Media Professional Meeting 1/8/04

S. Greene Spring 2004

On Thursday, January 8, 2004, I attended a professional meeting. This meeting was a monthly meeting for the Middle School Media Specialists in Howard County. The meeting is held at rotating Media Centers so that each Specialist has the opportunity to host the meeting. This is beneficial because all of the Media Specialists have a chance to see what the others are doing and get ideas.

The specific purpose for this particular meeting was to discuss the Summer Reading List that is created in conjunction with the Public Library Teen Specialists and is then circulated to the students at the end of the year. This is a collaboration between the Public Library and the Schools to promote reading,. The collaboration program is called A+ Partnership. The goal of this partnership is too connect more students to reading as well as promote the Public Library resources.

The meeting was supposed to begin at 1:30 at Glenwood Middle School. By 1:30, two additional media specialist had arrived and the two Teen specialists from the public library as well. The rest of the group wandered in by 1:45. There were refreshments set out, so that bit of socializing delayed the actual discussion from beginning.

By 2:00, the meeting had begun. There was not a physical agenda. The goal of this meeting was to discuss what to add to the list so that Courtnay could put together the tentative pamphlet and submit it to Carol Fritts, the Media Coordinator for Howard County. Courtnay had attached her computer to the data projector to display the database that she had compiled. The list was compiled from her request of the other specialists to send her recommendations. (By the night before, she had only received 3 or 4 submissions out of roughly 16.)

The first item that was tackled was taking off items that had been on recent lists. The last two lists were available to peruse. Courtnay was able to remove specific items while the meeting was in progress. There were many little side conversation during this time. Also, off topic questions came up as well. There really was not a set agenda for this discussion, so it wandered into the next topic of what else should we add. Very few people actually added to this discussion making me think that some media specialists do not make the time to read more books. This is necessary if we want to sell these books to the kids as they come into the media center. We must stay up on new books as much as possible. The Teen Specialists and a couple of the Media Specialists did add quite a few to the list during this discussion.

A point was brought up that there was not any established guidelines for making recommendations to this list. This list has been created for several years now, and yet everyone still seems to be a little unsure of whether they should make recommendations on what they have read, what looks good, have an important message, just for fun, etc. It seems to me that this should be decided before the next meeting next year. It seemed way to “democratic”.

Nothing felt resolved at the end of the meeting. Categories were not decided upon. Although suggestions were given.

I asked Courtnay how she felt about the meeting. I asked her if this was always how the meetings went. Open ended and unresolved. She said that there is a specific agenda required by Carol (who attends for a short period of time.) I asked her if she had a specific agenda for this meeting (because she was the one hosting it.) Only to discuss the Summer Reading List. I personally think she should have set out a specific agenda and maintained a time element for each section so that it would be more productive. I did not suggest this per se. She did mention that she is one of the newest media specialists in the group and that she did not want to assert herself too much during a media meeting. It seems to me, though, that that is what is needed in order to have an effective meeting, no matter how veteran the other attendees are. It is still necessary. I guess overcoming that feeling that you are not as experienced as they are so how do they feel having a more inexperienced person run the meeting. They are all professionals, younger or older, and they should respond as such. The meeting still needs to have a strong leader otherwise it is a waste of everyone’s time.

My final impression of the meeting was not positive. This makes me nervous. Am I expecting too much? I have worked in other professional industries and I know the value of a productive meeting. I am worried about the county meetings that I will attend as a Media Specialist. Is this what I should expect?