Procedures and Guidelines

See below:

Annual Best Book Award Guidelines

Goal
The goal of the CALA Annual Best Book Award is to heighten awareness of the best books of Chinese topics or literature written by authors of Chinese descent. The Award is to honor English or Chinese language books originally published in the United States. Winners of the Award will be announced by CALA during the ALA annual conference.

Award
Each category of the Award consists of an award certificate and will be honored at the CALA Annual Award Banquet. A press release will be sent to various national publications. Honor books may be named in addition to the winning titles. If no books are found to meet the selection criteria, no awards will be given.

Eligible Works

Works eligible must have had premier publication during the previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31, and must have been published for general commercial release in the United States. Nominations may be accepted from the field and Committee up to April 18.
Works must be related to Chinese culture heritage and deal with Chinese subject matters, or written by authors of Chinese descent.
Works must have been published by a publishing house, trade or small press/publisher located in the North America or one of its territories. Self-published works and exclusive Internet publications are not eligible.
Anthologies or books containing the work of more than one author are not eligible.
Works must be in Chinese or English. This requirement does not limit the use of words or phrases in another language where appropriate in context. Translations of original works may be considered by the committee.
Works that have previously won other prizes or recognition are eligible.

Entry of Works
Entries may be submitted by an author, publisher, agent, publicist or individual. A self-addressed, stamped postcard should be submitted with each
entry. Upon receipt of entry, the Award Committee members will return the postcard to the sender for notification of receipt of entry. The Award Committee is not responsible for lost submissions. An author, publisher, publicist, agent or individual may submit more than one entry per author, but not more than one entry per work.

Submission of Entry
Nominations must be submitted the Best Book Award Nomination Form by April 18. Please label on the envelope "CALA Best Book Award" when mailing book(s).

Conference Travel Grant Guidelines

The CALA Conference Travel Grant is established to support CALA members in their efforts to play an active role at professional conferences for their professional or career development. The grant is issued annually and coincides with the fiscal period (from July to June each year) of CALA’s operation. For each funding period, up to four awards of equal amount of $500 will be given to qualified candidates to defray their expenses for traveling to conferences.

Applicant Eligibility:

The applicant must be a CALA member in good standing for three consecutive years, including the year of application.
The applicant must have an assigned duty at the conference to be attended, e.g., to present a paper, to chair a committee, or to serve as an officer to convene a meeting or a social function at the conference.
All grant activities must be within the funding period of the year.
The applicant must have not received the CALA travel grant in the past three years.

Supported Conferences:

All professional conferences associated with library and information science are supported by the CALA grant. However, priority will be given to those conferences which CALA sponsors or cosponsors or plays an active role of endorsing. Examples of the conference include, but are not limited to:

CALA sponsored/cosponsored international, national, or regional conferences, meetings, and forums.
ALA conferences and meetings (including all those of its divisions, roundtables, and standing committees)
IFLA conferences and meetings
Other conferences that advance and promote the profession of library and information science.

Application Requirement:

A completed CALA Conference Travel Grant Application Form
A one-page statement outlining the needs and benefits of the grant.
A one-page letter of support from the applicant’s peer reference or supervisor, outlining the specific contributions or benefits the applicant will have by attending the conference.
A copy of appointment letter if chairing a committee meeting or hosting a social event.
A copy of the abstract if presenting a paper or making a presentation.
A copy of current resume (no more than three pages).

Grant Criteria:

Applications will be reviewed and evaluated by the CALA Travel Grant Committee based on the following criteria:

Applicant’s professional experience and accomplishments
Applicant’s service and contribution to CALA, including the number of years being a CALA member
CALA’s organization priorities and project development
The association/relationship of the selected conference (or its sponsors) with CALA or the role of CALA in the conference
The benefits and/or impact of the conference to the applicant individually and to CALA as an organization
Other merits of consideration.

Application Deadline and Procedures:

A complete application, including the required documents, should be mailed to Mengxiong Liu, Chair, CALA Conference Travel Grant Committee at Mengxiong.liu@sjsu.edu.
All applications must be sent to the CALA Travel Grant Committee before or by the deadline of April 9th, 2010.
Grant recipients will be notified no later than April 30th and will receive a check of $500 in the mail following the announcement of the funding decision.
Each grant recipient must submit a one-page report of his/her experience to the CALA Travel Grant Committee, within the two months following the conference.
The submitted reports will be posted on the CALA website and published in the CALA Newsletter.
In case the grant recipient has cancelled his/her travel plan, the full amount of the fund ($500) must be returned to CALA with a written explanation within two months of the cancellation.

The CALA Executive Committee and the Conference Travel Grant Committee will reserve the right to withhold the award of the travel grant subject to the financial position of CALA, or if there is no qualified candidate in the pool during a given year.

Guidelines and Procedures for Financial Reporting

(approved January 15, 2000; revised July 8, 2000)

Scope

This document prescribes the procedure for financial reporting within CALA. In addition to general finance-related information, it includes specific procedures for 1) the Treasurer and Treasurer's quarterly reports, 2) Budget, 3) Bank account and check processing, 4) the request form for fund appropriation or reimbursement, 5) special funds, and 6) the Finance Committee and its reports.

Fiscal and tax year

CALA uses the calendar year (January 1 to December 31) as its fiscal year as well as its tax year for its accounting period. The Treasurer files the appropriate form stated below for its income tax return by May 15 of the year as needed.

Tax exempt status

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS; website: www.irs.gov) issued an advance ruling on September 19, 1997 to recognize the Association as a nonprofit organization described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The Association's Employer Identification Number (EIN) is 23-7417422. The ruling took effect retroactively on September 6, 1996, and will end on December 31, 2000. Within 90 days after December 31, 2000, the Treasurer shall submit, upon IRS request, a completed Form 8734 covering gross revenues statements from September 1996 to December 2000 in order to obtain the permanent status.

The Treasurer shall determine annually whether CALA is required to file Form 990 or Form 990-EZ, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax. Normally, when the gross receipts are not more than $25,000, an organization needs not to file a return with the IRS. In determining whether CALA shall file Form 990 (or 990-EZ), the Treasurer shall include into calculation gross revenues reported by all Chapters which use CALA EIN for their bank accounts.

1. The Treasurer and Treasurer's Quarterly Reports

The Treasurer is accountable to the Board regarding every aspect of the Association's finance. The Treasurer's quarterly reports shall consist of a) a financial transaction ledger, and b) a revenue and expense statement with items categorized in accordance with the categories used on the CALA Request Form for Fund Appropriation or Reimbursement. The Treasurer's annual report shall consist of the above two and c) a formal balance sheet.

Financial transaction ledger: It shows each and every transaction that occurs in an account. It lists in columns by date, check number, payee/payer, description, payment amount, clear, deposit amount, and balance. It is used to compare with the bank monthly statement to ensure that the two have exactly the same ending balance and to check off on the ledger all transactions that have been posted in the bank monthly statement.
An example of financial transaction ledger is included in Appendix A.
Revenue and expense statement: It gives income and expense amounts arranged in categories within a particular period of time. An example of a revenue and expense statement is included in Appendix B.
Balance sheet: It shows the Association's financial status (i.e., asset and liability). It is called a balance sheet because the net total of assets shall always be exactly the same as that of liabilities. A balance sheet shall be done at the end of the financial reporting year.
An example of a balance sheet is included in Appendix C.

The Treasurer shall submit treasurer's report on a quarterly basis (July/Aug./Sept., Oct./Nov./Dec., Jan./Feb./Mar., April/May/June) within 30 days after the quarter ends. Each quarterly report shall be submitted to the Finance Committee with copies to the Executive Committee.

Both the September and December quarterly reports shall be available for all Board members prior to the mid-winter meeting. December report (also called mid-winter report) shall cover all days in December to two weeks before the mid-winter meeting. Both the March and June reports shall be available for all Board members prior to the annual meeting. The June report (also called annual report) shall cover all days in June up to the two weeks before the annual meeting. The remaining days of June shall be covered in the following quarterly report. These reports are also to be used for IRS purposes.

2. Budget

CALA budget year is the same as financial report year that runs from July 1 to June 30. All requests for payment must be submitted by July 31 following the budget year.

The current Executive Committee shall prepare the annual budget in spring for the following activity year. Even though the current President, being the chair of the Executive Committee, initiates the process, the President-Elect plays the largest role in preparing this budget since the budget is for the year when the President-Elect will be the President. The Executive Committee then submits the draft to the current Board for input and discussion (but not voting) at the first Board meeting of the annual conference. The new Board at the second Board meeting of the annual conference then approves the revised budget.

The Treasurer is authorized to issue checks for expense items approved as part of the annual budget; examples of such expense items include:

Membership rebate
Newsletter and journal mailing
General postage

The Board shall approve any expenditure item not included in the budget before any payment is made.

Note: The journal editor's responsibility as stated in the Bylaws (Section 5) is not subject to these guidelines.

3. Bank account and check processing

When it is necessary to establish a bank account, the name of the bank account(s) shall be "Chinese American Librarians Association." All CALA checks shall be properly endorsed or legibly printed.

Request Form for Fund Appropriation or Reimbursement (FAR)

4. The Request Form for FAR is available on the CALA Web page: http://www.cala-web.org The form shall be completed with original receipt(s) or invoice(s) attached and sent to the Treasurer. Requests for reimbursement shall be submitted no later than 30 days after the end of the budget year. The Treasurer shall verify the claim with the appropriate approved documents, issue the check and send it to the requestor within two weeks of receiving the completed request form. “Void after 60 days” shall appear on all checks to remind the payee to cash the check in time. Accordingly, the requestor shall deposit the check within 60 days of the check.

5. Special Funds

The Sheila Lai Research Grant Endowment Fund was established with the initial amount of $10,000. Interest from the principle is available for awards. The award amount shall not be less than $500.00. The amount may be a combination of the fund interest and matching donation for the award. The interest shall roll into the principle, when an award is not given. The Finance Committee shall decide on issues related to this fund with consultation of Sheila Lai, the donor (telephone number: 916-363-5509; email address: sheilalai@csus.edu.

6. Finance Committee and its Reports

The Finance Committee shall submit to the Board two reports per year. The first report covers the Treasurer's September and December quarterly reports for the Board's review at the mid-winter meeting; the second report covers the Treasurer's March and June quarterly reports for the Board's review at the annual meeting. The report shall include review of the financial picture and make recommendations to the President and the Board to ensure the sound financial health of the Association. Accompanied with the report shall be an updated summary of the last three years' revenues and expenses. The Committee shall be certain that the Treasurer's reports are clear, readable, and ready for IRS review anytime. The Committee may suggest revisions of the financial review process for Board's approval.

Appendix A: Example of Financial Transaction Ledger

Date	Check #	Payee/Payer	Description	Payment amount	Clr	Deposit amount	Balance
7/15/99	2012	M. Li	Account transfer			$4540.57	$4540.57
8/5/99	124	State of	Incorp. Annual report filing	$35	X		$4505.57
8/16/99	506	NE Chapter	Membership			$300.00	$4805.57

Guidelines for Advertisements in CALA Publications

(December 10, 2002)

CALA has two main serial publications, CALA Newsletter and CALA Membership Directory. Advertisements to be included in these publications are handled according to the following guidelines.

Advertisements should be relevant to library, information science, and Chinese American cultures and education.
Advertisers must supply camera-ready copy for standard black and white advertisements.
Advertisements should be submitted to the editor of each of the publications.

CALA Newsletter

The newsletter is published twice times a year (Spring and Fall) in electronic format. It is circulated among CALA members for discussion and news of developments in the field.

Readership:	CALA members
Rate:	Black & white full page:	$400
	1/2 page:	$250
	1/4 page:	$150

CALA Membership Directory

This is published annually in print format and circulated only among CALA members.

Readership:	CALA members
Rate:	Black & white full page:	$400
	1/2 page:	$250
	1/4 page:	$150

Guidelines for Inviting Guests to the Annual Banquet

(Approved as revised by the Board, 6/25/1999)

CALA must limit the number of guests to be invited according to the program funding.

Guests at CALA's expense may include but are not limited to service award recipients, scholarship recipients, program speakers, ALA Office for Literacy & Outreach Services Director, ALA Diversity Officer, ALA Executive Director, ALA President and ALA President-elect, and presidents of the four minority caucuses, AILA, APALA, Black Caucus, and REFORMA.

The list of guests is to be approved by the CALA Executive Committee.

Banquet tickets may be purchased for other guests.

Sample of the letter of invitation for the 1998 banquet:

Dear

On behalf of the Chinese American Librarians Association, I would like to invite you as our honored guest for the 1998 CALA Distinguished Service Award Banquet on Saturday, June 27, 7:00 PM at the Golden Palace Restaurant in Washington D.C. The restaurant is located in the heart of Chinatown, only two blocks away from the D.C. Convention Center. The address is 720-724 7^th St., N.W. Washington, D.C.

Names of the 1998 CALA Distinguished Service Award recipients and the 1998 CALA Scholarship Winners will be announced at the banquet.

I look forward to seeing you at the banquet. Please let me know if you would be able to join us. Enclosed please find a banquet flyer with menu, and the entertainment listed

Sincerely yours,

CALA President

[name]

RSVP

[Mailing address]

Guidelines for President's Recognition Award

Launched in 1991, the nominee of the CALA President's Recognition Award is selected and nominated by the current CALA President. The current CALA President shall make his/her recommendation and will send a formal letter of nomination together with the nominee's biographical sketch to the CALA Awards Committee before March 31 each year.

The nomination package should include the following items:

formal nomination letter from the current CALA President;
nominee's vita or biographical sketch; and
other supporting documentation

The Committee will review and evaluate, based on the Criteria below, the nominee(s)' background, contributions and qualifications. If the nominee(s) meet(s) the Guidelines and criteria, the Committee will notify the president and will forward the recommendation to the CALA Executive Board for approval. After receiving approval by the Executive Board, the President will send the nomination to the CALA Board of Directors for approval. The CALA President will announce the successful recipient(s) of the CALA President's Recognition Award on the CALA list, the CALA Newsletter, and other appropriate professional publications.

The award consists of a citation and a plaque. The recipient(s) will be honored at the CALA Awards Banquet during the ALA Annual Conference.

No CALA President's Recognition Award shall be presented if there is no qualified candidate or if there is no nomination during the year.

Criteria of the CALA President's Recognition Award:

The CALA President's Recognition Award is intended to recognize and to honor an individual, group or organization who possesses a philosophy of dedication, quality of service, and professional integrity for his/her/their significant contributions to the library community that have shown leadership in one of the many areas of great importance to the mission and goals of CALA. Significant contributions and services to the advancement of Chinese-American librarianship shall receive special consideration from the Awards Committee.
There shall be no special consideration for or against a candidate's age, gender, nationality, or length of service to the profession. The recipients need not be a member of the Association.

The nomination package with attachments shall be sent to the CALA Awards Committee by CALA President via e-mail or by mail.

The deadline date of nomination is: March 31 of each year.

Procedures for Requesting an Item to Be Dealt with by the Board

Items that can be included on the agenda of a CALA Board meeting include: (a) reports on significant events or activities, (b) discussion items which may or may not result in offers of main motion, (c) formal main motions, and (d) resolutions.
Between the board meetings at CALA Mid-Winter and Annual conferences, the originator of the item may request it to be dealt with by the board via email.
Items to be included on the agenda of a board meeting or via email conduct must be submitted to the Executive Director, with copy to the President, at least two weeks before the board meeting at which the item is intended to be dealt with.
Requests for item inclusion to the board meeting agenda may come from any eligible member of the board, or a committee chair to whose committee the item is related.

The Process of Dealing with an Item by the Board

The Secretary of the Board is responsible to (a) ensure that complete information is received, (b) submit the request to the Chair of the Board (the President), (c) record the proceeding of the business, (d) tally votes.
The Chair of the Board is the only person who has the authority to initiate the process of dealing with the item. The Chair is responsible to (a) inform the Board a pending item to be dealt with, (b) keep proper business conducts during the process, and (c) declare the final decision on the pending item at closure.

When Conducting Business via Email, Board Members Must:

Wait for the Chair to initiate the process of dealing with a pending item.
Participate in discussion by checking emails at least every other day, and responding to emails within 72 hours unless the member notifies the secretary in advance of alternative methods of keeping informed.
Vote only upon the Chair's call to the question.
Vote by forwarding the voting message to the Secretary's personal email, not to the CALABOARD discussion list.