The Board of Publications met via teleconference on Tuesday, August 13. Members present: Chair Denise Colley, Ron Brooks, Marcia Dresser, Judy Jackson, Doug Powell; ex officio members Berl Colley and Bob Hachey; ACB staff/contractors Annette Carter and Sharon Lovering. Members absent: Ron Milliman and Larry Turnbull. Several guests also participated on the call.
Denise convened the meeting at 9:05 EDT. She thanked Paul Edwards and Nolan Crabb for their service on the BOP, and welcomed Ron Brooks and Doug Powell. Bob moved and Ron seconded adoption of the amended agenda; the motion carried. Marcia moved and Doug seconded acceptance of the May 2013 minutes; this motion was adopted.
Editor's Report
The September Forum has gone to press. The November issue will be in hard copy, and October and December will be electronic. We will have to look at bids for braille, large print, and cassette very soon because the current contracts conclude on January 14, 2014.
Leadership Institute
A leadership institute will be held all day on Friday, July 11, in Las Vegas. The newly formed committee will meet via teleconference on August 19.
Internet Oversight Committee
Bob reported that there are currently 306 members on acb-l (down from 320) and 75 people on acb-chat. People occasionally exceed the number of messages allowed by one person each day on acb-l, so Bob will send a reminder to the list. The Internet Oversight Committee will draft a "best practices" document for list etiquette which, after the BOP approves it, he will post on the leadership list. Bob plans to have this document ready for BOP review in October.
President Kim Charlson has asked Ron Brooks to serve on the Web Site Task Force. She hopes to have the rest of the appointments to this committee finalized by the end of this week. As she continues to do updates, Annette is overhauling and streamlining the Web site so that everything, including forms for scholarships, donations, midyear meeting, etc., is on one site, and she has updated the logo to give it a little pizzazz. Annette has drafted training for the BOP and other interested ACB leaders on how to format content to go on the site. Doug moved and Ron seconded to accept the committee reports; the motion was adopted.
Convention Review
Everyone agreed that the ACB Radio coverage was rock solid and extremely well done. Doug would like to see more official ACB content on Twitter at the convention. For next year, the BOP will consider shortening the length of time each candidate is given to speak, perhaps from three minutes to two. Doug moved and Marcia seconded a motion that all anonymous questions submitted during the Candidates' Forum be declared illegal; this motion carried. This will appear in the updated Policy Manual as follows: "The Board of Publications will not accept any questions submitted anonymously. The Board of Publications also reserves the right to exclude any question deemed argumentative or inappropriate." We will coordinate with Larry to make sure that the people running the Candidates' Forum (probably Denise and Ron) have a way to preview the questions.
ACB Braille Forum Content
Ron would like to see the hard copy of the Forum more streamlined and more structured, with some of the same features in every issue, similar to the format of LADIES HOME JOURNAL or NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC. The E-Forum would contain those articles that do not fit within the construct of the format. Marcia suggested that once a year, in the November issue, we publish the list of ACB presidents and their terms of service.
The people who get the ACB Braille Forum via email also receive the E-Forum. However, a lot of people are not getting the E-Forum because they don't know how to get it. Sharon has helped many people subscribe, and it is available on Newsline. Large print MS Word, braille, txt, and ZIP files of each E-Forum are available for download from the Web site. Boiler plate language regarding how to get the E-Forum will be included in each issue of the hard copy Forum. Bob moved and Marcia seconded that the BOP, in conjunction with Annette, Lane Waters, and others in ACB, conduct research in the next 90 days to determine the feasibility of automatically sending an invitation to subscribe to the E-Forum to all ACB members for whom we have email addresses. The motion was adopted. Denise and Doug will spearhead this project.
Appointments
The Policy Manual states that during odd-numbered years, an elected member of the BOP serves as liaison to the Board of Directors. However, Denise asked to waive this requirement for this year and serve in this capacity because she wants to retain continuity and to better understand how the BOP works with and connects to the ACB Board of Directors. Ron made a motion to this effect, which Marcia seconded. The motion carried. Ron will serve as BOP liaison to the Web Site Task Force, and Denise will serve as liaison to the Internet Oversight Committee. Doug will serve as liaison to the Public Relations Committee, and Marcia will continue to serve as secretary.
Social Networking Administration Team
Carla Ruschival reported that she and Francine Patterson created an ACB Facebook page right before the convention so we would have a Facebook presence. We currently have 450 followers on Twitter and 170 "likes" on Facebook. The Goal One group interviewed five candidates and chose a three-person Twitter team, who will be assisted by John McCann. Another announcement will go out stating that we are still looking for a Facebook team; we need people who are proficient with Facebook in order to ensure the success of the Facebook page.
BOPEEP
Marcia will continue to monitor the braille edition, and Ken will continue monitoring the large print and the cassette formats. Paul will monitor the diskette version, and Judy will monitor the email.
E-Forum Production
Steve Dresser of Jennco Productions outlined the extra work involved with producing the E-Forum in NLS format. The BOP members will hold an executive session on Thursday, August 22, at 9:00 PM EST to discuss this further with Steve. Carla reminded the BOP that this issue could have budget ramifications for this year and next year.
The next meeting of the BOP will take place on Monday, September 9, at 9:00 EST.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:25 PM EST.
Respectfully submitted,
Marcia N. Dresser, Secretary
This webpage was last updated September 9, 2013.