facing startups. It was a valuable perspective outside the library realm. Finally, Jason Dewland and Cindy Elliott from University of Arizona shared their experiences collaborating with the university commercialization office and contributing to the local innovation ecosystem. The feedback from 19 participants was very positive. The preconference was featured in the next day’s issue of ALA Cognotes on p. 4: http://alaan15manual.heiexhibitors.com/sites/default/files/alaan15manual/Cognotes_Saturday.pdf. It was the first half-day preconference offered by BRASS, and the committee will consider this year’s outcomes in future planning.
  • The committee brainstormed a few topics for the next year’s preconference in Orlando and voted for a full-day workshop on business data for librarians which will focus on sources of data, data information literacy, data interview, and more. After the approval by the RUSA Executive Committee in July-August, we expect to issue a call for speakers and continue planning this much-requested workshop.
  • The committee also worked on the internal BRASS Education Committee guide to preserve institutional knowledge for future members. If other BRASS committees are interested in having an internal LibGuide to manage committee’s work, please contact Peter McKay pzmckay@ufl.edu.

BRASS Education is looking forward to an exciting new year of service under the leadership of new Chair Ashley E. Faulkner, Texas A&M University.

Natasha Arguello, 2012-2015 Chair

Membership Committee
Let’s spread the news. BRASS is the best community for anyone interested in educating, presenting, collecting, and sharing business information. We are looking for BRASS members to volunteer to speak at library school programs, state library associations, local library groups, and an mentoring events. Please contact co-Chair Jennifer Boettcher if you want to know how.

Some of us were lucky enough to meet and greet at the Thirsty Bear, generously sponsored by RefUSA. We all had such a fun time RefUSA agreed to sponsor the BRASS reception in Orlando. THANK YOU RefUSA and Greg Tong for working the door. If you know a good place for the reception around the Orlando Convention Center, please contact co-Chair Cynthia Slater.

Meanwhile, the Membership Committee is in full swing with new members. We are going to start sending welcome letters again. We will be working more with social media. If you know anyone who is willing to tell us why they dropped out of BRASS membership, please direct them to Jennifer, Cynthia, or the committee at http://connect.ala.org/node/65991

Jennifer Boettcher and Cynthia Slater, 2015-2016 Co-Chairs

BRASS 2015 ALA Annual Program Planning Committee
Presentations from the ALA 2105 Annual Conference:

“Not Elsewhere Classified”: Researching New and Niche Industries
The program attracted around 120 attendees, and of those, over 75 turned in their written evaluations which were overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic about our two speakers and their presentation:

Laura Young | Founding Partner + CEO | Bizologie
Business Research Simplified

April Kessler | Partner + Chief Research Analyst | Bizologie
Feedback from the remarks of attendees afterward, and the evaluations, is that people really appreciated the practical approach of this BRASS program, with all of the specific tips, strategies, resources, and real-life scenarios. Slides are available at the scheduler node: http://alaac15.ala.org/node/28603 Video will be posted later.

Committee members: Mark Andersen, Anne Bradley, Annette Buckley, Monica J. Hagan, Lauren Reiter, Penny Scott, and Todd Hines, BRASS Chair 2014-2015

We’d like to once again thank S&P Capital IQ for their generous support in providing the breakfast.

Diane Campbell, 2015 Chair

BRASS 2016 ALA Annual Program Planning Committee
During the ALA Annual conference, RUSA approved the BRASS 2016 annual program, titled “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes: Travel and Hospitality Landscape and Library Resources.” The speakers will be Jack Plunkett, of Plunkett Research, Ltd., and Tim Bottorff, Head Librarian at Universal Orlando Foundation Library at Rosen College of Hospitality Management (University of Central Florida). Over the next year, BRASS Program Planning will work to coordinate and market this exciting program which will take place Monday, June 27, 2016 from 8-10 AM.

Ilana Stonebraker, 2015-2016 Chair

Publications and Communications Committee
The BRASS P&C committee met at ALA annual and discussed the following:

  1. The committee will reach out to the editors for the RUSA Voices blog to see how/if we can contribute BRASS content
  2. We are looking at the possibility of creating an official BRASS Twitter profile, rather than just exclusively relying on the #bizref hashtag.
  3. We are looking at ways to engage more members via Twitter, as the statistics indicate our reach and engagement with Facebook is very limited.
  4. Our webmaster has reorganized some content on the BRASS page, as well as removed an outdated sidebar.
  5. Our webmaster will update the publication submission guidelines for the website.
  6. The P&C committee will study the practicality of publishing a BRASS Schedule of Events for every ALA annual, and will determine whether to continue this publication or not.

Chad Boeninger, 2014-2016 Chair

AWARD COMMITTEES

BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship award
Peter Z. McKay of the University of Florida received the BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship award at the RUSA Achievement Awards Ceremony held at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco on Sunday, June 28th, 2015. In addition to the award committee and other BRASS members, some of Peter’s UFL colleagues and his wife, Gene Anne McKay also attended the ceremony. Congratulations, Peter!

Celia Ross, 2014-2015 Chair

Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Sara F. Hess, the recipient of the 2015 Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award, was recognized at the RUSA Awards Ceremony and Reception in San Francisco. This generous award, sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning, provided travel funds to the ALA Annual Conference and a one-year BRASS membership. Sara is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan’s School of Information. She earned a Master of Science in Information in May 2015. While enrolled in the master’s degree program she worked as a reference assistant at the Kresge Business Administration Library at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. She continued at Kresge as a reference assistant through the end of July. In August 2015, she began her position as a business reference librarian at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. Congratulations to Sara on her academic achievements and exciting new position.

Diane Zabel, 2015-2016 Chair

Global Financial Data Academic Business Librarian Award
The committee looks forward to offering a travel award under the new sponsorship of Global Financial Data. Thank you GFD!

Julia Martin, 2015-2016 Chair

Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
We asked Barbara Alvarez (Barrington Area Library. IL), the recipient of the 2015 BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award, to send us a brief statement about her experiences at the ALA Annual Conference. Here is her response:

When I received the 2015 BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award, I was thrilled to be honored for my contributions to my library’s business community and, of course, to receive Morningstar Investment Center’s generous funding to attend the American Library Association 2015 Annual Conference. What I did not realize was the tremendous impact that this award would have on me not only at the conference, but also leading up to the conference and into the future.

To begin with, as the award recipient I have formed invaluable relationships with librarians, both locally and nationally, who want to discuss the embedded services that I provide to the library’s local business community. In turn, I have also learned practices and concepts that other public libraries use and how I might be able to incorporate them into my role at my library. This alone has been a major advance to my career.

At the conference, there were several events that allowed me the opportunity to continue to form relationships with other professionals, learn more about the work that BRASS and other committees do and how I can participate, and also recognize other library professionals and the range of work that they do. In particular, the RUSA 101: Network, Get Oriented, and Get Involved allowed me to meet members of the BRASS Committees and learn more about the various engaging responsibilities that they provide to business librarians. I found these committee members to be genuinely interested in the development and enrichment of business library staff in all types of libraries. Additionally, Literary Tastes: Celebrating the Best Reading of the Year, Advocating For a Library Future, and the RUSA Award Ceremony were networking sessions and workshops that were unique and innovative.

Moving forward, I have joined a committee and am looking forward to connecting with the librarians that I met before and during the conference, especially with the RUSA and BRASS members that I met. If you are a librarian, or know a librarian, who works with business resources and the business community in a public library, I highly recommend applying for the next BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award. The conference experiences, networking sessions, and professional opportunities make this award one that will continue to impact you beyond the annual conference.

Patricia Hull, 2015-2016 Chair

BRASS Notes

John Gottfried, Editor

Message from the BRASS Chair

We’re looking forward to seeing everyone at ALA Annual in San Francisco.
Here are the primary BRASS-sponsored events at Annual:

  • BRASS Preconference: Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs, 8am-1pm, Friday
  • BRASS Members Reception sponsored by ReferenceUSA, Friday 5:30-7:30pm at         ThirstyBear, 661 Howard St, San Francisco.
  • Public Libraries Forum – Revenue Streams for Libraries. Naming rights, corporate sponsorships, crowd funding, and other non-levy type revenue sources. Saturday 1-2:30pm
  • BRASS Discussion Group – Sunday 8:30-10am
  • Publishers forum – topic is financial literacy and the scheduled presenters are S&P Capital IQ, Mergent, Morningstar, and the San Francisco Federal Reserve. Sunday 1-2:30pm
  • 2015 BRASS Program – Not Elsewhere Classified: Different Approaches to Researching Emerging Industries. S&P Capital IQ sponsored breakfast: Monday, 8:00 – 8:30am. Program: 8:30-10am.
  • BRASS Dinner will be Monday night at 6:30pm. Location details will follow.

These BRASS awards and grants will also be recognized at the RUSA Awards Ceremony and Reception:

  • Peter McKay, Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award
  • Jason Dewland and Cindy Elliott, Emerald Research Grant Award
  • Barbara Alvarez, Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award
  • Grace Liu, Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award
  • Sara Hess, Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award

The full BRASS program/event guide will be sent out on BRASS-L.

Todd Hines
BRASS Chair 2014-2015

thines@princeton.edu

BRASS Committee Reports

Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee is busy informing its members about the different programs at Annual.

Charles Allan, 2013-2015 Chair

Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
The ALA Annual Forum panel discussion date and time have been assigned; Saturday June 27, 1-230pm. The program will be a panel discussion about Revenue Streams for Libraries. This would include naming rights, sponsorships, crowd funding, grants and other non-levy type revenue sources. Location MCC 236-238. Roslyn, Sal, and Ed will be in San Francisco. All speakers are in place. Presentation format: 10 minutes per speaker then open to Q&A. We’ll use 2 color-coded survey forms, one standard for RUSA, one more specific for BRASS.

Thanks to Annette Buckley who’s helped us upload recycled articles to the Public Libraries Briefcase that include updated information. The older articles’ content is valuable and it’s important to make them more up to date and easy to use.

See you in San Francisco!

Ed Rossman, 2014-2015 Chair

Business Reference Services Discussion Group
The BRASS Discussion Group hosted two virtual discussions during the spring semester. On February 20, 2015, a virtual discussion was held which centered around faculty liaison work and e-book collections strategies. The recording and chat transcript are available on ALA Connect.

On April 24, 2015, a collections-themed virtual discussion took place. We discussed resources we are renewing or cancelling and if we are subscribing to any new resources. During the meeting, people also shared a little about data acquisitions and managing data collections. The chat transcript is available on ALA Connect.

Thank you to the committee members who have helped coordinate these discussions! The next discussion of the BRASS Discussion Group will be in person at ALA Annual on June 28th with topics to be determined.

Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair

Business Reference Sources Committee
The Reference Sources Committee will be presenting the annual Publisher’s Forum at the ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. The forum will be held on Sunday, June 28th from 1-2:30 pm at the Moscone Convention Center (MCC), Esplanade 303. The forum is entitled: Money Smart—Sources for Promoting Financial Literacy to Your Community, and will feature presenters from Morningstar, Standard and Poor’s, Mergent, and the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank.

The Reference Sources Committee is also in the process of nominating resources for its next column, which will appear in the winter 2015 issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly.

Ed Hahn, 2014-2015 Chair

Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee is moving full speed ahead with our projects:

  • After discussing the progress with reviewing the BRASS Business Guides in April, the committee decided to touch base in mid-May after the school year is over. The goal is to have each guide reviewed by two people and coordinate with authors to ensure that all guides are up-to-date and provide correct information.
  • The 2015 preconference planning team (Natasha Arguello, Ashley Faulkner, Susan Schreiner, Christina Sheley, and Desirae Sweet) has been busy advertising the upcoming preconference “Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs” at ALA Annual (http://alaac15.ala.org/ticketed-events Event Code RUS3). The registration is a little slow, but we expect that the topic and excellent speakers will attract more registrants in the next few weeks.
  • The committee brainstormed a few topics for the next year’s preconference in Orlando and voted for a full-day workshop on business data for librarians which will focus on sources of data, data information literacy, data interview, and more.

We are looking forward to our meeting in San Francisco!

Natasha Arguello, 2012-2015 Chair

Membership Committee
BRASS Friday Reception Sponsored by ReferenceUSA!

Join old and new BRASS Members on June 26 in San Francisco. Enjoy the Business Reference and Services Section’s (RUSA’s BRASS) company around some food and drinks.

Friday, June 26th from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM

Where: ThirstyBear Brewing Company, 661 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA

RSVP to boettcher@georgetwon.edu or:

http://evite.me/g5UXJZSbtw

Jennifer Boettcher, 2014-2015 Chair

Publications and Communications Committee
Dear BRASS Friends,

It’s that time of year again—we’re requesting information for the 2015 BRASS Schedule of Events at ALA Annual publication. Please enter your program or meeting information by May 15 at:   http://goo.gl/forms/TvgQe0HxGK

If you are not responsible for your program, meeting, or event, please forward to the person on your committee who will fill in the form on your behalf. If you are responsible for more than one program, please fill out the form separately for each event.

I hope to publish the schedule the week of May 25, so your prompt response to this request for information is appreciated. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know.

Thanks,

Chad Boeninger, 2014-2015 Chair

Vendor Relations Committee
We are pleased to welcome Global Financial Data (GFD) as the new sponsor of the Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award. The award offers $1250 to an individual new to the field of academic business librarianship to support attendance at ALA Annual. Please help get the word out.

The Committee is also working vendor sponsorship for the break between the two Discussion Groups on Sunday at Annual Conference. Details to follow once everything is confirmed.

Chris LeBeau, 2013-2015 Chair

BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship award
We are pleased to announce that Peter Z. McKay of the University of Florida is this year’s recipient of the BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship award.

Peter’s multiple nominators noted his expertise in business librarianship and praised the Business Library 2.0 site (http://businesslibrary.uflib.ufl.edu) that he developed to help UF students achieve maximum success with their projects and which receives over 175,000 visits a year from the students, faculty and staff at UF, as well as national and international audiences.

Other nominators stated that Peter’s “tireless efforts have helped demystify the research process for thousands of our business-writing students over the years” and that “Mr. McKay is an invaluable resource to our business students and faculty.”

For his innovative development of online business collection development and instructional resources and his many contributions to the field of business librarianship, the committee is thrilled to honor Peter Z. McKay with this year’s Excellence in Business Librarianship award.

Celia Ross, 2014-2015 Chair

Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Sara F. Hess, who will receive her Master of Science in Information, Library and Information Science degree at the University of Michigan School of Information in May 2015, is the 2015 award recipient. Sara was selected because she has articulated and demonstrated a clear passion for business librarianship and a commitment to going above and beyond to meet the business information needs of the communities she is already serving.

Michael Oppenheim, 2014-2015 Chair

Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
Barbara Alvarez, Business Liaison Librarian, Barrington Area Library (IL) was selected for her extensive range of activities in support of the local business community, including one-on-one appointments to assist business professionals and entrepreneurs, podcasts, a business blog, and a SlideShare account with business database tutorials.

Karen Chapman, 2014-2015 Chair

BRASS Notes

John Gottfried, Editor

 

Message from the BRASS Chair

BRASS elections are coming up soon. Be on the lookout for the official ALA election emails. Once again we have a great group of candidates:

  • BRASS Vice-Chair / Chair Elect: Louise Feldmann and Michael Oppenheim
  • BRASS Member-at-Large: Jared Hoppenfeld and Penny Scott

There are also several BRASS members on the ballot for RUSA elections:

  • RUSA Vice-President / President-Elect:   Celia Ross
  • RUSA Director-at-Large: Jennifer Boettcher
  • Division Councilor: Sarah Hammill

Todd Hines
BRASS Chair 2014-2015
thines@princeton.edu

Call for BRASS Volunteers!

Calling all BRASS volunteers. Please considering serving our wonderful BRASS section. Committee positions will start after ALA Annual 2015 (San Francisco) and are generally for a two-year term. I hope you all will begin considering to serve on a committee again, or perhaps for the first time.

Here’s how to volunteer:

  • Visit http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/brass/committees to review the BRASS committees;
  • Go to http://www.ala.org/rusa/volunteer and login to the ALA website;
  • Select RUSA from the dropdown menu;
  • Fill out the initial form about yourself and your current ALA responsibilities;
  • Select RUSA_BRASS from the second drop down menu;
  • Indicate which committees you would like to help with.

You do not have to commit to traveling to conferences in order to volunteer. While some committees must meet in-person, many have virtual assignments, and some do all their work online. Most committee assignments last two years (there are exceptions) and begin and end after ALA Annual conference.

I’m looking forward to working with all of you in BRASS.

Best regards,

Paul Brother
BRASS Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect

Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee

The BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee recently conducted a virtual Midwinter conference meeting. The committee discussed the upcoming program at ALA annual. Charles Allan, the committee chair and editor of the BRASS newsletter, solicited submissions for the newsletter from those present. We also discussed program ideas for the 2016 conference.

Charles Allan, 2014-2015 Chair

Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee

The Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee Meeting was held Jan. 26, 2015 at 2:00pm ET. Among items discussed were:

  1. New Additions to the Public Librarians Briefcase.
  2. Details on this summers’ Forum, about new revenue streams for libraries, to be held Saturday, June 27, 1 – 230pm. The panel includes Deborah Doyle, current Development Director of the Friends of San Francisco Public Library, John Trischitti III, Director, Midland County Public Libraries and the Texas Library Association 2014 Librarian of the Year, and Jan Busa, Jan Busa, Management Analyst II, who set up the San Mateo Public Library passport Assistance Center. Ed Rossman, chair of the committee, will moderate. One more panelist is expected to speak on crowdfunding.
  3. Solutions to the problems faced by the IRS not issuing the quantities of paper tax forms they’ve done in the past.
  4. SmartMoney Week programming.

Ed Rossman, 2014-2015 Chair

Business Reference Services Discussion Group

The BRASS Discussion Group hosted a virtual discussion on November 21, 2014. Topics focused on providing support for entrepreneurs and small business development. Makerspaces were also discussed. The recording is available on ALA Connect. The BRASS Midwinter All Member Committee Meeting and Discussion Group took place on February 1, 2015. There were about 20 people present, and we had a lively discussion about vendor and resource updates.

Thank you to the committee members who have helped coordinate these discussions. The next virtual discussion of the BRASS Discussion Group will take place on February 20, 2015. We will be discussing faculty liaison work and e-book strategies.

Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair

Education Committee

The BRASS Education Committee has been busy working on several projects:

  • Editorial review of the new BRASS Business Guides is on the way. The estimated completion time is April 15th. The goal is to have an editorial team of at least two editors to work with a guide’s author to ensure currency and quality of the BRASS content.
  • We are about to start advertising the new RUSA BRASS preconference “Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs” at ALA Annual (http://alaac15.ala.org/ticketed-events Event Code RUS3). Take full advantage of the Early Bird rates before March 14th! Only $129 for RUSA members! Register here (http://alaac15.ala.org/register-now)
  • 2014 Best of the Best Business Websites were announced at the RUSA Book and Media Award Ceremony at the ALA Midwinter by Kelly LaVoice. The winners are Patent Lens http://www.bios.net/daisy/patentlens/patentlens.html, Intellectual Property Basics http://www.cfe.umich.edu/intellectual-property/, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office http://www.uspto.gov/. See the official press-release for more information: http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2015/02/brass-best-best-business-websites-selected-business-reference-experts

Natasha Arguello, 2012-2015 Chair

Program Planning Committee
BRASS 2015 ALA Annual Program

Monday, June 29, 2015, 8:30-10:00 AM

A continental breakfast will be sponsored by S&P Capital IQ from 8 to 8:30 am.

Not Elsewhere Classified”: Researching New and Niche Industries

How do librarians teach business students and entrepreneurs the research techniques for a budding industry or market? How do we help our clients get ahead of an emerging industry or a new idea? Learn from experts about how to locate and evaluate information on leading-edge industries, assess markets, and lead your clients in making strategic decisions when their business crosses traditional NAICS code boundaries or is part of a new field.

Speakers:

Laura Young | Founding Partner + CEO | Bizologie

Business Research Simplified

Laura Young is a seasoned expert in business research and competitive intelligence. Combining seven years leading the research department at Austin Ventures, four years coordinating the Reference and Information desk at the University of Texas Perry Casteneda Library and seven years honing her customer service expertise as a Walt Disney World Guest Services Supervisor, Laura can tackle any research project, in any industry, with grace and speed. She has performed Due Diligence analysis for HomeAway, RetailMeNot, MapMyFitness, Magnablend, Bazaarvoice, Silvercar, Spredfast, Food on the Table, Delta Rigging & Tools, among many others. She is a highly sought after speaker on emerging research trends and regularly presents for Texas Library Association, Special Libraries Association, and American Library Association.

When she’s not digging for the next important piece of data, Laura can be found relaxing with her Basset Hound and PBGV rescues, catching up on the latest episodes of Mad Men, or culling design ideas from local architectural tours.

Amelia Kassel | President + Owner | MarketingBase

Research is your first step

Amelia Kassel is president and owner of MarketingBase, a global business research firm since 1982, specializing in industry, company and competitive and market intelligence research. Amelia holds a master’s degree in library science (UCLA) and combines expertise about the Internet and electronic databases with knowledge of business and marketing strategies. A recognized author and international speaker, Amelia conducts seminars for associations and conferences and gives workshops onsite for companies and organizations. She is also known for her successful one-on-one email-based Mentor Program in which she trains business searchers how to conduct research and aspiring independent information professionals how to develop to successfully develop and grow their businesses.

Diane Campbell, 2014-2015 Chair

Publications and Communications Committee

The Publications and Communications committee will be meeting shortly after the BRASS Chairs meeting. The Publications and Communications Committee will be putting together a preliminary draft of the BRASS ALA Annual 2015 Schedule of Events in March. The P&C Committee will be soliciting committee chairs for their program and meeting information via a Google web form, as we did last year. This draft version will not have as much information as the final version, but will be a means to notify BRASS members well in advance of ALA Annual about the types of programming available. The preliminary draft schedule should make it easier in piecing together the final schedule in May/early June.

Chad Boeninger, 2014-2015 Chair

Vendor Relations

The Committee worked with Todd Hines to arrange for the annual breakfast sponsorship with S&P Capital IQ at the 2015 ALA Annual.

Chris LeBeau, 2014-2015 Chair

Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee

Sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning, this $1,250 monetary prize is given to a student enrolled in an ALA accredited master’s degree program to fund travel to and attendance at the ALA Annual Conference and a one-year membership in the Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) of RUSA. At this writing, the committee is still accepting applications through Sunday, February 8, 2015. Watch for RUSA to announce the 2015 award recipient in March!

Michael Oppenheim, 2014-2015 Chair

Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee

The award committee was pleased to receive several nominations of public librarians providing excellent business reference support for their communities. The committee selected Barbara Alvarez, Business Liaison Librarian at the Barrington Area Library in Barrington, Illinois, as this year’s recipient of the BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award. Ms. Alvarez works with business persons in her area both individually and in partnership with a number of local organizations, offering training in business research, job seeking, and creating podcasts and websites. We are delighted that she will be present to participate in BRASS activities at the ALA Annual Conference in Las Vegas.

Karen Chapman, 2014-2015 Chair

Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award Committee

Grace Liu, Business Reference Librarian at University of Maine, is the recipient of the RUSA BRASS Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award. Ms. Liu’s background in industry has allowed her to leverage a recent education in librarianship to help her constituents. Projects in her first year as a business librarian include library instruction to classes and local small business, design of a library 101 class for first year business students, development of an embedded library service model, and creation of a student advisory committee. We wish Ms. Liu all the best in her new career and hope that this travel grant for the ALA annual meeting will help her to enhance the development of her career and to further contribute to the profession of business librarianship.

Julia A. Martin, 2014-2015 Chair

BRASS Notes

John Gottfried, Editor

Message from the BRASS Chair

Planning for Midwinter in Chicago is underway. As a reminder, there are no required committee meetings at Midwinter. BRASS will hold an all-member meeting, which includes time for an open-floor business topics discussion. It will be held on Sunday, February 1 from 8:30 to 10:00 AM. BRASS discussions and committee work will continue virtually as well during the Midwinter period. Please read the committee reports below for updates on current planning and initiatives.

Our Vice Chair Paul Brothers will be sending out a call for BRASS committee volunteers in the near future. These appointments will start after Annual 2015. The call will go out on BRASS-L, so please join the BRASS-L listserv if you aren’t already subscribed and watch for the notice. Members are not required to attend conferences in order to participate on committees.

Please contact me if you have BRASS-related questions or ideas.

I look forward to seeing many of you in Chicago.

Todd Hines
BRASS Chair 2014-2015
thines@princeton.edu

BRASS Committee Reports

Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
A new article has been posted to the Public Libraries Briefcase: “Help! I’m not a Business Librarian,” by Sal DiVincenzo

Other ideas for articles:

  • Terry Zarsky: Description/case study of the opening of a new high-tech library center, library21c (http://ppld.org/library-21c).
  • Article or presentation about building a Local Business Contact List at the city-county-state levels
  • Julia Herrington: considering an article on “Libraries in Boomtowns”
  • Updating past Public Library Briefcases: committee divided the workload for a dead link check
  • Topic for 2015 ALA Annual Convention Program:
  • Panel about Revenue Streams for Libraries (would include naming rights, sponsorships, crowd funding, grants and other non-levy type revenue sources)
  • Midwinter: committee will meet virtually sometime in January.

Ed Rossman, 2014-2015 Chair

 

Business Reference Services Discussion Group
To date, the BRASS Discussion Group has hosted two virtual discussions during the fall semester:

On September 19, 2014, a virtual discussion was held which centered on collections. This topic was chosen based on responses to a survey sent out earlier to all BRASS members. Several resources were discussed including HBR, WRDS, Thomson Reuters Eikon and other Thomson resources, Investext (Mergent vs. Thomson), Bloomberg, and MSCI ESG Research. The recording is available on ALA Connect.

On October 24, 2014, an instruction-themed virtual discussion took place. We discussed faculty outreach, strategies for one-shot and embedded instruction, business information literacy, and assessment. During the meeting, many people shared links to instructional resources. These links are available in the chat transcript posted on ALA Connect.

The discussions held so far involved around forty participants each. Thank you to the committee members who have helped coordinate these discussions. The next virtual discussion of the BRASS Discussion Group will take place on November 21, 2014 with a topic to be determined.

Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair

Business Reference Resources Committee
The latest column on outstanding reference resources will be appearing in the next issue of the Reference and User Services Quarterly. There will be eleven resources reviewed for this issue.

The committee also approved of a topic for the publishers forum for the next ALA annual conference next June in San Francisco. The forum will be on Financial Literacy and will be titled Money Smart – Sources for Promoting Financial Literacy to your community.

Ed Hahn, 2014-2015 Chair

Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee is up to a great start this year. We’ve been busy working on a number of projects:

  • Migration to the new LibGuide 2.0 platform led by Peter McKay is completed. Last year’s effort was focused on combining the Selected Core Resources and Best of the Best Business Websites guides into single topical guides [http://brass.libguides.com/index.php]. Now all members are reviewing and updating their guides to take full advantage of new functionality. The plans for November include a virtual meeting to further discuss style guidelines and come up with a process for editorial review.
  • The preconference working group, including Natasha Arguello, Christina Sheley, Ashley Faulkner, Desirae Sweet, and Susan Schreiner will coordinate the 2015 RUSA BRASS preconference in San Francisco. We are trying a new half-day format and a new topic on intellectual property for entrepreneurs. We have been able to recruit excellent presenters who will discuss IP challenges faced by entrepreneurs, patent and trademark searching, and best practices in business librarians’ collaboration with the campus technology transfer office.
  • Nominating and voting for three Best of the Best Business Websites which will be announced at the RUSA Book and Media Award Ceremony at the ALA Midwinter is also under way. Our theme for selecting the best business website aligns with the upcoming 2015 Preconference “Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs.” The working group which includes Susan Schreiner, Kelly LaVoice, and Penny Huffman continues developing a marketing plan to raise the profile of the award. To see the previous winners, please visit http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/bestofthebestbus.

Natasha Arguello, 2012-2015 Chair

Program Planning Committee
BRASS 2015 ALA Annual Program!

Mark your calendars:

Monday, June 29, 2015, 8:30-10:00 AM

“Not Elsewhere Classified”: Researching New and Niche Industries

How do librarians teach business students and entrepreneurs the research techniques for a budding industry or market? How do we help our clients get ahead of an emerging industry or a new idea? Learn from experts about how to locate and evaluate information on leading-edge industries, assess markets, and lead your clients in making strategic decisions when their business crosses traditional NAICS code boundaries or is part of a new field.

Speaker(s):

Laura Young, Co-Owner of Bizologie (and another speaker, to be announced)

Laura is a Research Analyst for Austin Ventures, a 30-year-old venture capital firm with $3.9 billion of assets under management. She received her MSIS from the University of Texas and her BA from Metropolitan State College of Denver. Before pursuing a career in the private sector, she provided research and instruction services for the University of Texas Libraries. The other speaker will be associated with new ventures also.

Diane Campbell, 2014-2015 Chair

Publications and Communications Committee
The Publications and Communications Committee will be putting together a preliminary draft of the BRASS ALA Annual 2015 Schedule of Events in March. The P&C Committee will be soliciting committee chairs for their program and meeting information. This draft version will not have as much information as the final version, but will be a means to notify BRASS members well in advance of ALA Annual about the types of programming available. The preliminary draft schedule should make it easier in piecing together the final schedule in May/early June.

Chad Boeninger, 2014-2015 Chair

Vendor Relations
Business Expert Press’s three year support for a BRASS travel award has come to an end. RUSA will fund the award for one year while we try to find another sponsor for next year. The Vendor Relations Committee also made a proposal to Gale to retain our awards and were successful.

Chris LeBeau, 2014-2015 Chair

Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award
The BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Award for Excellence in Business Librarianship committee continues to solicit nominations through December 14th, 2014. The award recognizes a business librarian who has made a significant contribution to our field. Take a look around you (or in the mirror!) and if this sounds like you or someone you know, then please take a look at this page for more information on how to submit a nomination:http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/businesslib

Celia Ross, 2014-2015 Chair

Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning, this $1,250 monetary prize is given to a student enrolled in an ALA accredited master’s degree program to fund travel to and attendance at the ALA Annual Conference and a one-year membership in the Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) of RUSA. Candidates for the award should have demonstrated interest in a career in business librarianship and the potential to be a leader in the profession, as evidenced by activities that may include (but are not limited to) coursework, internships, jobs, special projects, and publications. Applicants may download the form here:nomination form (PDF format). Deadline for all nominations is February 8, 2015.

Michael Oppenheim, 2014-2015 Chair

Emerald Research Award Committee
The Emerald Research Award Committee is currently seeking nominations for the $5000 award described below. Please let colleagues know about the award. Feel free to distribute the announcement below to your local listservs:

Are you a librarian in need of funding for a business research project?

The Emerald Research Grant Award, sponsored by Emerald Group Publishing Limited offers one award of $5,000 and a citation to an individual or team seeking support to conduct research in business librarianship. The awards will be presented at the RUSA Awards Ceremony at the 2015 ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. Recipients will be required to attend the RUSA Awards Ceremony.

Candidates must submit a detailed proposal outlining their proposed research project; methodology, scope and timetable; how this project fits into the existing literature; and projected outcomes, including a statement outlining how this research will benefit the library profession. Proposals will be reviewed for thoroughness; potential to positively impact the library profession; and potential to provide a useful addition to the existing library literature. Proposals will be accepted from both individual researchers and those working collaboratively. At least one member of a collaborative team must be a member of ALA.

The recipient(s) may be asked to present their findings at a public BRASS event within two years of receiving the award (at the discretion of the BRASS Executive Committee). The recipient will also be required to acknowledge the Emerald Research Grant when publishing or presenting their research. The deadline for proposals is December 14, 2014. Proposals can be sent to: leticia_camacho@byu.edu.

Leticia Camacho, 2014-2015 Chair

Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
Do you know a public librarian who has performed outstanding business reference service and whose attendance at the ALA Annual Conference is not fully funded by their institution? Please nominate your colleague for the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award! The recipient will receive $1250 in travel funds to attend the 2015 ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. If you meet the qualifications, please don’t hesitate to nominate yourself! The deadline for nominations is December 14, 2014. For details, see http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/publibsupport.

Karen Chapman, 2014-2015 Chair

Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award Committee
You may not recognize this committee—that’s because it’s undergone a name change while we look for another vendor sponsor. However, the charge is still the same! We are looking for a new academic business librarian to give a $1250 grant to travel to ALA. Please nominate yourself or a new business librarian at: http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/brass_business_expert_press_award

Julia A. Martin, 2014-2015 Chair

BRASS Notes

John C. Gottfried, Editor

 

Message from the Chair

Hello BRASS members:

Once again we enjoyed a full slate of programming at ALA Annual. Las Vegas may have been hot and inconvenient, but it was productive for BRASS committees, as seen in the reports below, and it was a great location for our social events. I enjoyed visiting with everyone at the Friday Member Reception, the Awards Ceremony, and the Monday Dinner; I found the BRASS Discussion Group as enlightening as always; and the Preconference, Academic Forum, and Publisher’s Forum were all well-attended and helped make the trip to the desert worthwhile. There was also an update from the BRASS/RUSA working group on guidelines for financial literacy education in libraries, and the BRASS Program “Mad Men: The Business of Advertising” was a conference highlight.

BRASS continues to boast the best programming, best vendor support, and best people in all of ALA. Every organization has plenty of what I think of as “back seat volunteers.” BRASS is an organization of “front seat volunteers” and it’s been a happiness for me to work with all of you during my year as Chair. Now, with Todd Hines taking the lead, I look forward to another great year for BRASS!

Andy Spackman
BRASS Chair, 2013-2014
andy_spackman@byu.edu

Dear BRASS members:

I just wanted to briefly introduce myself, I’m currently BRASS Chair and my term runs through ALA Annual San Francisco. I also wanted to thank Andy for his service as Chair. BRASS is a strong, active organization because of all the hard work of its volunteers. Additionally, I wanted to remind everyone that there are no required BRASS Committee meetings at 2015 ALA Midwinter in Chicago (committees now meet virtually instead of at Midwinter).

I look forward to working with all of you over the next year.

Todd Hines
BRASS Chair 2013-2014
thines@princeton.edu

BRASS Committee Reports

BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Academic Libraries committee met on Saturday, June 28th.

The committee had organized the forum for 2014 and solicited feedback from those present.

The committee discussed ways to become more active during years when it does not organize forums. Several ideas were mentioned, including creating a way to share instructional material and surveying members about their reference working environment (information commons, research appointments, etc.). Other members shared future topics of discussion, including better integration into the curriculum, how to use APA to cite sources for business as a possible project, and for the committee to share outreach methods.

Ann Fiegen also brought up the possible involvement of Emerald as a sponsor of a preconference event next year.

Charles Allan, 2012-2014 Chair

BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
Briefcase Articles:

The next Briefcase Article will be “Consumer Research” by Terry Zarsky, anticipated publication in 3rd quarter. Analysis of usage data indicates that responses to recent articles has been good, and the articles are getting good exposure. The committee will also go back and check previous articles for update/rewrite possibilities. There was discussion of seeking articles with a more positive approach.

Recruitment Efforts:

Committee members will check with state organizations and perhaps develop a database of business sections in local organizations. Other strategies were discussed, such as advertising briefcase articles, or cross-promotion with organizations like SLA and PLA.

Looking Toward ALA Annual 2015:

Every other year the BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee does a major program, and 2015 will be the next. The committee is looking into various forms of support (naming rights, crowdfunding, honorariums, and so on) and beginning to consider speakers and organizations that might want to be involved. It is also the time to research scheduling and communication.

The chair will contact members about a virtual committee meeting sometime in August.

Ed Rossman, 2014-2015 Chair

BRASS Program Planning Committee
BRASS Conference Program Planning Committee: BRASS 2014 Program

Mad Men: The Business of Advertising

About 150 attendees were at the program and heard from 2 knowledgeable speakers:

  • Dale Skarl, Search Engine Marketing Manager for MGM Resorts International

Summary notes were posted to ALA Connect at: http://connect.ala.org/node/226985

Committee members: Andy Spackman (BRASS Chair), Ilana Barnes, Mark Bieraugel, Bobray Bordelon, Greg Fleming, Patrick Griffis, Elizabeth Malafi

We would like to thank S&P Capital IQ for their continued support of BRASS by providing a continental breakfast.

Patricia Kenly, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The committee met virtually on June 5, 2014 and identified eleven titles that will appear in the Winter RUSQ column of Outstanding Business Resources. Of the eleven titles, four were identified as outstanding, six as notable, and one as an overlooked treasure. The titles will be presented at the Midwinter RUSA Awards meeting.

At the ALA Annual Conference, the committee met and discussed various items including:

  • Susan Hurst will be rotating off as chair and being replaced by Ed Hahn
  • The previous issue with Harvard Business Review (HBR) restricting access to 500 of their most popular articles was discussed, HBR will continue to restrict access but is open to suggestions on this matter, one thing suggested was for better communication with BRASS and HBR so business librarians can prepare and help their faculty plan for their course work.
  • The committee was asked by the BRASS executive committee to consider a proposal to purchase Robert Berkman’s “Best of the Business Web” email alert; The committee recommended that the BRASS Executive Committee not purchase this.

At the ALA Annual Conference the committee presented the Publishers Forum titled “Hitting the Jackpot, Sources for Local and Regional Business Information”. The presenters were from Data Planet, Euromonitor, Proquest, and Alteryx. There were 55 people attending the forum.

Ed Hahn, 2014-2016 Chair

BRASS Discussion Group Committee
The BRASS Discussion Group hosted their annual discussion at the ALA annual conference in Las Vegas on Sunday, June 29, 2014. The conference room was filled to capacity with over 80 people attending the proceedings.

The discussion kicked-off with outgoing President Andy Spackman hosting the annual BRASS membership meeting, which was followed by individual announcements. The discussion this year centered on best practices for managing student and faculty requests for information consultations. A wide variety of practices and strategies were covered for dealing with drop-in advanced referrals.

The second part of the discussion focused on the ACRL’s new n literacy standards and their impact on business instruction. Ann Fiegen encouraged participants to reach out to the committee writing the standards to ensure that business librarians have a say in the final product.

As of July 1, 2014 Emily Treptow from Michigan State University is the new BRASS Discussion Chair, we look forward to her leadership over the next year.

Jason Dewland, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Education Committee
At our annual meeting in Las Vegas we had an opportunity to say good-bye and a big thank you for valuable contributions to Louise Feldman, Jared Hoppenfeld, and Rhonda Kleiman, whose terms ended this year. We were also excited to welcome Kelly LaVoice from Cornell University, Desirae Sweet from James Madison University, and Ashley Faulkner from Texas A&M.

The largest event of the year for the BRASS Education Committee is the annual preconference. The 2014 RUSA BRASS preconference “How Business Librarians Support Entrepreneurs” was very successful. Helen Kula from the University of Toronto, together with Chris Kim and Hyun-Duck Chung from the University of Toronto / MaRS Discovery District delivered a dynamic interactive workshop on market research. Posie Aagaard from the University of Texas at San Antonio offered practical approaches to licensing e-resources for entrepreneurial uses. Her presentation was complemented by a vendor’s perspective from Matt Dunie, CEO of Data-Planet. Jared Hoppenfeld from Texas A&M and Elizabeth Malafi from Middle County Public Library discussed best practices for engaging with entrepreneurs in public and academic libraries.

46 people registered and 45 attended, representing 14 public and 29 academic libraries, as well as one state library and the Library of Congress Science, Technology and Business Division. Five participants and three presenters hailed from Canada, and we also had a librarian from Trinidad and Tobago, making this event truly international. We received very positive feedback from the participants who appreciated the timely topic and opportunities for networking. Andy Spackman, the past BRASS Chair, dropped by to present us with a RUSA voucher for one free registration for the next year’s preconference. The lucky winner was Michelle Kowalsky from Rowan University.

Now we are getting busy planning the next year’s preconference Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs: Patents, Trademarks, and Copyright which will focus on commercializing IP, patent searching, IP licensing to third parties, and other issues of interest to entrepreneurs. If you have any good speakers on these topics in mind, let us know!

We will be migrating BRASS Business Guides http://brass.libguides.com/to LibGuides v.2.0 platform, with Peter McKay from the University of Florida in charge of this effort. The new Business Reference Essentials guide with tips for new business librarians is now featured on the BRASS website http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/brass. Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Natasha Arguello, 2012-2015 Chair

BRASS Membership Committee
Thanks to all who attended the BRASS Membership Reception sponsored by InfoGroup—the event was great.

The membership committee reminds members you are not automatically added to the BRASS Facebook page or brass-l. You must “like” or subscribe through ALA connect. It’s a great way to stay connected with BRASS events! See the website for more information:

http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/brass/involved

BRASS met new business librarians at the RUSA 101—if you are a fairly new business librarian looking for tips and ideas, we have a networking group for you. The New Business Librarians Discussion Group. Contact Greta Wood (gwood@library.msstate.edu) to participate.

Kelly Janousek, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Vendor Relations Committee
Vendor relations remain strong; our vendors continue to be very supportive. Current vendor support comes from InfoGroup, S&P Capital IQ, Springshare, Gale, Morningstar, Emerald and Business Expert Press. InfoGroup hosted a wonderful member reception in Las Vegas for us. Our award sponsors are greatly appreciated by the membership. Emerald has expressed interest in sponsoring another preconference workshop in San Francisco. BRASS is working to

develop a program for that. The Vendor Relations committee is also working on a partnership with new vendor, details hopefully to follow.

Chris LeBeau, 2013-2015 Chair

BRASS Publications and Communications Committee

  • The committee encourages BRASS members to promote their tutorials, Libguides, and cool finds on Twitter using the hashtag #bizref throughout the year.
  • The committee is exploring new projects and activities
  • Congrats to Carol for being selected as the RUSA Update editor! John Gottfried will be our new BRASS Notes editor
  • Thanks to all members and chairs who provided input on the official ALA BRASS events schedule

Chad Boeninger, 2013-2015 Chair

BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee
Ilana Stonebraker accepted the BRASS Emerald Research Award on behalf of herself and Tao Zheng. Committee Chair, Elizabeth Stephan, and Emerald representative Eileen Breen were on hand to help present the grant. BRASS would like to extend a heart-felt thank you to Emerald for their continued support of research related to research librarianship!

Elizabeth Stephan, 2013-2014 chair

BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
Unfortunately, the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award was not given this year. The committee has worked on updating the criteria for the award and preparing for our fall nomination campaign. Please be thinking about what deserving public librarian you will nominate this fall — perhaps yourself! The award, sponsored by Morningstar, offers $1,250 in travel funds for ALA’s annual conference to a public librarian who provides business reference services.

Karen Chapman, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Notes

Carol L. Schuetz, Editor

Message from the BRASS Chair

Hello BRASS!

As shown in the committee reports below, everyone is gearing up for the ALA Annual Conference. There’s fresh snow on the mountains here in Utah, so spending ALA in Las Vegas is sounding pretty good to me right now.

Here’s a list of some of the BRASS events to look forward to:

Also at Annual we’ll officially recognize this year’s recipients of the BRASS awards and grants at the RUSA Awards Ceremony and Reception:

  • Celia Ross, Gale Cengage Learning Award for Excellence in Business Librarianship
  • Ilana Barnes and Tao Zhang, BRASS Emerald Research Grant
  • Desirae Zingarelli-Sweet, Business Expert Press Award for Academic Business Librarians
  • Katharine Macy, Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award

Keep an eye out on BRASS-L for the full BRASS program/event guide. I hope to see you all in Las Vegas!

Andy Spackman
BRASS Chair, 2013-2014
andy_spackman@byu.edu

BRASS Committee Reports

BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee is getting ready to present the BRASS Academic Libraries Forum at the 2014 ALA Annual Convention. Our speakers will be Ilana Stonebraker, Mary Dugan, Tom Ottaviano, and Jason Sokoloff. The general theme of the forum is scalability of instruction and business students. Different methods and results of scalability will be discussed. Jason Sokoloff’s presentation deals more with assessing one shot instruction. A previously scheduled speaker, Lisa O’Connor, had to withdraw due to a family health emergency. The committee thanks Tom Ottaviano for agreeing to present at such short notice!

The committee encourages everyone interested in this issue to attend. The Academic Libraries Forum will take place at Las Vegas Convention Center, room N111, Sat 1:00-2:30 PM.

Charles Allan, Chair 2012-2013

BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
Last Virtual Meeting was Friday April 4, 2014 via ALA connect.

We have added a new Briefcase article, No. 30, 2nd Quarter 2014, “Best Practices of Adult Financial Literacy in a Large Public Library System” by Melissa Jeter, Adult Services Librarian, Heatherdowns Branch; Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. Information on this article has been forwarded to Genifer Snipes and various listservs.

We appreciate BRASS Web Editor Annette Buckley setting up Google Analytics software to show the number of views the Briefcase receives as a whole, and the views which individual articles are receiving! We also appreciate Genifer Snipes’ assistance with social media.

Next Briefcase topic will be Consumer Research Tools.

Our 2015 ALA Program will be on naming rights as revenue generators for libraries.

Ed Rossman, Chair 2013-2014

BRASS Program Planning Committee
BRASS 2014 Program: Mad Men: The Business of Advertising
When: Monday, June 30, 2014 8:00-10:00 AM
Location: Las Vegas Convention Center, room S230

Many companies spend millions on advertising their brands and products, yet 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 find the content of the program very useful.

The session kicks off with breakfast, 8:00-8:30 AM, 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, Chair 2013-2014

BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The committee is preparing to review the nominations for Outstanding Business Reference Sources. We currently have twenty-seven titles for consideration. Review and voting will be done virtually, prior to ALA.

The Business Reference Source Committee (BRSC) will be meeting in person from 4:30-5:30 PM in the Las Vegas Convention Center, room N220 on Saturday, June 28. This is an open meeting and visitors are welcome to attend. Ed Hahn will be the incoming Committee chair, starting July 1, so wish him congratulations or condolences, as you see fit.

The BRSC is once again sponsoring the Publishers Forum at ALA. This year it will be held in the Las Vegas Hotel, Ballroom F on Sunday June 29th from 1:00-2:30 pm. The forum is titled “Hitting the Jackpot – Sources for Local and Regional Business Information” and the discussion will focus on the various types of local business information that are available through a variety of sources.

Representatives from Euromonitor (featuring their new Passport Cities product); Demographics Now (US Census data); Data Planet (United States statistical datasets); and ProQuest ABI Inform (Dateline product focusing on local and regional business journals) will be the speakers. Each has agreed to demonstrate their products specifically concerning the types of data they have for Las Vegas and Nevada in general. The last half-hour of the Forum will be a Q&A session from the audience, so come prepared with questions and issues that you have with finding local information.

Susan Hurst, Chair 2012-2013

BRASS Discussion Group Committee
The BRASS Discussion Group will host an open forum at ALA’s Annual Conference in Las Vegas on Sunday, June 29 from 8:30-10:00 AM in Caesars Palace, Octavius 05-06. We will be sending out a survey in the first week of June to determine what topics we will put on the agenda for discussion.

Friday, June 6 at 2:00 PM EST we have tentatively scheduled an online discussion. We are compiling feedback to see if people wish to take part in the discussion prior to the annual meeting. Do you have a topic idea? Please take a moment to fill out this survey

Please be on the lookout for additional information about the online discussion and the Annual conference on topics on BRASS-L. We look forward to seeing everyone in Las Vegas!

Jason Dewland, Chair 2012-2013

BRASS Education Committee
The BRASS Education committee is happy to report that so far thirty-three people have registered for the 2014 RUSA BRASS preconference “How Business Librarians Support Entrepreneurs.” Our dynamic speakers will cover market sizing for a technology start-up, licensing business e-resources, and best practices in engaging entrepreneurs in public and academic libraries.

Next year we are going to try something new. Instead of a full day, we have proposed a half day preconference, “Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs: Patents, Trademarks, and Copyright.”The topic is still tentative, and we’ll be thrilled to hear any ideas or suggestions of interest to our members.

We are exploring new LibGuide functionality to enhance BRASS Business Guides, generously provided to us by Springshare. Peter McKay is spearheading this effort. In the meanwhile, committee members are busy working on updating and consolidating existing guides. We are still on target to complete the transition to topical guides by June 20th, 2014.

Natasha Arguello, Chair 2012-2013
University of Texas at San Antonio
http://connect.ala.org/node/65121
http://brass.libguides.com/

BRASS Membership Committee
The BRASS Membership Reception will be Friday June 27 from 6:00-8:00 PM, location TBA on BRASS-L and Facebook. Come network with colleagues while enjoying food and beverages. Plan your flights so you can join us on the Vegas Strip for a fun time!

Membership committee meeting at ALA Annual will be June 29, 3:00-4:00 PM. at Las Vegas Convention Center, room N217.

Kelly Janousek, Chair 2012-2013

BRASS Vendor Relations Committee
Vendor Relations spent the past two months talking to several vendors who expressed interest in getting more involved with BRASS. Ultimately for different reasons, they have withdrawn their interest at this time. We will continue to explore new opportunities. Vendor Relations is also working on a preconference half-day workshop with another vendor for the 2015 conference in San Francisco. More information will be forthcoming when the details are more fleshed out.

Vendor Relations has also been coordinating with Membership for the Member’s Reception in Las Vegas on June 27, and with the Program Committee to see that our sponsorship from S&P Capital IQ runs smoothly.

Chris LeBeau, Chair 2013-2015

BRASS Publications and Communications Committee
The Publications and Communications Committee is working on the BRASS at ALA Annual Events and Program guide. We met in March to discuss various activities of the committee, including the BRASS website, our social media presence, and topics of discussion for our in-person annual meeting in June. We are looking forward to getting together at ALA Annual in Las Vegas. We’ll be meeting on Saturday, June 26 from 4:30-5:30 PM in the Las Vegas Convention Center, room N202.

Chad Boeninger, Chair 2013-2015

BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award Committee
Award-winning author and Associate Librarian, Celia Ross, of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business was selected for her dedication and commitment to the field of business librarianship and its practitioners.

Mark Andersen, Chair 2013-2014

BRASS Gale Cenage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Katharine Macy, MLIS candidate at the University of Washington was selected because of her extensive background and education in business.

Matthew Brower, Chair 2013-2014

BRASS Business Expert Press Award Committee
Desirae Zingarelli-Sweet, at the Carrier Library of James Madison University was selected for her outstanding efforts in collaboration with business faculty; students and community partners; library instruction; and business reference research at the university.

Kaiping Zhang, Chair 2013-2014

BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee
Ilana Barnes, Business Information Specialist and Tao Zhang, Digital User Experience Specialist of Purdue University Libraries are the project heads of “Assessment of Business Undergraduate Student Engagement and Behavior in a Crowd-Sourced Library Help System: Best Practices and Emerging Technology Opportunities.”

Elizabeth Stephan, Chair 2013-2014

BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
No award was presented this year.

Karen Chapman, Chair 2013-2014

BRASS Notes

Carol L. Schuetz, Editor

Message from the BRASS Chair

Hello BRASS Members!

Even though official BRASS meetings are conducted online for Midwinter, some of us can’t seem to stay away from the conference and it was a pleasure to see many of you in Philadelphia. I caught up with some friends while eating delicious (and sometimes peculiar) food, took care of some business during chance meetings in the convention center halls, and was enlightened and entertained by the conversation at the BRASS Discussion Group, as always.

At the RUSA Book & Media Awards Ceremony in Philadelphia, BRASS recognized the Outstanding Business Reference Sources for 2013, selected by the Sources Committee, and the Best of the Best Business Websites for 2013, selected by the Education Committee. The annual BRASS individual awards and research grants are being finalized now. Keep an eye out for the official announcement of winners from RUSA.

BRASS elections are coming up—look for the official ALA emails. We have a fine slate of candidates:

  • Vice-Chair: Paul Brothers and Julia Martin
  • Member-at-Large: Jason Dewland and Patricia Kenly
  • Secretary: Natasha Arguello and Adele Barsh

As you can see from the committee reports that follow, vendor support for BRASS remains strong. We appreciate our vendors for their sponsorship and for their eagerness for our input on their products, services, and practices. Work also continues on the IMLS grant for financial literacy education in libraries, with solid BRASS representation. Expect to see guidelines issued later this year.

Upcoming programming from BRASS includes:

  • Two more virtual discussion groups before Annual Conference (TBA)
  • The four-part MBA in a Day webinar series (http://www.ala.org/rusa/development/onlinece):
    • Marketing: Andy Spackman, Thursday, March 20, 12:00-1:30 PM (Central Time)
    • Management: Elisabeth Leonard, Friday, April 4, 11:00-12:30 PM (Central Time)
    • Accounting: Todd Hines, Thursday, May 1, 2:00-3:30 PM (Central Time)
    • Finance: Shikha Sharma, Thursday, May 15, 2:00-3:30 (Central Time)
  • At Annual in Las Vegas:
    • Preconference: How Business Librarians Support Entrepreneurs
    • Academic Libraries Forum: Business Information Literacy Instruction: Scalability, Assessment, and Philosophy
    • Publishers Forum: Hitting the Jackpot: Sources for Local and Regional Business Information
    • Traditional BRASS Discussion Group
    • The BRASS Annual Program: Mad Men: The Business of Advertising
    • And don’t forget our Friday night members’ reception and Monday night dinner!

Andy Spackman
BRASS Chair, 2013-2014
andy_spackman@byu.edu

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

 

BRASS Notes

Carol L. Schuetz, Editor

 

Message from the BRASS Chair
Hello BRASS members! It’s been an eventful fall for BRASS, as shown by the reports from committee chairs below.

We are excited about the $25,000 IMLS Sparks! Grant received by RUSA to create guidelines and best practices in financial literacy education in libraries. Kit Keller has been selected as project director, with a working team consisting of BRASS members Chris Le Beau, Andy Spackman, and Elizabeth Malafi, and an advisory panel with membership from a variety of organizations involved in financial literacy education. The grant will result in guidelines, a white paper, and webinars, and is an excellent opportunity for BRASS to make a difference in a growing area of library service.

In August the Harvard Business Review removed the ability to print, link, or download for 500 of its most used articles on the EBSCO platform. To regain this level of access libraries must now pay a significant premium. Concerned about this loss of access and its implications for the information ecology, BRASS formed a task force to study the situation and make recommendations. Ann Fiegen, Past Chair, led the group, which also included Annette Buckley, Glen McGuigan, Heidi Senior, Linda Hauck, and Lisa Ancelet. The resulting document passed through additional revisions and was approved by a vote of both the BRASS and RUSA executive committees. The RUSA/BRASS Statement on Harvard Business Review Pricing & Access will be announced through an ALA press release, distributed through multiple listservs, and is available on the BRASS website.

The HBR 500 statement will by no means be our last word on the matter. Rather, it should be the beginning of discussion, both within BRASS and between business librarians, their institutions, and publishers. BRASS has a role to play in advocating for access to information, and the strength of our members’ contributions will help us lead the way.

Andy Spackman
BRASS Chair, 2013-2014
andy_spackman@byu.edu

BRASS Committee Reports

BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Academic Libraries committee is busy planning its forum at 2014 ALA Annual. Several submissions have been received for potential speakers and a subcommittee is busy evaluating a lot of interesting and innovative proposals. If you think you would like to submit an idea and be part of the three to four speakers, please do so!

The committee is also gathering responses to Celia Ross’s call for all BRASS committees to respond to a series of self-evaluation questions on how each committee fulfills the BRASS mission statement. The Business Reference in Academic Libraries committee contributes significantly to academic business education outreach and leadership and we’re looking forward to sharing our insights with Celia.

This committee is planning to hold a virtual meeting during ALA midwinter.

Charles Allan, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
The committee has added a report to the Public Libraries briefcase. The report is Google Drive or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Online Forms by Sal DiVincenzo. This report can be found by going to the BRASS website and clicking on the MORE link by the Public Libraries Briefcase. The committee also discussed topics for ALA Annual in San Francisco in 2015. The committee has liaised with the RSS/Job and Career Services committee on resources for specialized entrance and certification exams.

Ed Rossman, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Program Planning Committee
Mark your calendars for …..BRASS 2014 ALA Annual Program

Monday, June 30, 2014, 8:0010:00 AM

Mad Men: The Business of Advertising
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).

The other speaker will focus on an advertising campaign, or advertising expenditures by a large “ad spender.”

Patricia Kenly, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee is off to a good start, with several business reference titles nominated so far, but we could always use some more. Please let Jordan Nielsen or Mark Siciliano know if you run across any new good business reference titles, as they are coordinating the Business Reference nominations process for the committee. We are also starting to work on putting together the Publisher’s Forum for ALA next summer. If there are topics or vendors you’d like to see us present, please contact the Janis Tyhurst or Penny Scott, the Publisher’s Forum coordinators for this year. We are also wrapping up our section review and will turn in our self-study responses to the Section review Committee by the end of Sept.

Susan Hurst, 2012-2014 Chair

BRASS Discussion Group Committee
The BRASS Discussion group hosted an online discussion in August and had a truncated discussion in October due to technical difficulties.

The August discussion was an open forum, the free flowing conversation focused on collection development and smaller institutions as well as trends in business reference. The meeting concluded with an update of the BRASS reaction to the Harvard Business Review’s new access policies. Emily Treptow, Michigan State University, and Jason Dewland, University of Arizona, served as moderators, thirty individuals participated.

The second online discussion was organized by Stephanie Tulley, UC Santa Barbara, and Jason Dewland and was to feature a business librarian from the Boston Public Library. Due to technical difficulties in Boston, that portion of the discussion had to be cancelled. A brief overview of working with entrepreneurs at academic institutions and a review of the data management tool DataZoa concluded the meeting. Approximately twenty-five people were present.

Jason Dewland will reach out to the creators of DataZoa to have them sponsor an online webinar about their product (unaffiliated with BRASS). Watch for more on this event via the BRASS-L listserv.

Jason Dewland, 2012-2014 Chair

BRASS Education Committee
Lots of exciting events are happening in the BRASS Education Committee:

  • Our first BRASS-sponsored free webinar “Industry Research Using the Economic Census and Other Government Sources” presented by Jennifer Boettcher from Georgetown University is scheduled for December 11, Wednesday, 2:00-3:30 PM EST, with the follow-up in one week, on December 18, Wednesday, 2:00-3:00 PM EST. You can register here.
  • The preparation for the 2014 RUSA BRASS preconference is also under way. The preconference working group, including Natasha Arguello, Tom Ottaviano, Hiromi Kubo, and Christina Sheley, will coordinate the event. We are venturing out into a new topic which will be of interest to many librarians, “How Business Librarians Support Entrepreneurs.” This full-day preconference will focus on market research for entrepreneurs for both Main Street and technology start-ups. The preconference will address common questions on how to help entrepreneurs locate information about their market, industry, competitors and customers and which free or premium resources to use. Speakers will discuss existing best practices of supporting small business along with examples of collaboration with entrepreneurship faculty. Attendees will also learn about licensing business resources relevant to entrepreneurs and avoiding material breaches.
  • The committee members are working on creating updated BRASS Business Guides which will combine Best of the Best Business Websites and Selected Core Resources guides for each topic. We expect to have drafts ready by Midwinter.
  • Another traditional October activity for our committee is nominating and voting for three Best of the Best Business Websites which will be announced at the RUSA Book and Media Award Ceremony at the ALA Midwinter. Our theme this year is Entrepreneurship. Voting should be completed in the first week of November. To see the previous winners, please see the RUSA Awards site.

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

BRASS Membership Committee
Did you see BRASS’ own Chris LeBeau lead the week long IAmRUSA interview session with members? This forum led by RUSA gives ALA members the opportunity to ask RUSA members about their professional careers, their passions, and anything else involving librarianship. Chris had a video interview and answered questions about business librarianship. If you did not see her posts the last week in October, go to ALA Connectto read more about Ms. LeBeau!

A mini-reminder since BRASS just does not have enough friends. Become a “friend” of BRASS Facebook page. See pictures and events. You can LIKE US at Facebook.

If you did not get to attend the 25th Anniversary Celebration, you can see all the smiling BRASS members and dignitaries who attended here.

Kelly Janousek, 2012-2014 Chair

BRASS Vendor Relations Committee
The Committee has been communicating with the award vendors and RUSA to get the awards lined up for the New Year. The Committee has also been actively working on the Harvard Business Review issue, and we have received approval for the S&P Breakfast for our Annual Program.

Chris LeBeau, 2013-2015 Chair

BRASS Publications and Communications Committee
The Publications and Communications Committee has been in a bit of transition this year.

  • John Gottfried stepped down as committee chair this year. His work is greatly appreciated by the committee members and BRASS.
  • Several new members have joined the committee.
  • Chad Boeninger is the new Chair of the Publications and Communications Committee and is doing his best to get a lay of the land.
  • Genifer Snipes is the new Social Media Coordinator
  • Katie Emery is the new BRASS-L manager
  • The committee has worked with and completed the section review process with Julia Martin.
  • As a committee we have discussed challenges and issues with the website, including Natasha’s recommendations on how to improve content and navigation of the site.
  • We will look into doing a content audit to figure out what is on the Brass website and how much it is used
  • Genifer Sipes has reached out to BRASS chairs and committees to understand which committees have social media profiles.

Chad Boeninger, 2013-2015 Chair

BRASS Section Review Ad Hoc Committee
As the chair of the BRASS Section Review Ad Hoc Committee, I would like to remind everyone (especially committee chairs), of the due date on the BRASS Section Review. The final report is due to RUSA on Feb. 15, 2014. The committee’s desire is to get a finished review to the BRASS Executive Committee by Midwinter meeting. If you have not been contacted already with your committee’s participation request please contact Paul Brothers, committee chair, ASAP. Brothers can be reached at pbrother@bruno.cba.ua.edu or by phone at 205-348-1097.

Paul Brother, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
The committee for the Morningstar Public Librarianship Award is now seeking nominations. The award is $1,250 in travel funds for the 2014 ALA Annual Conference to a public librarian who has performed outstanding business reference service and who requires financial assistance to attend the conference. Find more details on the BRASS website. BRASS members who are public librarians are encouraged to nominate themselves!

Karen Chapman, 2013-2015 Chair

BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award Committee
This award honors an individual who has made significant contributions in the field business librarianship. The recipient will receive a $3,000 cash award and a citation. Applicants for this award will be evaluated based on their contribution to the field of business librarianship. To submit a nomination, please download and complete the nomination form, and follow the submission instructions therein. The deadline for submissions is December 15. For more information, as well as link to the nomination form, please see the RUSA site. A copy of the nomination form (PDF) can be downloaded here.

Mark Andersen, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Sponsored byGale Cengage Learning, this $1,000 monetary prize is given to a student enrolled in anALA accredited master’s degree program to fund travel to and attendance at the ALA Annual Conference and a one-year membership in the Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) of RUSA. Applicants may download the form here: nomination form (PDF format). Deadline for all nominations is January 31, 2014.

Matthew Brower, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Business Expert Press Award Committee
This award presents a citation and $1,250 to an individual new to the field of academic business librarianship in order to support attendance to the ALA Annual Conference. To nominate a deserving candidate, download and complete the nomination form, and follow the submission instructions therein. The deadline for nominations is December 15.

Kaiping Zhang, 2013-2014 Chair

BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee
The Emerald Research Grant Award, sponsored by Emerald Group Publishing Limited offers one award of $2,500 and a citation to an individual or team seeking support to conduct research in business librarianship. Interested candidates should submit a detailed proposal outlining their proposed research project; methodology, scope and timetable; how this project fits into the existing literature; and projected outcomes, including a statement outlining how this research will benefit the library profession. The deadline for submissions is December 15.

Elizabeth Stephan, 2013-2014 Chair

Message from the Chair

BRASS Notes

Carol L. Schuetz, Editor

 

BRASS members:

Please read the committee reports below about the activities and initiatives highlighting the 25 year of BRASS. This all occurs because of volunteer work! It has been an honor to serve with such a dedicated group of librarians. We look forward to more with the new BRASS Chair for 2013-2014 Andy Spackman.

For 25 years BRASS IS…

  • Welcoming new business librarians.
  • Professional growth in the field of business information (how to find it, and how to use it!).
  • Teaching and learning: guiding library users to business resources.
  • Education: preconference, programs, publications, guidelines and listserv advice that are used daily to make choices and decisions that affect our users.
  • Member publishers, database developers and our sponsors who work in conjunction with librarians and libraries to supply tools to enable our users to meet their goals.

The opportunity to learn from the best leaders and to become one.

BRASS IS more than 800 members working everyday in every kind of library.

Ann Fiegen
BRASS Chair 2012-2013
afiegen@csusm.edu

BRASS Committee Reports

BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee
The BRASS 25th Anniversary Dinner was held at Fulton’s-on-the-River in Chicago on Monday, July 1, 2013 with 150 BRASS members attending. Many thanks to the event grand sponsor, Gale Cengage Learning, and to the other sponsors: S&P Capital IQ, ReportLinker, Morningstar, Annual Reviews, EBSCO, Mintel, PrivCo, SimplyMap, Mergent, and Emerald. The event committee chair would also like to thank the planning committee members for their tremendous work putting this event together (Mark Andersen, Bobray Bordelon, Irwin Faye, Michael Oppenheim, and Celia Ross)! Thank you everyone for a great evening!

Louise Feldmann, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee met on Saturday, June 29 at McCormick Place. Twenty people were in attendance, ranging from new librarians to veteran business librarians. New business librarian Nicole Spoor took excellent minutes of the meeting.

After welcoming everyone and giving personal introductions, we discussed the following items: possible topics for future BRASS forums, publishing opportunities in the BRASS newsletter, an update on the status of the Core Competencies Task Force and a discussion of our committee’s duties and mission with BRASS executive representative Celia Ross.

Possible topics for future BRASS Forum discussions included local economies, entrepreneurship, business instruction, presentation of award-winning research papers and working with faculty. The purpose of the discussion was to get people thinking about emerging issues in business librarianship and to refine ideas into possible forum topics. Committee chair Charles Allan reminded everyone that the BRASS Newsletter is open to receiving new submissions on varying topics. Participants were urged to submit a brief article.

Charles Allan and several members of the joint BRASS/CUBL Core Competencies Task Force were present and informed the meeting attendees of their work and its current status. The Task Force currently has seven main points and covers material that students should know when they graduate. The competencies might be a bridge between us and AACSB standards (the relationship is too vague and we would like to fix that). The next step in the evolution of the competencies is to survey faculty, students and employers.

Celia Ross came for the last segment of the meeting to get our take on how our committee fits into the BRASS architecture. Members present cited the committee’s attention to addressing a wide variety of issues facing business librarians in universities.

Charles Allan, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee hosted a discussion at ALA Annual —Business Programming in Public Libraries. This spirited discussion included business programming ideas and advice from librarians around the country. The feedback for the program was excellent.

The committee met after the program and discussed the forum, state of business reference in our libraries and what’s to come. New Public Libraries Briefcases will be released by the end of the year.

Elizabeth Malafi, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Program Planning Committee
BRASS_1The BRASS Program, “Investment Success! Building & Managing Your Retirement Portfolio,” took place on July 1, 2013 at McCormick Place. Approximately 130 people turned out to hear our two speakers.

Charles Rotblut, Vice President of the American Association for Individual Investors (AAII) and editor of the AAII Journal, titled his presentation, “Smart Investing: Seeking Reward While Reducing Risk.” He emphasized that “the optimal strategy is not one that maximizes return, but rather one that helps you stick to your long-term investing plan and achieve your goals.” He discussed common cognitive errors investors make including loss aversion, overconfidence, confirmation bias, recency bias, and hindsight bias. A chart from an article in the October 2012 AAII Journal shows that the average equity mutual fund investor underperformed a simple buy and hold strategy using a Standard & Poor’s 500 index fund or ETF by more than 4% per year. The reason: individual mutual fund investors “buy high” and “sell low”, i.e., they buy funds that have already gone up in price and sell funds after they have gone down. Mr. Rotblut advises a three step process. 1) Understand the role your mind plays; 2) Use the power of the written word to your advantage by writing down your investment strategy, stating your buy and sell rules; he said that his favorite investing tool is a spiral notebook. 3) Determine your long-term allocation strategy and stick to It.

Jeremy Glaser is the Morningstar Markets Editor. His presentation was titled, “Investing Well at Every Life Stage.” He focused primarily on Pre-Retirees, people in their 50s and 60s, who are strategizing about retirement, and Retirees, people in their 60s and 70s, who are already retired. Pre-retirees should continue to save aggressively for retirement, gradually reduce risk in their portfolio, pay off debt, including “good” debt like mortgage debt if you intend to stay in your home, assess retirement readiness by looking at income needs, withdrawal rates, and portfolio sustainability, develop a Social Security and retirement date strategy, and formulate a long-term care and estate plan. Retirees (60s, 70s, and beyond) should continue to reduce risk in their investment portfolio, segment portfolio by time horizon, liquidate investments in a tax-efficient manner, and regularly revisit their withdrawal rate to make sure it is sustainable.

Audio recordings were made of both presentations. The Powerpoint slides and audio will be made available exclusively to BRASS members for the first six months. Check the BRASS website under the “Presentations” category.

 BRASS_2 Morningstar distributed a free book, Investing for the Long Run: Strategies and Solutions to Help You Shape Up Your Finances. The book contains sound advice for investors of all ages. The book may be freely downloaded as a PDF: http://library.morningstar.com/mkt/investing_for_the_long_run.pdf .

 

Peter McKay, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee (BRSC) met twice online during May and June to discuss nominated titles for the Best Business References Sources. Selecting these titles is one of the major charges of the BRSC. With an abbreviated one hour meeting schedule in Chicago at ALA, the committee decided that we wanted to do this before we met in person in order to give the titles the time and consideration they deserved. The winning titles will be reviewed in the winter edition of the RUSQ and also announced at the Midwinter Book and Media Awards Reception in Philadelphia on Sunday, January 26, 2014. Many thanks to Ed Hahn, Nominating Coordinator, for his work in getting titles nominated and then leading the online meetings to determine which titles would be selected. Thanks also go to Becky Smith, Column Editor, who will be compiling the reviews of the winning titles and submitting the column to RUSQ for publication. Finally thanks to the committee as a whole for their efforts in nominating and discussing the titles and then reviewing those selected for the column.

The BRSC also sponsors the Publishers’ Forum at ALA each year. This year forum was titled, “Finding Business Information in a Googlized World: The Future of Business Research and Discovery Layers.” This was a timely topic, focusing on the impact of discovery services on locating business information and data. This is especially important since most of the discovery platforms tend to be focused on articles and do not pulling out the types of data that business researchers seek. Our speakers included Gilad Gal, Director of Product Management for Discovery and Delivery Solutions Ex Libris Ltd.; John Law, Vice President of Discovery Solutions, ProQuest/Serials Solutions; Sam Brooks, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, EBSCO Publishing; and Suzanne Kemperman, Director, Business Development & Publisher Relations, OCLC. We had approximately eighty persons in attendance and the evaluations returned after the session were quite positive. Thanks in particular go to Penny Scott who chaired the Forum sub-committee, as well as the other committee members who made it the success it was.

Susan Hurst, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Discussion Group Committee
The BRASS Discussion Group hosted their annual discussion at the ALA annual conference in Chicago on Sunday, June 30, 2013. The discussion kicked-off with outgoing BRASS Chair Ann Fiegen hosting the annual BRASS membership meeting. After the membership meeting Kelly Janousek led a short discussion about what online conference software members were using and what were the strengths and weaknesses. This was followed by a call to follow and use the #bizref for BRASS related tweets.

The two scheduled areas for discussion were: 1) increasing significance of commercialization on campuses; 2) tools for finding information about online businesses. The commercialization efforts have been occurring primarily on large research campuses and smaller institutions haven’t been affected by this trend. Among the larger institutions there has been limited cooperation between the commercialization groups and libraries. While there has been limited cooperation between libraries and the campus commercialization groups, the majority of the interactions that libraries have in the process has occurred early on with the researchers.

The conversation about online business research focused on different tools that are available for free and on a subscription basis. A list of resources is being compiled in a Google Doc.

In June, there was the first open online discussion forum hosted by the discussion group and facilitated by Kelly Janousek and Jason Dewland. The first half of the discussion focused on how libraries are working with entrepreneurs. The second part of the discussion was about big data and the different areas librarians and researchers are finding it and tools to manage it. The final 10 minutes was a review of the changes made by Harvard Business Review. A recording of the discussion can be found here.

In the fall, the BRASS discussion group will host additional two to four online discussions. Dates, times, and topics are to be determined.

Jason Dewland, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee is happy to report that the 2013 BRASS Preconference, “Business Reference 101: Core Competencies for Business Librarianship” was a success. Forty-five librarians from academic, public, and special libraries across the nation attended this preconference at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago on June 28, 2013. Chris LeBeau from the University of Missouri-Kansas-City and Rhonda Kleiman from the Library System of Lancaster County discussed core resources for business reference; Leticia Camacho from Brigham Young University covered selecting and evaluating business resources; and Jared Howland, also from Brigham Young University, addressed licensing of business electronic resources. On behalf of the organizers, I’d like to thank our presenters for volunteering countless hours and keeping the audience engaged. Next year’s preconference will be on supporting entrepreneurs.

On Saturday, June 29th, we held our annual Education Committee meeting for the first time in the new 4:30-5:30 PM slot. We said goodbye to John Juricek from University of Southern California and Mary Martin from Claremont Colleges whose term ended, as well as Chad Boeninger who left to chair the BRASS Publications Committee. Thank you all for your service! We were also excited to welcome incoming members who were able to attend our meeting: Tom Ottaviano from Cornell, Christina Sheley from Indiana University, and Hiromi Kubo from California State University, Fresno.

The BRASS Education Committee worked hard on recruiting presenters for the RUSA webinars. Thanks to Peter McKay, Jennifer Boettcher will be offering a free online webinar on industry research this fall. If you missed last year’s preconference, “MBA (Mastering Business Acumen) in a Day,” Elisabeth Leonard will be presenting a webinar on Management, Chris LeBeau on Finance, Todd Hines on Accounting, and Andy Spackman on Marketing. Keep an eye out for announcements!
BRASS_3
We are looking forward to a busy year ahead of us. One of the major projects we’ll be working on is creating a new set of BRASS LibGuides which combines both the Best of the Best Business Websites and Selected Core Resources. Another important project is fleshing out Business Reference Essentials LibGuide which will serve as a start-up guide for a new business librarian and refresher for the rest of us.

photo caption: Chris LeBeau is discussing core business resources

Natasha Arguello, 2012-2013 Chair
University of Texas at San Antonio

http://connect.ala.org/node/65121

http://brass.libguides.com/

 

 

BRASS Membership Committee
Don’t you LIKE us? Please become a “friend” of BRASS Facebook page. See pictures and events. Committee chairs this is your opportunity to publicize your events and previews of your speakers. You can LIKE US Facebook.

Kelly Janousek, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Vendor Relations Committee
The BRASS Vendor Relations Committee had a very successful year. Close to $30,000 was raised for the BRASS 25th Anniversary event. The Committee also received approval at Annual to explore the possibility of developing a “Virtual Expo” site which would serve as a clearinghouse of sorts for BRASS members to explore various business database vendors. Thanks go to committee members Paul Brothers and Lydia LaFaro for all of their great work and welcome to Chris LeBeau who will be serving as the new Chair!

Celia Ross, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Publications and Communications Committee
The BRASS Publications and Communications Committee met at ALA Annual, discussing several projects for the coming year. First, a representative from the BRASS Section Review Committee covered some of the basic questions and procedures the committee will undertake this year in the committee review process. We then heard reports from several of our members on their specific areas of responsibility. We spent considerable time discussing a variety of plans and possibilities for a revision and restructuring of the BRASS Web site. We hope to contact representatives of a number of BRASS committees to obtain input and suggestions for these revisions. We also decided, due to positive reaction, to continue producing the BRASS Events Schedule to help our members keep up with BRASS-related activities at ALA Annual. Finally, we met incoming chair of BRASS Andy Spackman, and incoming chair of the Publications and Communications Committee Chad Boeninger, and we look forward to working with both of them this year.

John Gottfried, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Section Review Committee
This is the year for the review/evaluation of the committees that comprise the BRASS section of RUSA. If you are a committee chair, you should soon be contacted by a BRASS member asking permission to be included on the agenda of your committee’s meeting at the ALA annual conference in June. More information to follow soon. Thank you in advance.

Paul Brothers, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
Salvatore DiVincenzo was recognized at this year’s RUSA Awards reception as the recipient of the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award. DiVincenzo is the business librarian at Middle Country Public Library in Long Island, New York. The award, sponsored by Morningstar, offers $1,000 in travel funds for ALA’s Annual Conference to a business librarian from a public library.

Congratulations, Salvatore!

Melissa Jeter, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award Committee
Michael R. Oppenheim was recognized at the RUSA Awards ceremony during the ALA Annual conference in Chicago as the 2013 recipient of the Gale Cengage Learning Award for Excellence in Business Librarianship. This award ($3,000 and a citation) is for his outstanding contributions to the field of business librarianship. Quoting from the citation: “Through publication, service in professional organizations, mentoring, and sharing of subject expertise, Michael has contributed significantly to the professional growth of colleagues throughout their careers”.

Michael R. Oppenheim is the business librarian’s librarian—as an author, officer, mentor, and expert.

Congratulations, Michael!

We thank Gale Cengage Learning for the generous support of this award.

The committee members: Mark Andersen; Karen J. Chapman; Patricia E. Kenly

Patricia Kenly, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Kelly LaVoice, graduate student of Library and Information Science at Rutgers University and current business librarian intern at the University of Pennsylvania’s Lippincott Business Library, was recognized at the RUSA Award reception as the 2013 BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award recipient. The award, sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning and the BRASS, offers $1,000 and a one year membership to BRASS to an outstanding MLIS student to fund travel to the ALA Annual Conference.

Todd M. Hines, 2012-2013 Chair

 

BRASS Business Expert Press Award Committee
Annette Buckley, Business Research Librarian at UC-Irvine and this year’s recipient of the Business Expert Press Award, was recognized at the RUSA Awards reception at ALA Annual. The award, sponsored by Business Expert Press, is given to a librarian who is new to the field of academic business librarianship, in order to support his or her attendance to the ALA Annual Conference. Congratulations to Annette who also serves as our BRASS Webmaster—A BIG THANK you from your BRASS colleagues!

Paul Brothers, 2012-2013 Chair

 

BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee
Jennifer Boettcher, Business and Economics Reference Librarian at Georgetown University Library, was the recipient of this year’s Emerald Research Award and was recognized at the RUSA Awards reception. The award is sponsored by Emerald Group Publishing and is for for ALA members seeking support in conducting research in business librarianship. Jennifer’s research interests are in government sources and industry research.

Congratulations, Jennifer!

Christy Goodnight, 2012-2013 chair
Mark your calendars for …..BRASS 2014 PROGRAM
Mad Men: The Business of Advertising, Monday, June 30, 2014; 8:30-10:00 AM

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.

Speakers: Wendy Diamond, Business and Economics Librarian at 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).

The other speaker will be either from an advertising agency in Las Vegas—about what their clients (ad buyers) need, or a professor from UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration.

Patricia Kenly, 2013-2014 Chair

Message from the Chair

BRASS Notes

Carol Schuetz, Editor

 

Hello BRASS members!

BRASS celebrates 25 years as a section at ALA annual in Chicago 2013. All committees have been hard at work to bring you a full program schedule beginning on Friday morning June 28 and continuing through Monday night’s 25th BRASS Anniversary reception and dinner July 1 and the Tuesday morning’s Executive Board meeting. Twitter will be right there with you this year, follow along at BRASS’ very own hashtag #bizref. All members are invited to committee meetings of BRASS where many initiatives that improve business librarianship are happening; read more in these notes about those activities. Not a volunteer yet? There are many ways to participate in BRASS virtually and in person. BRASS welcomes you, contact incoming 2013-2014 Chair Andy Spackman.

Congratulations to our BRASS award winners. Plan to attend the RUSA Awards Ceremony to honor the accomplishments of our colleagues.

  • BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Award for Excellence In Business Librarianship: Michael R. Oppenheim
  • BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award: Kelly LaVoice
  • BRASS Business Expert Press Award: Annette Buckley
  • Emerald Research Award: Jennifer Boettcher
  • Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award: Salvatore DiVincenzo

Congratulations also to our newly elected BRASS officers: Todd Hines, incoming Chair-elect and Elizabeth Malafi, incoming Member at Large.

The Publications and Communications Committee will be posting a detailed conference schedule including all committee meetings but in the meantime, here are the BRASS conference highlights in brief. Be sure to also watch BRASS-L, the BRASS Facebook andBRASS website, #bizref on Twitter and the RUSA Blog for information about section activities. Room locations are found on the ALA 13 scheduler.

Programs (watch for more updates on BRASS-L)

 

Ann Fiegen
BRASS Chair 2012-2013
afiegen@csusm.edu

BRASS Committee Reports

BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee
BRASS will be celebrating its 25th anniversary with a reception and dinner at ALA Annual in Chicago on Monday evening, July 1; from 6:00-10:00 P.M. atFulton’s on the River BRASS members are invited to this free event. Please RSVP by May 23 by sending an email to RUSABRASS25@gmail.com. Many thanks to our Grand Sponsor, Gale Cengage Learning, and to our other vendor sponsors: S&P Capital IQ, ReportLinker, Morningstar, Annual Reviews, EBSCO, Mintel, PrivCO, SimplyMap, Mergent, and Emerald. The 25th Anniversary event will be preceded by a “Meet the Analysts” reception which will be hosted by Mintel in their new offices just across the river from Fulton’s. More details on that event will be forthcoming. Please visit our event website

Louise Feldmann, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
Core Competencies for Business Students Task Force

The Business Reference in Academic Libraries committee is continuing its work with Special Library Association’s (SLA) College and University Business Libraries (CUBL) group on the Core Competencies Task Force. This task force is charged with creating research proficiency standards for business students. The first phase of the project was brainstorming what librarians think are good research skills for students. Currently, the committee is evaluating the literature and discussing what professors, employers, and student experiences report as good core competencies. A big thank you to CUBL’s Carissa Marie Phillips for starting this phase of the project. The group is planning on meeting at ALA Annual in Chicago.

BRASS/ RUSA EMERALD AACSB Workshop for Academic Business Librarians

You may have also noticed a call put out to the BRASS-L and BUSLIB-L listservs about the upcoming Emerald sponsored workshop on business accreditation at ALA annual: How can the library continue to support the business school through the accreditation process? BRASS is fortunate to have as keynote speaker Dr. Dan LeClair, VP and Chief Operating Officer of AACSB International speak to us about changes in AACSB accreditation. The workshop will also address your experiences with AACSB business school accreditation standards and your library’s involvement and their creation. Please take a moment to fill out the survey and share your experiences with us. Remember that you are a valuable source of professional information and your input is greatly needed and appreciated! The link to the free registration page is above.

Charles Allan, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee Forum on June 29 from 2:00-3:00P.M.—“Business Librarian’s Reference Shelf”—a panel discussion featuring authors of valuable and practical books for the business librarian.

Check out our new Public Libraries Briefcase – Harness the Power of Branding by Eric Petersen from H&R Block Business & Career Center at the Kansas City Public Library.

Elizabeth Malafi, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Program Planning Committee
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Investment Success! Building & Managing Your Retirement Portfolio

Monday, July 1, 2013, 8:30-10:00 A.M.

Good personal investment education is important for librarians and library staff. We are an occupational group that is rarely able to access top financial advice. In this program, investment professionals will demystify the process and help us understand essential principles and how to apply them to make better decisions to meet our retirement goals. The presentation will include a discussion of the common mistakes investors make, why we make them, and how to avoid them.

Speakers

Charles Rotblut, CFA, Vice President, American Association of Individual Investors
Rotblut is a vice president of the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII). He is the editor of the AAII Journal. He authors the weekly AAII Investor Update e-newsletter and his commentary is published on both Seeking Alpha and Forbes.com. He has analyzed both publicly traded and privately held companies. Charles’ experience includes working for Zacks Investment Research, an investment research firm; INVESTools, an investment education company; Curian Capital, a money management firm; and McClure, Schumacher & Associates, a business valuation firm. Charles is a graduate of the University of Kansas, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. He is a holder of the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.

Jeremy Glaser, Morningstar Markets editor
Glaser is markets editor for Morningstar.com and responsible for directing all stock market coverage for Morningstar’s website for individual investors. Prior to assuming his current role in 2009, he was a senior equity analyst for Morningstar, covering the leisure, hospitality, and gaming sectors. He joined Morningstar in 2006. Glaser holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago.

Peter McKay, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee Publishers’ Forum Sub-Committee headed up by Penny Scott has been hard at work finalizing details for the program.

The Publishers’ Forum will be held from 1:00-2:30 P.M. on Sunday, June 30 and is currently schedule in N227a of the McCormick Place Convention Center. The program is titled “Finding Business Information in a Googlized World: The Future of Business Research and Discovery Layers”. “What is the impact of discovery services on business information? How are discovery services affecting business publishers, particularly on the specialized business databases side? Most of the discovery platforms tend to be focused on articles, not pulling out data that business researchers seek. Representatives from Proquest, OCLC, Ebsco, and Ex Libris will speak and, more importantly, answer questions about their services and how they are working to incorporate these more specialized data sources”.

Ed Hahn has also been riding herd on the Reference Sources Nominating Sub-Committee and getting additional sources nominated for consideration by the committee as a whole. Currently we have twenty-nine titles nominated, but we would still like to have more as we get ready to make our final determinations. Please contact Ed (edwardhahn@weber.edu) or myself (hurstsj@miamioh.edu) if you have Business Reference sources you would like the committee to consider.

This year as our meeting time at ALA has been cut to one hour (4:30-5:30 P.M., Saturday, June 29); the Committee will be trying something new. We will hold a virtual meeting in May to discuss the nominated titles and make some preliminary decisions. This will hopefully free up some time at ALA to allow us to discuss other topics, including choosing next year’s nominating coordinator and making final preparations for the Forum as well as finalizing the winning titles and selecting who will write the reviews for each of them for the RUSQ column.

Susan Hurst, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Discussion Group Committee
The BRASS Discussion Group will host an open forum at ALA’s Annual Conference in Chicago on Sunday, June 30, 2013 from 8:30-10:00 A.M. Two main points of discussion:

  1. Working with the tech transfer process and the librarian’s different roles in University, Public, and Private Sector. What we can learn from each other.
  2. Doing Market Research for online businesses. What are the best resources for researching the online environment? As always, there will be time for the lively open forum. A short all-BRASS membership meeting will precede the discussion topics.

Jason Dewland hosted the first Discussion Group online webinar on April 5,Commercialization Research on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CRIE). CRIE is the first patent database that will allow researchers to data mine all US patents with the ability to download up to 500,000 records per query. The webinar was well attended with about twenty-four people from around the country. Please be on the lookout for our first online BRASS Discussion Group announcement.

Have a topic idea? Please post suggestions to the BRASS Suggestion Wall. Past discussions have focused on working with businesses and entrepreneurs, free business related web resources, publishing, and other topics related to business librarianship. We look forward to hearing your suggestions.

Jason Dewland, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee will be presenting the 2013 preconferenceBusiness Reference 101: Core Competencies for Business Librarianship on June 28 from 8:30 A.M.-4:00 P.M. at the ALA Annual conference in Chicago. It will address the most common business reference issues and core resources, evaluation of your business collection, and licensing electronic business products. The registration is in full swing, and we are expecting another successful event! You don’t need to be registered for the ALA Annual Conference to attend this workshop. Register here.

Our proposal to the BRASS Executive Committee to tweak the webinar submission and approval process was approved. The goal of the proposal is to increase visibility of BRASS initiated webinars. We are glad to report that RUSA will be adding section affiliation to the webinar submissions and publicity. The second proposal to offer discounts at the section level was unfortunately not possible.

Jennifer Boettcher will be offering a free webinar on industry research as part of the RUSA’s “one-free-webinar-per-year” initiative. As part of this program, she will cover updates on using the Census information for industry research. Stay tuned for more details!

Natasha Arguello, 2012-2013 Chair
University of Texas at San Antonio
http://connect.ala.org/node/65121
http://brass.libguides.com/

BRASS Membership Committee
Don’t you LIKE us? Please become a “friend” of BRASS Facebook page. See pictures and events. Committee chairs this is your opportunity to publicize your events and previews of your speakers. You can LIKE US viahttps://www.facebook.com/ala.rusa.brass.

Kelly Janousek, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Vendor Relations Committee
The BRASS Vendor Relations Committee has continued to assist the BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee by reaching out to new vendors and working with longtime partners to help secure funding for the event. We are looking forward to celebrating in style! Committee members include Paul Brothers and Lydia LaFaro.

Celia Ross, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Publications and Communications Committee
In anticipation of the upcoming ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, the BRASS Publications and Communications Committee is working on updating the BRASS web pages. We are trying to clean up links and content to ensure that we can deliver all the information needed for BRASS members to have a great and productive time at Annual, including events related to our BRASS 25th Anniversary celebration. At this time we are also working on producing a BRASS events schedule—this popular resource shows all the BRASS-related events at the Conference so everyone can find and enjoy all that BRASS has to offer. We will post it to the BRASS listserv and to the BRASS web page.

Finally, one more bit of great news: We are delighted to welcome Annette Buckley to the BRASS Publications and Communications Committee as our new Webmaster. Buckley has already done some great work on the BRASS website, and we look forward the many innovations she has planned for the future!

John Gottfried, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Section Review Committee
This is the year for the review/evaluation of the committees that comprise the BRASS section of RUSA. If you are a committee chair, you should soon be contacted by a BRASS member asking permission to be included on the agenda of your committee’s meeting at the ALA annual conference in June. More information to follow soon. Thank you in advance.

Paul Brother, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
The committee for the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award is proud to announce this year’s recipient; Salvatore DiVincenzo, business librarian at Middle Country Public Library in Long Island, New York. The award, sponsored by Morningstar, offers $1,000 in travel funds for ALA’s Annual Conference to a business librarian from a public library.

Melissa Jeter, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award Committee
Michael R. Oppenheim is the 2013 recipient of the Gale Cengage Learning Award for Excellence in Business Librarianship. Oppenheim is the Collections & Reference Services Librarian at the Rosenfeld Management Library, UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management. He is the co-author of: Marketing Information: A Strategic Guide for Business and Finance Libraries, and co-editor of the recent The Basic Business Library: Core Resources and Services (5th ed., 2011). He has also made countless contributions as a leader in professional associations. One of his colleagues summed it up best, “he is the business librarian’s librarian”.

Congratulations, Michael!

Patricia Kenly, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Kelly LaVoice, graduate student of Library and Information Science at Rutgers University, and current business librarian intern at the University of Pennsylvania’s Lippincott Business Library, is being awarded the 2013 BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award. The award, sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning and the Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) of RUSA, offers $1,000 and a one year membership to BRASS to an outstanding MLIS student to fund travel to the ALA Annual Conference.

Todd M. Hines, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Business Expert Press Award Committee
The BRASS Business Expert Press Award for Academic Librarians Committee is proud to announce this year’s recipient of the travel award to attend the annual conference in Chicago. Please congratulate Annette Buckley, Business Research Librarian at UC Irvine. By the way, some of you may know Annette as the upcoming volunteer BRASS Webmaster—A BIG THANK you from your BRASS colleagues!!!

Paul Brothers, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee
The Emerald Research Grant ($5000) was awarded to the following person:

Jennifer Boettcher, Business and Economics Reference Librarian at Georgetown University Library. Her winning proposal, “Zombie List: for information sources that should not die,” outlined the process of developing an online finding aid of business-related sources that have been discontinued or changed formats and list alternate ways to get the same or similar information. Boettcher’s research interests are in government sources and industry research.

Christy Goodnight, 2012-2013 Chair

Message from the BRASS Chair

BRASS Notes

Carol L. Schuetz, Editor

Hello BRASS members!

Don’t you love traveling in January? BRASS was certainly in Seattle. Read Jason Dewland’s notes about the very informative discussion group on what libraries are doing to support entrepreneurs in our communities. The group of about thirty librarians attending also welcomed six librarians new to BRASS. Midwinter was also a time to attend more sessions of RUSA or other division forums and discussions than may be possible at Annual. Many of us also noted that midwinter was a good time to visit with library vendors on the exhibit floor.

Are you looking forward to the BRASS 25th anniversary year in Chicago? All hardworking volunteer committee members are planning a full line-up of pre-conferences, programs, forums, and discussion groups. Read on about the Business 101 all-day preconference set for Friday June 28th. Also new this year will be a Friday afternoon workshop for academic librarians interested in AACSB accreditation topics, sponsored by Emerald. Information about registering for that workshop will come out later this spring.

Make this year a goal to get your financial house in order and attend the July 1, Monday morning BRASS program: Investment Success! Building & Managing Your Retirement Portfolio. Look for registration information for the 25 years of BRASS celebrating business librarian-to-librarian networking.

Read on about how BRASS helps each of us every day do our jobs better. As you can read from these notes BRASS never sleeps, more and more we are conducting our business year round and virtually. New volunteers are needed for BRASS committees; please fill out the volunteer form in the RUSA website.

Ann Fiegen
BRASS Chair 2012-2013
afiegen@csusm.edu

BRASS Committee Reports

BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
Charles Allan participated in a conference call with the BRASS committee and shared the research competencies committee’s progress in writing rough drafts of research competencies and creating an annotated bibliography. The committee has a rough research competencies draft of seven points with subcategories that cover key components of information literacy, database searching techniques, framing research questions and specific research questions related to business information research skills.

The Research Committee is continuing to incorporate members’ inputs on the content and wording of the competencies. Delivery of the competencies may prove to be a multi-year process as surveys from faculty and businesses are gathered. Several members of the task force have suggested further enhancements to the document to expand and refine content.

Charles Allan, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
A small group of Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee met at Mid-Winter and finalized our Forum topic for Annual. The forum is entitled Business Librarian’s Reference Shelf. Speakers are to be determined.

Elizabeth Malafi, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Program Planning Committee

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BRASS 2013 Program: Investment Success! Building & Managing Your Retirement Portfolio

Monday, July 1, 2013
8:30-10:00 A.M.
Good personal investment education is important for librarians and library staff. We are an occupational group that is rarely able to access top financial advice. In this program, investment professionals will demystify the process and help us understand essential principles and how to apply them to make better decisions to meet our retirement goals. The presentation will include a discussion of the common mistakes investors make, why we make them, and how to avoid them.

Speaker:

  • CHARLES ROTBLUT, CFA, Vice President, AAII
    Charles Rotblut is a vice president of the American Association of Individual Investors. He is the editor of the AAII Journal. He authors the weekly AAII Investor Update e-newsletter and his commentary is published on both Seeking Alpha and Forbes.com.
  • JEREMY GLASER, Morningstar Markets Editor
    Jeremy Glaser is markets editor for Morningstar.com, responsible for directing all stock market coverage for Morningstar’s website for individual investors. Prior to assuming his current role in 2009, he was a senior equity analyst for Morningstar, covering the leisure, hospitality, and gaming sectors. He joined Morningstar in 2006. Glaser holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago

Peter McKay, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee (BRSC) held a virtual meeting through Collaborate on January 7, 2013.

One of the main announcements was the RUSQ column on Outstanding Business Reference sources has now been published: “Outstanding Business Reference Sources 2012”. (2012). Reference & User Services Quarterly, 52(2), 154-157. http://rusa.metapress.com/content/x16h7013v7mr6435/fulltext.pdf.

We also discussed the list of nominated titles and business sources. Ed Hahn is in charge of this subcommittee and announced that so far twenty-six items have been nominated. We are still seeking additional nominations; however, as some items are removed from the list as we narrow it down.

Penny Scott is leading the subcommittee for organizing the 2013 Publishers’ forum at ALA. A committee discussion was held to finalize ideas for the forum and to start getting details solidified. Penny has also offered to document the timeline and steps necessary to organize the Publishers’ Forum and post them on the BRSC Wiki as well as on the BRSC RUSA webpage along with possible topics discussed during the virtual meeting. The one that seemed to get the most attention was looking at Discovery Layer services and how this has affected specialized sources of business information such as financial data and market research reports. Penny is working on this.

Susan Hurst, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee
Plans are underway for the BRASS 25th Anniversary Party to be held on Monday, July 1st, at ALA Annual 2013 in Chicago. Keep your calendars open for this fabulous event. Stay tuned for details to come over the coming months.

Louise Feldmann, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Discussion Group Steering Committee
Jason Dewland led a discussion on entrepreneurship support in libraries. BRASS attendees described library programs and offered supporting resources for entrepreneurship. Public libraries offer a number of programs and resources for local entrepreneurs. The Chamber of Commerce meets at the Middle Country Public Library in New York. Some libraries offer entrepreneur centers including maker spaces, the Chicago Public Library received a $250,000 maker space grant from the Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS). Many libraries offer help with launching and marketing new businesses to those creating new tech products by providing resources, referrals to small business counselors, and hosting networking events.

Academic libraries are evolving as they are being asked to help support universities that are increasingly reaching out into their communities. Universities expanding their efforts to help new business ventures with business incubators and expanding their role with helping faculty get new products patented and brought to market. In academic libraries the importance of distinguishing between student assignments and entrepreneurial projects when using library databases is addressed by educating students about licensing limitations of academic library databases.

Jason Dewland, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Education Committee
Best of the Best Business Websites Winners
Since 2009, every fall the BRASS Education Committee has been selecting the top three Best of the Best Business Websites a business librarian can’t live without. Take a look at the previous winners. This year, the three winners are:

  1. The World Bank Data, which provides freely-available data for over 214 countries and economies, including time series for world development indicators from 1960 to 2011. We want to thank the World Bank for making this information freely available.
  2. Doing Business, a collaboration between the World Bank and The International Finance Corporation (IFC) which provides objective measures of business regulations for local firms in 185 economies.
  3. Occupational Outlook Handbook, an online portal created and maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics which features hundreds of occupational profiles with detailed information on work environment, required education, expected pay, trends and employment projections, along with additional data. This is an indispensable source of career information for students and professionals.

On behalf of the BRASS Education Committee, Mary Martin announced the winners at the RUSA Book and Media Awards on January 27th, 2013, at ALA Midwinter in Seattle.

Since 2009, the three winners have been reviewed in the winter issue of the Reference & User Services Quarterly (RUSQ).

BRASS Webinars
The BRASS Education Committee submitted a proposal to the BRASS Executive Committee to amend the submission and approval process for RUSA webinars in order to elevate BRASS’ profile. First, we would like to highlight BRASS sponsorship for those webinars where presenters are BRASS members or recruited by BRASS. As an additional benefit to BRASS members and to attract new members, we also proposed discounts for such webinars for BRASS members, as well as group, series and recording rates. The BRASS Executive Committee approved our proposal, and now we are awaiting RUSA’s decision.

Interested in doing a webinar, or know someone whose business research expertise will be appreciated by colleagues? Let us know!

Natasha Arguello, 2012-2013 Chair
http://connect.ala.org/node/65121
http://brass.libguides.com/

BRASS Membership Committee
Don’t you LIKE us? Please become a “friend” of BRASS Facebook page. See pictures and events. You can Like Us on Facebook.

Kelly Janousek, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Nominating Committee
The BRASS Nominating Committee submitted the 2013 Ballot nominees this past September. Thanks to Mary Gilles and Elizabeth Stephan for all of their help in getting this great list of nominees together. The BRASS 2013 Ballot will include for Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Todd Hines and Peter Z. McKay; and for Member-at-Large: Chad Boeninger and Elizabeth Malafi. BRASS member Anthony (Tony) Lin will be a candidate on the RUSA-level ballot for Secretary.

Celia Ross, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Vendor Relations Committee
The BRASS Vendor Relations Committee has been continuing to assist the BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee by reaching out to new vendors and working with longtime partners to help secure funding for the celebration event planned for 2013 in Chicago. Confirmed sponsors so far are Gale Cengage, S&P Capital IQ, Morningstar, Annual Reviews, Emerald, SimplyMap, and PrivCo. We are also close to confirming sponsorship by Mintel, Mergent, ReportLinker and possibly EIU. Committee members include Paul Brothers and Lydia LaFaro.

Celia Ross, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Publications and Communications Committee
The BRASS Publications and Communications committee held their midwinter virtual meeting in early January. The committee’s primary objective for the coming semester is to continue improving the quality, accuracy and timeliness of BRASS web pages. Toward this end, the committee will contact many of the other BRASS groups and committees for advice and feedback. The Publications and Communication Committee will also begin plans for a new collection of Guidelines and Style Guide for BRASS Web pages and communications.

John Gottfried, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
The committee for the Morningstar Public Librarianship Award is now reviewing nominations. The award winner will be selected soon and announced in the upcoming month. A public librarian who has performed outstanding business reference service and who requires financial assistance to attend the conference will be selected. The award winner will receive $1,000 in travel funds for ALA’s Annual Conference.

Melissa Jeter, 2011-2013 Chair

BRASS Gale-Cenage learning Student Travel Award Committee
The application deadline for the BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award was January 31st. A winner is expected to be announced soon.

Todd M. Hines, 2012-2013 Chair

Message from the Chair

BRASS Notes

Carol Schuetz, Editor

Has every BRASS member explored ALA Connect recently? Former Chair Chris LeBeau has loaded all the BRASS program material from Adventures in Data Land and the publisher’s forum. You will see video presentations, powerpoints and related materials. There are links from the BRASS web page as well.

Seattle midwinter planning is underway. Expect an all BRASS members meeting and discussion topic for those planning on venturing to the beautiful northwest on Sunday January 27 from 8:30 to 10:00 AM. BRASS discussions and committee work will continue virtually as well during the midwinter period. There is lots of planning and initiatives under way among our incredible band of BRASS. Read on for how you can learn from and be part of BRASS.

Ann Fiegen

2012-2013 BRASS Chair

BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee

The Business Reference in Academic Libraries committee is collaborating with SLA’s CUBL (College and University Business Libraries) to form the Core Competencies Task Force. We are working to create the first set of business research competencies. Our goal is to create clearly written guidelines that can be used by undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and business librarians in the private sector. Research competencies structure the academic experience and give students and others a benchmark for knowing their own information competency in the field and what their goals should be.

The committee is busy reviewing existing research competencies in other fields, existing information literacy standards in business disciplines, and conducting interviews with non-academic organizations about their experiences in business research. The committee expects to present rough drafts of these processes at ALA Midwinter.

Co-chair Carissa Phillips is identifying private businesses and other organizations to get feedback about how they use information and their experiences with recent business majors’ ability in information literacy.

Members of the committee are collaborating on Google Docs, group sourcing the literature review, providing links to research competencies and brainstorming on the content of the competencies.

Charles Allan, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee (BRSC)

The sub-committee focusing on nominations for Best Business Reference source is being headed up by Ed Hahn from Weber University. Hahn has started the nominations process and is encouraging all committee members to submit their nominations throughout the fall. This year we are also trying to broaden the pool by including new databases or other online resources. If anyone has any new business reference sources they would like us to consider, either print or online, please have them contact Hahn at edwardhahn@weber.edu or the BRSC committee chair at hurstsj@miamioh.edu.

The other BRSC sub-committee is focusing on planning for next year’s Publisher’s Forum program to be held at ALA Annual in Chicago. This subcommittee is being headed up by Penny Scott from the University of San Francisco. She and the other committee members are currently considering possible themes for the program. Anyone with suggestions for publishers or types of products you would like to see presented, please contact Scott at plscott@usfca.edu or the BRSC Chair at hurstsj@miamioh.edu.

Susan Hurst, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Conference Program Planning Committee: BRASS 2013 Program

Investment Success!
Building & Managing Your Retirement Portfolio

 


Monday, July 1, 2013

8:30-10:00 AM

Good personal investment education is important for librarians and library staff. We are an occupational group that is rarely able to access top financial advice. In this program, investment professionals will demystify the process and help us understand essential principles and how to apply them to make better decisions to meet our retirement goals. The presentation will include a discussion of the common mistakes investors make, why we make them, and how to avoid them.

Speakers:

Charles Rotblut, CFA, Vice President, American Association of Individual Investors (AAII)

Charles Rotblut is a vice president of the American Association of Individual Investors and is the editor of the AAII Journal. He authors the weekly AAII Investor Update e-newsletter and his commentary is published on both Seeking Alpha and Forbes.com.

Christine Benz, Director of Personal Finance, Morningstar, Inc.

Christine Benz is director of personal finance for Morningstar and author of 30-Minute Money Solutions: A Step-by-Step Guide to Managing Your Finances, published by John Wiley and Sons in January 2009. She is also editor of Morningstar Personal Finance, a monthly personal finance newsletter and writes a column on Morningstar.com.

Peter McKay, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Discussion Group Committee

The BRASS Discussion group will host an open forum at ALA’s Midwinter conference. All who are attending the conference are invited to join us Sunday, January 27 from 8:30-10:30 AM. The BRASS Discussion group is currently seeking input on what topic(s) that participants would like to discuss. Past discussions have focused on free business-related web resources, publishing, and other topics related to business librarianship. Please post suggestions for topics on the Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) Suggestion Wall. We look forward to hearing your suggestions.

Jason Dewland, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Education Committee

The BRASS Education Committee has submitted a proposal for the 2013 preconference “Business Reference 101: Core Competencies for Business Librarianship.” This full-day interactive workshop is designed for new business librarians; generalists who have assumed responsibility in business librarianship; or librarians who handle business reference-related inquiries in all types of libraries. It will focus on core resources for business reference, business collection development, and licensing electronic business products. Lety Camacho (Brigham Young University), immediate Past-Chair of the BRASS Education Committee, is spearheading this effort. Mary Martin (Claremont Colleges) serves as the preconference coordinator.

The webinar working group is developing a series of webinars of interest to business librarians which will be offered as part of the RUSA online learning initiative. Chad Boeninger from Ohio University, Dan Hickey from Penn State, and Natasha Arguello from University of Texas at San Antonio welcome your suggestions for webinar topics which may be submitted via BRASS Suggestion Wall:http://brass.libguides.com/suggestionwall. Webinar presenters will be paid $150 for each 60-90-minute webinar. If you know any colleagues, or would like to share your own business reference expertise, please contact Natasha.Arguello@utsa.edu.

Natasha Arguello, 2012-2013 Chair
http://connect.ala.org/node/65121

BRASS Nominating Committee

The BRASS Nominating Committee was pleased to submit our slate of candidates for the 2013 ballot. Thanks to committee members Mary Gilles and Elizabeth Stephan for all of their help in getting this great list of nominees together. Special thanks, too, to Larayne Dallas, chair of the RUSA Nominating Committee, and to Susan Hornung for their excellent communication and support throughout this process. And, of course, thanks to our candidates who are willing to serve BRASS by being on the ballot! They are, for Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Todd Hines and Peter Z. McKay; and for Member-at-Large: Chad Boeninger and Elizabeth Malafi.

Celia Ross, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Vendor Relations Committee

The BRASS Vendor Relations Committee has been continuing to assist the BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee by reaching out to new vendors and working with longtime partners to help secure funding for the celebration event planned for 2013 in Chicago. Other ideas for connecting to and collaborating with BRASS vendors in order to provide additional value to BRASS members are still in the works and include plans to build a “Virtual Expo” site where vendors could showcase their business reference products as well as any librarian support materials they publish so that BRASS members could see them all in one place.

Celia Ross, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Publications and Communications Committee

The Publications and Communications Committee is still reviewing Web pages. Please feel free to pass along any problems with BRASS Web pages to the committee chair, John Gottfried (jcgottfried@gmail.com). The committee will also be attempting to recruit a new Webmaster; interested parties should contact the chair.

John Gottfried, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee

The 2013 BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award is now accepting applications.

Established in 1992 and sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning, this $1,000 monetary prize is awarded to a student enrolled in an ALA accredited master’s degree program to fund travel to and attendance at the 2013 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago and a one-year membership in RUSA’s BRASS. Applicants should have a demonstrated interest in a career as a business reference librarian, and the potential to be a leader in the profession as demonstrated by activities that may include (but are not limited to) coursework, internships, jobs, special projects, and publications.

The deadline for nominations is January 31, 2013. Information about the award, including a PDF of the nomination form, can be found on the RUSA website. As explained in the nomination form, the application should include letters of reference, and a library school transcript.

Todd M. Hines, 2012-2013 Chair

BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee

The committee for the Morningstar Public Librarianship Award is now seeking nominations. The award is $1,000 in travel funds for ALA’s Annual Conference to a public librarian who has performed outstanding business reference service and who requires financial assistance to attend the conference. The winner must be a member of ALA, RUSA, and BRASS.

Melissa Jeter, 2011-2013 Chair

Message from the Chair

BRASS Notes

Carol Schuetz, Editor

Message from the Chair
Nothing like a walk under palm trees to make a working conference seem like a vacation! That was ALA Anaheim. The weather was magnificent, and we didn’t lose too many folks to Disneyland, at least not when we needed them.

The BRASS preconference, “Mastering Business Acumen (MBA in a Day),” was very well attended this year by an audience that toughed out management, accounting, finance, and marketing concepts in seven hours. Conference attendees chose from a diverse offering of programs: “Using Social Media to Promote Business Librarians and Resources,” “How Free Web Resources Can Complement Fee-Based Online Resources,” “How Private is Private: Is It Really Possible to Find Information on Private Companies?” and SmartInvesting’s “Program Models That Work.” The conference experience was topped off with the complimentary Monday morning breakfast from S&P Capital IQ, followed by the BRASS Program, “Adventures in Dataland: Business Data Sources.” ReferenceUSA (Infogroup) hosted a beautiful members’ reception at the Naples Ristorante e Pizzeria, and BRASS members ended the adventure with a dinner at La Casa Garcia Restaurant.

The PowerPoint presentations from these programs and forums can currently be found in ALA Connect and will soon be linked from the BRASS website. Our many thanks for the video recordings made possible by the volunteer efforts of Van Houlson and Christy Goodnight. These are in BRASS section of Connect, and will be made public after a three month embargo as a benefit of membership.

This year’s highlights included a new award (the Business Expert Press Award), revised “Guidelines for Business Information Responses,” a joint initiative with the Special Library Association (SLA) to create core competencies for business students, additional tools from Springshare, BRASS participation in a new RSS committee for Job and Career Reference, migration to a new website, new BRASS Facebook membership and program pages, new issues of “Academic BRASS,” a new “Best of the Best” business website, a new list of “Outstanding Business Reference Sources,” and the start of planning for the 25th anniversary of BRASS next year in Chicago! You will hear more about these and other developments on BRASS-L throughout the year.

It has been my privilege to serve BRASS. This is a fantastic group of professionals. Together we have accomplished some great things. So with stardust on my heels, I leave fairyland and return to man the decks in my home library. My sincere thanks to all the BRASS committees who made this conference a great success and a good time. Many thanks to our supportive sponsors. I turn over the gavel to my most able friend and colleague, Ann Fiegen, from whom you will be hearing much.

Chris LeBeau
BRASS Chair, 2011-2012

BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee

The BRASS Forum sponsored by the committee at the 2012 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim on “Using Social Media to Promote Business Librarians and Resources” was well received by the 56 librarians that attended. John Gottfried of Western Kentucky University started off the session with a presentation on why experimenting with social media matters. April Kessler of the University of Texas and Chad Boeninger of Ohio University each presented inspiring examples of their use of social media in their work. The presentations are available to all conference goers in the ALA Conference Scheduler in the comments for the BRASS Forum (ALA Connect login required). They are also available to all BRASS members on the BRASS connect site in the BRASS 2012 Conference Handouts files folder.

In the coming year, the committee will be working in collaboration with the SLA Task Force for Core Competencies to establish core information literacy competencies for business students. In addition, one of our committee members will be participating in the newly formed RSS Job and Career Reference Committee to represent the academic library perspective. The incoming chair, Charles Allen of Texas State University–San Marcos, will be directing the committee in these and other new initiatives as the year progresses.

For questions and feedback to the committee, please refer to the contact information on the committee’s web page.

Lydia LaFaro, Chair, 2009-2012

BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee (BRSC)

The BRSC met on June 22. There were ten committee members present. The committee had an agenda to obtain a volunteer as nominations coordinator, discuss the twelve works nominated as potentially outstanding or notable, finalize who would write the reviews to send to Susan Hurst for the RUSQ article, get a publishers forum update, and briefly discuss future directions.

Ed Hahn, one of the new members, agreed to take minutes, and to be the nominations coordinator.

Of the twelve titles nominated, six were identified as outstanding and notable. Members volunteered for the six reviews due on July 19th to Susan Hurst to edit for the RUSQ deadline of August 1st. Becky Smith will help edit as Susan will be on vacation before the RUSQ deadline.

Future directions discussed were having a mix of print works, including updated or revised editions if significant, and best databases, and overlooked works which had not been reviewed before, even though the works may be in their second or third edition. Smith also mentioned that it was possible with the workload that it may be necessary to have two subcommittees. While this currently exists, there was a lot of “double dipping” of the committee members (those who did reviews and the program planning) and those who did very little. It may clarify to have specific subcommittees in order to even the playing field of the work load.

On June 23rd, the Publishers’ forum was held. The theme was “How Private is Private” and covered private company information. The publishers on the panel were Bureau Van Djik, PrivCo, and Reference USA. Despite a building emergency during the presentation, the attendance was good, about 70-75 people.

The BRSC is on track, and Smith would like to thank the committee members for all of their hard work. It was announced that Susan Hurst would be chair for 2012-13.

Becky Smith, Chair, 2012

BRASS Conference Program Planning Committee

The BRASS Program for the 2012 ALA Annual Conference was “Adventures in Dataland: Business Data Sources” featuring Bobray Bordelon (Princeton University), Angela Lee (Esri), Joe Nation (RAND Statistics), and Jerry Wong (U.S. Census Bureau). The theme of our program was Business Data Sources, with a focus on free and low-cost resources. The committee extends our appreciation to Capital IQ Standard & Poor’s for their generous sponsorship of the breakfast.

Our program attracted a total of 120 attendees. Bobray Bordelon demonstrated resources from a variety of nonprofit and government sources, including the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) and American Time Use Survey (ATUS). Angela Lee discussed free and upcoming GIS resources from Esri. Joe Nation from the RAND Corporation presented several state statistical resources focusing on a wide range of social scientific data. Jerry Wong introduced the new changes to the American FactFinder and helpful ways to navigate the database. BRASS members Christy Goodnight and Van Houlson handled the audio and video recording of the full program. The video has been posted to the BRASS Section of ALA Connect for viewing by BRASS members.

Marketing for the program was well received and many people “friended” the BRASS Anaheim Program Committee Facebook page started by Jason Dewland. Members of the committee are writing an article to supplement the program that will be available in the winter 2012 issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly (RUSQ).

Program committee members: Paul Brothers, Laura Carscaddon, Jason Dewland, Allison Leaming, Chris LeBeau (BRASS Chair), Tony Lin (Committee Chair), Julia Martin, Peter McKay, Michael Oppenheim, and Mark Siciliano.

Anthony Lin, Chair, 2011-2012

BRASS Discussion Group Committee

The focus of this year’s BRASS Discussion Group was How Free Web Resources Can Complement Fee-Based Online Resources. The meeting took place on June 24, 2012, at the Anaheim Convention Center. The meeting was well attended and began with the BRASS business meeting, including announcements of the publisher’s forum, the BRASS program, and the BRASS dinner. The meeting then continued on to a discussion of various free online resources that BRASS members have found to be of use. Thanks to everyone who attended and contributed to a successful discussion.

Edward Hahn, Chair, 2010-2012

BRASS Education Committee

The new chair of the BRASS Education Committee is Natasha Arguello, Business Research Librarian at University of Texas at San Antonio.

The preconference Mastering Business Acumen (MBA) in a Day was a success! Forty-one librarians attended the one-day workshop during ALA Anaheim. The presenters did an excellent job at teaching basic business concepts to librarians. Attendees reported that their increased understanding of these concepts will allow them to assist patrons more effectively with business reference questions.

The Education committee completed transferring their popular guides: Best of the Best Business Websites and BRASS Selected Core Resources for Business Reference to the Libguides format. Please check them out at brass.libguides.com.

Committee members are currently writing reviews for this year’s winners of the Best of the Best Business Websites. Chosen from a running list of over 250 websites in various disciplines, the committee is recognizing the following three websites for the important and critical information they provide on business statistical data. Committee members’ reviews are scheduled to appear in the winter 2012 issue of RUSQ.

The winners are:

  • globalEDGE -Created by the International Business Center at Michigan State University, this web portal offers a wealth of information, insights, and learning resources on global business activities.
  • Statistical Abstract of the United States – A comprehensive collection of statistics in tabular format and includes basic statistics for a wide range of economic indicators. Each table lists the source of the statistics for further reference.
  • FRED – Economic Data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank – Provides historical U.S. economic and financial data, including daily U.S. interest rates, monetary and business indicators, exchange rates, balance of payments, and regional economic data.

Leticia Camacho, 2010–2012, Chair
BRASS Education Committee Connect page
BRASS Best Business Sites

BRASS Vendor Relations Committee

The BRASS Vendor Relations Committee was proud this year to have secured the BRASS Business Expert Press Award for Academic Librarians. In our role as the ad hoc award committee, we were pleased to select Joel Glogowski from Georgia State University from among a large and impressive pool of nominees as the inaugural recipient. We have been continuing to assist the BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee by reaching out to new vendors and working with longtime partners to help secure funding for the celebration event planned for 2013 in Chicago. Other ideas for connecting to and collaborating with BRASS vendors in order to provide additional value to BRASS members are in the works.

Celia Ross, Chair, 2011-2012

BRASS Publications and Communications Committee

The Publications and Communications Committee met at Anaheim to review projects from the previous year and look at possible goals for the coming year. The Committee spent much of the first half of 2012 converting BRASS Web pages to the new Drupal format, then reviewing those pages to update information and identify problems. While we have made a good start, much work remains to be done. As new chair of the committee, I will contact our new and existing members to discuss distribution of responsibility for updating and revising BRASS Web pages. The committee is also open to other new projects.

John Gottfried, Chair, 2012-2013

BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee

The Emerald Research Grants ($5000 each) were awarded to the following persons

  • Louise Feldman, Colorado State University
    Her research will study collaboration between public and academic business librarians in serving local entrepreneurs
  • Heidi Senior, University of Portland and Kerry Wu, Portland State University
    They will study business librarians’ involvement in the evaluation and approval of new academic programs in business.

Greg Fleming, Chair, 2011-2012