June 16, 2003 Meeting of Administrative Council

Agenda not yet available.

Paula Kaufman, Chair, Rod Allen, Bob Burger, Kevin Butterfield, Barbara Ford, Barb Henigman, Lisa Hinchliffe, Barbara Jones (for Bill Maher), Lyn Jones, Cindy Kelly, Tom Kilton, Kruger, Betsy, Nancy O’Brien, Beth Sandore, Diane Schmidt, Karen Schmidt, Dee Shonkwiler (for Peggy Glatthaar), Paula Watson, Karen Wei, John Weible, Joyce Wright, Greg Youngen (for Tina Chrzastowski), Visitor – Mary Laskowski, Tom Teper

1.   E-Reserves-K. Schmidt, LaskowskiThe Budget Group has reviewed this and talked about it in principal but are waiting for this discussion before going ahead. Expansion of E-reserves is doable and especially important in light of possible shorter hours in the libraries. It would require a change in priorities and a reallocation of staff.

   Everyone is supportive of the E-reserves, but are concerned about how it will play out in the budget prioritization.  What will the trade-offs be? We won’t know until the budget is out. Paula asks that the Division Coordinators touch base with their divisions about their thoughts on the impact on service will be and ideas on how this might best work, and then let Karen and Mary know what they come up with. Please give feedback as soon as possible about e-reserves.

   The E-reserves group has statistics on the number of print reserves at each location. We do not know when these circulate, however, and agreed that this will be useful information. John Weible will investigate obtaining a report showing hourly activity for print reserves.

   The issue of whether print reserves are centralized needs to be explored further by the AC.

2. Microfilming Plan – K. Schmidt, TeperMicrofilm moved into Noyes Lab as a temporary solution that was to last 3-4 years. Now, by next summer microfilming operation has to leave Noyes.  We need to deal with the collection that is there as well as the services. Rare Book uses the service on a limited basis.  Slavic and IRRC uses it a lot. There are about 11,200 reels of microfilm.

   In the first year it would cost the Library about $70,000 to maintain the collection and every year after that about $40,000. If we upgrade to a Preservation Microfilming Lab it would require virtually all new equipment, since the equipment has not been maintained by the campus and there has never been any service contracts on the equipment.  That would cost the Library $206,000. If we don’t upgrade the equipment it will be virtually non-functional. We could also outsource the entire operation. That would mean storing the film we have and then dealing with service to duplicate it on demand. If we keep the service we would charge a fee for duplicating that would be passed onto the patron.  This would be new monies for the Library. If we outsource the fees would generally be higher.

   Now when a user needs a reel produced or duplicated they may come through interlibrary loan. IRRC gets in touch with Microfilm and the film is produced. That’s approximately a two week turnaround. Through the Slavic reference service, Slavic orders film from abroad and it is sent here as a negative. They duplicate the positive copy and that becomes the used copy. The negative then goes into our collection and a print copy gets catalogued in the stacks.  Also, people used to be able to walk up to the desk in Graphic Services and get film made or duplicated. It would take approximately two weeks; sometimes less in slower times.

   If we choose to outsource this basically the same thing would happen, and in the same time frame.  The patron would be billed directly by the outsource service.

   For Rare Books, books could be sent out to be filmed or digital files would be used to restrict access to the piece.The recommendation is to outsource the duplication of film, work on developing the reformatting program, develop on demand digital services, and allocate resources into a preservation program or supporting base operations in preservation. The recommendation was accepted.

3. Budget Update & Stresses – KaufmanThere is no new information. The BOT meets at the end of the month to discuss tuition and we don’t know yet what the percentage cut will be.  Our goal is to not layoff or cut permanent staff, but we will have to cut student wages. Cindy Kelly will be arranging short stress management workshops.  They are not mandatory, but they will be helpful for many people.  The workshops will be paid for out of unrestricted gift monies.

   There have been 15-17 committees that have been established by the University Administration to look at how various groups can work together better. Paula chaired a Library group.  The three libraries were asked to look at how they can better work together to reduce the cost of electronic resources and interlibrary loan. Savings on E-resources provided by the State Library or IDAL and consortium agreements amount to over $1 million a year. ILCSO documented that we would have saved more than $2 million over four years if we had gone out and bought our own on-line system, however, the report pointed out that there was also a cost to the service we provide our users.

   Staff members have come to Cindy for help in determining cuts to student wages.  Because they schedule the students, some unit heads have left it to them to figure out the cuts. Those who sought Cindy out are frustrated and need help from their unit heads. Cindy also reminded the group about the College Work Study student program, we pay only ¼ of the student’s wages, which would allow us more students.

   The Library will conduct a GA audit sometime during this fall, done by someone outside the Library, to make sure our GAs are being given pre-professional experiences and not being used to backfill for the loss of students.

4. Reproduction and Use Guidelines – K. SchmidtKaren will be meeting with Lynn Wiley and Alvan Bregman and Gene Rinkel, to get a sense about the most diverse kinds of situations. They will work through a sensible workflow that will give them some flexibility, then they could create a process document that could help people implement this.

   The fees haven’t been completely decided yet. Karen will check with other offices on campus to find out what they are charging.

   The concerns raised by Bill Maher are that he wants to be sure we have some local options for implementation.  He feels the revenue should go back to the unit that does the work. One of the clauses discussing copyright should be reworded so it doesn’t overlook the issue of fair use.  Karen will take this to Legal Counsel to get their input on how it should be reworded.

5. Keeping Informed about Department and Cross-Campus Initiatives – KaufmanThere are a lot of new cross-campus initiatives and interesting things going on in the departments. Paula wants to be sure that we have as wide spread as possible knowledge of what’s going on and that we don’t let opportunities pass us by. The initiatives are listed on the Chancellor’s website (http://www2.uiuc.edu/initiatives/). Because we serve departments, we aren’t always aware of some of the interdisciplinary activities in which the Chancellor is putting her money and focus. Paula asks that the Divisions take a look at the Chancellor’s website and talk about some of these efforts.  She would be happy to approach some of the groups to get someone from the Library at these tables if there are no natural connections.
6. Updates and AnnouncementsBeth Sandore is setting up a meeting for June 30 and will be talking about LSTA (Library Services and Technology Act) grants due July 30. Bev Curtis and Rod Allen will be there to answer any questions about budget or proposals. The State Library has more than $6 million of LSTA money to give away. IRIS has LSTA grants listed. If you don’t subscribe to the IRIS alert service you may want to. Every week you get a digest of the grants that have been announced as available during the previous week. The LSTA guidelines are on the State Library web site. The meeting is to generate ideas and excitement.

   Technical Services took its first step towards reformulating itself with a retreat during the morning. They came up with principals by which they would determine how to get where they want to go.

   Tech Services has an internet service that can be used when staff are traveling. They will be announcing the service via LIBNEWS.  It is a nation wide service including Canada.  The software lets you dial a local number so there is no long distance charge. There is a per hour charge and Tech Services will set up an account per person.