BRASS Notes

Elizabeth Malafi, Editor

From Julia Martin, BRASS Chair 2020-2021

• I want to thank our membership, especially our committee members, for all the work they’ve done these past few months. Everyone has been amazing, completing regular committee work and taking special COVID-19 issues into consideration.
• We have a great new educational opportunity, 2020 AACSB Accreditation Standards: What They Mean for Business Librarians, presented by Ilana Stonebraker and Lumarie Guth coming up in December.
• Many of our award committees are just finishing up accepting applications. See them at http://www.ala.org/rusa/brass-awards and consider applying yourself or nominating a colleague.
• The Executive Committee is looking at guidelines for extraordinary circumstances and travel awards. More on this later.
• Please join us for the monthly online discussion groups.
• Please join us for the upcoming symposium sponsored by the Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee in December.

Happy Holidays!

BRASS Committee Reports

Business Information Sources Committee

Kendra Spahr, Chair 2020-2021

• The Business Information Sources Committee hosted a Publishers’ Forum on Friday, November 6. The forum’s theme was text-mining solutions for academic researchers and featured speakers from ProQuest and LexisNexis.
• The committee is working on updating the checklist for nominating titles the Outstanding Business Information Sources column in the Winter issue of Reference & User Services Quarterly.

 

Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee

Trish Hull, Chair 2020-2021

1. We submitted a program for ALA Annual – “Business Reference in Public Libraries Made Easy” Presenters: Trish Hull, Andrea Levandowski, Terry Zarsky, Michael Schor and Mattie Cook
   a.     The 3 main points of the program are: developing a relationship with local business schools, starting a local business guide, and using Libguides.
   b.     We have not heard from ALA yet.
2. We are working on ways to communicate with Public Libraries including: State chapters, state libraries, PLA, BRASS website, Social media
3. Promoting and using Library of Congress resources including:
   a. Business Research Orientation
   b. BEOnline
   c. LOC Business Research Guides
   d. LOC Webinars and workshops
4. Working with Social Media including:
   a. Twitter- Urban Libraries Council- ULC CHAT
   b. #smallbiz
   c. Grow with google

We have a about 7 regular attendees who are working hard on different projects, although we are all pretty crazed right now with COVID issues.

Areas we are working on:

• Using the Business Research Competencies in Public Libraries
• Guide for Public Libraries- How to reach out to business in the time of Covid
• Promoting Libguides
• How to develop a relationship with your local business school.

 

Conference Planning Committee

Alice Kalinowski, Chair 2020-2021

We submitted the proposal for our program this year titled “Follow the money: Help watchdogs, whistleblowers, and our communities find and understand financial trails and organizational relationships”, which was a slightly revised version of the one that was accepted last year but didn’t get to be presented. We should hear the final decision in December. Assuming it is accepted, in January we will do more contingency planning around the different ways we could present the program depending on what happens with ALA Annual.

 

Discussion Group Steering Committee

Kara Van Abel, Chair

Please save-the-date for these Spring virtual discussions:

• Friday, January 15, 2021 from 1:00-2:30 Central
• Friday, February 19, 2021 from 1:00-2:30 Central
• Friday, March 19, 2021 from 1:00-2:30 Central
• Friday, April 16, 2021 from 1:00-2:30 Central
• Friday, May 21, 2021 from 1:00-2:30 Central
• Friday, June 18, 2021 from 1:00-2:30 Central

 

Education Committee
Chad F. Boeninger, Chair 2020-2021

Jordan and I met with Lu Marie to hand over some committee duties in July. We had our first meeting with the Education Committee in September. We will be posting a call for new BRASS Libguides editors soon.

 

Excellence in Business Librarian Award Committee
Genifer Snipes, Chair 2020-2021

The BRASS Excellence in Business Librarianship Award is accepting nominations through February 12th, 2021. After that, the committee will convene to review submissions.

 

Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award
Michael Schor, Chair 2020-2021

Ashley Johnson, Business Outreach Librarian, Vernon Area Public Library in Illinois, was selected the 2020 award winner. Celia Ross is currently working on the creation of a podcast with Ashely and Maureen from Morningstar.

The call for nominations has gone out. We will do another social media push in mid-January and will meet again in mid-February to select a 2021 winner.