December 3, 2015 Meeting of User Services Advisory Committee (USAC)

Agenda not yet available.

JoAnn Jacoby, Mara Thacker, Jim Dohle, Beth Seehan, Joe Lenkart, Elisandro Cabada, Susan Schnuer (minutes)

Action Items

1.       Mara will revise the Public Engagement Working Group charge after receiving the minutes.  She will circulate the revised version to the committee by email.
2.       Check with Heather Murphy about the creation of a database to avoid duplication and gather information that would be helpful to her.
3.       Announce the formation of this Working Group to the Library community (possibly at the retreat).
4.       Select members so that the working group can start in the spring.
5.       Assess the working group in summer 2017.

Approval of November meeting minutes

• Approved without corrections.

Public Engagement Working Group

JoAnn asked for feedback on the group’s charge.  She discussed the history of the previous public engagement committee in the library which was disbanded.

A robust conversation ensued with several interesting and, at times, contradictory ideas discussed, including:

• Campus is requesting better reporting on public engagement activities and is specifically interested in public engagement as an indicator of the Library’s impact.
• Add “unit heads” to the last bullet after …in collaboration with library administration
• Proposed members: should include divisional representation
• Proposed members: should not be strictly divisional, there are enough members
• Proposed members:  we should have fewer members but highly motivated members with the ability to form nimble working subgroups on short-term projects
• Proposed members: should include someone from Rare Books
• We need to focus also on public engagement outside the library and point out the importance of the outreach on our community
• Charge should explain what the working group hopes to accomplish
• How will the impact of the group be measured?
• The group should coordinate and share knowledge about public engagement activities in the library.
• This committee is like the International and Area Studies Library’s international iTEC group, but library-wide in scopeFirst bullet point seems over-reaching, perhaps we should say: Units can contact the working group for information, tips and support.

• The working group should be a resource for others to connect them to best practices and resources
• The group should identify and leverage existing resources, such as digital signage and should pull on other campus-wide resources that may be helpful to people in the library
• Should gather information for better distribution in the library and campus
• Conduct an environmental scan of possible campus partners
• Should identify what is missing from the current public engagement efforts and focus on what is needed
• Is it critical that the group gather information so that it can be used for reporting and therefore be able to tell the Library story
• Need to come up with a clear definition of public engagement in the library

In conclusion the committee made the following decisions.

Charge

1. Clearly define public engagement in the Library context.   
2. Conduct an environmental scan of current public engagement activities.
3. Develop a database for units to record public engagement activities.
4. Plan to report data in a visual and graphic manner and to create a library website that maintains both visual information and data about public engagement in the library.

Membership

1. Smaller number of committee members who have the ability to form nimble working sub-groups on short projects.
2. The committee did not make final recommendations about individuals to be nominated for the working group, though several names were mentioned.

Start Date

1. Working group will start in the spring. Mara Thacker will be the User Services Advisory Committee representative to the working group.

Assessment

1. Assess the working group by the end of summer 2017 to determine effectiveness and if group should continue.

Retreat

JoAnn explained that the retreat would focus on the Framework for Strategic Plan.  The AULs and Beth Woodard are planning the retreat. Everyone will be assigned to a table with a discussion leader and a topic chosen from the Framework.

A suggestion was made to have two discussion leaders, Faculty/AP and a Staff person.

Budget

Budget reduction planning is going better than expected.  People have come up with ideas for working more efficiently and approached the process as an opportunity to rethink and strategize how to meet our core service commitments.