25:2 (2010:05) D&D Annual Report

May 27, 2010 at 1:48 am | Posted in Committee Annual Reports, Database & Directory | Leave a comment

Database & Directory

Co-chair: Bob Persing (University of Pennsylvania), 07/10

Co-chair: Maggie Ferris (University of Delaware) 09/11

Members:
Alice Bright (Carnegie Mellon University), 07/10
Maria Collins (North Carolina State University), 09/11
Cecilia Genereux (University of Minnesota), 07/10
Tzu-Jing Kao (Multnomah County Library), 07/10
Jessica Minihan (University of Mississippi), 09/11

Board liaison:
Lisa Blackwell

Activities

Most of the committee’s work this year was routine:

• Invoicing members each month due for renewal
• Reminding members who were invoiced the previous month, but haven’t paid

An extra step was added this year: when a member is two months late for renewal, their name is passed on to Membership Development, who sends them a second reminder

• Deactivating members who still haven’t renewed three months after invoicing
• Assigning usernames and passwords to new members
• Reactivating the records for returning members

Many new members join in the spring, in order to register for the conference at the member rate.  Our process for assigning usernames/passwords to new members depends on payment records, which are forwarded to D&D by the treasurer in batches.  Often, though, new members want their usernames right away, so they can log in and register for the conference.  D&D has been able to handle these requests quickly (usually the same day), but we’d like to find a better workflow.  Ideally, ArcStone would assign a temporary username/password as soon as the member creates their record.

The ArcStone system is complex enough that it’s hard to share the work among the committee members.  Most of the work falls to the co-chairs.  Despite good intentions, no progress was made this year on alleviating this situation.

Membership

The following statistics are derived from ArcStone.

*these members have been reminded and must make payment by 5/8/2010 to avoid deactivation.

Action Items

A major action item in the next few months will be the implementation of the “organizational member” category, approved in the recent bylaws revision.  The bylaws text is vague (presumably intentionally) about how this is to work.  D&D plans to give some recommendations to the board soon.

Continuing action items:

• Document committee procedures and post to committee space
• Create documentation and saved search strategies for standard reports
• Continue database records cleanup

Member US State Affiliations
5/1/2010

Member Country Affiliations

Notes:

• Country designations come from addresses supplied by members.  So members working for the same organization may be listed in different countries, depending on where they choose to get their mail.
• The two members from Trinidad and Jamaica actually work for the same institution, the University of the West Indies.
• The number of countries represented has dropped noticeably in the last few years.  For instance, we no longer have any active members from most European countries.

Submitted by Bob Persing and Maggie Ferris
Database & Directory Committee