March 21, 2013 Meeting of Library Staff Support Committee

Time and Location of Meeting

March 21, 2013

Agenda Details

Agenda

Agenda not yet available.

Minutes Details

Attendees

Jim Cotter (chair), Becky Burner, Douglas Heintz, Dani Postula, Laura Poulosky, Barb Trumpinski, Julie Watkins, Sandy Wolf

Minutes

Follow-Up on Visit from Tony Hynes:

We found Tony’s visit in February informative and are glad that he is ensuring staff has a voice in the search for the University Librarian.  The search committee has now done preliminary interviews in Chicago and three candidates will be visiting the UIUC campus in April.  (Read more on this below.)

Possible LSSC Field Trip to Media Commons:

Jim Cotter will meet with Eric Kurt, the new Media Commons coordinator next week to discuss a possible LSSC field trip to visit the Commons and find out about services there.

Sponsorship of Staff Attendees to ALA:

Paula Kaufman has indicated that she will approve funding for a few Library staff members to attend ALA in Chicago in June.  Jim will soon send an announcement via LIBstaff to call for applications.

University Librarian Campus Interviews:

The candidates’ visits to UIUC are scheduled for Apr. 1-3, Apr. 17-19, and Apr. 22-24.  The candidates will give public presentations which all staff members are strongly encouraged to attend.  LSSC will also have an opportunity to meet with each candidate.  Jim will send a long list of possible interview questions for the committee to consider.  We are asked to reply to Jim by next Wed. (Mar. 27) with our recommendations of the most important questions to ask.  Douglas will draft an e-mail inviting questions from Library staff as well, with the explanation that we may not have time in our short interview sessions to ask all suggested questions, but that we will include all those we can.

Updates to LSSC Website:

Sandy plans to update the LSSC website with a “Focus on Staff” or “Staff Relations” section that will include lists of recent conference attendees, links to training opportunities and the Growing People blog, and lists of staff awards and events (such as the annual staff appreciation breakfast, new employee recognition, and all-Library retreats).

Committee Reports:

There were no division meetings for Social Sciences, Technical Services, Life and Physical Sciences, or Central Public Services since our last LSSC meeting.  Special Collections did meet, but Jim wasn’t able to attend, since he had to cover the desk at the Maps Library.

Faculty Meeting—Barb and Julie reported that there was general discussion of the new Media Commons, the Library budget, and the timetable for the University Librarian search, but no new details that we hadn’t already heard in previous months’ reports.  There was also discussion of the Inclusive Illinois initiative, and how to recruit and welcome a more diverse student body to UIUC.

Arts & Humanities—From the Administrative Council report given at the Arts & Humanities division meeting, Laura learned that Sue Searing is working on revisions to Library policy on e-mail use.  Work e-mail should be checked regularly, at least once a day.  There was discussion of problems with lack of responsiveness from Library Security when staff attempts to contact them.  Jeff Schrader will be visiting AC soon to address this issue.  There was also discussion, as there had been at the last LSSC meeting, of possibly avoiding closing the libraries for the half-day retreat and half-day Cleaning Day in January in the future, as there were some complaints about doing this so soon after reduced service days in January.  The FEMA-mandated Building Emergency Action Plan is currently underway in the Main Library.  Lynn Wiley from Acquisitions visited the Arts & Humanities meeting to discuss the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences grant which is currently being used to enable short-term loans of materials.  If an item is requested by three different patrons, a purchase of this item is then triggered.

Next LSSC meeting:

Our next regularly scheduled meeting will be held on Thursday, Apr. 11th, from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m., in 225B Main Library.  In the meantime, Jim will inform us of the schedule for LSSC meetings with the UL candidates once he has been given those dates and times.