December 7, 2020 Meeting of Executive Committee

Time and Location of Meeting

December 7, 20201:30 pm - 3:00 pm Zoom Meeting

Agenda Details

Agenda

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

AGENDA

December 7, 2020

1:30-3:00pm

Zoom Meeting

 

  1. Approve minutes – November 23, 2020
  2. Question Time
  3. Revised Position Description for Visiting Design and Materials Research Librarian
  4. Search Committee Chair Replacement – Brooks Conservator
  5. Discussion topics for AULs/Directors on December 14, 2020
  6. Questions/Comments related to Subject Specialist Report and Annual Review Process
  7. Feedback on Use of Faculty Meetings
  8. Library Residency Report

 

Minutes Details

Minutes

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Minutes

December 7, 2020

1:30-3:00 pm

Zoom Conference Call

 

EC Attendees: John Wilkin (Chair); William Maher (Vice-Chair); Dan Tracy (Secretary); Mara Thacker, Mary Laskowski, David Ward, Kelli Trei, Jennifer Teper, and Peg Burnette. Lucretia Williams, Recording

 

Meeting Document: Library Residency Report

 

  1. Minutes – The November 23, 2020 minutes were approved with changes upon the motion by Mary Laskowski and seconded by Bill Maher.

 

  1. Question Time – Dean Wilkin has been trying to reconcile our sense of open positions with that of the Provost’s office to have a better handle on that as we prepare for budget planning. There have not been any other university administrative meetings or discussions. Council of Deans meets later this week.

 

EC had discussion and feedback on candidate for Interim Head of the Mathematics Library.

 

David Ward asked if the university had a plan or was working on a plan for vaccine   distribution or if that was going to happen outside of the university. Dean Wilkin responded that work is going on now, but it is integrated with the community.

 

  1. Revised Position Description for Visiting Design and Materials Research Librarian – EC reviewed the position description and made recommendations to the committee.

 

  1. Search Committee Chair Replacement – Brooks Conservator – The current Brooks conservator search chair asked to step down. EC appointed a new Search Committee Chair. Lucretia Williams will extend an invitation to the person nominated and then follow up with EC and HR of their decision.

 

  1. Discussion topics for AULs/Directors on December 14, 2020 – EC would like the AULs/Directors to report on the following topics:

 

  • Budget
  • Update on combining services and preparations for construction in the Undergraduate Library Space
  • Communications #9 revisions – Chris Prom
  • Regular Updates
  • Planning for Spring Semester Services

 

  1. Questions/Comments related to Subject Specialist Report and Annual Review Process – EC discussed comments received from an individual related to two items:

 

Subject Specialist Report – The comments first suggested that the Subject Specialist Report could stand to be updated. This report is something that is used by subject specialists and FRC sometimes recommends referral to it when individuals write annual reports.

 

EC noted the task force report itself cannot be changed because it is a historical record of a fixed time entity. Several members of EC noted that the document was not meant to be used for evaluation. There was some discussion about whether a replacement document should be created, but some disagreement about its value and a sense that having such a document for one group and not others is problematic. We may need to create some sort of guidance for the librarianship piece of the dossier that applies to everyone instead. PTAC is currently working on updating how we include librarianship statements and it was suggested that this be folded into that work.

 

Annual Review Process – The second issue related to the scoring that FRC does, with a concern that scoring of 0-1Y individuals can be unnecessarily demoralizing, even with advance warning that the scores will be low due to their short time in the library.

 

There was consensus on EC that the numbers at the 0-1Y stage are not useful, but other feedback is necessary—particularly PTAC feedback, which was not done in the past but added to catch some problems early. It was noted that ultimately this is an FRC decision, not an EC one, but that the Vice Chair would send a suggestion to FRC from EC based on this note, requesting consideration of eliminating numeric scores and replacing them with qualitative feedback for 0Y or 0-1Y individuals (there was disagreement over whether 1Y should be included or not).

 

  1. Feedback on Use of Faculty Meetings – After discussions with EC, Dean Wilkin proposed to EC that for this spring, that the Library will only have one faculty meeting and rely on the new monthly library-wide meetings for some discussion and lightning talk items. Dean Wilkin will communicate this to the faculty, noting that this will be a trial and we will reassess as we go forward in future semesters.

 

  1. Library Residency Report – EC accepted the report, and thanks the committee for its work. Dean Wilkin expressed a belief in the value of the residency program and the hope is that the Library will get back to it at some point. Right now, it’s postponed in light of our discussions around pretenure processes. Several members of EC endorsed the idea of having future residencies when it is possible to do so.

 

Meeting Adjourned: 3:00 pm

Related Documents