We eschew meetings in the first weeks of fall semester, I think. I'm not sure what you mean about "compensate." though. Like, communicate in the absence of a face-to-face meeting? - Steele Lawman

I guess the communications aspect is mainly the thing (our director doesn't want to talk about coll. dev. stuff outside of meetings. and she refuses to let me email meeting notes or anything containing numbers to our group. She also doesn't read her mail, so items in the mailbox is out). So I'm stumped as how to keep communication going during what will essentially be a blackout for 4 months. - MontglaneChess

So y'all make all collection development decisions as a group? That'd be tough. Our coll. dev. committee only meets quarterly, but each of us can turn over orders to acquisitions for books, videos, etc. at any time--and our liaison faculty are encouraged to give us orders whenever they think of it. Our acquisitions folks are definitely less busy in the fall than they are in the spring though, even with that. - Kirsten

Our setup is much like Kirsten's -- we have autonomy for "regular" purchases like books, videos, etc. "Large" requests for new databases can go through a few committees and those purchases would have to be agreed upon, I think. We're trying to develop some shared online lists, but it takes work to keep those up so I'm not sure how useful they are. But it might provide a non-email way to at least say "I want this stuff, please". - Amandadon't

From the way you describe the director, the lack of meetings may not be your most pressing problem. Condolences. - Steele Lawman

I can't remember the last time we had a collection development meeting. - kaijsa

I have plenty of autonomy on general purchase orders, etc, it's the bigger ticket annual renewals and general updates I'm trying to figure out how to approach. Of course, it could be that my fall might be the most boring thing ever with little to do....so maybe I'll just work information in whenever I run into people. I suppose I can give her updates formatted like meeting notes...she'll probably glance at them 5 minutes before our first Spring meeting, but it's better than nothing I guess. - MontglaneChess