August 21, 2017 Meeting of Administrative Council

Bill Mischo, Tom Teper, Shuyong Jiang, Chris Quinn, Susan Avery, Sarah Williams, Mary Schlembach, Lisa Romero, Joanne Kaczmarek, Mary Laskowski, Kyle McCafferty, Tom Habing, Greg Knott, Jeff Schrader

1. Limit of library social events to one event- ways to recognize library staff and issues regarding morale.
2. Listing of graduate students in directories and web pages- need to opt-in, policy issues, etc.
3. Policy regarding job announcements and listing of search committee members.
4. Volunteer to manage monthly AC meeting agendas.

Karen Hogenboom  (Office of Research), Debora Pfieffer (LSSC), Bill Mischo, Tom Teper, Susan Avery, Sarah Williams, Mary Schlembach, Joanne Kaczmarek, Mary Laskowski, Greg Knott, Jeff Schrader

Present: Bill Mischo, chair; Susan Avery, Karen Hogenboom (Office of Research) Joanne Kaczmarek, Greg Knott, Mary Laskowski, Debora Pfieffer (LSSC), Mary Schlembach, Jeff Schrader, Tom Teper, Sarah Williams

Bill started off by discussing some administrative issues.

The AUL for research position will not be replaced at this time. The duties of the Office of Research have been reassigned through the units that fell under that office. RDS will report to Bill Mischo, Scholarly Commons will report to Cherié Weible, interim AUL for User Services, and Scholarly Communications and Publishing will report to Tom Teper.

John Wilkin will make the decisions about how to fill the AUL positions when he returns.

Budget – The Library has absorbed a $2.2 million budget reduction in the operations budget over the last three fiscal years and a $2.8 million budget reduction over the last five years. For the recently completed fiscal year, the Library was $170,000 overspent – in the red. Note that our budget reductions come from the operations portion of the budget – the budget monies remaining after the collections portion and the Library-IT Fee monies are subtracted out. This is primarily salaries but also basic administrative and support services. Many of you have witnessed cuts in student wages, GA allocations, and hours of operation. Additionally we have not replaced several people who have retired or left and have eliminated security guards, reduced IT equipment monies, moved some operational charges to the Collections budget, and generally reduced the number of staff and faculty. Everyone has been very cooperative as we’ve made these reductions and we appreciate your willingness to participate in creative budget planning activities coordinated by the AULs, Division Coordinators, and units.

ICR Campaign- Campus collects ICR money from grant recipients. We charge 58.6% overhead for grants. To cover indirect cost recovery. 58 factors are used to calculate the rates. Government grants are charged 7% for the Library. More than $100 million in ICR on research grants has been generated in the past year. The Library is getting an ICR allocation, but nowhere near the 7% that’s being charged.

Salary – there will be a merit increase of an average of 1% effective next month. Letters will be going out in the near future.

Retreat – EC believes it is a good idea to skip the retreat this year. Much of the input from the last two years has not been reconciled and with acting and interim positions in Administration, it would be good to wait a year. AC agreed.

1. Limit of library social events to one event- ways to recognize library staff and issues regarding morale.
The primary reason for limiting the number of social events is connected with the costs and staff time associated with these events and with an ongoing trend of dramatically decreasing numbers of attendees. We will hold an open meeting early this fall regarding the budget picture but Bill knows many of you have seen earlier emails or heard presentations we’ve given about the budget situation.

LSSC expressed concerns about this change. Greg asked for input from LSSC and anyone else regarding ideas for doing events at no or small costs. Bill offered to meet with LSSC to further discuss their concerns.

2. Listing of graduate students in directories and web pages- need to opt-in, policy issues, etc.
There were concerns about listing grad students on web sites. There is no UIUC policy regarding whether Grad students should or should not be listed. Some grad students want to be listed. The Library has decided to employ an opt-out option for any grad student who does not want to be listed.

3. Policy regarding job announcements and listing of search committee members.
Someone suggested that search committee members should be listed on job postings. That has not been the policy in the Library. Search committees often change and it would be extra work for someone to try and keep up with the members. Therefore, the Library will not list search committees on job postings. Rather, anyone interested in determining the members of a search committee are encouraged to contact the chair of the committee. The chair is listed in Tom Teper’s search updates.

4. Volunteer to manage monthly AC meeting agendas.
Joanne Kaczmarek has agreed to be in charge of the agenda.