July 10, 2014 Meeting of Library Staff Support Committee

Agenda not yet available.

Skye Arseneau (Administrative Services), Becky Burner (Physical Sciences & Engineering), Jim Cotter (Special Collections), Lisa Renee Kemplin (International Area Studies), Debora Pfeiffer (Technical Services), Dani Postula (Central Access Services), Laura Poulosky (Residence Hall Libraries), Shoshana Vegh-Gaynor (Arts & Humanities), Julie Watkins (Technical Services)

Upcoming LSSC Elections:

The Library Staff Support Committee holds its elections every summer.  Now that we have updated the term dates of the current LSSC liaisons, we have determined that the following two-year terms are up for election or re-election this summer:  1 position each in Special Collections, Physical Sciences & Engineering, Life Sciences, and Technical Services, and two positions in Central Access Services.  Jim will send out a call via the Library staff listserv for self-nominations for these positions.  Self-nominations will be due on Friday, July 18th.  If there are any contested races, elections will be held via a webform sent to all Library civil service staff.
For information about what LSSC does, please see LSSC’s official charge at the following site:  www.library.edu/committee/staff.com/members.html

LSSC Table at the New Employee luncheon:

LSSC members sat together at the New Employee Luncheon on June 19 to give any interested staff members the opportunity to talk with committee members about what we do on LSSC.   Only a few staff members came to talk with us, so we have decided that for the Staff Service Recognition lunch in September, we will prepare fliers to distribute in order to encourage more interest.

Upcoming Brownbag Session with ALA Staff Attendees:

Alex Bragg and Julie Bumpus attended ALA in Las Vegas in June.  Jim is contacting them to arrange a brownbag lunch session that we hope to hold soon in the Main Library, so that staff members can attend to hear about Alex’s and Julie’s experiences at ALA.  Look for an announcement via LIB-news.

ALA Recruiting Report:

Skye reported that she and Cindy Kelly staffed a table at ALA last month to spread the word about four Academic Professional and Faculty positions that are currently open at the University Library:  Associate University Librarian for Information Technology; E-Learning; E-Serials; and Head Librarian of the Architecture & Art Library.  Six more AP and Faculty positions will be advertised soon, and another four a little later.  Skye and Cindy handed out nice new University Library bookmarks and scanned the ALA badges of interested passers-by, garnering the contact information of about 150 interested individuals in order to follow up with them.

Future LSSC “field trips”:

We discussed the possibility of visiting the following locations at upcoming LSSC meetings—the Prairie Research Institute, the SSHEL Library, the Fire Institute, the Archives Research Center, and the University Archives (after they have moved to their new location in the old Applied Health Sciences space and are ready for guests).

Announcements of when LSSC minutes are posted:

Skye asked whether or not we have been sending announcements via LIB-news to let staff know when the monthly LSSC minutes have been posted.  While this used to be done in the past, we need to start again doing so consistently.

Division reports:

Neither the Central Public Services nor the Arts & Humanities divisions have met since the June LSSC meeting.

Special Collections:  Jim reported that Joanne Kaczmarek is the new Division Head of Special Collections.  The Division continues to plan their Public Relations outreach at the Urbana Sweet Corn Fest on August 22nd and 23rd.

International Area Studies Division:  Lisa Renee reported that Steven Witt was elected to the Collection Development Committee.  There was discussion of the possibility that there may be some money left in the Marketing and Strategic Communications budget for new banners on five light poles located close to the Main Library.  The Reference Roadmap Retreat report has now been completed, and feedback on the retreat will be applied to next year’s event.

Technical Services:  Julie reported that Room 1 of the Main Library is being cleaned out in preparation for CAM (Central Access Management)’s move to that location, but that dates for the move have not yet been announced.  There was discussion of which online system will be used to replace Voyager, which at some point soon will no longer be supported.  Voyager’s successor has not yet been chosen, so we’ll look forward to hearing more about this.

Physical Sciences & Engineering:  Sue Searing (Associate University Librarian for User Services) visited the Physical Sciences & Engineering Division meeting to discuss the student wage budget.  The University Library budget has not yet been finalized, but it appears that the budget for student wages will likely be about the same as it was last year.

Next LSSC Meeting:

Our next meeting will be held on Thursday, Aug. 14, in Room 428 of the Main Library.  We will discuss questions to ask John Wilkin and Sue Searing if we are able to have each of them attend one of our meetings soon.