November 12, 2020 Meeting of Area Studies

Area Studies Division Meeting

November 12, 2020

10:00am-11:00am

Online Zoom Meeting

 

1. Sign up for Note Taking
   1. Antonio
2. Accolades and Announcements
   1. David Ward and Sara Holder attending December ASD meeting to review the charge and planned work of the UGL/Main Library Integration Working Group. See: https://www.library.illinois.edu/staff/committee/undergraduate-library-main-library-integration-working-group/
   2. Antonio to present research in December
   3. Mortenson Lecture
3. Approval of the Minutes from October
   1. Laila, Shuyong
4. Steve Research Presentation
5. Discussion
   1. Mary Laskowski “The challenges and opportunities of fulfillment under the current circumstances and where we go from here”
   2. Challenges and Brainstorming Solutions for Area Studies Cataloging
6. Reports
   1. Kit – CDC

 

Area Studies Division Meeting

November 12, 2020

10:00am-11:00am

Online Zoom Meeting Minutes

In attendance: Mara Thacker, Steven Witt, Mary Laskowski, Laila Hussein Moustafa, Shuyong, Antonio Sotomayor, Kit Condill, Kristen Allen Wilson, Bob Geraci, Joe Lenkart and Katie Ebeling.

Meeting started at 10am.

Announcements:

• Antonio is presenting in Dec. Bob presenting in January.
• Clara not able to attend, Kattie mentioned: 30^th annual Distinguished lecture. BBC World Affairs presenter. Monday at 12pm.
• Moving to approve minutes from last meeting? Laila move to approve. Shu-Yong second.

Mary Laskowski: Challenges and opportunities for fulfilling.

• Seeks feedback, suggestions, recommendations for her new role as Director of Fulfillment role. Laila: What is expected from this position? Still figuring out, sprang out from User Services AUL. Changes bring opportunities to rethink services, etc. It’s a way to think about how to enhance the services we offer, etc. Laila: hopes this position comes wiwth a budget. Some delivery of service needs investment in collections, e.g. ebooks, etc. Mary: her position doesn’t include funds, that’s a question for Tom. She recognized “Fulfillment” is too broad of a term, not clear enough. She sees it as figuring out the best ways to deliver library resources and services to patrons. Steve: Vision to problem solving, in delivering services. Problems in consistency in delivering services across the library, especially during this time of the pandemic and visiting scholars. Delivery of library resources both in person and virtually. The need to navigate copyright restrictions, for example. Mary: She understands the problems of delivery and fulfillment to visiting scholars and is happy to meet with Steve and Joe about this. Joe: Positively speaking, many challenges, but instead of tossing out procedures there’s a need to figure out flexibility. Mary agrees. Mara: agrees that there needs to be robust conversation about delivering electronic resources and limits of copyrights, etc. Mary: there are always new challenges, new cases, unforeseen circumstances to deal with. Thinking of sending a survey to non-library faculty about reserves on campus. What about writing a generic message and have subject specialist distribute to our liaison departments. Mara: yes, that would work. Mary: there are more resources within the library to fulfill requests than our capacity over the summer. Digitization Services beefing up their capacity for fulfillment. Overall, doing fine on digitization and paper delivery. Steve: in regard to digitization of DVDs, it has worked so far. What also helped was direct communication with the faculty member, individual communication goes a long way. Mary: If we have any other ideas, feedback, comments or suggestions, to contact her. Happy to come back to our division meeting.

Steve’s sharing of his research activities:

• Steve shared over power point: “Creating the International Mind: Promoting Peace and the Global Society through Books, Dialogue and Cultural Exchange”, early 20^th Will submit a couple of book chapters and articles, and working towards a manuscript. For the latter, he needs to do more archival research, but archives are closed. Exploring digital resources. Considering circulation analysis. Hopes to hire GAs. He needs to learn more about the digital tools available in order to continue. Mara: have you done consultation with Spencer? Steve: Yes, soon after he arrived. Needs to follow up. Would like to do social network analysis of her individuals from his research. Laila: Can you take a course? Because Maryland offers some useful courses. Also, Laila asked about the work Paul Otlet? Steve: somewhat. Discussion about this proceeded.

Kit’s report on CDC:

• Good news…. Full allocation for FY21. Looks like a similar FY22. Tom “Pretty certain that the budget will be flat for next year” Hopeful that there will $ for inflation in FY22. Bad news, FY23 bad. 2.9% cut for FY23, but Kit not sure it it’s pre or post inflation. $560,000 cut across the Library, all funds, in FY23. Not equal, but selective. They’ll get usage stats to see what can be cancelled due to no or low use. We did that a few years ago. This makes sense because STEM databases have more users than humanities users. Discussion about the budget ensued… Tom is happy to talk to divisions about this. Mara asked if we wanted to invite Tom. Laila said that it’s better to have questions for him before he comes. More discussion about budget and how to prepare for this budget cuts…