September 21, 2015 Meeting of Administrative Council

1. Public Terminals Requiring Login (factors in decision-making and implications for service)
2. New BOT policy on Background checks for New employees, effective October 5, 2015
3. Possible walk-through of library units for preparation of active shooter

John Wilkin, chair; Melody Allison, Susan Avery, Tom Habing, Shuyong Jiang, Joanne Kaczmarek, Cindy Kelly, Greg Knott, Mary Laskowski, Beth Namachchivaya, Lisa Romero, Mary Schlembach, Jeff Schrader, Tom Teper, Sandy Wolf

1.       Public Terminals Requiring Login (factors in decision-making and implications for service) – Melody Allison

It came to the attention of Funk Staff that UGL and Grainger now have limited the number of public workstations that don’t require login and are referring the community to Funk Library that does not limit access to its public workstations.

 

A number of questions from Funk staff came up, including reasons libraries have made this change and implications for Funk Library:

 

What are the reasons a library would decide to make computers accessible only by login/password?

 

How would a unit go about changing public workstations to login/password access only?

 

Does the Library have a policy of criteria concerning changing public workstations to login/password thus limiting public access, that would make practice consistent across the system (e.g., x number of a unit’s workstations should remain open to public use without login/password, public machines should provide seating, public machines should allow at least x amount of time to use at sitting, etc.)?

 

Group discussion ensued.

 

In consultation with the AUL for User Services, all units that do limit access made the decision at the unit level, and IT implemented what the unit decided.  IT has no policy to do, advocate, or not to do.  They just make it happen when the local unit decides they wish to do this.

 

In 2012 Grainger changed most public workstations to login/password. They have 4 stand-up computers for public. This was done for security reasons plus there are several engineering software applications that now can be used by students because of login/password control.

All 14 Chemistry Library public workstations do not have login with no plans to do so at this time.

 

Ten of UGL’s 40 public workstations are public accessible without login/password. There were several software applications requested for student use that login/password made possible to provide access to.

 

The question came up whether we would want to consider login/password more broadly to non-hub units. The general consensus was not to do so at this time but that it would be helpful to monitor and revisit as necessary.

 

FYI … guest, time-limited accounts are possible.

 

A patron brought privacy concern about anonymous login to IT when UGL changed. It was felt that privacy was not supported by logging in, or when the few remaining open computers were viewable by staff. Privacy issues are being considered by the AC Privacy Implementation Team.

 

It was felt that libraries who have login/password monitor so we know implications for other libraries. It may be that we wish to have policy on how to implement, provide rationales, etc. There has been ‘hot debate’ about this in the past but no record of when, who, discussion, etc. so would be nice to have policy, etc. for record and consistency.

 

It was determined that Tom Habing will report back on how many private and public terminals are in each Library. He will also talk to Technical Services to find out what their record retention policies are in regards to authenticated terminals and under what circumstances the Library would be made to make that information available.

 2.       New BOT policy on Background checks for New employees, effective October 5, 2015 – Cindy Kelly

Cindy reported that beginning October 5, all new employees will be required to undergo a background check before they are offered a contingent position. This will also include change of classification, retiree rehires, if you become a unit head or division coordinator or move to another area. Each check will cost $45 and will be charged to the college/school. Background checks will include national, state and county records. This is not a credit history check, social media check, traffic violation check or education verification. The background check could take 5-10 days, so please plan for the additional time before a contingent offer can be made and other candidates can be contacted. A committee is in place to review any records and individuals will be given a chance to contest any findings.

 

Cindy will be announcing information sessions on this next week. John would like an AHR representative at these meetings, if possible.

 3.       Possible walk-through of library units for preparation of active shooter

Staff in SSHEL would like someone from Public Safety to do walk-throughs in units to help identify the best hiding places and then make this information part of BEAP. Jeff talked with Todd Short and he advised against making hiding places part of the BEAP information. There have been walk-throughs in UGL, at the Information Desk and IAS. If a unit requests a walk-through, please let Jeff know, so he can be present.

John welcomed Shuyong, new to AC.

 

Shuyong announced that people from Area Studies division will be contacting other divisions, so they can attend a meeting in each division and Area Studies invites any member from other divisions to attend one of Area Studies’ division meetings.