The ACB Board of Publications met via teleconference. Members present: chair Denise Colley, Ron Brooks, Marcia Dresser; ex officio members Berl Colley, Bob Hachey; ACB staff/contractors Sharon Lovering, Annette Carter, Larry Turnbull. Members absent: Doug Powell, Ron Milliman. Several guests also participated on the call.
Ron Brooks, acting as chair this evening, convened the meeting at 9:04 PM EDT. The agenda was adopted as distributed. The February 3 and midyear meeting minutes were tabled until the May meeting.
Resignation
ACB President Kim Charlson announced that the newest BOP member, Richard Rueda, resigned effective April 7, 2014, citing family and work responsibilities. This position will remain vacant until the elections in July.
Editorial Policy Manual
Denise moved and Marcia seconded that we approve the policy manual as is, with the understanding that it is a work in progress and changes can be made as needed. The motion carried. The older documents will be archived on the server in the national office.
ACB Braille and E-Forum on Audio Now
Beginning in May, the ACB Braille Forum and the ACB E-Forum will be available on Audio Now. Each article will be a separate MP3 file so people can skip from article to article and fast forward and rewind within an article. Larry is continuing to test the system, and we will prepare a press release so we can make the announcement when all is ready.
BOP Survey
We went over and adjusted the work plan approved at the midyear meeting. On April 11, Ron and Doug will have a conference call with someone from the National Industries for the Blind regarding data collection. Annette will test to see if we can use the data analytics capability in Drupal. The article about the survey will appear in the June E-Forum and the July Braille Forum. A notice will go out to affiliate presidents asking for their assistance in distributing the survey to their members and urging them to complete it. BOP members will be available to help people complete the survey by phone. We will hold two "town hall" meetings about the survey at the convention, one on Sunday afternoon and one on Thursday afternoon. The survey will close on August 15.
ACB Radio
Larry gave us the listener counts for March. Listening to ACB Radio by phone is very popular. A group is working on an app for ACB Radio which, initially, will access all streams as well as the schedule. In later versions, it will access the RSS feeds of the ACB Braille Forum and ACB Reports and will generate alerts from the national office (calling Congress about a particular issue, for example).
Web Site Task Force
Kim is sending out the announcement to the Web testing team, who will begin their work soon. Annette is developing the feedback form they will use for their comments.
Internet Oversight Committee
Larry has discontinued the monthly list reminder emails because some Internet service providers were treating them as spam. Ron will draft a document stating that it is inappropriate to air affiliate grievances on the leadership list. Denise, as BOP chair, will send this to the list.
BOPEEP
Annette discussed her concerns regarding the formatting of the table of contents in the large print edition of the Forum. Sharon will send her a PDF file of the July issue so she can make suggestions before the issue goes to press. No major formatting changes will be made until we obtain the results of the survey.
The next meeting of the Board of Publications will take place via teleconference on Monday, May 5, at 9:00 PM EDT.
The meeting adjourned at 11:25 PM EDT.
Respectfully submitted,
Marcia N. Dresser, Secretary
This web page was last updated June 2, 2014.