February 13, 2014 Meeting of Library Staff Support Committee

Agenda not yet available.

Skye Arseneau, Becky Burner, Jim Cotter, Lisa Renee Kemplin, Debora Pfeiffer, Dani Postula, Laura Poulosky, Barb Trumpinski-Roberts, Sandy Wolf

New LSSC Vacancy:

Laura is leaving her current position in the Architecture & Art Library for a new position in the Residence Hall Libraries, effective Feb. 17th, so LSSC will need a new liaison for the Arts & Humanities Division.

Reference Road Map Report:

Barb reported on the Reference Road Map sessions held on Feb. 4th.  There was a morning session and an afternoon session.  Attendees rotated around tables for small-group discussions of various issues important to reference service.  Topics discussed included assessment, referrals, knowledge-sharing, keeping statistics and working with DeskTracker, online learning, diversity, orientation, mentoring, and e-resources.  The organizers of the event, led by Lynne Rudasill, are preparing a report which LSSC will share with staff once we’ve received it.

Staff Training Opportunities:

We discussed how to make sure staff are aware of and encouraged to attend various training sessions offered on campus, such as sessions on supervising or on using specific Databases.  Skye will compile a list of such opportunities, and then LSSC will see about getting a link to this information put up at easy-to-find places on Library webpages.

Library Staff Webpage:

While the main webpage for Library employees does include many useful links, LSSC would like to make it easier to find and navigate.  Sandy is soliciting suggestions on how to improve this page and then she will revamp it.

American Library Association Conference Scholarships Awarded:

The Library is providing up to $1,000 each toward the expenses for two staff members to attend ALA in Las Vegas, June 26-July 1, 2014.  Ten staff members applied for this scholarship.  The committee who read the applications found them excellent, so it was difficult to decide on just two award winners.  The winners of the scholarships are Alex Bragg from Shipping and Julie Bumpus from Collection Management Services.  Jim gave Alex and Julie contact information for Carol Kopp in the Business Office in order to get their registrations for the conference completed during the Early Bird period.

Division Reports:

There have been no Faculty or Arts & Humanities Division meetings since the last LSSC meeting.

Physical Sciences:  Barb reported that Tom Teper visited the Physical Sciences Division meeting to talk about goals and procedures for weeding of the Main Stacks.

Special Collections:  Jim reported that the Special Collections Division met with University Librarian John Wilkin, then with Jennifer Hain Teper and Miriam Centeno from Conservation & Preservation.  The Maps and Geography Library is going through their whole collection piece by piece to make sure all bibliographic records are correct and complete and to determine items to be sent for conservation and preservation.  Their records will then be scanned by Digital Content Creation.  This project involves thousands to tens of thousands of items.

Central Public Services:  Dani reported that Jim Dohle, Beth Sandore, and  Tom Habing from Information Technology services  and Susan Avery from the Undergraduate Library visited the CPS Division meeting. They discussed computer downtime, IT’s current work completing and cleaning up links to databases, and the need for Library employees to come up with the top priorities of what needs fixed first when multiple systems are malfunctioning.  IT is better staffed now than in the past, but the demands logged for service still outpace their person-power.   Jim requested that the Library identify the top five priorities of systems that absolutely need fixed as soon as possible after a problem is detected.  He also said that when logging an OTRS ticket for IT service, it’s helpful to go ahead and explain how the malfunctioning system impacts your library, so that IT staff can understand which systems are of highest priority.  CPS will follow up on this issue in future meetings.  In the meantime, Dani suggests that individual Library units or divisions work on identifying their top-priority technology systems so that we can help IT determine priorities in meeting service requests.

Preservation and Collection Management Services Moving:

Preservation employees are moving, some from the basement of the Main Library and some from the Oak Street Facility, to the fourth floor of the Main Library.  Collection Management Services are moving to the basement of the Main Library and to the third floor of Oak Street.

Morale Survey?:

Dani is a member of the Library Supervisory Training Institute and was asked at a recent meeting whether or not the Library was planning to do a new staff morale survey.  The last one that LSSC did was in 2007, and we have talked in recent years about possibly doing an updated survey.  Barb said that a CLIME-Qual  survey about the climate in the Library is in the works, but she will ask Sue Searing whether or not this survey will specifically target staff needs and concerns.

Next LSSC Meeting:  Jim will not be able to attend a meeting on March 13th, so LSSC members will determine prior to that whether or not to meet in March, based on whether issues come up that the committee needs to address before April.