August 17, 2017 Meeting of Library Staff Support Committee

Agenda not yet available.

Jim Cotter (Special Collections), Emily Kasak (Mortenson Center/Area Studies), Debora Pfeiffer (Technical Services), Dani Postula (Central Access Services), Laura Poulosky (Residence Hall Libraries), Gennye Varvel (Social Sciences), Shoshana Vegh-Gaynor (Arts & Humanities)

Special Guests:
Sarah Christensen, George Gottschalk, Cindy Ingold

EC’s Email Announcing Reduction of Library Social Events:

  L-CAP (Library Committee of Academic Professionals) members Sarah Christensen and George Gottschalk and ClimateQual Committee Chair Cindy Ingold visited our meeting to discuss reactions to the recent Executive Committee announcement that Library social events would be reduced to one annual event (the Holiday party) and that the Social Events Committee would be disbanded, effective immediately.  This announcement was made via an email to LIB-news sent on Friday afternoon, 8/11/17, by Nancy O’Brien on behalf of the Executive Committee.  We are concerned about the negative effects this reduction of Library social events may have on Library employees, because we have found these events an important way to connect and communicate with colleagues throughout the Library system whom we don’t often get opportunities to see.  We are also concerned about the way this decision was made and communicated, without giving Library employees a chance to provide input.  Cindy will draft a preliminary email expressing these concerns in more detail, which she will share with the chairs of LSSC, L-CAP, the Diversity Committee, and the Staff Development Committee before submitting our feedback to members of the Executive Committee.

 

Meeting with L-CAP:

  Sarah and George met with us as members of L-CAP, the Library Academic Professionals’ equivalent of LSSC.  We discussed the possibility of LSSC members attending an upcoming L-CAP meeting to talk about the two committees’ operations and goals.  L-CAP will be meeting at the following times during the upcoming semester: Thursday, Sept. 7^th, 3:30-4:30; Tuesday, Sept. 26, 3:30-4:30; Tuesday, Oct. 24, 3:30-4:30; and Tuesday, Nov. 28^th, 3:30-4:30.

 

Recruiting New LSSC Members from Physical Sciences & Engineering Division and Technical Services:

  We are looking to recruit a new committee member from the Physical Sciences & Engineering Division.  Debora serves as a liaison from Technical Services, but since LSSC’s bylaws call for two liaisons from that rather large Division, we are also hoping to recruit a second LSSC member from Tech Services.  LSSC meets once monthly to communicate about Library news and voice staff ideas and concerns.  LSSC members also attend their Divisions’ monthly meetings and report back to LSSC about what is going on in their Divisions.  For any questions about the service on the committee, please free feel to email us at lssc@illinois.edu .

 

Committee Reports:

 

Special Collections; Social Sciences, Health, & Education, Arts & Humanities, and Technical Services have not had Division meetings since the July LSSC meeting.

 

Central Public Services:  Dani reported that the Central Public Services Division meeting focused on a discussion of the reduction of Library social events (see above) and also included a fascinating visit to the Media Commons at the Undergraduate Library.

 

Residence Hall Libraries:  Over the summer, Housing Facilities employees have been working on major renovations of Allen and FAR Residence Hall Libraries.  Due to delays in the procurement of shelving, these renovations are not quite complete, so these two locations’ collections are not yet unpacked and available for check-out.  We are hopeful that the wall shelves will be installed during the week prior to the start of classes so that we can start unpacking the libraries on Friday, Aug. 25^th, and open for our regular academic year hours on Monday, Aug. 28^th.  Allen and FAR Library materials will become available for check-out once they have been unpacked.

Our academic year hours are:

Ikenberry Library (Champaign)

Sun. 2 pm to 12 am

Mon.-Thurs. 10 am to 12 am

Fri. 10 am-9pm

Sat. 5-9 pm

Urbana Libraries (Allen, FAR, and ISR)

Sun.-Thurs. 2pm to 2 am

Fri. & Sat. 5-9pm

 

Anyone with an active I-Card (students, staff, and faculty) can check out Residence Hall Library materials, which include books, DVDs, CDs, magazines, board games, external disc drives and cell phone chargers, and video games (at the IKE and FAR locations).