NYC Radical Reference Meeting 06-16-06

Members Present: Melissa, Julie, Dena

Agenda

1. ALA Annual
2. Lightningbug and Radref website
3. Directory of NYC orgs
4. Reference Shelf page for Green Scare, etc.
5. Library student publication opportunities

1. ALA
- Madeline Albright
* flyering happening? Members will look at old emails and figure out various groups' plans [update -- see the flyer from Kevin announced in more recent email; members plan to print up copies to hand out prior to her talk]

- Tabling/discussions at SRRT booth seem to be arranging themselves; great

- Radref meetup
* to take place Saturday, June 24, from 6:30-8:30 at The Iron Rail Bookstore and Lending Library (511 Marigny Street, 504-944-0366)
* requested agenda item: come up with list of Radref priorities/things to do (to be distributed to all members)

- In addition to meeting at Iron Rail, Radical Reference members will also be discussing and getting involved in projects with Iron Rail collective members, esp. cataloging their collections

2. Lightningbug/Radref website

- Lightningbug questions (more like requests for updates):
* is it still the case that questions are not being escalated?
* how are answers being posted?

- Website
* discussion focused on how to allow greatest access to depth of information on site, which seems somewhat obscured by current layout and includes other areas of site in addition to answered questions
* ideas:
- once "subject headings" are assigned to answers, these could be grouped (linking to answers) and listed in righthand column on page in place of current "recently answered questions" boxes
- subject headings should also be assigned to reference shelf, blogs, etc.
- any search method for answers should also apply to reference shelf, blogs, etc.
- subject headings should be drawn from a controlled vocabulary

3. Directory of NYC orgs (being compiled with/for NLG) -- is underway; question of whether or not to alert included orgs to be left to NLG

4. Reference Shelf page for Green Scare

* page was seen on several general and support lists and was much admired
* possible role for Radref in supporting research needs of support groups (aside from legal research) to be explored

5. Library student publication opportunities

* one possibility is "Library Student Journal," which apparently is now accepting submissions