University Libraries Section (ULS): About Our Committees

The Communications Committee's charge is to facilitate awareness of ULS and its professional development activities and programs through a variety of means, including the ULS website and e-mail distribution list and other channels such as social media and print materials, and to facilitate communication between ULS and its members, among the ULS committees, and with ACRL, ALA, and other organizations.

The Communications Committee usually has eight to ten members. See current committee roster.

The Communications Committee on ALA Connect: Post and find agendas, minutes, and committee happenings.

Please note that you will need to sign in to ALA Connect using your regular ALA web site username and password to access ACRL ULS committee content.

This committee uses several digital communication portals (including social media) to accomplish its mission:

• ULS Website
• ULS Twitter feed
• ULS Facebook page
• ULS YouTube Channel
• ULS-L e-mail distribution list
  • ACRL has documentation around e-mail lists. See ACRL E-Mail Updates and Discussion Lists and Section Discussion Lists.
• ULS e-newsletter
• ULS site on ALA Connect
• ULS LibGuides 
  • To update content on your committee's LibGuide, email the current ULS Procedures Committee chair with your email address, the page name and website address, and the desired changes, and those changes will be made for you.

The committee chair should divide members into subgroups or teams of individuals who wish to work on a specific portal, with one person designated as lead for each. Ideally, most portals should have at least two people working on them so that no one is burdened with the sole responsibility of administering, posting to, and monitoring a portal 100% of the time (exceptions: ULS ALA Connect site does not need an admin, and ULS-L needs only one admin). Team members can decide among themselves how they wish to divide responsibilities for administering, posting to, and monitoring a portal (e.g., the Facebook team may have three members and responsibility for the site rotates weekly among them). Optional: teams or individuals can rotate among portals every six months or annually if they wish to have more variety or experience in administering different types of media.

The committee chair should maintain a document online (e.g., on ALA Connect or Google Drive) where all committee members have access that outlines, at a minimum, the following information for each communication portal:

• Name of portal
• Frequency of updates for the portal
• The intended audience for the portal
• Privacy, copyright, or disclaimer notices as well as info about who can post or publish on the portal
• Admins for the portal (both the lead and the rest of the team) and their e-mail addresses
• The purpose of the portal (e.g., what kind of content is posted or published)

This document should also contain marketing and promotion guidelines and tips as well as account usernames and passwords, and the committee chair should update it as needed.

The committees use this online form to gather requests for promotion of committee and discussion group activities. 

The Communications Committee has a shared Google Drive. Contact the current Co-Chairs for access. See current committee roster.