Wow, how time flies when you're having fun! Or something like that. This is my last column as Chair of ELD, and I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give you my annual report. If you read my first column in last September's Newsletter, you might remember that I listed three areas as being on the agenda for this year. The first and most significant in my opinion was funding. Well, as I believe you all know, I take great pride in the fact that we successfully increased our annual dues for the division from $1 to $5. This money, which goes directly into our Bass Account and thus accumulates from year to year, will help provide ELD with the resources to continue being innovative in the products and services we can provide our membership and ASEE colleagues.
Also in the area of funding, I wrote a letter to our PIC IV Chair, Ron Kane, regarding the sale of division membership lists. You may recall that this was discussed at length at our business meeting last year. In that letter I made the following points which were recommended by our division:
I asked Ron to bring this issue to ASEE's Board of Directors on our behalf. Here is his first response:
Steve:
I have forwarded your E-mail to the Executive group of the Board. Here are my comments...I will need advice on whether a Division can of itself limit requests for ASEE membership data and will ask Board input. Also, I am not sure of the going rate for mailing lists. Using the excess over and above ASEE "costs" seems reasonable on the surface. I wonder how useful lists might be to a potential buyer if the E-mail addresses and FAX numbers numbers have been expunged. E-mail and FAX are now becoming more useful and used than regular mail or telephone. Personal requests by individual members to have their names taken off lists sold to outside parties is something that is common today for credit card companies and retail outfits - but I am not sure of the practices of volunteer organizations. I agree with you on the privacy issue. I will let you know what happens after Board discussion.
Regards.Ron Kane
Ron then sent me the following after the Board met in January:
With regard to the sale of the membership list, note my previous comments in an earlier E-mail. I discussed this with ASEE President Cary Fisher who agreed with my thoughts re the value of a list that does not include E-mail addresses or FAX numbers. We do not believe that anyone would want to purchase a 125 name membership list for $250 when a full list is available from HQ for all ASEE members. An individual can ask to be omitted from the list by contacting HQ; block out the full ELD if desired but that would be counterproductive and not all ELD members are likely to be happy with this. HQ reports that a sort to separate out ELD has only been requested twice in recent times. We feel that many of these issues can be sorted out administratively without going to the full Board. I will certainly work with you, having a soft spot for ELD, and some enjoyable dinners with your group in the past.Ron
In investigating this issue I also learned that the ASEE routinely sells the entire list of the ASEE membership to organizations with a "direct interest in engineering education." This leads me to conclude that we need to rethink exactly what we want to accomplish regarding mailing lists. I will bring this up at our business meeting in Anaheim.
I have also been communicating with Frank Huband, Executive Director of ASEE, about how ELD might contribute to ASEE's effort to take over the development of the "National Engineering Information Initiative." Frank has indicated a willingness to hear our thoughts regarding this, and I am hopeful we can develop a process that ensures that we can contribute meaningfully. By the way , if you haven't seen the ASEE home page on the web, I urge you to take a look. The URL is http://www.asee.org/ Frank indicated a willingness to provide some of their server space to us. This might fit in with our own plans for setting up a division home page. This is another topic for discussion at our upcoming business meeting, and serves as a means to drive the second topic listed in my proposed agenda for this year, establishing an ELD home page. The last item I mentioned in the fall was the work the Accreditation and Standards Committee is doing in developing a database of comparable statistics for engineering type collections and services. I am looking forward to hearing from them in Anaheim.
Well, that about sums up my activity as Division Chair. I'd like to take this time to thank my fellow officers and committee and sub-committee chairs for their efforts, advice and counsel. And I'd particularly like to thank Bob Schwarzwalder and all the people working with him on the program for Anaheim. They've done a wonderful job and I am very much looking forward to our sessions. I hope to see you all there!
Steve Gass, Chair, Engineering Libraries Division
This is the last newsletter issue of this academic year. Look for the next issue in September 1995. You may send me any news over the summer or wait until that mid-August deadline. Have a wonderful summer, everyone!
Dena Thomas, Editor
Centinnial Science & Engineering Library; University of New Mexico
ph: 505-277-5327; fax: 505-277-0702;
dthomas@hal.unm.edu
Copyright © 1995 ASEE Engineering Libraries Division