Goodson Chairs August 10 Board Meeting

New Chair Jennifer Goodson, Fort Smith (AR) Public Library, presided over the August 10, 2012, Amigos Board of Directors meeting in Dallas.

Goodson opened the meeting with a review of the minutes of the May 8-9, 2012, Board meeting, which the Directors subsequently approved. Each Director then read and signed a Conflict of Interest Statement, as is required at the beginning of each new Board year.

In her Chair's report, Goodson reported on the New Directors Orientation held the previous day. She followed this report with the announcement of appointments to the Board's Budget and Finance Committee for FY2013. Treasurer Art Lichtenstein, University of Central Arkansas, Conway, will serve as Chair. Polly McCord, University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, TX; and Bill Parton, Arkansas Tech University, Russellville, will serve as members. Steve Potter, Mid-Continent Public Library System, Independence, MO, will serve as an Observer Participant. Goodson also announced that Bill Hair, Baylor University, Waco, TX, will chair the Board's Nominating Committee, with Liz MacDonald, Lindenwood University, St. Charles, MO, serving as an Observer Participant. Two additional Committee members will be sought from Amigos member libraries.

As is the custom at the first Board meeting of a new fiscal year, Directors shared information about the library environments in their states. This information was recently distributed to Amigos managers.

In his Treasurer's report, Lichtenstein reported that the Amigos unaudited year-end financial results showed a positive variance to the FY2012 business plan.

Items relating to the integration of new Amigos Members from the recently completed merger with the Missouri Library Network Corporation (MLNC) were an important topic of Board discussion. Directors agreed that Amigos should continue MLNC's practice of partnering with the Missouri Library Association (MLA) to present the Ronald G. Bohley Award to an individual or individuals whose actions have led libraries to work better together, and who exemplifies the best efforts to reach out beyond his or her own institution to promote cooperative activities among Missouri libraries. This year's award will be made by Amigos Chair Jennifer Goodson October 4 in Springfield, MO.

In other business, Amigos Chief Financial Officer Charles Cason reported on the status of the Open Source Integrated Library System pilot project currently underway. Cason noted that bibliographic, patron, and circulation data for two pilot libraries has been converted, and initial hosted Koha implementations for them were scheduled to be operational by late August.

Anne Prestamo, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, and Vice Chair/Chair-Elect of the OCLC Global Council, reported on the council's meeting at the American Library Association’s annual meeting in June in Anaheim, CA.

Amigos President and Chief Executive Officer Bonnie Juergens provided various reports to update Directors on the operations of the organization.

The next meeting of the Board of Directors is scheduled for December 14, 2012.