July 9, 2014 Meeting of Library Faculty Meeting

Call to Order Standing Items:

• Adoption of the Agenda – John Wilkin
• Approval of Minutes – John Wilkin
• Introductions  – John Wilkin
• Report of the University Librarian (15 min – John Wilkin)
• Executive Committee Report (15 min – Bill Mischo)

Lightning Rounds (5 minutes)

• Mortenson Center Meets Evaluation (Barbara Ford and Susan Schnuer)
• New Web Archiving Service at the University Library (Tracy Popp)
• LibQUAL+ Lite Preview (Jen-chien Yu)

New Business Announcements

Adjournment

Call to Order

 

Adoption of the Agenda – John Wilkin

 

Approval of Minutes – John Wilkin

Minutes were approved after a correction was noted by John Wagstaff. Tom Teper made the motion to accept and it was seconded by Sue Searing.

 

Introductions  – John Wilkin—none

 

Report of the University Librarian – John Wilkin

• Budget hearing. John reported that the budget hearing on campus last Monday went well.  The group of faculty was engaged with the discussion of library issues and they asked meaningful questions. The main focus of the budget is on facilities and the 1^st phase of the master plan for the Library to fund a high density storage facility. The budget also reflects the message that the library is about curation, services and spaces to make the library the way it should be. John will send out the budget via email.
• Hiring plan.  As previously noted in an email, all positions in the hiring plan were approved. John reemphasized that we have a large number of searches at this time and more to come.  He also noted that this is the time of the year for the June hiring plan and that an announcement will be sent soon for position requests. He added that we are more committed on our funds than we had been in the past, but due to retirements we will have a little flexibility.  John acknowledged the great contributions that Barbara Ford has made to the Library and that Library EC will be moving aggressively on appointing a search committee to fill her upcoming vacancy.
• Upcoming forum.  An email was sent that had a link to the new Library newsletter.  The newsletter mentioned a library forum for May 21 in which John will provide updates and invite discussions on various topics.  He will send out an agenda for that soon.
• Strategic thinking and design meeting in Chicago. The Associate University Librarians attended this meeting with Elliot Shore, the Executive Director of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL).  Elliot introduced a new process for ARL to think about what the group does to advance the collective agendas.  It is an iterative process to discuss and shape our strategic planning.  The process is less about assessment, but more about coordinating our collective activities. Ann Pendleton-Jullian (architect) introduced this very different, visual way of thinking.  There are four main areas of this process:  boundless symposium; information lens; community knowledge mesh; and ecosystem engine.  The previous week, John and four other ARL directors met in DC to brainstorm about where this planning process takes ARL. John provided examples of what each area might include and added that the group is going to try to move ARL in the direction of being “systems of actions” to be more engaged in trying to create a way to make things thrive.  He offered three areas that could have local energy using the model:  federations of repositories (print, digital, data), which are our collective responsibilities; advancing the profession (building our leadership piece, attention given to diversity in the profession, and concerns that the library school profession is failing us- we need to turn partly away from it to build a cadre of professionals we need and our own certification process for what we need); and scholarly publishing (he advanced the notion but there was already a lot of enthusiasm).  John added that we want to grow our responsibilities, but can only do it if we change the way our research libraries work to move things to make it happen.  Lisa Hinchliffe noted that in regards to Library Education, Linda Smith and the Dean of the library school at Rutgers were awarded a library grant to create the next generation of LIS education.

Executive Committee Report (Bill Mischo)

•  EC met a couple times since the last faculty meeting.  Bill reviewed some of the issues that were brought up at the last faculty meeting and asked for suggestions to further approach the topics in order to move forward on them.  They included issues related to faculty governance, ways of writing job descriptions, discussions about the role of Associate University Librarians (AUL) in the organization and increasing levels of responsibilities, and ways to move IT projects away from a matrix approach to more of a functional approach.  He said that EC is also looking at topics and wanted comments on the unretreat reports that were sent out. He encouraged everyone to read the reports and to provide feedback.
• AUL evaluations.  AULs will send their annual reports to EC by April 12^th.  Bill will then send a note out to Libnews to request that we read and provide feedback on their annual reports. In the bylaws it is stated that EC is to assist the Dean of Library Services with the evaluation of the AULs).
• Search updates.  Tom Teper and Beth Woodard are providing updates of the searches.  Please make sure to send any questions to EC.  EC is also working to get chairs and search committees set up. Bill believes that all of the minutes of EC are now up to date on the website.
• Unretreat report. The CMSs web presence report is the first report that was discussed to help move recommendations forward.  Please look at it and send questions, comments, and feedback to EC in the next couple of weeks.

• Data services report. EC is in the process of establishing this and hiring a director. Once a director is on board there will be additional money for additional positions.  In this case EC is consulting with other colleges who are hiring similar specialists.  That report will feed into this process.  CITES and NCSA are also working with the group on storage needs. There are a number of groups working with them for areas of storage (CITES and NCSA) and preservation.  There is also a position allocated for a preservation developer. Other aspects are to move some of the presentation software (MEDUSA) and to have an OASIS (open access) repository (for those who have static data that has to be stored for a required number of years.
• Other reports to be discussed include: international assessment; culture; discovery access; publishing; digitization, and instruction.
• Lisa Hinchliffe asked if clarification could be given about the process, since it wasn’t clear if EC was going to then make decisions on recommendations or send them on to individuals or groups who would take the lead on them.  Bill responded that it varies from report to report.  In some cases steps can be taken immediately to act on recommendations.  The goal is to get things moving quickly. In the case of the CMS there is some urgency involved, including hiring individuals, so a team has been set up to begin work with various phases anticipated.  Tim Cole added that at times the recommendations will be returned to people or groups for follow-up and that EC is taking action where appropriate.
• Promotion and Tenure.   EC has been selecting internal and external reviewers for cases. The group also discussed employment guidelines for specialized faculty. At the next EC meeting the group will be looking at possibilities for instructional, clinical and research faculty (who would be outside tenure process).
• Special topic meetings.  As a follow-up from the last faculty meeting, EC has been discussing how best to go forward with special topics and meetings.  Bill suggested following a model that Mary Laskowski used recently to get feedback from faculty on updating promotion and tenure documents.  She offered two sessions at noontime.  EC will organize similar opportunities for special topics.
• Other topics.
  • Tim Cole mentioned that EC prepared a report related to academic professionals and their use of professional time for research investigation.
  • Bill asked if the group wanted to have further discussions in a general forum about requirements we have for faculty members; such as whether to require an MLS in job descriptions or if a terminal degree in some other area is preferable or needed.  Bill summarized what was discussed at the last faculty meeting regarding the fact that the library has job descriptions for academic professionals that sometimes require an M.L.S and other times not, as well as the fact that we have hired library faculty who do not have an M.L.S., but perhaps some advanced degree in a subject area. This would allow us to look at the applied work we do in the profession with evolving skills in library work, including data management, data stewardship and data services that may not require a library degree. Lisa Hinchliffe asked how we would identify the skills and knowledge that someone should have for any particular position or whether an M.L.S or some other terminal degree would be enough evidence that they have what is needed. She asked if this is a question of philosophy and if we want to make a decision on a case by case basis.  Bill responded “yes” and that we are doing that now.  Tom Teper asked what the expectation of the university is and Bill replied that the library should be in the position to tell campus what is valid, rather than them telling us (like recently with positions that we thought should be faculty and the campus said no).  Tim Cole suggested that further discussion of this will occur in an upcoming specialized faculty discussion forum.
• John Wilkin offered an extemporaneous remark later on that was referring back to some of this EC work. He mentioned that he has been here for 9 months today.  He acknowledged that the way the faculty governance process takes ownership is humbling and he wanted to let the faculty know that he acted nimble in several instances for matters being discussed in EC in order to get matters moving more quickly.  He appreciates that EC allowed him to do this and took the heat for this variation in process.

Lightning Rounds

 

Mortenson Center Meets Evaluation (Barbara Ford, Susan Schnuer, Jen-Chien Yu)

• Barbara and Susan reported on an effort funded through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the Mortenson Center to work with Arabella Associates for an evaluation of the Mortenson Center and to develop a “Theory of Change”. Jen-Chien Yu also assisted with the project.  Arabella helped them with an outline of the project, short and long term goals, strategies, activities and categories.  The website will have more detail (http://www.library.illinois.edu/mortenson/). See their PowerPoint as well.  One result was that there was 100% satisfaction for those who come for training. Other areas that were assessed included how well the Mortenson Center improves skills and community engagement as a result of the participant applying what they learned at the center.  Through this effort they found out what they do well and not so well.  Fund raising is an area that they could focus less on since other countries don’t have dedicated fund raising.  They would like to spend more time with Community engagement and the differences this has made.  They also shared lessons learned which include: integrating assessment in an on-going way; focusing on skills with the greatest impact; inserting train-the-trainer skills; and assisting in the development of individual action plans. Jen mentioned that 75% of all libraries have elements and potential for doing something similar, as long as they have the framework.  She mentioned that Arabella doesn’t want statistics that can easily be found (like number of books or gate count).  They want to assess the impact on what has been done (such as programs, services and skills). Jen had to assist Arabella since they had never worked with academic libraries, so she helped shape the language to show impact.

 New Web Archiving Service at the University Library (Tracy Popp)

Tracy provided a power point and described the new web archiving service, using web crawler technology at the Library that addresses the need to capture, document, and preserve culturally important Web-based content. Based on suggestions by Chris Prom and Sarah Shreeves, the library decided to subscribe to the California Digital Library’s Web Archiving service, which maintains the hardware and the software, as well as provides backup and maintenance.  Local responsibilities include policy and user administration, collection development, and curation. After a two year pilot phase (including developing policies, procedures and testing), it is now in production and the Web Archiving Advisory Group (including Tracy, Chris Prom, Sarah Shreeves and Kyle Rimkus) is now accepting proposals.  Once the proposal is reviewed, the service will allow you to create a site, capture web sites, search and display captured content, and provide public access to the sites you’ve captured.  Some harvested content now publicly available: http://webarchives.cdlib.org/institutions/UL.  Documentation and the proposal information is available on the preservation website: http://tinyurl.com/m7bl8k3.

 

Submit proposals to, or ask questions of, Tracy Popp (tpopp2@illinois.edu). A proposal should be in the form of a 1-2 page narrative which describes the project and clearly demonstrates the points enumerated in the proposal guidelines found at http://tinyurl.com/kbofq5n.

 

LibQUAL+ Lite Preview Jen-chien Yu

Jen reminded everyone that the survey ends Saturday April 19 <go.illinois.lilbrary.edu/survey>.  However, she was able to provide a review of previous such assessments done and a bit of a comparison of results from the last time LibQual was used.  The instrument surveyed three major areas:  services, resources, facilities (in the literature these are called affect of service, information control and library as place).

In 2008, LibQual was used, but not for the entire university. There were 739 responses, 83% faculty and staff.  So far this time there are 971 valid responses; 78% respondents were students.  Jen provided a PowerPoint with scores from both years and a comparison for the 5 major scores (rating range of 1 to 9) and explained what they signified.  This year we are already a little higher in percentile than last time.

Of particular value this year was that it was the first time the Library was allowed to add 5 questions of our own for local evaluation.  Jen provided a few examples of the feedback/comments that were provided, which can be very illustrative.  What is already apparent is that there are many complaints about the library website, demands for more space and facilities, more social areas, better wifi (including locations) and lighting, among many other suggestions.  There were lots of appreciative comments about staff.  She also compared this year’s results to Ohio State and Penn State University. See the PowerPoint for that information.

Questions:

• Bill Mischo asked if we are going to consider the Ithaka Survey last year and look at both of these in the aggregate and use both for a broader perspective. Jen responded that, yes, that will happen once the survey is closed.  They will be able to do a subset on user groups or branch libraries and can even cull out faculty too.  She did note that previously faculty complained that we didn’t have enough of the collection that they wanted, but this year there isn’t so much complaining, except that they want more ebooks.
• Kirstin Dougan asked about a time frame for sharing the location specific data. Jen said there will be another presentation at another faculty meeting once all the data are analyzed and sorted, but she should be able to share comments specific to locations pretty quickly, so people should let her know about that. Lisa Hinchliffe mentioned that it may take a bit of time to “scrub” some of the comments for specific names of individuals.  Lisa also asked if we could get percentile tables and tables that show by subpopulations in order to look at faculty versus students.  Jen said that LibQUAL+ literature suggested that we can use the same norm table with all three groups (undergrad, graduate, faculty).  But she will double-check on that.
• Bill also remarked that the 2-3 page summary for the Ithaka survey was excellent and hopes that something like that could be done for this.
• Sue Searing asked if there had been any reactions to the methods used here because of the design of the survey and if Jen has seen any patterns between the different designs of surveys of Ithaka and this one.  Jen said the major complaints were that faculty didn’t like how it looked.  Jen even said that the methods are good, but the survey interface could have benefited from usability testing. Some faculty had difficulty responding because some questions didn’t apply to them (if they worked remotely)
• Jen also mentioned the request by faculty to hear what happened as a result of the survey (what is the library going to do differently, improve, etc.).  One way to share results could be in the Compendium.

New Business – none

Announcements

• Barbara Ford announced that a very large group of librarians will be coming to the Mortenson Center at the end of May through June.  She previously sent out an email asking for volunteer “library friends.”  The group will be traveling to various places, but really value the “library friends” so please contact her to volunteer.

• Cindy Ingold reminded everyone that there will be candidates coming in next week for the International Librarian Position. Information will be sent again in an email about the presentations.

Adjourned 4:26 pm