April 18, 2016 Meeting of Administrative Council

1.  Library Call Slip information (Weible)

     A follow up to the initial presentation/discussion regarding collection distribution by the Stores and Distribution Group- Office of Library Facilities

2.  Working Group to Revise the Library’s Grant Policies

JoAnn Jacoby, acting chair, Tom Habing, Shuyong Jiang, Joanne Kaczmarek, Mary Laskowski, Kyle McCafferty, Beth Namachchivaya, Nancy O’Brien, Chris Quinn, Mary Schlembach, Jeff Schrader, Tom Teper, Beth Woodard; Visitor – Cherié Weible

1.      Library Call Slip information (Weible)
A follow up to the initial presentation/discussion regarding collection distribution by the Stores and Distribution Group- Office of Library Facilities

JoAnn and Jeff met with Cherié and realized there were some misconceptions about what was happening and that we need to all understand it and it will mostly be reassuring.

Cherié started off talking about process because there are misconceptions about terms and what is happening with pieces of the collection. An interlibrary loan request comes through OCLC, to lending and Cherié and her staff in ILL, that reside in 128 Library and are known as Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery staff, are the people that handle that. They do all the searching on it and print the request off. They have retrievers that go out daily to every library. They do almost every library every day. They are not going to get a cart of books and wheel it across the Quad from Grainger under storm and dumping rain, so things like that impact what they do. But for the most part they get to every library every day.

The other term a lot of people say is interlibrary loan, but they mean I-Share. I-Share is the material that comes in through call-slip. Call –slip items go to every single departmental library and the stacks. Those are the ones where departmental library staff are running call-slips either continuously or multiple times a day and pull the books. Those are referred to as filled call-slips and they are also picked up by ILL staff. When a retriever (student or staff) comes to a departmental library, they are pulling all the OCLC items themselves and they generally take them up to the circulation desk of the departmental library and either charge them out themselves or a staff person charges them out depending on the relationship with that library and then they ask for the things on the ILL shelf. Those can be filled call-slips from that library and in some cases they are also returns that have been discharged and have shown up in that library’s return items that don’t go back to that library. That is all over the map as far as who ILL gets I-Share returns from and who they don’t. Generally, internal libraries are picked up by ILL and external libraries are picked up by shipping and bring those back because there are no time constraints on those. It’s discharged from the patron. The bulk of them are I-Share returns to institutions across the state and just a matter of getting them returned with no patron behind that book any more.

Jeff had asked about some statistics back in late October/early November. The issue with this is figuring out what books are touched where. You can’t just run a call-slip report. Susie Duncan worked with staff at CARLI, because we had to look at some archived tables we no longer have access to. (See attached document) You will see figures from November 2014-October 2015. You can see there are approximately 277,000 items. Those are all items that shipping is touching annually. These are call-slip returns from the departments, such as Grainger and Oak Street.

One of the issues that she and Mary Laskowski worked on is getting the materials from Oak Street in a timely manner. That’s important for ILL work, because they do have requests and they have constraints about turnaround time. There are also Archives, Rare Books and people with patrons behind those requests that we have promised that we will provide quickly. From what they see with the workflow as well as the volume in ILL, main and Oak Street, if they pull from Oak Street twice a day that pretty much takes care of the 24-hour turnaround time in the way things get re-distributed back across the departmental libraries.

They did have to sort out the third column, Local Call-slips. In most cases ILL is touching it on one leg of the trip and shipping is touching it on the other leg of the trip. So if Grainger fills a call-slip for SSHEL, Grainger is putting that on their ILL shelf. The retrievers are bringing that back and they put it on their shipping truck, then shipping comes and gets that daily and then it goes to SSHEL. That is one place they are both touching it, in most cases. You would see this call counted in the ILL stats as well as the stats in the form provided that she calls Jeff’s shipping conversion stats.

Mary Laskowski stated that Oak Street is the exception not the rule in that the Oak Street materials that are being picked up twice a day are in fact materials that patrons are waiting for. They are going out and are not returns. Since Facilities is now doing twice a day pick up at Oak Street, Grainger and ACES and Oak Street is the only location that those are items patrons are actually waiting for, as long as we maintain that we should be meeting all the promises we’ve made about the turnaround.

AC discussed pickups and deliveries for different departmental libraries outside main. We have departmental libraries that are not getting pick-up or deliveries twice a day. If there are items coming from Oak Street, we have to figure out how to get those items to departmental libraries outside main. Sorting in the truck after a pick-up at Oak Street might help get items to the patrons in a more timely manner. Or after sorting, if things need to go out to a departmental library outside main, when there is not a normal delivery, shipping will have to figure out a way to get the items to the library, so the patron can get them at least by the next day.

JoAnn summarized by saying that we need to look for those items that are fulfilling requests and trying to get a light-weight solution for walking those over to outside libraries when they come through. One of the challenges is getting the right size solution for materials to be moved and for the system to be as agile as possible. Jeff will work with shipping to find a way to get materials delivered. Jeff will touch base with AC at a later meeting to find out how things are going.

2.       Working Group to Revise the Library’s Grant Policies – Beth Namachchivaya
The policy has not been updated since 2004. Beth would like to make a thoughtful revision of the Library Grants Policies to help people who prepare grant proposals to help them understand what they are responsible for and figure out the life-cycle of the grant. The life-cycle begins from before you submit a proposal, understanding who to talk to, what kind of assurances or commitments to put in the grant. Then if the grant is awarded, what needs to happen for the duration of the grant and what needs to happen as you wind it down and close it out. You also need to account for what you did and how you spent the money. We don’t have an encompassing grants policy that helps people understand their responsibilities.

There has been one more major change on campus since 2004; regulatory and financial accountability. People who have grants are not only responsible to the campus but also to the granting agency or private foundation. The oversight of those things has been fined tuned to a high wire sensitivity. Recently we had a federal agency that was prepared to award a grant to someone in the Library. We had someone who had a grant from the same agency and the final report was overdue. There were funds remaining in the account for that individual. The plan on how to spend the remaining funds was not on the table with the granting agency. The granting agency said they would not reward the grant to the new person, until the person with the current grant figured out what to do with the money from their grant. If they don’t spend the money, the agency would not award the grant to the new person. That’s how sensitive agencies and foundations are about stewarding grant awards. It’s not about how much oversight the Library may want, but about the sensitivity grant funding federal or state agencies and private foundations have about how grant funds are used when they are awarded.

That change alone requires a thoughtful revision in addition to some other changes.

JoAnn wanted to know about the title of the title to be revised. Is there a separate process for gifts and is that something Beth is grappling with here. Beth commented that the Office of Sponsored Projects used to oversee awards and gifts, but they no longer do that. That oversight happens at the foundation and advancement. The new policy will be only grants and contracts.

One thing Beth will discuss with the working group is how to articulate what grants and contracts cover; research, grants to support instruction and other sponsored activities. Tom Teper suggested that sponsored contracts be included in the title so it doesn’t get mixed up with other contracts.

Beth asked for changes to the charge. Nancy O’Brien asked if there are definitions for things that are called grants, but are more like awards or gifts. That would be included as educational information. Beth commented that if a company makes money available on a competitive basis and you have to write a proposal; that is a grant. If they give you money to spend on marketing and can spend it any way you want; that is a gift. Definitions of terminology would be helpful, especially for new people.

Beth Namachchivaya will be ultimately responsible for the outcome, but the working group will go over the revisions to the policy. It is important that the group has experience with grant getting and grant administration. Beth wants a document that supports people as they work with awards that is clear about what they need to do.

Beth would like suggestions for member for the working group. Some of the names that were suggested are Bill Mischo, Tim Cole, Jennifer Teper, Kyle Rimkus, Harriett Green and Susan Schnuer.

New Business
JoAnn Jacoby informed the group that the non-tenure faculty coalition, Local 6456, put in a notice to strike. The Library only has a five visiting faculty who fall under this union. The Library will continue to provide normal services and make sure students have access to whatever they need. Right now we have heard that the English Building may be picketed, but there are no plans to picket the Library. All Unit Heads who have individuals whose classifications fall under the union, have been contacted. At this time the plan is for standard operating procedures.