March 8, 2012 Meeting of Area Studies

Agenda not yet available.

Staff Meeting Minutes March 8, 2012

In Attendance: Steve Witt, Larry Miller, Joe Lenkart, Helen Sullivan, Jan Adamczyk, Shuyong Jiang, Denise Sampson, Setsuko Noguchi, Yuriko Oono, Xiaoping Qi, Mara Thacker, Lynne Rudasill, Paula Carns, Kit Condill, Marek Sroka, Debora Pfeiffer, Gregory Kiselev, Al Kagan.

1. The Open House went well. Steve thanks everyone for their support and participation in this event, and asks for feedback.
2. More students should have attended this event. How can we attract students to our events in the future?
3. The planned IAS weblog should help.
4. Meeting s with GSLIS deans Linda Smith and Rae Montague could generate ideas.
5. A course on IAS and area studies could be developed.
6. African studies and a global librarianship course were suggested.
7. Short workshops for each of the areas of specialty were also suggested; it was proposed that we start with workshops, see what the area of interest in the workshops is, and then proceed to the organization of courses.
8. It was mentioned that Paula Kaufman had remarked that if library-related events were held at GSLIS, then GSLIS students would attend.
9. Apparently, there are some communication issues at GSLIS regarding the publication of events.
10. Mara is working with ALA student chapters.

Some attendees of the Open House were disappointed that they were not able to see the 323c Conference Room. It was mentioned that though we were in possession of the key during the Open House, the room could not be kept open because of theft and vandalism issues.

1. Paula Carns mentioned that the conference room in Literature and Languages is kept unlocked, and that student patrons and staff use it spontaneously at will.
2. GA Allocations: We have been allocated .75 or three .25 time GAs. (Job descriptions? Do we have these?)
3. Sharing GAs is a priority. (A GA needs a .33 appointment in order to get a tuition waiver.) Literature and Languages could share with us. A GA could have a .25 appointment at IAS and another .25 appointment somewhere else.
4. There is a special program being started at GSLIS by Dean Rae Montague.
5. GA interviews occur mostly during May and June. Steve would like for us to interview in April if this is possible.
6. Grad Hourlies
7. Requests for grad hourlies for the summer must be submitted within the next two weeks.
8. Chinese, Slavic and Stacks projects may need grad hourlies.
9. The IAS website has been updated; what we need now is a plan for site maintenance, a blog, and other social networking.
10. Harriet Green and the LitLang GAs did their website, blogs, and twitter feeds, and these are maintained according to a schedule. They take care of web design analysis, and also make updates.
11. Hengyi’s GA ship is over in May. We could give her a grad hourly position after her GA position ends.
12. There might be staff funding available, but this can only be used until 6/30/2012.)
13. LitLang GAs could help us.
14. Mara was in charge of the Facebook page at her previous institution. She knows some tricks to get people to follow, and has done some crazy publicity stunts to attract patrons to the page and to the library.
15. Who will post to Facebook? Joe, Kit, and Steve offered to do guest posts.
16. We need a best practices list; it’s better not to bombard readers with too much stimuli at once, for example.
17. We need someone to manage the Twitter account. (Mara is not too fond of Twitter.)

CD Roms: There are some boxes of them here; Al has some, and there are some in Room 425.

1. A call was put out for faculty to determine which are music or films, and could be sent to the UGL, and which ones are software driven.
2. We need to ask Library IT to set up a computer to support their use–once we learn which kinds of software we need to operate the CDs.
3. Al has asked a student employee to make a list of the CD Roms he has.
4. Most of the Japanese CD roms are language learning lessons which are associated with journals.
5. Setsuko has brought up this CD rom issue with Scott Walter a couple of times.
6. The CD roms are all catalogued.
7. We need a case for them, and someone needs to organize an inventory.
8. Do we need a language specialist to read the bib records of these items? The bib records should show which kinds of software are needed to use these items.
9. Shuyong: some of the CD roms are not catalogued.
10. The format might be obsolete in five years; we have to evaluate whether it is worth the trouble to support these materials. How long would an evaluation take?
11. The materials are mostly African and Asian.
12. Latin American and Caribbean had some, but Nelly G. sent them to Oak Street.
13. Could this be a practicum project for GSLIS students?

Unbound Serials Circulation Policy Outlined:

1. Unbound serials may circulate with permission of a faculty member under the following conditions:

The patron has a serious disability.

An instructor needs it for a class.

A visitor needs it (urgently) during a time when the IAS library is closed.

If a faculty member is not available to approve the checkout (such as during evening and weekend hours) the patron may not check out the item.

1. Item should have a temporary barcode and will be in Voyager so that if it is not returned, it will go missing and the patron will be charged.
2. Materials circulate for one week only—no renewals.
3. We are not to use the manual circulation box any more.
4. The deadline for turning in Acquisitions orders is April 30, 2012
5. Lynn Wiley is returning from her sabbatical very soon.
6. Al has expended his funds.
7. Akram is 50% spent; we lose money if we don’t spend it, so Steve will talk to Akram about spending the rest of his budget.
8. Kit has spent 20% so far, according to records. This may not match his actual percentage spent.
9. Larry will contact Slavic staff for book reviews.
10. Coming up soon: The Midwest Library Conference for Slavic and East European Studies: CIC, plus Kansas. Conference will be held in Lawrence, KS.
11. Shuyong, Setsuko, Mara, and Steve will be attending a conference in Toronto next week.

$15,000 worth of Buddhist materials were recently acquired

We are also getting some books from a Moscow vendor which are already catalogued.

1. UIUC can get credit from OCLC for adding K-level records. The advantages to getting items which are pre-catalogued from this vendor are:
   1. It is time saving.
   2. It is free.
   3. They are short records
   4. Items are immediately accessible.

Shuyong: when serials are checked in, the location should be changed to “Stacks”.

1. Shuyong and Lynne reported on an instruction session for visiting Freeman Fellows. This will become a regular session for the Fellows and be included earlier in their stay on campus.

Similar session for FLASS fellows. There are sixty or so students on campus who have received fellowships. They are all studying in different languages. We should find a way to introduce them to the IAS library.

(Before, FLASS students were required to take the African Bibliography course.)

(Slavic Bibliography is not a required course, though an attempt was made to make it a requirement.)

Paula Carns offered search updates for the Latin American Librarian.