July 26, 2018 Meeting of Library Staff Support Committee

• Welcome to new liaisons!
• Internal elections for officers (Chair, Vice-Chair, and Secretary), ac representative (1 person), and faculty meeting representative (2 people).
• Review new employees and ALA brownbag luncheons.
• Jake McGregor mentioned that he is reading through the ClimeQual, and I think it would be good for LSSC to meet with him sooner rather than later. A staff member mentioned that they would be interested in LSSC doing a morale survey.
• New furniture in staff lounge discussion. Someone will need to take the lead on this. I will send out the recommendations that Skye gave to me.

Erik Chapman (Life Sciences)
Lonnie Clark (Central Public Services)*
Jim Cotter (Special Collections)
Kim Hutcherson (Administrative Services)
Cristina Kuhn (Technical Services)*
Kyle McCafferty (Central Access Services)—out-going Chair
Laura Poulosky (Residence Hall Libraries)
Tammie Redenbaugh (Technical Services)*
Ben Riegler (Central Public Services)*
Gennye Varvel (Social Sciences)

*Welcome, New LSSC Members!: We are happy to welcome the following new members to LSSC: Lonnie Clark (Central Public Services), Cristina Kuhn (Technical Services), Tammie Redenbaugh (Technical Services), and Ben Riegler (Central Public Services). Thanks to all of you for being willing to serve on LSSC! We are so glad to work with you on the committee.

New LSSC Officers: The following members were elected to serve as LSSC officers: Erik Chapman—Chair; Lonnie Clark—Vice Chair; and Laura Poulosky—Recording Secretary. Ben Riegler and Angie Gruendl have volunteered to serve as our liaisons to the Library Faculty meetings. Cristina Kuhn has volunteered to serve as our liaison to Administrative Council.

Review of New Employee Brownbag Lunch and ALA Brownbag Discussion: LSSC hosted a New Employee Brownbag Lunch and the ALA Brownbag Discussion last week in Main Library, Room 106. We agreed that this venue worked well and that these events are worthwhile and should be continued. Eight people attended each event. Kyle provided coffee and snacks for these events—thanks so much, Kyle! In the future, we would like to ask the Library Administration to approve these events as work time, in order to make it easier for more staff to attend. We would also like to request a small budget to cover coffee and snacks. In addition to our announcements on the LIB-staff listserv, LSSC members will work to get the word about these events out to their colleagues and encourage them to attend. Erik also suggested the idea of LSSC organizing 1- to 2-year work anniversary “check-in” events at which new(ish) employees would have the chance to get together with their Library cohorts and discuss their Library experiences thus far.

Meeting with Jake MacGregor? Jake MacGregor, who has recently begun his position as the Organizational Development & Training Coordinator, has been reading through the results of the Library-wide ClimQual survey that was conducted in 2015. Kyle recommended that LSSC schedule a meeting with Jake as soon as we can to talk with him about plans for follow-up to the survey. The survey report can be found here:

https://www.library.illinois.edu/staff/assessment/climatequal/

New LSSC Morale Survey? A staff member suggested to one of the LSSC liaisons that we conduct an updated morale survey of civil service employees. The last time that LSSC conducted a morale survey was in 2007, the results of which can be found on LSSC’s G-drive. (Any LSSC members who don’t yet have access to LSSC’s G-drive can request this access from Library IT.) We will talk in future meetings about possibly creating a new morale survey.

Update on Request for Break Room Furniture Upgrade: Kyle has forwarded to LSSC the anonymous suggestion from LSSC’s online comment box that we look into getting new furniture for the Main Library’s staff lounge on the 4th floor. Kyle also forwarded to us Skye Arseneau’s suggestions about how to proceed. Skye said that this type of request should be submitted to Greg Knott. The main factors to look for in new furniture should be comfort, cost, cleanliness, and the ease of long-term care. We agreed that we should all have a look at the staff lounge, and possibly hold an LSSC meeting there soon, in order to assess needs before drafting a request for updates.

Committee Reports:

Technical Services: Cristina shared the following notes from the most recent Technical Services Division meeting:

• Intro of Jake MacGregor, Organizational Development & Training Coordinator
  • Successor to Beth Woodard – job role/description has changed b/w her and Jake
  • Talked about his background: formerly of IT, has HR experience & HR degree
  • Main goal is overall workplace improvement
  • Priorities:
    • Improve on-boarding for new faculty & staff
    • Coordinate/implement AP Promotion Program
    • Inventory & help organize training programs in library
    • Help HR streamline current & new processes
• It was suggested to Jake to attempt/implement project management trainings – several persons gave Jake feedback regarding that suggestion.
• Mary Laskowski (CMS) said that it will be known sometime in August what new system will be replacing Voyager.
• MJ Han (CAM) announced Hannah Stitzel’s departure, Joshua Lynch will be her successor (he was present and introduced).
• Library Renovation Discussion
• Jamie Carlstone (CAM) is in the beginning process of de-duplicating several thousand items from the Undergrad monograph collection.
• Mary mentioned the different advisory groups that Tom Teper is putting together.

Social Sciences: Gennye reported that there had been no Social Sciences Division meeting since our last LSSC meeting, but that the Social Sciences, Health & Education Library (SSHEL) is in the process of hiring candidates for the Library Specialist closing shift. Five candidates are being interviewed for the position.
Administrative Services: Kim reported that the Business staff of the BHRSC (Business & Human Resources Service Center) has all moved to the 4th floor of the Main Library. Human Resources will remain in Room 127, a space which allows for privacy when discussing any confidential matters with Library employees and job candidates.

Residence Hall Libraries: The Residence Hall Libraries held an Open House at Ikenberry Library on Thursday, July 12th, from 11am to 2pm. We estimate that at least 50 people attended and we were pleased to have so many visitors from the University Library. Thanks for coming over! Anyone with an active I-card is encouraged to participate in our Summer Reading Challenge: complete 4 or more of our reading challenges (many of the options are short!) by the end of the summer, bring your completed card to Ikenberry Library, and earn a prize: your choice of a Residence Hall Library travel mug, a cloth RHL tote bag with an ABC of authors on it, or an Advance Reader’s Copy of a book we picked up from a library conferences. Ikenberry Library’s summer hours are M-F 10am-4pm. Come on over to check out books, DVDs, CDs, video games, board games, and/or magazines for all your summer entertainment needs!

There were no Central Public Services, Faculty, or Administrative Councils to report on since our last LSSC meeting.

Next LSSC Meeting: LSSC meetings are normally held the fourth Thursday of each month at 11 am. Our next meeting will be on Thursday, Aug. 23rd, in Main Library Room 225B. Thanks to Lonnie (our new Vice Chair) for reserving the room for us!