The following people attended the meeting at FLA: Geraldine Collins, UNF; Jeannette Cox, FSU; Lisa Tatum, FCLA; Sheila Evans, CFCC; Ann Armbrister, CCLA; Pat Profeta, IRCC; Jennifer Mitchell, FKCC; Suzanne Lynch, Miami-Dade CC; Susan Campbell, State Library, Nancy Wynen, FAU; Susan Anderson, SPJC; Carol Turner, UF, and Richard Madaus, CCLA.
There was strong interest in pursuing planning meetings for more formally and cooperatively addressing the growing distance education issues. It was clear that there needs to be planning done whether the FDLN/Institute OCLC FirstSearch money is released this year or not. There was excellent discussion about how to do this. One recurring area in the discussion was that a number of existing committees in the SUS and CC arena are all affected by Distance Learning activity, not to mention the desirability of a role for the Florida Library Network Council.
After about 3 hours of discussion (well past the dinner hour!!) consensus was reached that rather than just get together the CCLA/RCSC and SUS/DL committees that it would be better to have a representative working group of twenty-five to thirty folks to take some time to really discuss the whole distance learning suite of issues as presented in the Institute Library Sub-Committee Report. Richard Madaus voluteered to coordinate such an effort and would work with Jim Corey/FCLA, Carol Turner UF, and representatives of the State Library to both select the group to meet and work with the program planning.
Richard has met with Barratt Wilkins and talked briefly with Jim and Carol. A conference call is being set up to try to pull all of this together amongst that group in the next several weeks. The idea would be that there would be a meeting in late June or July (more realistically now late July) that would be a "noon to noon" event across a two day period. A selected group (25-30) which would represent the various SUS, CC, and State Library committees (drawn from those existing committee structures) and consituencies would be the participants for this meeting. Using the seven issue areas in the Institute Library Subcommittee Report, the group could work with each area through discussion and interaction.
A group product is envisioned that would present recommendations as how we all might cooperate to better serve the distance education students. This "report" would include information as to who needs to be doing what, what authority is required and how fast it might happen. If consensus and a "plan" could result, this plan could then be carried back to the various SUS, CC, and State Library committees and constituencies for information, review, comment, and action. This "report" would then move forward "officially" to the Library Subcommittee of the Florida Institute for Public Postsecondary Distance Learning and to other appropriate entities as identified for action.