February 10, 2016 Meeting of Library Faculty Meeting

1.         Call to Order

 

2.         Standing Items:

 

2.1       Adoption of the agenda–John Wilkin

2.2      

2.3       Introductions–John Wilkin

2.4       Report of the University Librarian (15 minutes–John Wilkin)

2.5       Executive Committee Report and Discussion (15 <minutes–Kirstin Dougan)

 

3.         Discussion Topics

3.1       0% time Appointments (15 minutes, John Wilkin)

3.2       Campus Open Access Policy (15 minutes, Aaron McCollough and Beth Namachchivaya)

3.3       Digital Library System Development (15 minutes, Kyle Rimkus and Bill Ingram)

3.4       Expectations of Library Interaction with Scholarly Commons (20 minutes, Karen Hogenboom)

 

4.         New Business

 

5.         Announcements

 

6.         Adjournment

1.         John Wilkin called the meeting to order at 3:01 p.m.

 

2.1       The Agenda of the meeting was accepted as distributed.

 

2.2       Action on minutes of the December 2, 2015 meeting was deferred until the next Faculty meeting.

 

2.3       Introductions.

JoAnn Jacoby introduced Susan Braxton who has moved from the recently closed Prairie Research Institute (PRI) Library to the ACES Library

Michael Norman introduced Patricia Lampron, Metadata Specialist in CAM

Kyle Rimkus introduced Henry Borchers as the Digital Library Technical Coordinator and Quinn Ferris as Rare Book Conservator

William Mischo introduced Weicheng Liu, a Visiting Scholar from Wuhan University

 

2.4       Report of the University Librarian.  Wilkin reported that the guidelines for the FY2017 budget narrative had just been received with a submission deadline of March 28, considerably later than the usual schedule.  He emphasized the Library’s readiness to deal with what may arise, given the budget reductions we had absorbed last year, without it impeding our work.  There is a framework for strategic action and moving forward.

 

Notes summarizing the results of the January Library retreat will be distributed by the 15^th of February, and he expects that the results will play a role in developing the hiring plan.

 

Several have volunteered for the Association of Research Libraries strategic thinking and design project mentioned at the December Faculty meeting, but Wilkin will not know anything more until after the ARL Board meeting, February 17.  Meanwhile, the Executive Committee has had a productive discussion of the report of the results of last year’s Climate Quality survey.

 

2.5       Executive Committee Report.  Kirstin Dougan reported on several matters that had been discussed by the Executive Committee over the course of its six meetings that had occurred since the last Faculty meeting.  These included: next steps in the strategic planning process; the Climate Quality report; Content Access Policy & Technology (CAPT) Committee reorganization; open access project; budget; Innovation Fund proposals, including the plan skip the next round of Innovation Fund call for proposals until next December; processes for zero percent time appointments; recusals in promotion and tenure votes; a new Library organization chart; and issuing charges for a series of working groups.  Dougan noted that the EC also discussed how the Bylaws deal with assignment of faculty to Divisions but decided not to request a Bylaws change at this time.

 

In the discussion, Susan Schnuer commended the EC for acting so quickly to approve a committee to discuss a promotional path for Academic Professionals.  Lisa Hinchliffe repeated a request she has made on prior occasions that if the EC desires to receive comments on the documents and issues on which it is working, it needs to get these onto the EC website in a timely fashion.  Dougan responded that the EC puts documents out for feedback when it wants the feedback.  Hinchliffe noted that it was not always clear when feedback is needed.  In response to a comment from Jacoby that the Schnuer and Hinchliffe comments went in opposite directions, with one commending prompt action and the other wanting more deliberation, Hinchliffe said she was not calling for more deliberation but that when the EC says something is going to be discussed, it should be available for Faculty to see.  Christopher Prom said from experience on prior ECs, it was not always clear when an issue was ready for feedback, and so it would be useful to consider what that threshold is.  Hinchcliffe noted that the EC report had mentioned several groups being charged, and that there was usefulness for people working in particular areas to know about new groups being formed that relate to those areas.

 

On other matters Karen Hogenboom asked for more information about the residency program, and KyleRimkus asked about the charge for the licensing group.  Dougan, as the EC member in charge of the group examining the residency program, explained its purpose, and Rimkus said that the licensing group is looking at how library-created digital content is being handled across campus, including with the use of a Creative Commons license.  Hinchliffe asserted that this very conversation was proving her point about more information on EC projects needing to be made available to the faculty.  Wilkin closed this agenda item by saying that we may need to have more fulsome discussions of some matters at faculty meetings.

 

3.1       Zero Percent-Time Appointments.  Wilkin provided the background that it has been policy that there needed to be a vote by the faculty at a Faculty Meeting in order to approve appointment of anyone to a Zero Percent-time appointment.  He noted that the most recent instance was handled by an electronic vote.  William Maher indicated that the University Statutes, Article II, Sections 3.a.1 and 3.a.2 contained provisions indicating the necessity for holding of votes on admissions to the faculty of persons with “modified titles.”  In response to a question about how difficult it was to stage the electronic vote, Mara Thacker, chair of the Nominations, Elections, and Voting Procedures Committee indicated that setting up the electronic vote had been quite easy and the method could be used quite readily in the future.  Further discussion indicated that there was a need to distinguish between the matter of extending faculty privileges referenced in Statutes II, 3.a as opposed to the processes of appointment called for in Provost Communication 3.  Some noted that other departments and colleges have more rigorous procedures for such appointments, and there was a general interest in having the EC look at making sure that the Library’s processes for Zero Percent-time appointments be brought into line with Communication 3 and practices elsewhere on campus as well as examining whether there needed to be any adjustments in the Library’s Bylaws.  Wilkin closed this agenda item by noting that there seemed to be a strong consensus that voting on these appointments, including by electronic means, was non-controversial, but that our procedures should be examined to bring into conformance with campus practices.

 

3.2       Campus Open Access Policy. Aaron McCollough provided a slide show (see: www.library.illinois.edu/committee/LibraryFacultyMeeting) the policy on open access to research publications as endorsed by the UIUC Senate.  As the Scholarly Communications and Publishing Librarian, McCollough is responsible for developing a “public” information campaign to facilitate campus compliance with the policy.  In this regard IDEALS provides a means for making research articles available as well as a web-based form for faculty to request a waiver for any given article.  In response to a question from Hinchliffe, McCollough noted that to his knowledge the campus had not defined what the policy intends by the meaning of “article” in the policy’s focus on the necessity of depositing “articles” and he agreed with her comment that beyond depositing ones research articles, faculty have the option to provide a notification that what they have published is in an open access journal.  As part of his publicity campaign, McCollough will be talking to the Senate Executive Committee and other groups outside and inside of the Library.

 

3.3.      Digital Library System Development.  Kyle Rimkus and Bill Ingram provided a slide show (see: www.library.illinois.edu/committee/LibraryFacultyMeeting) to outline a new service to improve access to digital content which the Library creates or acquires.  The overall goal is to simplify how such content is routed to preservation storage and from there to an online access system.  The first area of development is for a digital image collection with metadata links to connect Voyager catalog records with a digital image viewer.  Rimkus and Ingram displayed material from the Library’s Sanborn map volumes and demonstrated how the availability of high resolution images would allow zooming and rotation of images with the results being provided via a URL that stores the coordinates for the resultant manipulation of the image, and the URL can then be shared without the image itself ever leaving the server.  Storage of the images is being outsourced to an NCSA server with a backup to Amazon’s Glacier service.

 

3.4       Library Interaction with Scholarly Commons.  Karen Hogenboom provided an update on work of the Scholarly Commons via a slide show (www.library.illinois.edu/committee/LibraryFacultyMeeting). She noted that while the Scholarly Commons consisted of only four people, by coordination with others throughout the Library it had a network of extended partners. She stressed, however, that because those partners were people already committed elsewhere in the Library, the Scholarly Commons staff recognized that the participation of those partners may not be available at all times, e.g., when those partners were engaged with their unit-based responsibilities.  Regardless, Hogenboom indicated that the Scholarly Commons would like Library faculty members to engage more extensively, especially by bringing their particular expertise and network of specialist contacts into play with the Commons.  At the same time, the Scholarly Commons is anxious to learn how it might serve the needs of Library faculty and the departments/disciplines they represent.

 

Beth Namachchivaya commented that the hub/network model for scholarly communication which the Library had adopted opened up the possibility of access to resources elsewhere on campus, otherwise not available to the Library.  This point led to an exchange among a number of faculty about the potential for collaboration to create small academic conferences or other partnerships, especially in the area of “digital humanities.”

 

Other comments suggested that several faculty want to be able to help the Scholarly Commons connect with campus faculty and students but that there needed to be simple guides explaining, perhaps through examples or a grid of services, what exactly the Scholarly Commons can provide in the way of services or of the types of projects it can support.  Hogenboom noted that while this is not a one-time conversation, she would plan to do a “brown bag” to provide more information for those interested, and she requested that those present send her questions and suggestions via e-mail.

 

4.         Announcements.  Qiang Jin announced that the Diversity Committee will be sponsoring a program on March 9 related to micro-aggressions.  Hogenboom announced that Ariel Waldman would be lecturing on March 1 at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center.  Thacker requested that all be on the look-out for an e-mail calling for contributions to International Week in April.  Clara Chu announced that the Mortenson Center would soon be celebrating its 25^th anniversary.  Josh Harris announced that this year’s Preservation Emporium would be held on February 20^th at the Campaign Public Library.