February 10, 2014 Meeting of Executive Committee

John Wilkin, chair; Bill Mischo, vice-chair; John Wagstaff, secretary; Tim Cole, Mary Laskowski, Jennifer Teper, Carissa Phillips, Chris Prom; Visitors –Dan Atkins, Beth Namachchivaya, Sue Searing, Tom Teper; Recording – Kim Matherly

1.                  2:30-3:00pm AULs

a.      One-minute update on NSM – SueArchives NSM is moving along. Jeff will have floor plans to show the archives staff sometime next week.

b.      Search committee assignment and coordination – Tom
There was a conversation a year ago regarding assigning a committee of search chairs. A chair from the committee would be assigned to a search and then the rest of the committee would be chosen from other faculty and APs.

EC and the AULs discussed assigning a committee. EC would like to discuss the issue further and this will be put on a future agenda.

c.       Hiring Plan
EC and the AULs discussed the final tweaks for the Hiring Plan. John Wilkin will submit the plan to the Provost before February 15.
 
2.                  3:00-4:30-Dan Atkins and AULs
Dan Atkins is a distinguished U of I alumnus. He spoke with EC and the AULs about future trends in libraries.
 
3.                  Approve Minutes from January 10
Minutes were approved with a motion by Tim Cole, seconded by Jennifer Teper.
 
4.                  Question Time
John Wilkin updated the committee on the matching fund opportunity presented by Mike Andrechak, Vice Provost – Budgets and Resource Planning. Andrechak indicated that the Campus will match Library funds to replace the roof and HVAC system in the eastern part of the Library, thus facilitating repairs to the hemispheres; the matching funds and savings in the current round of window replacements may make it possible to replace the windows in both the North and South courtyards.

The Committee discussed a personnel issue.

Administrative Update
John Wilkin would like to break apart the responsibilities for IT and research. We have growing aspirations in the area of research with growing numbers of activities. We have the search for the Research Data Services Director underway, a position supporting a researcher profile service in the hiring plan, and we hope to expand our scholarly communication activities. John is asking Beth to ramp up research areas. He will put an AUL or Assistant Dean for IT on the hiring plan.

John would also like the AULs and the Assistant Directors to meet more regularly to look at building a more comprehensive administration. They will look at cross-cutting issues such as the budget, personnel, space and how we are doing on diversity.

EC would also like Greg Knott to attend more EC meetings to discuss the budget.

John sees a need to have a stronger administrative structure with the AULs particularly. Nothing is broken. We are one of the best Libraries in the country, but we can be better and have better outcomes if we are better organized. This Library is very data and research driven. That is a strength that we need to cultivate. Our impact can be amplified in a more outcome oriented way. Our independence doesn’t always cohere around goals. The unretreat showed that we are collectively motivated around certain areas. We need a stronger connection between goals and results. EC and the AULs will engage in a discussion of how to do this. We need a better sense of the organizational structures and the people working in those structures.

Reports for the unretreat are coming in and John expects to have all of them by the end of February. We need to organize our work in the near term, while attacking some outstanding problems. DMI data needs to be aligned with our goals and what we are doing. Campus is looking at that data and how each College maps to it. When developing our strategic plan, we need to keep the DMI in mind. We need to be thoughtful about the data we generate that will be related to planning. Toward the end of the year at a time to be determined, we need to convene ourselves for the SP to build those goals.

John met with Ed Siedel, Director, NCSA and John Towns, Director, Persistent Infrastructure, NCSA to discuss collaborations around storage infrastructure. We have agreed in principle to use NCSA’s storage infrastructure for our repository services, including support for data. EC likes the idea of the Library having a closer working relationship with NCSA.
 
5.                  History Search
John Wilkin wants to make sure the search for the History, Philosophy and Newspaper Librarian and Head gets started as soon as possible.

6.                  Hiring Plan
There were no additional questions regarding the hiring plan.

7.                  E-Resources and Acquisitions Support Specialist Position Description
This will be discussed at another meeting.

8.                  Position Descriptions in general
This will be discussed at another meeting.

9.                  Innovation Fund Report – ShE-books Pilot/Head Start Project

This will be discussed at another meeting.