From the Secretary Nicole Smeltekop
OLAC Executive Board Virtual Special Meeting 23 March 2020 1:00-2:00 EDT
Present: Matt Burrell, Ann Kardos, Hayley Moreno, Thomas Whittaker, Jay Weitz, Jennifer Eustis, Mary Huismann, Jeremy Myntti, Jessica Schomberg, Marcia Barrett, Bryan Baldus, Kristi Bergland
2020 OLAC Conference See Hayley’s email of 3/19 Re: Conference and the COVID-19 pandemic Local Arrangements Committee met last week to talk about marketing. There are concerns about the sensitivity of promoting the conference right now. Conference-related columns in the March newsletter have been updated. Workshop presenters & speakers have been arranged. Posters & lightning talk planning can be done later, if necessary. There is also the concern about the hotel and travel arrangements. Will the hotel have us pay a cancellation fee? Can we have a backup plan? What about a virtual conference? The Board has decided that now is the time to move to a virtual conference. This might help with our number of attendees as well as planning. Hayley will investigate this as well as speak to the hotel. A banner message will be added to the Conference website indicating that even with a lot of unknowns we are thinking about this and our conference. Hayley and Bryan will work on a message for both the website and listserv. This provides the planning committee time to re-evaluate in light of a virtual conference which includes registration rates, stipends, technology, etc. There is already a lot of information online on virtual conferences, including How To Run a Free Online Academic Conference: A Workbook (version 0.3).
OLAC Meetings at ALA
As far as we know, the ALA Annual Conference is still on track to occur. All options are on the table. The CAPC meeting will have to be online – Jessica is high risk. Perhaps ALA will rethink things if enough people back out. Universities are not allowing people to travel. Are there implications going forward if we do not meet at ALA? Thomas will contact ALA programming and get more information on implications if we do not attend and virtual meeting options.
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