Library Office Notes

Present:  Paula Kaufman, Margaret Chaplan, Tina Chrzastowski, Tim Cole, Marty Friedman, Mary Stuart, Leslie Troutman, and Mitzi Williams

Absent:  Bill Maher

I.  Approval of the Past Meeting Minutes

The minutes of the February 14, 2000, meeting were approved as corrected.

II.  New Business

A.  A confidential personnel issue was discussed.

B.  Bob Burger on the Strategic Planning Annual Workplan

At Tim Cole’s suggestion, Bob Burger was present to gather feedback about the Strategic Planning Annual Workplan.  The committee is recommending that new appointments to the committee be made in January in order to provide a smooth transition.   The new committee could then review the strategic plan at mid year and report on current plans going into the new budget year.  The current committee is developing an internal plan and will then create a data base for each task with someone to track each task.

The plan calls for an annual Faculty retreat sometime between the end of Spring Semester and before Thanksgiving.  A Faculty retreat in May was approved at the last meeting, and a committee is working on that event.

The plan will provide for a new committee that will consist of elected division representatives.  Members will have staggered three-year appointments, and the new chair will have been on the committee at least one year.  The committee will report to the Faculty by October with a draft plan for the next year.  This report could be given at the Faculty retreat.

A suggestion was made to include in the plan a periodical update for EC, ideally twice a year.  The plan builds up to a budget proposal with feedback from campus and resulting adjustments.  When the new budget proposals go forward, EC needs to review the priorities beforehand and take a lead in setting them.  Priorities should have dates, tasks, and time lines.  The data base of tasks will help EC review the plan.

EC approved the work that the committee is doing on the Strategic Planning Annual Workplan.

C.  Structure Discussion

AC discussed the Structure Report this morning.  Paula reported that there was strong support for management training, support for an evaluation of librarianship performance, and some support for goal setting; but there was no clear cut opinion on strengthening the Division Coordinators nor on changing the role of the Coordinators.   The major concern of EC was process.

AC’s involvement in the restructure and redesign of the Library and Library committees was discussed.  EC sees their role as the primary advisory group to the University Librarian for faculty issues.  A discussion and redefining of the roles of AC and EC would help clarify the roles of the two groups.

It was recommended that the Structure Committee go back and rethink the Library structures, being careful to consider the By-laws.  The By-laws Committee should be consulted on matters under By-laws jurisdiction.  It takes a Faculty vote to make changes in the By-laws.

Since major changes are being considered, the structure considerations should be discussed with the Faculty before more work is done on the report.  The Committee needs to draft an organizational statement for the Faculty discussion, and an appropriate process for the discussion needs to be formulated.  Since how the Library Faculty organizes itself is a fundamental Faculty issue, EC should be involved at the early stages of any process designed to review or revise Library organization.

D.  Travel Funding

EC was very enthusiastic about the new travel fund information.  The form will be amended to include a question about other sources of support.

E.  Search Committee Instructional Documentation

Two out-of-date documents on search committee instructions were given to EC to study.   EC will discuss updating the documents at the next meeting.

F.  Full-time Cataloger

A proposal to change a UIUC Library part-time cataloger position to a full-time cataloger on the tenure track was discussed.  Paula will investigate the issue of whether or not a search is needed.  If it is not necessary, the change will be approved with a starting date of August 21.

III.  Old Business

A.  Request to Permanently Change a Visiting Committee

A request to permanently change the membership of a Visiting Committee was considered.   A motion to change the visiting committee was unanimously approved.

B.  Response to EC

A petition to change a current visiting position (formerly a staff position) into a new tenure-track faculty position was discussed.  The request was not approved.