Authors to Alaska Round Table
Annual Meeting
3/28/2004

Members Present:
Corey Hall, Kenai Comm. Lib. - co-chair, Candy Kopperud, Palmer Pub. Lib.-co-chair, Katie Sanders, Ladd Elem.FNSBSD-secretary, Sandra Strandtmann, Juneau Pub. Lib., Susan Jones, Fairbanks Pub. Lib., Mary Hacker, Lake Hood Elem.ASD, Patricia Linville, Seward Comm. Lib., Mechelle Andrews, Chevak.

Absent:
Sue Sherif, Alaska State Lib. - treasurer

Business discussed:

Corey established that Sue Sherif would continue as treasurer and Katie Sanders would continue as secretary.

Ideas for potential authors for the conference in Barrow

Sherman Alexie - author of adult works

Will Hobbs, Suzanne Fisher Staples, Ben Mikelsen - children?s authors

Joe Hayes - children?s storyteller from the southwest (good at telling bilingual stories and talking about telling stories in two languages,)

Barbara McBride Smith is a school librarian and Story Teller from Oklahoma. She would be a good candidate for the Anchorage 06 Conference.
BMcBrideS@aol.com

Patricia thought that David Ongley would have some very definite ideas on who he wanted for the conference and said she would be in touch with him.

Need for new chair and vice chair

Patricia Linville volunteered to chair for the Barrow Conference next year. Katie Sanders and Mary Hacker volunteered to co-vice chair for Barrow this year, planning on then chairing for the Anchorage conference the following year.

Corey stressed how important it is to start planning for the conference two years from now. She explained that they made initial contacts with Donald Davis and Virginia Euwer Wolf two years prior to this years conference, althugh they did not sign a contract that early. The more popular authors are arranging their calendars that far in advance.

Sandra brought up the need to maintain the Web page. The use of a calendar of scheduled events was discussed as well as a sidebar panel with links or information directing readers to contacts in various regions for potential author visits.

Susan Jones wanted to better understand the function of Author to Alaska and the role of the group in coordinating author visits. Patricia said we need to have a centralized calendar. We discussed the need to coordinate visits and have regional reps to contact for this purpose. There was talk of the need for and use of a form or template to use in conjunction with the web page for each author visit, with contact information. Sandra said she would talk to Carol Race in Juneau about this and that she thought they had a fellow in Juneau with web page experience who might be able to help develop this sort of page and template.

Sandra explained that in Juneau, Nancy Ferrell would write letters to many authors inquiring if they were interested in coming to Alaska and that their group of librarians, authors and volunteers would meet a couple times a year to go over the responses and select authors to invite. They had found that many authors like to book as far as two years in advance.

There was some discussion about applying for a ILC grant to coordinate regions and public libraries and school districts as well as establish the web page with regional links but it was decided that it was too close to the April 5 deadline for this year and it should be considered for next year.

It was mentioned that David Schwartz is coming to Fairbanks in October and there was discussion about his being a ?high maintenance? author.

Corey and Candy verified that the budget for the author visits for the conference was $4000 total which covered honoraria, room and travel. The authors were expected to pay for their own meals and incidentals (like phone calls.) Corey and Candy felt that the invited guest authors/storytellers should not have to pay for a table. These were the ones who presented a program at the conference.

Respectfully submitted by Katie Sanders, Secretary

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