Library Office Notes

University of Illinois Library
at Urbana-Champaign

No. 8, February 25, 2000
Edited by: Dixie L. Trinkle

The deadline for submitting items for publication is
Wednesday at 5:00 p.m.
Send items to L.O.N., 230 Library, MC-522
E-mail: trinkle@uiuc.edu
FAX: 217-244-4358

Access to Grainger

Because of the chiller that is being installed throughout campus, the only way to get to Grainger is by using King's Highway (also known as the fire lane). Mathews is totally closed between Springfield and Green Streets. There is no access from the B1 parking lot to Grainger.

(Sharon Hershbarger)

Look How Far We've Come: 200 Years of Census Data
Government Documents Library, Main Corridor, South End, Wall Display

Detecting European Style ... Mystery Fiction from the Continent
Modern Languages and Linguistics Library

The Young and the Restless: Scripts in the
Rare Book and Special Collections
Rare Book Room

The Advertising Council: Six Decades of Public Service Accounting
University Archives, Outside Room 19

There were no official announcements. However, Paula Kaufman spoke briefly about our accomplishments over the past semester. These accomplishments lie in several general areas. First: An increased focus on services, demonstrated by our creation of a Director of User Services; Bob Burger’s position as administrative assistant; the planned hiring of catalogers; the commitment to fill vacant positions as soon as possible; innovative efforts such as the new News Lounge in the Communications Library; the establishment of a Student Advisory Board; and the performance of last spring’s User Survey.

Next, we have shown a renewed commitment to preservation, as demonstrated by the search for a Preservation Librarian, who will have a grant from the Mellon Foundation to work with. Other accomplishments include Paula’s increased contacts with campus administrators, renewed attention to our administrative and support structure, increased support for junior faculty, reconsideration of our space needs, increased activity by the Development Office, and new allocation formulas from the CLPC. All this, plus we changed the location of the faculty meetings (for the better). Faculty and staff are asked to send Paula other accomplishments. The full list of accomplishments will be posted on LIBNEWS soon.

The minutes of the December 17, 1999 were approved, with minor revisions to remove typographic errors.

Executive Committee: Tina Chrzastowski presented the EC report. They met twice since the December faculty meeting, a regular meeting January 10 and a special budget meeting January 21. During the regular meeting, several items were discussed, including the budget, replacement committee assignments, and announcements for two Acting positions (Math and Geology). They also approved filling the Japanese Librarian position on a permanent basis and forwarded recommendations for Emeritus status for retiring librarians. Sara Randall spoke to the EC about cleaning up library websites. Minutes of the EC meeting will appear in LON.

Faculty Review Committee: Beth Sandore spoke briefly about the work of the FRC. The FRC and P&T committees will hold a general meeting for untenured faculty February 1 at 2:00-3:30 in Grainger Commons. Annual report and Visiting Committee dossier guidelines will be discussed. All untenured faculty are urged to attend. A second meeting will be held in early April for Visiting Committee members. New Visiting Committee guidelines will be discussed at the February faculty meeting. Finally, Frances Jacobson, Paula Kaufman, and members of the FRC have been discussing evaluation guidelines with Associate Provost Tina Gunsalus.

Discussion of draft Promotion and Tenure Guidelines: Frances Jacobson opened discussion of the draft guidelines by providing background on the document. The committee’s assumptions were that they did not want to include a lot of detail in the document. The document should express our confidence in our guidelines, but that they should be guidelines, not precise procedures. She also pointed out that the guidelines were presented for discussion, not voting, as the vote would be held by mail ballot.

Betsy Kruger then spoke about her resolution, which was posted to LIBFAC-L January 18. She pointed out that a couple of years ago, over 50% of the untenured faculty were described by the FRC as being in some kind of trouble with their tenurability and that the perception of a heavy emphasis on publication in our tenure process may be hurting us in our ability to recruit and retain good librarians. She then read her resolution, as follows:

Discussion then ensued. There were several common threads throughout the discussion. Several members remarked on the lack of infrastructure for supporting research, especially among the untenured librarians. The heavy burden of committee work was also brought up, and the fact that library schools often don’t prepare academic librarians for research. Several members suggested including non-traditional publication types such as electronic publications and more closely examining the quality of publications that are counted for tenure purposes. P&T is looking into this issue already. Another issue which merited discussion was the question of evaluation, since our evaluation methods are not well-established for librarianship and service. The history of faculty status for librarians at UIUC was also mentioned. Concern was raised that the P&T document under discussion did not include guidelines as to what constituted a tenurable librarian, and it was pointed out that the guideline document did not specify our current weighting scheme of 5/3/2. It was also suggested that we need to recognize our status as non-traditional (i.e., non-teaching) faculty and to incorporate this awareness into the draft document.

Discussion of the document was closed at 4:45, and attendees then discussed the next steps. The document was presented at this faculty meeting for discussion, not voting, but the faculty needed to decide how to proceed with voting on the draft document and the resolution. In the end, Lisa German moved to have a mail vote on the draft proposal as presented by the Promotion and Tenure Committee, with the proviso that if the vote was to reject the proposal, the P&T committee was directed to re-write the guidelines as proposed in the resolution introduced by Betsy Kruger. The motion was seconded by Barb Henigman. There were 27 ayes, 10 nays, and 2 abstentions.

Other Business: The budget document will be sent to campus Tuesday, January 25, and all faculty and staff are encouraged to look at the drafts available on t

Present: Paula Kaufman, Chair; Bill Brockman, Bob Burger, Margaret Chaplan,
Marianna Choldin, Tina Chrzastowski, Bart Clark, Alan Conrad, Deloris Holiman,
Janis Johnston, Lyn Jones, Jo Kibbee, Sara Randall, Diane Schmidt, Karen Schmidt, Paula Watson, Karen Wei, Joyce Wright

Beth Sandore--Update and Discussion of the Digital Imaging and Media Technology Initiative:

Beth Sandore was present for an informational discussion of the Digital Imaging and Media Technology Initiative. She began working on the Digital Imaging Initiative in 1994 at 20% time. Since then, they’ve grown by leaps and bounds in learning about imaging and it’s impact on collections. They have worked on a cross section of materials, always asking what will take us into the next ten years and beyond.

Over the past 18 months, two things happened to validate their efforts and show what they might be capable of: (1) a grant from the Institute of Museum of Library Services to support a collaborative outreach program among museums and libraries to create a framework for an on-line digital system where institutions could deposit digital images with indexing and editing , and where K-12 teachers could use them in the classroom, and (2) an equipment grant from the Intel Corporation that put them in a position to provide workstations for people to use and become familiar with the process. Beth handed out a brochure describing the temporary facility set up in Grainger and some of the services offered there. They are willing to help people test what they would like to do to see what’s involved and how much it would cost.

Beth proposed to AC that the imaging initiative provide some in-house training in the Spring for Library Faculty and Staff. There would be two identical sessions on the fundamentals of scanning, probably two hours long, for 20-25 people (each session) at Grainger.

Paula Kaufman mentioned two opportunities in the area of digital imaging: (1) a contact from Octavo.com who wants to partner with libraries like ours, and (2) Will Regier from University Press who may want to come and talk with AC and library departments about opportunities for joint undertakings. She also mentioned the potential for sound and video capability; Campus will have a new CIO, and she will be pushing for a working campus network to get ready for near-future demands on libraries. The importance of the Digital Library Federation was also discussed.

Bob Burger, Diane Schmidt, and Paula Watson met to consider reducing the number and/or size of Library operating committees. The Task Force on Committees began with a goal of no more than three people on a committee or task force. The task force generated a spread sheet with a summary of its recommendations. They concluded that the committees we have are necessary with the possible exception of two, and that some committees could be downsized to three members. AC asked for a revised spread sheet with more information about the criteria for membership and a table for comparison between current membership and proposed membership, recommendations of what should be in an annual report and when it’s due and to whom, and mechanisms for communication of activity. The Task Force will bring the revisions back to AC for further discussion.

AC will implement the committee revisions in August 2000, and will review committees annually thereafter.

GSLIS offers a reduced rate of $165 for UIUC librarians to attend the electronic commerce and industries conference they sponsor. Traditionally, the Library has paid for 10 or 11 people to participate. Paula and Bart will discuss procedures to use in determining who will attend.

Campus is asking for more streamlined reporting on vacation and sick leave for faculty, academic professionals, and GAs. The present practice of reporting once a year becomes cumbersome; people can’t remember if/when they’ve taken vacation and sick leave. General consensus supported a monthly report using a simple form. Bart asked AC to take this matter back to the divisions and talk about possible solutions. This will be on the next AC agenda.

Barbara Henigman could not be present; the Error Report Survey was not discussed.

Bob Burger will get a note into LON with the charge and membership of the task force on the cataloging process.

LON came under discussion. AC agreed that communication is very important and that a good vehicle for Library communication is needed. LON has become mainly a vehicle for reporting minutes and Library exhibits. LIB News and Faculty News work well, but they aren’t archived. Information such as presentations, new publications, interesting things people have done, deadlines, updates, and notable gifts should go into LON. The University Librarian’s Office could send out a monthly message to LIB News reminding people to send in their news so it can be communicated to everyone via LON. LON could also be the official repository of policies. It is important to have centralized access to Policies and Procedures. Collecting policies for a year, posting them to the web, and creating processes to keep them updated would be a good project for a GA. AC agreed that it is important to resolve these issues.

Bart and Paula shared information about securing space for book storage. Another stack addition has been requested for several years. Every year, it is high on the Campus list of projects to complete, but never at the top with estimated costs going from $11 million in 1984 to $26 million currently. Alternative methods and high density storage on or near campus are now being studied as possible alternative options. The cost would be much less and space would be available in the foreseeable future. The vision is to provide services at an easily accessible pleasant area on the edge of campus where users could go, but not browse; books would normally be delivered to users. Bart and Paula will keep AC posted on developments in this area.

Present: A. Conrad, J. Gammon, H. J. Kim, P. Lindell, L. Roberts,
B. Trumpinski-Roberts, A. Schoenberg, E. Schroeder, D. Walter, G. Witte

Admin. Council: Bob Burger reported on the Task Force on Committees. They are investigating the number and size of committees--early thoughts are: Only three people on a committee, instead of divisional reps.

Bart Clark presented the issue of remote storage--potentially half of a building will be available, said building to be built on current ag lands south of St. Mary's Road. Another possible site is on land that is owned by the University of Illinois Foundation. A 7th Stack addition is not likely in the foreseeable future.

ALA Staff Scholarship Award – it’s time to begin preparing for the 2000 ALA Scholarship Award. ALA will be in Chicago this year.

Officer elections--election of officers occurs annually at the first February meeting. All officers were elected to continue in their current posts:

Chair - Gil Witte
Vice-Chair - Barb Trumpinski-Roberts
Transcriber - Jane Gammon
Admin Council - Alan Conrad
Faculty Meeting - Pam Lindell
Strategic Planning - Gil Witte
Library Reconfig. - Alan Conrad

Briefly examined LSSC Bylaws regarding representatives and divisions. Further discussion to occur at the next meeting.

Administration has asked LSSC to look into available training opportunities and make a report to help new Library training initiatives. LSSC has been given some funds to do the job.

G. Witte inquired about acquiring a central storage facility for LSSC files to replace the current system of passing materials from person to person.