Title: Update on the MCN SIGs
hello MCN community,

In my role as MCN Board SIG Liaison, I'm writing to the membership with an update on the status and recent changes to the MCN SIGs. To summarize, the MCN Board of Directors recently voted in favor of the following actions:

1. Dissolve some SIGs. After much discussion on the Board, among SIG Chairs, SIG members, and this general membership, the Board agreed that it would be best to retire certain SIGs which have retiring chairs, no new chairs, long-term low activity, outdated, etc., and concentrate on existing and new ones. Those dissolved SIGs are:

Archaeology and Anthropology
Libraries and Resource Centers
Small Museums
The Internet
Education
South/Central America
Scandinavia
Italy

This means that our remaining SIGs are as follows (with SIG Chair emails):

Intellectual Property  - Diane M. Zorich, [email protected]
Controlled Vocabulary - Layna White , [email protected]
Digital Imaging - Guenter Waibel, [email protected]
IT SIG - Christine Bostick , [email protected]
Standards - Rob Lancefield, [email protected]
California - Marla Misunas, [email protected]
Japan - Mitsuhiro Takemura
UK-Ireland - Jim Devine, [email protected]
2. Dissolve individual SIG email lists and have them all use MCN-L. People posting SIG-specific messages are asked to observe the etiquette of including a reference in the Subject line; for instance: 'Subject: Digital Imaging SIG - dpi'. Everyone felt that this would encourage broader exposure and cross-pollination among SIG and general members. MCN management has not yet completed moving all the SIG email list addresses to MCN-L, but hopes to have that done by the MCN conference.

3. Allow MCN Chairs direct FTP access to change/update their SIG webpage on the MCN website. This should help to make SIG webpages more dynamic community resources and a tool for SIG Chairs. MCN management has not set up the FTP accounts, but again, hopes to by the conference.

4. Combine 'international chapter SIGs' with regular SIGs so we have just one category; at least for now.

The MCN Board has recently been discussion, but has yet taken no action on the following additional action items related to SIGs. Anyone within the sound of my voice who has any ideas or comments, please post them!

a. I know that some SIGs, of their own initiative, working along with Leslie, have begun sending semi-regular reports on SIG topics to eSpectra. We should formalize this and have a regular "column" in eSpectra devoted to news from SIG areas.

b. We thought that perhaps there should be a regular space carved out of every conference for SIG-sponsored and focussed sessions. This could take the form of a time-block, a conference thread, or some other form. This would however avoid the problem of SIG chairs coming up with sessions which do not meet the current theme, and might motivate SIG chairs to fill an empty slot.

c. We thought it would be a grand idea for MCN to have a booth in the exhibit hall (do we already)? The specific feature we would add is that SIG materials would be available, and SIG chairs and members would be scheduled to staff the booth ("meet the SIGs") to promote their SIGs.

d. Create a board position of: SIG Liaison. We felt we needed to discuss a new board position at our actual Board meeting.

Thanks!
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Richard Rinehart
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Digital Media Director, Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive
www.bampfa.berkeley.edu
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Instructor, Department of Art Practice
art.berkeley.edu
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University of California, Berkeley
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