February 14, 2013 Meeting of Library Staff Support Committee

Agenda not yet available.

Jim Cotter (chair), Laura Pouloksy, Dani Postula, Barb Trumpinski, Jule Watkins, Sandy Wolf

Visit fromTony Hynes:

Since Tony Hynes is serving as the Library staff representative on the search committee for the new University Librarian, he visited our meeting to update us on the search.  The rough deadline for the first round of applications is Feb. 15th, and a range of candidates has already applied.  Preliminary “airport interviews” in Chicago (at airport hotels or similar convenient locations) will be held around the end of March.  The final candidates will have two-day campus visits and will give open talks which staff are strongly encouraged to attend, in order to get to know the candidates and to give feedback to the search committee.  Tony has also requested that LSSC be given a chance to meet with the final candidates to ask questions we have for them.  Tony asked us to consider what we are looking for in a leader for the Library—what kind of personality and skills do we consider the most important to best serve the UIUC system?  He will take our ideas under advisement as he represents us on the search committee.

New LSSC member + remaining openings:

Douglas Heintz has agreed to serve as the Administrative Services liaison to LSSC and attended his first LSSC meeting in January.  Welcome, Douglas! There are still open spots on LSSC for one staff member from each of the following units:  International Area Studies, Central Public Services, and Technical Services.  (The latter two units do each have one liaison currently serving, but since they are large units, they are supposed to have two liaisons each.)  If you’re in one of these divisions and are interested in serving on LSSC, please let us know!

Media Commons:

We plan to ask the new Media Commons Coordinator, Eric Kurt, either to visit one of our meetings or to give us a tour of the Media Commons, located in the Undergraduate Library.  We will review the online list of loanable technology prior to talking with him so we’ll know more about what’s available.

Online training tools:

Barb mentioned that it would be useful to have general training tools (such as how to properly fill out binding slips and how to use the binding module on Acquisitions or how to place on OTRS request) available via one central site online.  It would be great to have a list of such training tools that’s easy for all staff to find and navigate.  This is an issue we might bring up with Beth Woodard, as the general staff training coordinator.

ALA in Chicago this summer:

Usually LSSC requests that the Library Administration provide funding for two Library staff members to attend the American Library Association conference in June.  Since ALA will be held in Chicago this summer, making travel costs lower and travel time shorter than usual, we will look into the possibility of sending more staff, if not to attend conference sessions, at least to see the exhibits.  More information to come!

Reaching Forward South Conference:

The annual Reaching Forward South Conference is held in late September in Springfield, IL.  Last year funding was approved for about eight staff members to attend.  We will be asking the Library Administration soon about funding for staff attendance this year.

Committee Reports:

There was no Life and Physical Sciences Division meeting since our last LSSC meeting.

Social Sciences—Sandy reported on discussion of recent problems with staff calling Library Security, having to leave voicemail, and not receiving a prompt reply.  Sandy will report back on what SSHEL learns upon further investigation of how to resolve this issue.  If there is ever a serious situation in your library and Library security is not immediately available, call the University Police or 911, depending on the severity of the situation.

Special Collections—Jim reported that there had been a problem with the link to Special Collections for the Library home page, but that this problem has been or would soon be fixed.

Technical Services—Julie reported that the Division discussed January’s All-Library Retreat.  Staff enjoyed the retreat, but some felt that the timing of a half-day retreat followed by a half-day of cleaning was not ideal, as it made for a whole day away from usual work duties soon after several Reduced Service days during the holidays.  Dan Tracy, the new Assistant Librarian at the Social Sciences, Health, and Education Library, visited the meeting, so discussion with him was main topic of the meeting.

Faculty Meeting—Barb reported that two new New Service Model teams have been formed, one for the Lincoln/Illinois Historical Survey and one for Archives.  Two new Academic Professionals have recently begun work in the Archives.  The Library is working with the American Library Association on the Digital Archives program.  Members of the Mortensen Center will soon be traveling to India, Butan, Nepal, two sub-Saharan countries, and Romania and Latvia in order to work with Non-Governmental Organizations for development as part of the “Beyond Access” program.  Eric Kurt visited the meeting to talk about how the New Media Commons, located in the Undergraduate Library, can benefit all members of the University community.

Central Public Services—Dani reported that Dan Tracy, Visiting Librarian for Library and Information Science and Research Support Services, visited the most recent CPS Division meeting, so most of the meeting was spent in discussion with him.

Arts & Humanities—Laura learned that the recent IT survey had a 25% response rate and that its results will soon be reported at Administrative Council.
Executive Council has had more requests for hires than available funding will be able to cover.  The amount of the funding pool is rather uncertain, until the next round of retirements has been announced.  IT positions will probably be among those preferred for funding.
The Humanities Hub Committee presented its first report to Executive Council and then began work on a second version of the report, taking into account EC’s suggestions.  The main recommendation of the committee is to move the Classics Library down from the 4th floor to the 2nd floor of the Main Library, in order to place it closer to the Literatures & Languages Library and the History, Philosophy, & Newspaper Library.  EC requested that the committee take into the account the possibility of a new, automated retrieval request system in the Main Stacks when planning the Humanities Hub’s footprint in the Stacks and also consider the possibility of placing a Scholarly Commons “outpost” within the Humanities Hub.  EC also emphasized that it will be important for unit heads within the Hub to communicate regularly in order to ensure a coherent collection.
The last major topic of discussion was the E-Research Task Force that a group of librarians would like to form in order to help patrons better understand and navigate available data services.  They are currently looking for funding for such a task force.

Next LSSC meeting:

Our next meeting will be held on Thursday, March 21st, from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m., in 225B Main Library.  Please note that this meeting will be held on the third Thursday of the month, rather than on the second Thursday, as is usually the case.