New SWAN Governance
by Christina Stoll, MLS
2008 kicked off with the establishment of the new SWAN Governance Structure. Meetings were held by the SWAN Council and each of the Governance Groups, a SWAN Council Co-chair was elected, and meeting ground rules were set in place. SWAN members and staff look forward to an exciting year ahead with this new structure.
SWAN Governance Overview
The new SWAN governance model was developed in 2007 by a committee comprised of elected member library directors and SWAN / MLS staff. As approved by a vote of the membership taken at the December 2007 SWAN Administrators’ quarterly meeting:
The SWAN Council is an executive council consisting of five (5) administrators and/or assistant administrators from Full Participating SWAN libraries and the MLS Director of Automation Services (ex-officio). Member representatives to the Council are elected “at large” by the full membership. The Governance Group with the lowest percentage of fees paid has one (1) representative and the other two groups have two (2) representatives.
Each library’s governance group membership is determined by the percentage of SWAN annual fees paid by each member library relative to the overall total. Data is taken from the “% of Total” column of the SWAN Annual Fees chart adopted each December. Database fees are not included.
The following chart GG Final Chart Final 080130.pdf outlines the three SWAN Governance groups, and the corresponding libraries within each group. Governance group membership is determined by each library’s annual fees and the corresponding percentage relative to the total amount of SWAN annual fees paid by all SWAN members. Governance group representatives make up the new SWAN Council and were elected in August 2007 with terms to begin January 1, 2008.
- Governance Group A is represented by Pat Nevins, Richton Park Public Library District.
- Governance Group B is represented by Jan Schmudde, Northlake Public Library District, and Ruth McCrank, Westchester Public Library.
- Governance Group C is represented by Jamie Bukovac, Indian Prairie Public Library District, and Cindy Rauch, Homewood Public Library District.
The role of each representative is to serve both on the SWAN Council group and to chair its individual governance group meeting, setting the tone for communication between members, meeting ground rules, and other “housekeeping” preferences.
SWAN Council Structure
The new Council’s first meeting took place on January 9, 2008. Jan Schmudde, Library Director for Northlake Public Library District and Group B representative was elected as Council Co-Chair. In future meetings, the Council will continue to discuss governance issues and make recommendations to the membership regarding Council bylaws, roles and responsibilities for SWAN stakeholders, and policies approved by SWAN members.
Also in response to member requests, the Council discussed impact fees to be required of new or incoming members going forward. Impact fees will help to cover SWAN staff time spent on intake migration of new member libraries and tasks, as well as libraries joining SWAN.
The next SWAN Council meeting is scheduled for February 7, 2008, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. at the MLS Burr Ridge office. All future meetings can be found on the MLS CE Calendar at http://www.mls.lib.il.us/calendar/index.cfm.
New Governance Group Communication Lists
New SWAN email distribution lists were created to facilitate communication from Council representatives to the respective members/constituents of each governance group.
The three new email lists utilize the existing generic email addresses/3-letter library codes currently used for the SWANcom list. Up to three personal email addresses can be aliased from the library’s generic email account as determined by each member library director.
SWAN must continue to utilize the generic addresses due to constant changes in membership. Changes to the aliased addresses should be emailed to either Sandy Hayes at hayess@mls.lib.il.us or Jason Ng at ngj@mls.lib.il.us.
The naming convention/address for each governance group email list is as follows:
Governance Group Meetings
SWAN Council scheduled January meetings for each of the governance groups with identical agendas for this first round of meetings. A summary of all three meetings follows:
- Welcome was given by Jane Schmudde, SWAN Co-Chair, followed by introductions meeting participants. The full Council attended, but in the future only each group’s representative will be in attendance.
- Agreements were reached on ground rules, taking of meeting notes, meeting schedules, and the communication preferences for each group.
- There will be four standing committees as follows: Circulation Advisory, MARC Advisory, Research & Development (new), and Online Access (formerly called WebPAC Advisory). Committee membership will be drawn from all governance groups to ensure a diversity of viewpoints are represented.
- SWAN Council intends to draft more formal by-laws not unlike those typically used by other publicly elected boards. The roles and responsibilities of SWAN stakeholders will also be reviewed. Formal policies will also be considered. SWAN Council will make recommendations to the membership in all these areas with SWAN members determining the final outcomes by vote.
- At the March 2008 Quarterly Meeting, there will be a vote on whether or not to eliminate all loan rules with grace periods. The Council is preparing a position paper on this topic and will recommend a NO vote on this issue. The Council’s rationale is that members need to look at the bigger picture, which has been defined as instituting loan rules which improve customer service. The Council also feels that mandating libraries to make service changes is a change in philosophy and requires much more thought and discussion. As determined by straw polls, attendees at all three governance groups were in agreement with SWAN Council’s position.
Upcoming Governance Group meeting dates:
- Governance Group A: Monday, February 25, 2008, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM, MLS Burr Ridge
- Governance Group B: Tuesday, February 19, 2008, 9:30 – 11:30 AM, MLS Burr Ridge
- Governance Group C: Tuesday, February 12, 2008, 1:30 – 3:30 PM, MLS Burr Ridge
Any questions about the new SWAN Governance structure can be directed to Dean Bryan, Director of
Automation Services at (630) 734-5122 or bryand@mls.lib.il.us.
Published February 6, 2008 in vol. 2, iss. 3 [View]
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