The thirty-fourth Annual General Meeting of the Association of Canadian Map Libraries and Archives was held at the Congress Centre, Ottawa on August 17, 1999.
It was established that a quorum was reached so the meeting could proceed.
2. Minutes of the Previous Annual General Meeting
The minutes of the thirty-third annual general meeting held May 29, 1998 as previously circulated and published in Bulletin No. 104 were approved as published.
(Elizabeth Hamilton, Irene Kumar)
3. Approval of Agenda
Item 7.2.1 was moved to beginning of the meeting.
Item 10 was moved before item 9.
7.2.1 Awards Committee Presentation
Grace presented the ACMLA Honours Award to Alberta Auringer Wood on behalf of Barbara Farrell, Chair. Grace praised Alberta's many accomplishments and contributions to the world of map librarianship, both in Canada and the international community. Alberta expressed her appreciation of the approval of her peers, and emphasized the importance of everyone's contributions to the field, and the example they set.
4. Business Arising
All is covered in the agenda.
5. President's report (James Boxall)
5.1 Previously circulated
All reports for the Annual General Meeting were posted on the ACMLA internet site, with notification to members via Carta. James had asked the members to read them, and e-mail him with any questions or comments.
Ed Shaw, Assistant Deputy Minister of NRCan/Geomatics Canada, and Jeff Labonté, head of GeoConnections Secretariat, permitted James to announce that, as President of ACMLA, he would be on the Geoconnections Management Board, with John McLaughlin from University of New Brunswick. Together they will represent research/education and try to find ways to communicate more effectively with other associations involved in education, research and training in Canada. The first meeting is scheduled for Sept. 23rd. James will communicate GeoConnections Board information to the membership. In the interim, there will be policy networks and policy groups to be formed under the Board, which is an opportunity for individual members to be involved. These working groups will be called upon to create actual policy on issues such as metadata, user interfaces, access policy, and pricing policies.
5.3 Canadian Cartographic Information Specialists Associations (CCISA)
Representatives of these North American associations will meet August 21st. James requested input on issues to bring up on a North American scale. Earlier recommendations for map collections and archives on staffing, technology, etc. will be revisited.
The ACMLA brief for Dr. English's review of the National Library and National Archives, and response to the review, were on the ACMLA web page. The challenge was made for future co-operation between a variety of organizations. James will respond to the review and send copies to the National Library and National Archives. He was invited to meet with Ian Wilson, the new National Archivist, and will talk to Betty Kidd and other Archives colleagues. Grace found it encouraging that a number of recommendations from the Association and Archives staff had been given weight and included in the recommendations, and hoped for an opportunity to bring together the specialists in maps in a more united area.
November 19th is GIS Day (part of Geography Awareness Week).
James has discussed with ESRI, the possibility of extending the current agreement on data and software. James spoke with other companies as well, in particular, LizardTech, which owns MrSID, the software used by the Library of Congress for its American Memory Project. They expressed willingness to donate MrSID to a national level project for scanning Canadian cartographic images online.
The Association purchased the url: www.acmla.org. It was difficult to get a bilingual version of the acronym.
The National Science Foundation is meeting in Washington in November on digital gazetteers. James might attend, through the GeoConnections Management Board, and asked for any suggestions and concerns.
Betty Kidd was thanked for producing the report, in addition to all of the conference and exhibit preparations. Questions and concerns may be directed to Betty. Betty announced that Hugo Stibbe retired as of Aug. 3.
Action: A retirement card will be circulated and sent.
The budget was certified by the auditor. Patrick offered to give copies of the certification to the members of the Board and anyone else who asked.
Patrick reviewed the income and disbursements. A SSHRC grant of over $3900 was received this year, and may be partly for administration and partly for travel costs, as in the past.It was moved to accept the Treasurer's report.
(David Jones, Elizabeth Hamilton) CARRIED
It was moved to use the same auditor as this year for next.
(Elizabeth Hamilton, Richard Pinnell) CARRIED
7. First Vice-President's Report (Grace Welch)
7.1 Previously circulated: the report was posted via ACMLA's internet site (see 5.1)
Grace thanked the National Archives for hosting the reception at the Canadian Mapping Exhibit, and all members who were participating in the conference. She announced several ACMLA conference activities. The University of Ottawa and Carleton University donated funds to subsidize the barbecue with CCA, so there will be no cost to the ACMLA members.
Grace thanked the committee members for all their hard work.
ARCHIVES COMMITTEE - no further report.
AWARDS COMMITTEE - The Papers award was not presented, due to the Bulletin schedule. Barbara has completed her term, and Grace replaces her as Chair. The members were encouraged to inform the committee of papers and members deserving recognition.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC CONTROL COMMITTEE - Trudy - As there has been no cataloguing workshop recently, the Committee was considering one at Edmonton, with WAML. The MAGERT website had a primer for metadata, and the Committee was considering a paper or presentation on metadata at next year's conference.
COPYRIGHT COMMITTEE - no further report.
MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE - Grace thanked Bruce for his hard work on behalf of the Association. The report does not include recent new members. Full members had increased to 70. The response to the membership survey on publishing e-mail addresses on the ACMLA homepage was quite close, so the Board decided not to proceed.
CONFERENCE 1998 - Cheryl Woods was thanked. This was the biggest profit of any ACMLA conference.
CONFERENCE 2000 - CCA confirmed they will meet with ACMLA. The conference will be at the end of Learned Societies, in conjunction with CAPDU. David brought information on Edmonton to the ACMLA booth, and sheets for suggesting program ideas and requesting information.
CONFERENCE 2001 - CCA is also interested, and is thinking of Montreal. Members were asked to bring ideas to Grace or Susan.
Grace announced that Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) will be signing a memorandum of understanding with the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) and ACMLA, for licensing digital topographic data to educational institutions. At the signing there will be copies of the model license which could be signed by individual institutions to purchase all types of topographic data at a 50% discount. This 2 year agreement, ending June of 2001, would give a campus-wide multi-user site license. Previous purchases on campus, which NRCan offered to help identify, could be grandfathered. The National Topographic Database (NTDB) has bulk pricing arrangements available as well, which cannot be combined with this. Participants will have to keep track of which files are used, but not provide names of individual users. The patron may not make the data available to anyone off campus. Files will be provided via ftp or CD-ROM. This is a good start and there may be scope for expansion under GeoConnections.
The recommendation for deposit of Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) maps was still with Treasury Board.
8.1 Previously circulated: the report was posted on ACMLA's internet site (see 5.1)
8.2 Committees reporting to 2nd VPPUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE - The Directory has been completed and Fire Insurance Plans is expected by Fall 2000.
BULLETIN EDITOR: Cathy Moulder is the new editor. The online index was published on paper, and updating continues. The Bulletin is almost back on publishing schedule. Members were encouraged to submit articles.
HISTORICAL MAPS COMMITTEE - The facsimile map program and bird's-eye views are doing well. Two more views will be published next year.
PUBLICATIONS OFFICER - Louis Cardinal, Publication Officer's report is in the Treasurer's report. Louis was praised for his work. T-shirts, mugs and publications including the Bird's-eye View of Ottawa are being sold at the ACMLA booth.
10.1 ICA request for support.
Alberta was nominated as one of nine candidates for the seven Vice Presidents' positions in the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and if elected, would represent Canada on ICA. She asked for travel support, from ACMLA, other associations, agencies and her library. ICA gives exposure to the mapping agencies and raises the level of awareness for ACMLA. Other agencies have offered support: NRCan, Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) and Canadian Institute of Geomatics, and, possibly, CCA and Memorial University Library. The Board endorsed Alberta's request.
It was moved that the Association accept the travel budget estimate as proposed in the document presented to the meeting, up to $1000 per year for 4 years, should Alberta be elected to ICA.
(Tom Nagy, Elizabeth Hamilton) CARRIED
[Postscript: Alberta was elected as Vice President at the ICA meeting.]
10.2 History of Cartography Project:
The History of Cartography Project is about to embark on a volume on 20th century North American cartography. Donations are usually matched by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities. This series has balanced worldwide coverage.
The Board moved further support of the project, up to $250.00.
(Alberta Auringer Wood, Frances Woodward) CARRIED
10.3 Nominations and Elections
Alberta introduced the incoming new Board members, who were acclaimed to office: Susan Jackson as First Vice-President and Marc Cockburn as Secretary.
9. Proposed Budget (Patrick McIntyre)
Additions and changes: Cost of Directory was increased to $2000. GIS in Libraries, an ongoing budget line, has never been used. Alberta's ICA travel, $1000, was added as a separate line item. This left a balance of $9,114.13.
It was moved that the proposed budget be approved.
(Patrick McIntyre/Velma Parker) CARRIED
Discussion: There will be no income or expense for this conference, and the booth was provided free to CAFICA members.
11. Any Other Business
David Jones attended the Commission on Map Use, now called web map use, and was on their e-mail list. Alberta said that if she should get elected to the ICA executive, she would indicate an interest on the Association's part in doing liaison with that commission.
James thanked everyone for their best wishes last year for his surgery, and the map.
Grace and Lori were thanked for their contributions to the Board, and presented with small gifts of appreciation.
12. Next Meeting
Saturday, June 3rd 2000 (to be confirmed) at the University of Alberta, Edmonton
The meeting was adjourned at 4:45 p.m.