December 7, 2022 Meeting of Library Faculty Meeting

Time and Location of Meeting

December 7, 2022

Agenda Details

Agenda

AGENDA

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Library Faculty Meeting Agenda
December 7, 2022

3-4:30 pm
via Zoom

  1. Call to Order
  2. Standing Items
    2.1 Adoption of the Agenda
    2.2 Approval of the Minutes of the November 2022 Faculty Meeting
    2.3 Introduction of New Employees
    2.4 Executive Committee Report & Discussion (15 minutes – Mara Thacker)
  3. Discussion items
    3.1 (30 minutes – What should be on the agenda for faculty meetings in 2023? Brainstorming – Joe Lenkart)
  4. New Business
  5. Announcements
  6. Adjournment

Minutes Details

Minutes

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Library Faculty Meeting Minutes
December 7, 2022

3-4:30 pm
via Zoom

  1. Call to Order
    • Meeting called to order at 3:03 pm.  61 participants.
    • Mara Thacker, as Vice-Chair of EC, presided over the meeting in the absence of a dean.
    • Mara noted that the automatically-generated Microsoft Teams link (as opposed to the intended Zoom link) could be deleted from future faculty meeting invitations to avoid confusion about which platform we are using.
  2. Standing Items
    2.1 Adoption of the Agenda
    — Mary Laskowski moved to adopt the agenda as distributed.  Steve Witt seconded.
    2.2 Approval of the Minutes of the November 2022 Faculty Meeting
    — Secretary of the Faculty Kit Condill noted that the wording of the final item under 2.5, “Report of the University Librarian,” had been changed since the draft minutes were distributed, and read the new wording to the meeting.
    — Motion to approve the minutes as amended from Nancy O’Brien, seconded by Kelli Trei.
    2.3 Introduction of New Employees
    — No new introductions.
    2.4 Executive Committee Report & Discussion (15 minutes – Mara Thacker)
    — 1.  EC has met 4 times since the last time I gave a report at a Library Hangout on October 26, 2022.
    a.  Our meeting this Monday, December 5th was without a chairperson as we do not yet have a Dean of Libraries since John Wilkin stepped down on November 30. The minutes for that meeting will have a note indicating as such and that meeting was largely focused on how EC should function in the absence of a dean.
    — 2.  Reminder:  current EC membership as of August 15, 2022, alongside John as Chair, is:  Kelli Trei, MJ Han, Chris Wiley, Joe Lenkart, Sarah Williams, William Maher, and Kirstin Johnson. I am continuing in the role of Vice Chair, Sarah Williams is serving as Secretary, Kelli Trei is the search liaison, and Joe Lenkart is the EC representative on the Faculty Meeting Agenda Committee.  Bill Maher will be replaced in January following his retirement, so keep an eye out for that election.
    a.  For new employees, if you have a matter you want EC to discuss, please feel free to send them to me and/or Sarah Williams and we will be sure your item gets added to a future agenda.
    — 3.  We met with Interim Provost Bill Bernhard about the search for an interim Dean of Libraries and along with making our own recommendations, recommended that he set up meetings with LSSC and LCP to discuss the same.
    — 4.  We charged a small group to draft a charge for a committee to explore specialized faculty roles in the library.
    — 5.  We continued the tradition of having the AULs and directors join EC once a month to discuss shared concerns.
    a.  We discussed challenges around faculty engagement and appointing Peer Review Committee Members and as a result intend to pick up some recommendations from a task force in 2020 to explore changing the model of having PRC members as evaluators vs. mentors.
    b.  We discussed the Library Dean transition.
    — 6.  We also met with the co-chairs of LSSC and LCP and discussed 5-year Unit Head reviews, LSSC and LCP perspectives on the migration of services from UGL, and gave a brief update on the forthcoming charge for a group to explore specialized faculty roles in the library.
    — 7.  We appointed PRC members.
    — 8.  We reviewed the policy edits for making acting and interim appointments. The updated policy will be presented in a future Library Faculty meeting as an informational item.
    — 9.  We approved a search committee appointment for a Visiting Central Asian Reference Specialist.
    — 10.  We approved position descriptions for the following positions:
    a.  Visiting Archives and Literary Manuscript Specialist
    b.  Head of the Math Library
    — 11.  We approved an Emeritus request.
    — Mara noted that more detail on the items above can be found in the minutes of EC meetings, which are available on the Library website at https://www.library.illinois.edu/staff/committee/executive-committee-2/ .
    — No additional questions.
  3. Discussion items
    3.1 What should be on the agenda for faculty meetings in 2023? Brainstorming (30 minutes –– Joe Lenkart)
    — Joe noted that the Faculty Meeting Agenda Committee had not been receiving many suggestions for agenda items, and therefore a conversation about potential faculty meeting agenda items for 2023 is needed.  The following ideas had emerged from prior conversations with members of the Faculty Meeting Agenda Committee as well as other colleagues:
    — Lightning Talks (with a time limit of 5-10 minutes)
    — Topics on Tenure & Promotion (including the sustainability of the tenure-track system in the Library)
    — Culture of Collegiality
    — Profiles in Leadership (emphasis on mentoring colleagues)
    — Liaison Roles (engagement with units and programs on campus)
    — Other ideas
    — Joe encouraged meeting participants to voluntarily join Zoom breakout rooms dedicated to each of the five ideas above.  Due to technical difficulties, participants were randomly assigned to breakout rooms.  These groups were given ten minutes to discuss the ideas.
    Lightning Talks Group (Susan Breakenridge reporting):  This was a very successful idea in the past.  But what are the logistics of it now?  Is it voluntary, or do we need to recruit people to do this?  Should they happen at Library Hangouts or faculty meetings, or both?  Who is invited to faculty meetings?  Is everyone in the Library invited?
    Kit Condill:  All faculty, all APs, and two representatives from LSSC are invited to faculty meetings.
    Siobhan McKissic:  We could invite the iSchool to do some of these, they have a successful lightning talk program.
    Bill Maher (via chat):  Lighting talks should be both fast and basic.  Five minutes may be too short, but when they extend to 20 minutes, they usurp time and attention from the rest of the meeting agenda.
    David Ward:  I agree with Bill.  They should be informative and serve as invitations for collaboration, or to learn more about our colleagues’ work.  But brief.
    Topics on Tenure & Promotion Group (Amy Fry reporting):  We will need to have a discussion about ongoing changes in dossier requirements and guidelines (including possible DEIA statements) at the appropriate time.
    Culture of Collegiality Group (Kit Condill reporting):  This is a summary of questions and comments that came up in this group.  Regarding the issue of faculty meetings vs. Library Hangouts, are faculty meetings redundant now?  The bylaws still require the faculty to meet at least once a semester.  What does it mean to be a faculty, and what kinds of things qualify as “faculty matters”?  The focus on inclusive governance is very welcome, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of “faculty-ness,” which is a crucial part of what we do (and what we can do) as a Library.  Collegiality is a library-wide thing, not just a faculty thing, but faculty have a very important role to play in making collegiality a reality in the library.  There’s a disconnect throughout the library on the question of who does the “real work” – everyone thinks that they do it and others don’t.  Lightning talks would help people to see the important work that others are doing every day.
    Profiles in Leadership Group (Clara Chu reporting):  The discussion in this group revolved around ideas for leadership-related presentations at faculty meetings, the role of faculty as researchers, and providing information about what we do, in order to address the expectations of the Library and of the university as a whole.
    Liaison Roles Group (Chris Wiley reporting):  It would be useful to collect examples of successful liaison initiatives, as well as tips for liaising that we could share with each other.  Many of us serve in dual roles that rely on functional expertise as well as subject expertise.  It is easy to find out who the subject specialists are on our website, but hard to find out who has functional expertise.
    Celestina Savonius-Wroth:  There is a document that outlines expectations for liaison work, but many people don’t even know that it exists.
    Other Ideas:
         — David Ward:  Even pre-COVID, there were not enough food-based events.  We should have more untenured lunches and opportunities to discuss tenure-related issues with FRC and PTAC.
    Jessica Ballard:  Agreed.  The untenured lunches have been great, but questions (especially questions for FRC and PTAC) do come up more than once a semester.  Two to three times a semester would be better.
    David Ward:  A summary of questions and discussions from the untenured lunches each semester could be a good agenda item for faculty meetings.
    Bill Maher:  Yes, and that would help to eliminate perceived walls between tenured and untenured faculty.
    Various:  General enthusiasm for bringing back cookies at faculty meetings.  Moving to hybrid meetings with an in-person component should therefore be discussed at a future faculty meeting.
    Mara Thacker:  There is a lack of “goals, roles, and rules” for both faculty meetings and the Hangouts.  What are we trying to accomplish?  Who is going to do it, and how?  These would be good questions to discuss with the new dean.
    Kelli Trei:  Maybe we should hear from the Library representatives on the University Senate at the faculty meetings and/or Hangouts.
    Joanne Kaczmarek:  Yes, absolutely.  This should be turned into a recurring agenda item, and we should consider having the bylaws reflect this.
    Various:  General enthusiasm for a University Senate report at faculty meetings.
    Heidi Imker:  Making it a standing agenda item would be a good way to keep it from slipping off the radar.
    Bill Maher:  In the past, the Library faculty would also discuss issues from the Senate so that our representatives could report back on these discussions to the Senate itself.
    Mara Thacker:  Let’s have the Faculty Meeting Agenda Committee add a University Senate report to future faculty meeting agendas.  And thanks to Joe for facilitating this whole discussion.
  4. New Business
    — No new business.
  5. Announcements
    — No announcments.
  6. Adjournment
    — Meeting adjourned at 3:50 pm.