Members present:

• Richard Romeo, Atlantic Philanthropic Service Co.
• Chris Richardson, Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Ron Sexton, Carnegie Corporation
• Jennifer Little, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Kathleen Blair, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
• Jamie Coniglio, Council on Foundations
• Janet Camarena, Foundation Center
• Hinda Greenberg, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• Barbara Kowalski, Kauffman Foundation
• Monice Kaczorowski, MacArthur Foundation
• Richard Kaplan, MacArthur Foundation
• Suzanne Cole, The Pew Charitable Trusts
• Chris Bailey, Rockefeller Foundation
• Jennifer Johnson, Soros Foundation

• Josephine Chee, California Endowment
• Rachel Ingrum, Gates Foundation
• Fran Huehls, Philanthropic Collections, IUPUI University Library
• Sydney Sidwell, Joyce Foundation
• Jane Levy, Marin Community Foundation
• Michele Butler, Packard Foundation
• Elisabeth Green, Packard Foundation
• Sarah Keehan, Packard Foundation

We had the pleasure of voting in six new members (see list above).

Suzanne opened the discussion of our Affinity Group status with the Council on Foundations by listing the strengths of the Consortium/COF cooperation. The application to become an Affinity Group with the Council on Foundations is in progress at this time. Affiliation as an Affinity Group would:

• Raise the profile of the Consortium
• Help CFL gain new members
• Allow CFL to become a resource for foundations without libraries or who need help in establishing libraries

We brainstormed and others added their own thoughts to the role the Consortium can play:

• Provide an advocacy role in generating information products through increased work the COF, Foundation Center and Independent Sector
• Help track philanthropic trends
• Provide knowledge management for the resources we are developing
• Pool resources to tackle common problems
• Increase our value to our own foundations by sharing information between foundations and thus increase our status by knowing who else is working on similar issues
• Create an annotated webliography of members
• Have more influence on the codes that the Foundation Center uses for coding grants.
• Develop a standard short & long format for responding to forms used by publishers for books about foundations, so that multiple forms would not have to be filled out
• Develop consortium pricing for databases and services
• Advocate better knowledge management at the new foundations
• Have philanthropic workshops for young philanthropies
• Provide information on how to start a library to the new types of foundations and giving organizations
• Create a core collection for philanthropy
• Have a detailed description of everyone's libraries for cross-organizational comparisons

Discussion of the initial CFL web site and listserv ensued.

We then started to go around the room to discuss what's new at our libraries/organizations. We didn't have time to reach everyone. Here are some highlights:

• Ron Sexton, Carnegie Corporation, announced a new extranet developed to create a better online presence for grantees. Check it out at http://extra.carnegie.org. Use guest to login and carnegie for the password. (Just for CFL librarians to look at for the time being.)
• Hinda Greenberg, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will be moving to a new building soon. The library will be located in the atrium, and will get much more traffic. They will have a cappuccino bar!
• Fran Huehls, Philanthropic Collections, IUPUI University Library, said they were developing a workshop for foundation on record keeping.
• Monice Kaczorowski, MacArthur Foundation, is evaluating usage patterns for information products in the library. She will do a survey of custom contracts.
• Chris Richardson, Annie E. Casey Foundation, now has a second person working in the library. He is creating dynamic documents for staff interested in certain topics. He mentioned a statistics site created in frames (send us the URL Chris!)
• Jamie Coniglio, Council on Foundations, has organized the COF library. The COF web site receives over 5 million hits per quarter. She helped put the family advisory series on the web.
• Ron Kaplan, MacArthur Foundation, announced that Monice Kaczorowski replaced Sydney Sidwell as the Foundation's librarian. He also announced that he is expecting a new member to his family. Send him any e-help you can!
• Janet Camarena, Foundation Center, San Francisco, announced two job openings in her office. There are now statistical trends in giving on the Foundation Center web page showing the top grantmakers and grants. They are investigating real time, electronic reference service and would like to be able to push sites to patrons.
• Richard Romeo, Atlantic Philanthropic Service Co., is a solo librarian and discussed the broad clientele of his library.

The hour was late and the Secretary was still on East Coast time, so if I left out anything the least bit important, please let me know.