BRASS Notes
by
Elizabeth Malafi, Editor
From the BRASS Chair
Greetings, BRASS members!
If you haven’t had a chance to set up your new ALA Connect profile, we strongly encourage you to spend a few minutes to explore it. It’s easy – just click on the down arrow in the top right corner of ALA Connect > Profile and fill out your preferences. In particular, make sure you review your email permissions under My Account. If you say No to email, we won’t be able to communicate with you as a member.
Right next to Profile in the top right corner of ALA, you can find your Communities including the BRASS section. This is where you can view or get in touch with all or any members of BRASS, as well as find announcements, recordings, and transcripts of BRASS events.
We will be looking into learning more about the new ALA Connect so that we could use it as an effective communication tool to carry out committee work and ensure smooth knowledge transfer to future members.
As you might have noticed this fall, BRASS has been busy with moving many of our regular programming online. In addition to monthly discussions, we held two rounds of lightning talks (BRASS Business References in Academic Libraries Committee), and a publisher’s forum (BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee).
In addition, great news from ALA Conference Planning! Our proposals for the 2019 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. received green light:
- Preconference “Guardians of the (Financial) Galaxy” (organized by Jennifer Boettcher and BRASS Education Committee)
- BRASS Program “The Data of D.C.: Open Sources for Business Research” (organized by BRASS Program Planning Committee)
Keep an eye out for more information about day, time and place from organizers.
If you are planning to attend Midwinter in Seattle, BRASS will hold a Discussion and All Committee Meeting on Sunday, January 27th, at 8:30-10:00 am.
Lastly, BRASS Executive Committee is revising the BRASS Handbook to reflect recent changes in ALA and RUSA processes.
Thank you for being a BRASS member! I’ll be delighted to hear from you with any comments or ideas how we can make BRASS better for our members.
Natasha Arguello
BRASS Chair 2018-2019
Natasha.Arguello@utsa.edu
BRASS COMMITTEE REPORTS
Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee hosted online lighting talks this fall. Marwin Britto presented “A Successful Journey from Past Practices to Best Practices in Information Literacy” and Kim Buschert, Irena Trebic, and Nick Rochlin presented “Test, Build, Grow: How do Entrepreneurs Inform their Business Decisions?” to an audience of 49 on Friday, October 19 via Zoom. Kara Van Abel will present “Providing Asynchronous, Online Instruction with the Business Research Toolkit” and Alan Witt will present “Capturing Student Attention: Engagement Strategies for Instruction” on November 16. The committee met on October 10 to develop an assessment for the fall lighting talks, discuss potential program ideas for the spring, and review the committee description in the BRASS handbook.
Emily Mross, Chair 2018-2019
Business Reference Services Discussion Group
The BRASS Reference Services Discussion Group held three virtual discussions this past fall and winter. All BRASS members were invited to attend, and nice discussions were held. The new ZOOM conference software seems to be working well. Look out for the dates early next year for the virtual discussions for Spring 2019! We look forward to continuing to host these open forums to discuss topics of interest with our fellow BRASS members throughout the next year.
Halley Todd, Chair 2018-2019
Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee hosted its first online Publishers’ Forum on Friday, November 2, 2018. The theme of the Forum was environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics and the publishers represented included CSRHub, RepRisk, and MSCI. A link to the recording and presentation slides have been posted to ALA Connect.
Looking forward, the Committee is actively brainstorming themes for an additional online Publishers’ Forum to be held in the Spring. In addition, the Committee is working to identify and review business reference sources to evaluate during the ALA Annual meeting.
Felipe Anaya, 2018-2019 Chair
Programming Committee
The BRASS Programming Committee developed a proposal for the 2019 ALA Annual Conference BRASS Program entitled “The Data of D.C.: Open Sources for Business Research”. The program will
include insight from a librarian open data expert and an economist at the U.S. Census Bureau with more than 30 years of experience. The Government Documents Roundtable co-sponsored the proposal. We are waiting to hear on the outcome of our submission.
Ash Faulkner, Chair 2018-2019