November 8, 2018 Meeting of Library Staff Support Committee

1. Approval of meeting minutes
2. Liaison Reports and Updates
1. Special Coll. and Area Studies Liaison Search
1. Updates
2. Going Forward
3. Building Project Meeting with L-CAP
1. Thoughts and Opinions
2. Going Forward
4. Furniture Update – Angie (Lead)

Erik Chapman (Life Sciences)
Lonnie Clark (Central Public Services)
Angie Gruendl (Physical Sciences & Engineering)
Kim Hutcherson (Administrative Services—Human Resources)
Laura Poulosky (Residence Hall Libraries)
Tammie Redenbaugh (Technical Services)
Ben Riegler (Central Public Services)
Gennye Varvel (Social Sciences)

Approval of October LSSC Minutes: We approved the minutes from the Oct. 25, 2018, LSSC meeting.

Note: This month’s LSSC meeting was held a few weeks early this month, since the regular meeting date would have fallen on Thanksgiving.

Division Updates:

There were no Library Division, Faculty, or Administrative Council meetings to report on since our last LSSC meeting, which was held on Oct. 25th. However, liaisons shared the following news from their Divisions.

Life Sciences + Physical Sciences & Engineering: The Life Sciences and Physical Sciences & Engineering Divisions will have a joint meeting with John Wilkin and Tom Teper on Jan. 16th to discuss the Library Building Project.

Administrative Council: Kim reported that the annual Library Recognition Event will be held on January 8 at the Illini Union. All libraries will be closed from 8 AM to 1 PM on the morning of January 8th for this event. The Event will begin at 8:30 am. There will be breakfast, service recognition awards, civil service and AP award ceremonies, some networking time, and a lunch that will last until 1 PM. Everyone is encouraged to attend. Any individuals who do not wish to attend should work with their unit head to request a vacation day (or half-day) or make arrangements with their unit head to work in the unit that morning.

Residence Hall Libraries: The Residence Hall Libraries’ “Circulation Wars” program continues through Nov. 16th. Each of the four RHLs has its own theme for the program. Patrons who check out enough items from any Res. Hall Library during this time period will be entered in a raffle for theme-based prizes from that location. The clerks of the location with the greatest percentage increase in circulation (in comparison to the same time period last year) will get a special celebration meal, along with bragging rights.

Although the free copies of The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas for students living in Univ. Housing who signed up for the RHLs’ upcoming book clubs have all been claimed, anyone is welcome to attend the discussions! The meetings will be held on Thursday, 11/13, at Ikenberry Library; Thursday, 11/29, at FAR Library; Wednesday, 12/5, at Allen Library; and Thursday, 12/6, at ISR Library. Each of these meetings will be held from 7:30-8:30 pm.

Open Spots for Liaisons on LSSC: Erik sent email to all civil service employees in the Special Collections and Area Studies Divisions to see if any of them would be interested in serving as liaisons for these divisions on LSSC. So far, no one has volunteered. Erik will try reaching out to eligible staff members in these divisions individually and will also reach out to Library-track civil service staff in the Law Library to see if anyone is interested in serving as a liaison from Law to LSSC. If we’re unable to fill open spots on the committee, we will look into the possibility of getting agendas and minutes from the Division meetings of these units and/or getting approval to send LSSC liaisons from related Divisions to attend the currently unrepresented Divisions’ meetings and report back important news.

Follow-Up Discussion of Library Building Project Meeting: On Wednesday, Oct. 31st, at 10am in 428 Main Library, John Wilkin and Tom Teper met with LSSC and L-CAP (Library Committee of Academic Professionals) to discuss the Library Building Project. John and Tom both expressed enthusiasm about having LSSC and L-CAP serve as mechanisms to collect concerns, suggestions, and feedback from Library Civil Service staff and Academic Professionals, respectively, about the Building Project. LSSC plans to invite civil service employees to submit their ideas via our physical suggestion box outside of the Human Resources office on the first floor of the Main Library or via our suggestion web form. In either format, suggestions can be submitted anonymously, if preferred. Tom and John would like us to collect and send comments to them in digest form. Erik will ask Tom if he would also help us spread the word about LSSC’s suggestion boxes by mentioning (and thus endorsing) them in his next update email about the Building Project. Since focus groups are already being held with faculty and graduate students, we discussed asking Tom and John if there could be Library Building focus groups with Library Civil Service staff as well.

Staff Lounge Furniture Update: Angie put together three different proposals for new furniture for the staff lounge on the 4th floor of the Main Library, which LSSC voted on. In first place was a group of furniture from Kimball and in second place was a group of furniture from Allsteel. Angie will send our top two choices of furniture groupings to Jeff Schrader of Library Facilities to find out if we can get funding for either grouping.

Reaching Forward South: Erik has been researching potential conferences for Library staff’s professional development. The best upcoming option appears to be Reaching Forward South, which will be held in Carbondale in May 2019. The conference website can be found here: http://www.reachingforwardsouth.org/

Erik will get in touch with Carol Kopp of the Library Business Office to see about getting funding approval to send staff to the conference.

Next LSSC Meetings: LSSC’s monthly meeting for December will be held on Thursday, Dec. 6th, at 11 am in Main Library Room 225B, since our normal meeting date would have fallen during the last week of December, when the University will be closed for holiday gift days.