BOARD OF PUBLICATIONS
Meeting Minutes
May 3, 2010
The ACB Board of Publications met via teleconference at approximately 9:05pm (EDT), Monday, May 3, 2010. Members present were: Paul Edwards, Marcia Dresser, Judy Jackson, Jenine Stanley, Ken Stewart; Ex Oficio Members: Berl Colley, Michael Malver, and Larry Turnbull; Absent: Ron Milliman; ACB Staff: Sharon Lovering; Agenda:
Ken moved to adopt the agenda as amended. The motion was seconded and approved.
Minutes: Ken moved to accept the April minutes. The motion was seconded and approved.
PR Committee: Judy reported that the committee is working on a media kit, including the Press Release Handbook, PSAs and several white papers, to be showcased at the summer convention. There are also quarterly conference call meetings to assist affiliates in their promotional activities.
The next quarterly conference call is scheduled for June 13 and the next PR Committee meeting for May 28. Ken suggested that along with announcing the quarterly calls on the email lists, a schedule also be placed in the Braille Forum and Washington Connection to reach all members.
Marcia moved to accept the PR Committee report as presented. The motion was seconded and adopted.
Internet Oversight Committee: Michael reported that the committee continues to discuss rules. They are interested in developing procedures for what types of announcements can be aired on the list outside of ACB activities. Paul suggested that they may want to ask representatives of Accessible World, for example, if they have legal permission to air the audio described movies they announce on the list. This could help guide list policy.
People with Road Runner as their internet service provider (ISP) are being routinely bounced from the ACB lists. This is similar to an issue that occurred several years ago with Comcast. Larry and Michael are working to correct the problem with Road Runner and apologized for any inconvenience.
Jenine moved to accept the IOC report as presented. The motion was seconded and adopted.
ACB RADIO:
Larry reported that the planned outage over the weekend of May 1 successfully fixed an issue in which they found themselves running out of server space. He has moved current content to the new larger 1 terabyte drive which should meet storage needs even when all content is moved over.
Larry has been asked to represent ACB on a committee chaired by National Public Radio regarding the placement of radio reading services on the HD radio bands, doing away with the sub carrier system most stations use now. Larry will be looking into accessible HD radios as well as testing bit rates for airing.
Paul reported that the ACB Radio Management Team met in April and will be announcing some initiatives at the convention.
Marcia moved to accept the ACB Radio Committee report as presented. The motion was seconded and adopted.
DAISY COMMITTEE:
Berl reported that the committee is looking at prioritizing types of material to put into DAISY formats based on the last discussion with the BOP. The committee has discussed with Melanie Brunson the purchase of conversion software from IRTI and will be having a training on the use of that software on May 27.
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT:
Berl reported that the project has done one more interview and thanked Charlie Hodge for continuing to provide names of interviewees. Regarding cassette tapes of material in the Minneapolis office, he noted that the committee has decided to consider converting those tapes to digital formats after all interviews have been produced.
Jenine moved to accept the report from the DAISY and Oral History Project committees as presented. The motion was seconded and adopted.
SOCIAL NETWORKING GROUP:
Jenine reported that the group met on May 2 and will be creating position descriptions as specified in her written report to the BOP.
WEB SITE AND DRUPAL TASK FORCES:
Paul reported that he has received a favorable report from Earlene Hughes about working with Drupal. He also reported about two accessible electronic books on web design and people with disabilities. Paul will send information about these titles to the BOP list. Work continues on the Drupal process as well but no test pages have yet been created.
Judy moved to accept the Social Networking, Web Site and Drupal Task Force reports as presented. The motion was seconded and adopted.
NATIONAL BRAILLE PRESS:
Paul reviewed the issue of the National Braille Press (NBP) wanting to change the terms of its contract adding $1,500 to the cost of production for each issue of the Braille Forum, claiming that it had “subsidized” this amount in its original contract. He noted that several meetings have been held internally and a letter has been written to NBP requesting a meeting of Paul, Melanie, Sharon and an NBP representative to discuss the issue. Paul shared the letter and the BOP approves of its tone and the stance that NBP is seeking to violate a standing contract as there is no mention of the “subsidy” in the existing contract.
AWARDS:
The group held a lengthy discussion of whether persons currently employed as contractors with ACB should be qualified for consideration for any awards.
Ken moved that any person currently working as a contractor for ACB is disqualified from consideration for the Vernon Henley Media Award because of the appearance of impropriety. The motion was seconded but defeated in a roll call vote, with Ken and Jenine voting in the affirmative and Paul, Marcia and Judy voting in the negative.
Judy moved any person currently working as a contractor for ACB is disqualified from consideration for the Vernon Henley Media Award because of the appearance of impropriety, effective as of the 2011 awards cycle and specified in amendments to the BOP Policy Manual. The motion was seconded and adopted.
BOPEEP:
Marcia reported a spacing error in the April Braille copy of the Braille forum. Ken questioned the consecutive positioning of two articles in the April issue regardingsolicitation of donations.
OLD BUSINESS:
HELPING HANDS ARTICLE: Paul noted after a brief discussion of the article in question from the April meeting that if Sharon has any concerns about an article, to please ask the BOP to review it.
ACB BOARD MEETING REPORTS:
Ken asked about the status of the latest ACB Board meeting reports. Marcia explained that she was awaiting clarification of results of the board’s executive sessions and would then get the report to Sharon.
NEW BUSINESS:
CANDIDATES Page ANNOUNCEMENT: Jenine will put out the 2010 Candidates Page article and some additional promotional language to the ACb Leaders list and Paul and Michael will distribute it to the other ACB lists to encourage people to participate in the page this year.
WEB SITE CHANGES:
Marcia asked about why submitted changes to the ACB Radio Amateurs officers had not been made on the ACb web site. Paul said he would look into this issue and encouraged anyone receiving such information to contact him and Earlene immediately and for affiliate and special interest groups to check the web site for accuracy.
NEXT MEETING:
The BOP will meet via teleconference on June 7, 2010 at 9:00pm EDT.
ADJOURNMENT:
Jenine moved to adjourn the meeting at approximately 11:10pm EDT. The motion was seconded and adopted.
Respectfully Submitted,
Jenine Stanley, Recording Secretary