CARLI User Group Committee
Report to the CARLI Board of Directors
September 8, 2005
Submitted by Belinda Cheek
The User Group Committee had its first meeting via conference call on August 26, 2005. The main focus of this organizational meeting was to review the task before us and to have a beginning discussion of groups of staff or functional areas within CARLI that might need user group support.
There was also discussion of the need for a common definition for the term “user group” as well as a number of other terms. Some felt that “Special Interest Group (SIG)” might better describe the need of some staff and/or functions. As discussion progressed, the group also described a number of roles or functions that they would expect the committee charged with planning for the user group to fulfill.
The committee will have an in-person meeting on Friday, September 30th at the CARLI Office. At that time we will continue these discussions. Tom Dorst and Elizabeth Clarage have been invited to attend this meeting to share their perspectives on user group needs, particularly in the areas of electronic resources and collection management. At that meeting each member will share a possible organizational structure for CARLI User Groups in order to facilitate our beginning discussion of an organizational plan for user groups. In addition the committee will plan for our portion of the agenda for the October 28th CARLI membership meeting.
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