Board of Publications Meeting Minutes for January 9, 2018

The meeting was called to order by Chairman Ron Brooks at 9:03 p.m. on January 9, 2018.
Members present: Ron Brooks, Chair; Deb Lewis; Susan Glass; Paul Edwards; Donna Brown.

ACB employees and contractors present: Sharon Lovering; Larry Turnbull.
Ex officio members present: Kim Charlson, ACB President; Katie Frederick, Public Relations; Bob Hachey, Listserv Manager.
Guests: Leslie Spoone; Christine Chaikin; Ken Stewart; Sue Ammeter.

Ron reviewed the agenda.
Motion:Paul moved and Susan seconded adoption of the Agenda. Motion passed.

Motion:Donna moved and Susan seconded adoption of the December 5, 2017 minutes with minor edits. Motion passed.

There were no comments from guests.

Ron reported that the work group meeting began with discussion regarding how the manual has been revised over time based on immediate needs. This is a good time to look at it holistically in light of how ACB does business now using current communication channels. A major consideration is how the BOP crosses the activities of other groups such as public relations, communications ACB Radio, etc. Ron was asked to touch bases with Eric and Kim to get their understanding of how this relationship should look throughout the organization. Ron gave the example of overseeing editorial content which is clear regarding Braille Forum content but less clear regarding logos and other elements that communicate about ACB in non-textual ways. The BOP should be clear about who owns an issue and also clear about when and how collaboration should occur. BOP may not be the creator for particular content or policy but may be the keeper of them. This should bring refinement and clarity to both the policy and role of the BOP.

Deb said the next meeting will be January 16. She thinks that clarifying the role and reducing the complexities of the policy will help ACB members understand the value of the BOP. Paul explained that the first step is to evaluate sections of the manual to determine what should be retained, revised or dropped, and identify questions for resolution.

This work group consists of people who are not running for office. Ron drafted an article for the March Braille Forum laying out the timeline, process and questions for candidates. The online candidates forum is targeted on or about June 21. The deadline for materials submission will be May 6 so they can be posted online by May 20. The Candidates Forum will be two hours via phone and ACB Radio. Candidates must submit content to be included in the Candidates Forum. There will also be an open forum town hall meeting for all declared candidates as late as possible in the convention; the date and time have not been confirmed.

Ron reported that his contact for the personal branding workshop has moved to Orlando but is actually still interested in coming. Ron will follow up to see what it would take. Everyone will think about additional options for the personal branding presentation. Sue suggested that someone should mention this on the Convention Planning call; Paul and Susan will follow up.

Deb and Paul will present. Ron will organize and circulate an outline based on the notes from last month. Kim requested information on the topic to be included in the agenda.

Perkins is the contractor for cartridge production. Sharon provided to Kim a list of individuals signed up for cartridges. Initially 850 names were uploaded. It was determined that savings would be achieved with little impact to members by eliminating the CD version of the publications. Members were contacted and all but 12 responded saying they could readily switched to email or cartridge. The remaining individuals will be dropped from circulation due to lack of response. The total for the January issue will be 990 which is exactly on budget. Sue asked how long individuals have to return the cartridge. Kim said it would be about 3 months given the production schedule.

Paul suggested that an article in the Braille Forum on how to subscribe to ACB audio content using devices such as the Victor Reader Stream or Amazon Alexa would be useful. It was agreed that this strategy might help reduce the reliance on cartridges. Donna, Deb and Paul expressed interest in working on this.

Ron noted that most of his activities have been reported as part of other agenda items. In addition, Ron is a member of the testing group which is testing ACB webpages for readability, navigation and accessibility. The plan is to have the most recent two years on the site with previous years on archive directly accessible from the site. Paul recommended 3 years as a better cycle for archiving resolutions since this is the time period in which they’re generally considered to be relevant by the Resolutions Committee. Larry will look into whether 3 years is feasible before Ron makes any recommendation.

Issue type: electronic
Print page count: 53
Braille Returned: 6; Received: -6
LP Returned: 4; Received: -4
Cassette Returned: 13; Received: -13
Electronic Distributed: 5,368; Returned: 4; Return Rate: 0.1%; Received: 5,364
Total Accessed (Excludes Returns): 5,341

Issue type: hard copy
Print Page Count: 64
Braille Distributed: 666
LP Distributed: 2,598
Cartridge Distributed: 990
CD Distributed: 12
Electronic Distributed: 6,108

January is the first issue with the new ACB logo, and using the new large print standards. January’s electronic version saw a 14.36 percent increase in subscribers. There were also four requests to be removed.

I am currently working on the February 2018 E-Forum. I continue to work on the national office photo/video inventory. I am also busy working on the annual affiliate membership updates. There are a few affiliates I need to contact; I will work on that this week as well.

Kim said that ACB applied for and received support to digitize the photograph collection. She will be delivering over 1500 photos to the organization doing this work. The challenge will be identifying people in the photos and there was discussion about how to go about this including possible crowd sourcing. Kim is also exploring how to digitize the audio ACB has archived on cassettes which must be done before the tapes deteriorate. She has requested samples from vendors and we will likely need to apply for grants to fund this project.

Larry was unable to report listener stats from Stream Licensing for October through December because the information is not available.

For December: Mainstream 2178; Café 430; Treasure Trove 4102; Interactive 1125; World News and Information 71; and no programming on Live Event or Special Event.

There were 93 listeners on the server for the holiday auction. This includes listeners using Amazon Alexa and other devices.

Audio Now had 1200 for ACB Radio; Braille Forum 325; holiday auction 635.

Larry has completed paperwork to register various ACB podcasts on Tune In so they will be available to Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

Larry also continues to add content to Share Point for both ACB offices and complete other server asks.

Email List Statistics, December 2017
ACB-L Membership: 322; Posts: 140
ACB-Chat Membership: 137; Posts: 119
Paul asked that Bob forward the messages to ACB-L that Paul sends to Leadership on behalf of BRL.

Facebook: 3,345 likes
Top stories: Yosemite audio description; Looking Backward ACB 2017; Microsoft Seeing AI App Now Reads Handwriting.
Twitter: 2,151 followers

The PR committee did not meet in December but will meet in January.

There was no other business.

The next meeting is scheduled for February 6, 2018 at 9 p.m. Eastern.

Deb moved and Donna seconded adjournment. the meeting adjourned at 10:19 p.m.

Respectfully Submitted,
Deb Lewis, Secretary