January 25, 2018 Meeting of Library Staff Support Committee

Agenda for LSSC 1/25/18

Thoughts on Library Employee Event

Dean Wilkin Visit

Dean Mischo’s Visit—any volunteers for subcommittee?

ALA Planning—would like to get applications in by Feb 16th? Decision announced by Feb 26th? Early bird rates end on March 7th.

Field Trip Planning—March 15th at 2pm. I hr tour. Possible lunch beforehand. Travel arrangements?

Newsletter—send out asap, hopefully by Feb 2nd? followup email to libnews regarding ala on the 9th.

Emily Kasak, Danielle Postula, Kyle McCafferty, Angela Gruendl, Jim Cotter, Gennye Varvel, Laura Poulosky, Debora Pfeiffer

Library Staff Support Committee Meeting Minutes—Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018

In Attendance:
Jim Cotter (Special Collections)
Angie Gruendl (Physical Sciences & Engineering)
Emily Kasak (Mortenson Center/Area Studies)
Kyle McCafferty (Central Access Services)
Debora Pfeiffer (Technical Services)
Dani Postula (Central Access Services)
Laura Poulosky (Residence Hall Libraries)
Gennye Varvel (Social Sciences)

Thoughts on Library Employees Event:
We appreciated having the event be open to all Library employees and also having the opportunity to submit feedback following the event, via the online survey.

We thought that splitting the presentation of the long-term service awards into categories (Faculty, A.P., and Civil Service Staff) was a bit confusing, since the awards weren’t listed by these categories in the program, and we felt it also seemed to emphasize the hierarchy between these categories, without a clear reason for doing so. We wondered why the awards were presented this way and would perhaps not recommend splitting the award presentations into these categories in the future.
Whether or not staff have to take vacation time if they choose not to attend this type of event needs to be clear and consistent across the Library system. Apparently, there was some confusion about this in some units. We feel that supervisors should enable and encourage all staff to attend such events, but should not oblige staff members to take vacation time if they prefer to work in their units during these events instead.
We would have liked to have the invited speaker (Elyne Cole this year) address some thought-provoking issues that libraries/universities are facing, as the outgoing Provost had at the previous Library retreat. Then it would be nice to have some time to discuss these ideas in small groups at our tables, perhaps.
Preparation for Meeting with Dean Wilkin:
We discussed what we would like to talk about with Dean Wilkin at our meeting with him on Wednesday, Jan. 31st, at 9 a.m. in Main Library Room 428. Besides giving him our feedback on the Library Employees Event (see above section), we thought it would be good to hear about what his experience has been like as Acting Provost, and what he’s learned from serving in that position that he will bring back to his work as University Librarian. We’d also like to ask about his perspective on Library-wide communication: How can LSSC better work cross-divisionally to improve communication between Library administration and staff? (Bill Mischo had brought up the idea of more cross-divisional communication when we met with him on January 4th.) Additionally, we thought we’d brief John on the idea behind a potential Building Library Community committee—or sub-committee, as Bill Mischo suggested might be easier to form, because it wouldn’t require official approval from Executive Council. Such a committee (or sub-committee) would include members from LSSC, L-CAP, the Diversity Committee, and the Staff Training and Development Committee and would address issues of communication, moral-building, and social interaction among all Library employees.
LSSC Field Trip in March: Kyle has arranged for LSSC to visit the Fire Safety Institute on Thursday, March 15th, at 2 p.m. for a one-hour tour. We’re excited to visit the Institute, see their library there, and learn about their services.
ALA Staff Scholarship Planning: Dean Wilkin has approved Library funding of two $1,000 staff scholarships to the American Library Association conference in New Orleans this June. The Early Bird deadline for conference registration is March 7th. Dani had already set up a web form for staff to apply for the scholarships in previous years, so the dates and place of this year’s conference will just need to be updated before the announcement of how to apply for scholarships is sent to LIB-news and LIB-staff. Dani will show Kyle how to do that, and the deadline for applications for the scholarships will be Feb. 16th. A committee comprised of one member of the Business & Human Resources Service Center, one LSSC member (Emily has volunteered), and one staff member-at-large (i.e., someone who is not on LSSC) will read the anonymous essays submitted by the staff members who apply for the scholarships to choose the two winners.
New LSSC Newsletter: We talked about content for our first LSSC newsletter, which Emily has volunteered to format. We plan to send out our “occasional” online newsletter via LIB-news, LIB-staff, and Library Office Notes. In our first edition, we plan to include information about:
-ALA Staff Scholarships (see above)
-Our meetings with Bill Mischo (see Jan. 4, 2018, LSSC minutes) and John Wilkin (see Jan. 31, 2018, notes by Emily)
-The upcoming LSSC field trip to the Fire Safety Institute (see details above)
Committee Reports:
Physical Sciences & Engineering and the Library Faculty have not met since our Jan. 4 LSSC meeting. Jim wasn’t able to attend the Special Collections Division meeting, due to staffing issues at the Map & Geography Library.

Area Studies: The Area Studies Division meeting focused on subscription renewals.

Social Sciences Division: Library IT visited the Social Sciences Division meeting to discuss the new printing system, two-factor authentication for online security, web migration (which is 99% completed), the new online Library directory, and new web pages. John Laskowski has been hired to facilitate IT’s work with staff, focusing on web user experience. John reports to Tom Habing and Cherie Weible.

Residence Hall Libraries: The current Residence Hall Librarian, Gretchen Madsen Webb, has accepted a job offer to become Branch Manager of Gresham Public Library in the Portland, Oregon, area. Her last day at the University of Illinois will be February 23rd. The Residence Hall Libraries’ staff will thus be especially busy, learning how to cover the essential tasks that Gretchen has been performing, as it will probably take at least a few months for Gretchen’s long-term replacement to be selected and hired. Everyone at the Residence Hall Libraries, and in Residential Life, will miss Gretchen very much, but we’re excited for her about this next step in her career!