April 13, 2020 Meeting of Executive Committee

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

AGENDA

April 13, 2020

1:30-3:00pm

428 Library

 

 

 

1. Approve minutes – April 6
2. Question Time
3. Emerita status
4. Scholarly Commons Discussion
   1. Search Committee Replacement
   2. Interim Application Review
5. AUL Discussion
6. Position prioritization discussion
7. Pre-tenure working group
   1. Replacement for Lynne Rudasill
   2. Questions

     8. Committee Elections due May 1, 2020

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Minutes

April 13, 2020

1:30-3:15pm

Skype Conference Call

 

Attendees: John Wilkin (Chair); David Ward (Vice-Chair); Paula Carns; William Maher; William Mischo; Mara Thacker; Jennifer Teper; Lynne Thomas; and Lynne Rudasill (Secretary); Lucretia Williams, Recording

 

AULs present: Heidi Imker, Tom Teper, Chris Prom, and Cherié Weible

 

1. Minutes of the April 6, 2020 EC meeting were tabled for edits.

 

2. Question Time – Discussion of the AUL for User Services position will be added to the next EC agenda for more fulsome discussion.

 

Dean Wilkin updated EC on the Council of Deans meeting. There is no freeze on positions. But there will be much more rigor in getting things approved going through. The Library’s prioritization process becomes all that much more important and our focus will be on core functions with the University and what we’ll need to complete critical work in the immediate future.

 

Budget – We have significant new costs coupled with a decline in revenue. We have not been given any indication of a reduction or of sweeping funds, but they are both likely. We will be asked to make compelling justifications on positions we put forward. Unfortunately, we will see more obstacles on Civil Service positions than other positions because the mechanisms are there for HR to slow those down

 

Summer courses are remote. The Council of Deans is discussing several scenarios for Fall now.

 

Commencement is being discussed by the Council of Deans, including options for a near term and a longer-term strategy.

 

Enrollment is up and ahead of schedule. There have been admissions and more people have accepted their admissions. There are also some significant uncertainties such as students that require Visas.

 

Investment for growth proposals are paused not cancelled.

 

Dean Wilkin explained the plan for print retrieval. This has been a collaborative effort and there have been extensive conversations with the Provost and with the Vice Chancellor for Research. Our focus is entirely to ensure vital functioning of the University through this period of the stay-at-home order and try to make sure that campus courses function effectively. All the demands that we’ve met thus far have been around critical resources for reserves and meeting immediate needs for courses. Demand is low and we’re doing everything we can to point people to alternatives. We continue to have conversations with the Provost. The Library is equipped with PPE and this will be made available to people.

 

Lynne Rudasill is retiring May 1, 2020 and Jennifer Teper volunteered to fill in as EC Secretary through August 2020.

    

3. Emerita status –EC reviewed a proposal requesting the Library grant Emeritus status to a retiring faculty member, and voiced support for the proposal.

 

4. Scholarly Commons Discussion –

 

• Search Committee Replacement –The Scholarly Commons Search Committee had someone resign. This committee consisted of five people. EC decided that a replacement is not needed and the committee will be left with four members.
• Interim Application Review – EC voiced support for an internal candidate to fill the open Interim Head position.

 

 

5. AUL Discussion –
   • Heidi Imker will work with the Pre-tenure Task Force to revise their charge and report back to EC at the April 27, 2020 EC meeting.

 

Heidi also briefed EC on updates; the Scholarly Commons are moving forward with 220 renovations, have gone through a detailed technology plan, and are ready to move forward with ordering technology. It’s a least 8 weeks out and they’ve a lot of conversations with furniture vendors.

 

Scholarly Communication and Publishing – The Digital Scholarship Specialist search is complete. The candidate will start in July 2020.

 

Dan Tracy is working on new agreement to do print on demand for open textbooks and those meetings have started.

 

Research Data Services position is still vacant and Heidi is looking to fill this vacancy. In terms of the Grants and Contracts position, the first search was unsuccessful. There is a new search and it closes April 30, 2020. There are good applicants in the pool. It has not been discussed if there will be an online meet and greet. Kathie Veach has been very helpful with MOU’s for preproposals that she’s been working on.

 

• Chris Prom – Mentor and Evaluation Task Force has met a couple of times and they have come up with a suggested framework that they’re hoping to use, which was submitted for feedback to PTAC and FRC. The document proposes that PTAC and FRC take on and conduct the annual dossier review process and that the Peer Review Committee be converted to Peer Review Mentoring Committees and that the taskforce be charged with developing a mentoring program to include ways to match up pre-tenure librarians with a mentor and provide some guidance on the scope of mentoring that should take place and mechanisms to assess if the mentoring programs are working well.

 

Room 220 technology plan is in place and been approved and technology ordered. Chris Prom continues to meet with Continuity of Instruction Working Group and with the Digital Strategies Liaison Group. This is to help advise with digital strategies and to talk through some of the IT service commitments.

 

• Tom Teper – Acquisitions processes for FY20 are going well. Everyone agrees that everything is in a good place with wrapping up the fiscal year on schedule. ACS and CMS are going well. It has been brought up of filling the vacancy (Metadata Specialist/AP) with a search waiver. That position ends in December 2020. This is a grant funded from the Illinois State Library.

 

The building project; revising the FAQ and plan on having a revised website probably the end of April 2020. This website is going to be a little more structured to follow the full construction process as we go through the various phases.

 

Discussions have been conducted on read and publish agreements. We have worked through the Microbiology Society and IEEE is about done. Right now, they are trying to establish a priority list of what we want to tackle in terms of the some of those transformative agreements. Dan Tracy is currently working on a website to communicate out what some of the options are and he’s been working with some people from CDC and other groups in the library to pull that together.

 

• Cherié Weible – Continuity of Instruction Working Group continues to meet. They are offering very limited access to materials. Cherié will communicate with LibNews the updates about offering digital resources, virtual reference, scanning delivery, and other services. We do now have the ability to pull and make available these print materials when we don’t have electronic versions available.

 

The AP promotion group is meeting tomorrow and there are a number of candidates to review and that process continues to move forward.

 

ALMA migration is still on track with the original timetable. April 30^th marks the end of the time that we can enter anything in for configurations.

 

Tim Newman is working within the boundaries of what we can still have happen with construction.

 

 

6. Prioritization of positions – EC worked collaboratively to prioritize positions within the library, and made recommendations to the Dean.

 

7. Pre-Tenure working group –

 

• Replacement for Lynne Rudasill – EC recommended a replacement for Lynne Rudasill. Current committee members: Lynne Rudasill, Sara Holder, David Ward, Heidi Imker, Peg Burnette, and Tim Cole. EC decided that this committee will need a perspective of a subject librarian and having a balance towards someone who’s compel us to make a strong argument to have us do something different than the nor would be a good perspective; well-rounded reasons when advocating change. EC made a recommendation on who should fill his position. Lucretia Williams will reach out to the recommendation and then inform EC of their decision.
• Questions from Heidi Imker to EC – Is it okay to have a website because people have been asking about the sharing the research challenges report? EC agreed. Should we revise the charge to reflect the broader scope? EC agreed. How much flexibility given the directions this has gone? EC agreed to revise the charge and broaden it. Dean Wilkin suggested if the committee finds themselves being challenged to revise the charge to use their discretion.

 

8. Committee Elections – Lucretia Williams discussed that the Library Committees Elections for vacancies are coming up. Lucretia worked with Helen Zhou to create a Webtools form of the vacancies as of August 2020 committees. This email and form will go out to LibNews the week of April 20, 2020 and the deadline to submit the volunteer form is May 1, 2020.