Humanities Hub Minutes November 28, 2012

MAIN LIBRARY HUMANITIES HUB TEAM

Minutes

NOVEMBER 28, 2012

Present: Paula Carns, Robert Cagle, Marek Sroka, Dianne Harris, J-P Mathy, Sue Searing, Kirk Sanders, Sarah Shreeves, Mark Wardecker, Harriett Green, JoAnn Jacoby, Charlie Wright,  John Wagstaff

John began by apologizing that there was currently no draft report for the Team’s attention – he had hoped to write the draft over Thanksgiving break, but unfortunately this hadn’t happened. He therefore suggested that the Team discuss items carried over from previous meetings, including comments and suggestions sent by Charlie around the time of the Team’s previous meeting on November 14.

The Team began with a discussion of whether the libraries in the “Humanities Hub” should be formally referred to as the “Humanities Library”, or as the “Humanities Libraries”. After discussion it was decided to reverse the Team’s earlier decision to use “Humanities Library”, and for now to retain the current names of Classics Library, Literatures and Languages Library, and Reference Room. Dianne stressed that a true “Humanities Library” would be much more than we are currently proposing. Clearly the units on 2nd floor, with the exception of Government Documents material and arguably some of the material in the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library, are humanities-based; but we are creating a sort of humanities “neighborhood” rather than a full “Humanities Library”. This comment gained general approval.

The Team then discussed the idea of proposing a single unit head for the new hub. There was not general support for this, with comments ranging from “is there anything broken in the current structure that would be fixed by having a single head?” to Sue’s comment that it would be unlikely that the library would have funds to pay for such a position in any case.

Other points:

  1. John reported that Jeff Schrader had queried the Team’s idea of using the current office space between room 220 and HPNL as “multi-use” space for humanities. However, the Team continues to see good sense in this idea, not least because having a physical presence so close to HPNL would likely result in good working relationships between HPNL and the humanities libraries. We will include a recommendation about these office spaces in our Team report.
  2. The nuances of our final report are important, and we need to find a balance between “vision” and pragmatism so that the report has a chance of being implemented.
  3. It was suggested – and the Team seemed happy with this – that if we are not, in effect, creating a full “Humanities Library” we don’t need to insist on the removal of Government Documents from room 200, which would in any case have been a very difficult conversation.

John will draft a report by the end of the week, and circulate it for comments. That means the Team can fully discuss it at its meeting on December 5.

John Wagstaff

December 3, 2012