From: Lormand, Saundra (sklorma@sandia.gov)
Date: Mon Nov 08 2004 - 13:40:49 PST
Subject: FW: SLA to drop organizational memberships Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 14:40:49 -0700 Message-ID: <B3C96748EBF3194EA5C8C48CAB5192A1124212@ES23SNLNT.srn.sandia.gov> From: "Lormand, Saundra" <sklorma@sandia.gov>
Here is SLA's treasurer's response to my concern about the Association
dropping its memberships in NISO and CNI. I posted my concern last week
on our Listserv.
Saundra Lormand
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Zamora, Gloria J
> Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 12:29 PM
> To: Lormand, Saundra
> Subject: RE: SLA to drop organizational memberships
>
> Saundra:
>
> Following is a response I sent to the Technical Standards Committee.
> I wanted to make sure that I responded to those who have commented on
> this decision. Thanks for your interest and comments.
>
> Gloria
>
> Members of the Technical Standards Committee and Fellow SLA Members,
> In recent days there has been a great deal of discussion about the
> Board's decision to suspend our membership in the National Information
> Standards Organization (NISO) for the budget year 2005. In some of the
> communications, I have noted that this has then led to a totally
> unrelated topic-the purchase of our new headquarters. In many of these
> communications there have been misunderstandings and/or outright
> misstatement of facts. I wanted respond to this flurry of e-mails and
> share some of the reasoning behind our decisions as well as correct
> some of the misperceptions that are going around.
> First let me address the NISO dues issue. The staff, Finance
> Committee, and Board of Directors had to struggle with a very
> difficult budget process for 2005. In order to balance the 2005,
> nearly $1 million dollars had to be slashed from the budget. This $1
> million dollars represents items that all involved felt were actually
> critical for moving the association forward. Unfortunately, the
> reality of our fiscal situation required that we make some very
> painful decisions. One of them happened to be not renewing the
> Association's membership in NISO for 2005. Contrary to the multitude
> of numbers that have been going around in various communications, the
> actual cost of our NISO dues in 2004 was $7,350.
> To be clear, the Board does value our membership in this organization
> and all the hard work that our various committees who interact with
> NISO perform. Unfortunately, fiscal reality forced us to make the
> difficult decision not to renew in 2005. We are committed to doing
> everything in our power to ensure that we are able to renew our dues
> with NISO in 2006, or before, should our financial situation allow. In
> addition I would encourage you to continue your interactions with
> NISO. The following item is taken from their website: "Drafts of
> proposed standards are submitted to Voting Members of NISO for
> comments and approval and available to any involved party for
> comment." You definitely are involved parties.
> On many of the communications I have read, the cost of the NISO dues
> has somehow become entangled with conversations regarding the purchase
> of our new headquarters building. These are two totally separate
> issues as the cost of Association dues is taken from general operating
> funds, while all expenditures related to the sale and purchase of our
> headquarters buildings are in the building fund, a restricted fund.
> Let me summarize for you the Board's actions and provide you detailed
> follow up on those actions.
> The Board authorized and instructed staff to proceed with selling our
> former headquarters building and purchasing our new headquarters
> building. Furthermore, the Board approved spending $1.6 million from
> the proceeds to renovate and upgrade the new building. Any remainder
> was to be invested in the Building Fund. The results of these
> transactions are as follows:
> Sale of 1700 18th St $5,617,398.35
> Purchase of 331 S. Patrick St $3,524,710.06
> Gross Proceeds $2,092,688.29
> Less: Allowance for Renovation $1,600,000.00
> Net Proceeds $ 492,688.29
> Of the $1.6 million that was authorized for renovation, $1,427,055.31
> has been spent and there is approximately $120,000 in outstanding
> invoices yet to be paid. This will bring the project in under budget
> by $52,944.69.
> I hope that this helps to clear up some of the misconceptions that I
> have seen out there in recent days and informs you of our decision
> making process. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to
> contact me. I welcome feedback from our members. Please know we are
> all trying to do the best we can for our members with the limits
> placed on us by our resources.
> Sincerely,
> Gloria J. Zamora
> Treasurer, SLA
> 505 845-0811
> gjzamor@sandia.gov
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lormand, Saundra
> Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 2:30 PM
> To: 'SLA-SF@exploratorium.edu'; 'daniel.b.trefethen@boeing.com';
> 'janice@sla.org'; 'smklopper@yahoo.com'; 'lmccay@crs.loc.gov';
> 'rmassoud@kpmg.com'; 'barb.spiegelman@verizon.net'; 'jlau@uv.mx';
> 'bmai@cu-portland.edu'; 'trudy_katz@mastercard.com'; 'pcia@shaw.ca';
> 'knucklej@chh.org'; Zamora, Gloria J; 'cynthia.hill@sun.com';
> 'pcrollo@att.net'; 'salonen@mpi.com'
> Cc: 'krista.harney@ey.com'; 'fjzhang@stanford.edu';
> 'karen.buxton@pnl.gov'; 'jdsher01@qwise.louisville.edu';
> 'j-martin@uiowa.edu'; 'dgoda@mail.ucf.edu'; 'mzeng@kent.edu';
> 'mhlava@accessinn.com'
> Subject: SLA to drop organizational memberships
>
> I received the message below via the SLA Information Technology
> Division Listserv that I subscribe to.
>
> It appears that SLA is planning to drop its membership in CNI
> (Coalition for Networked Information) <http://www.cni.org/> and NISO
> (National Information Standards Organization) <http://www.niso.org/>
> for budgetary reasons. This concerns me because it will result in a
> lack of involvement, visibility, and input for special libraries into
> two international groups that set standards and explore technological
> and philosophical issues that affect our library operations and
> profession. Further, as I recall, one of our association goals is to
> promote awareness of special libraries--generally and in the larger
> library community. Such a move does not support this goal.
>
> As you can see below, the Technical Standards Committee of SLA is
> dismayed by the move. I must say I agree. If you feel likewise, I
> would encourage you to contact SLA Headquarters and SLA Board members
> and express your feelings.
>
> Saundra Lormand
> Group Leader
> Technical Library, MS 9211
> Sandia National Laboratories
> P.O. Box 969
> Livermore, CA 94550
> sklorma@sandia.gov <mailto:sklorma@sandia.gov>
> (925)294-2525
>
>
>
> Subject: RE: SLA drops Organizational memberships (fwd)
> From: Margie Hlava <mhlava@accessinn.com>
> Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2004 10:49:23 -0700
> Reply-To: "SLA Information Technology Division"
> <sla-dite@lists.sla.org>
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
>
> Letter to Dan Trefethen as the liaison to the SLA Standards committee.
> The
> letter from Dan to the committee is at the end of this email. Only
> IFLA is
> being retained by SLA this year. .........if you feel strongly about
> it
> please pass it to your divisions or write directly to the members of
> the
> SLA Board and Headquarters staff.
>
> Dear Daniel,
>
> We, the members of the Technical Standards Committee, were shocked by
> the
> news that the SLA board had decided to drop its NISO membership. We
> strongly urge the board to reconsider and restore SLA's organizational
> membership to NISO.
>
> The standards related to library and information technologies touch
> the work
> of information professionals every day. One of the great benefits as
> a
> member of SLA is being able to understand the changes, directions, and
> development of information standards from standards communities. As an
> institutional member of NISO, SLA members are able to express their
> concerns, ideas, and suggestions regarding technical standards through
> the
> Technical Standards Committee. We have been one of the strongest
> voices on
> the NISO system and regularly comment or vote on things effecting what
> our
> members do on a daily basis. Frequently SLA was the only voice
> representing
> special librarians when the standards were developed and reviewed. We
> were
> also one of the very few voices that voted NO or sent strong comments
> to the
> standard drafts which would have had deep impacts on the detailed
> working
> processes in small or specialized libraries.
>
> The following is a list of activities of this committee, representing
> the
> involvement of SLA in NISO's standards activities during the last
> three
> years:
>
> Comments and voting activities:
> . ISO 21047 draft standard on Textual Work Code (ISTC)
> . Z39.86 File Specifications for the Digital Talking Book
> . Z39.83 Circulation Interchange Part 1: Protocol (NCIP)
> . Z39.83 Circulation Interchange Part 2: Protocol Implementation
> Profile
> Question /Answer Transaction Protocol (QATP)
> . Z39.89 The U.S. National Z39.50 Profile for Library
> Applications
> . ISO 3297 International Standard Serial Numbering (ISSN)
> . ISO 2108 International Standard Book Numbering (ISBN)
> . Z39.47 Extended Latin Alphabet Coded Character Set for
> Bibliographic
> Use(ANSEL)
> . Z39.29 Bibliographic References Standard
> . ANSI/NISO Z39.19-1993. Guidelines for the Construction, Format
> and
> Management of Monolingual Thesauri (Reaffirmation)
> . Licensing of ISO coding standards Networked Reference Protocol
> . NISO's RFP Writer's Guide to Standards for Library Systems
> . ANSI/NISO Z39.71 - 1999 Holdings Statements for Bibliographic
> Items
> . NISO Z39.20 - 1999 Criteria for Price Indexes for Print Library
> Materials
> . Z39.88-200x The OpenURL Framework for Context-Sensitive Services
> . ISO 3279 International Standard Serial Numbering,
> . NISO Z39.7-200X: Information Services and Use: Metrics and
> statistics for
> libraries and information providers-- Data Dictionary
> . ISO standard International Standard Book Number, DIS 2108
>
> Without NISO membership, SLA would not be able to participate these
> activities; SLA members would lose one of the most important benefits
> for
> joining SLA. As one of the members indicated in the recent email, "if
> they
> don't think being part of NISO, which negotiates thesaurus, search,
> ISO, Z39
> standards plus more, maybe we shouldn't belong to SLA. Geez, who can
> carry
> our water to these fora? Not the ALA certainly."
>
> Through NISO, SLA is also involved in the ISO TC46 Experts Group which
> include the following subgroups:
> - ISO/TC 46/WG 2 - Coding of country names and related entities
> - ISO/TC 46/SC 4 - Computer applications in information and
> documentation
> - ISO/TC 46/SC 8 - Statistics and performance evaluation
> - ISO/TC 46/SC 9 - Presentation, Identification, and Description of
> Documents
> - ISO/TC 46/SC 10 - Physical keeping of documents
> - ISO/TC 46/SC 11 - Archives/records management
>
> Each year we also introduce new standards at our popular "Standards
> Updates
> and Special Librarians" in the annual SLA conferences, which have
> received
> more and more attention.
>
> If SLA faces financial difficulties and needs to reduce the benefits
> it has
> promised and offered to its members, it is necessary to ask the
> opinions of
> the entire membership, and explain all the options.
>
> We strongly urge you pass our requests to the Board, and hope the
> Board take
> back the decision of dropping SLA's NISO membership.
>
> Technical Standards Committee
> Foster Zhang, Chair
> Karen Buxton
> Krista Harney
> Donna Goda
> J. David Martin
> Jill Sherman
> Marcia Lei Zeng
>
> Past Chair of Technical Standards Committee
> Margie Hlava
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Trefethen, Daniel B [<mailto:daniel.b.trefethen@boeing.com>]
> Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 2:40 PM
>
> To: krista.harney@ey.com; fjzhang@stanford.edu; karen.buxton@pnl.gov;
> jdsher01@qwise.louisville.edu; j-martin@uiowa.edu; dgoda@mail.ucf.edu;
> mzeng@kent.edu
> Subject: SLA drops Organizational memberships
>
>
> Members of the SLA Technical Standards Committee:
>
> As your Board liaison, I am sorry to inform you that due to budget
> cuts,
> SLA's FY 2005 budget does not include funding for membership in such
> organizations as NISO and CNI. The only paid membership we will be
> retaining is in IFLA. The current memberships will expire at the end
> of
> this year.
>
> The FY 2005 budget was a particularly challenging one, and many items
> (and positions) remained unfunded. We have expectations for a better
> budget year in FY 2006, and may be able to reconsider some of our
> memberships at that time.
>
> Your mission remains unchanged in monitoring, reviewing and commenting
> upon standards that affect special libraries and information centers,
> and serving to assist SLA members in understanding the changing world
> of
> technical standards that affect library and information services. For
> instance, your work in assembling the upcoming Toronto session on
> Unicode is an excellent example of fulfilling your mission.
>
> If you have any questions about this budget action, please let me
> know.
>
> Dan Trefethen
> Boeing - Future Combat Systems
> P.O. Box 3707, M/C 84-74
> Seattle, WA 98124-2207
> phone: 253-657-1103
> fax: 253-773-7721
> daniel.b.trefethen@boeing.com
>
> Saundra Lormand
> Group Leader
> Technical Library, MS 9211
> Sandia National Laboratories
> P.O. Box 969
> Livermore, CA 94550
> sklorma@sandia.gov <mailto:sklorma@sandia.gov>
> (925)294-2525
>
> I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so
> vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is
> horizontal. It respects the other person and learns from the other. I
> have a lot to learn from other people.
> --Eduardo Galeano
>
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