September 27, 2018 Meeting of Library Staff Support Committee

1. Approval of Last Month’s Meeting Minutes
2. Division and Council meeting Updates
1. This includes Lonnie and Ben’s CDC, UGL, and Savvy Workshops insight.
3. AUL candidates : conversation
4. Building Renovation Project : conversation
1. Recent Update
5. Move to hold additional meeting
6. Setting the Course for the Year Part I : Goals and Priorities
7. Staff Lounge Furniture : Updates and a Plan for Going Forward
1. Field Trip to Staff Lounge

Erik Chapman (Life Sciences)
Lonnie Clark (Central Public Services)
Angie Gruendl (Physical Sciences & Engineering)
Kim Hutcherson (Administrative Services/BHRSC)
Laura Poulosky (Residence Hall Libraries)
Tammie Redenbaugh (Technical Services)
Ben Riegler (Central Public Services)
Gennye Varvel (Social Sciences)
Shoshona Vegh-Gaynor (Arts & Humanities)

Approval of August LSSC Minutes: We approved the minutes from the Aug. 23, 2018, LSSC meeting.

Division Updates:

There were no Social Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences & Engineering, or Administrative Services/Business & Human Resources Service Center, or Administrative Council meetings to report on since our last LSSC meeting. Liaisons shared relevant news from their Divisions.

Social Sciences News: Gennye reported that the Social Sciences, Health & Education Library has now hired Dulcie Vermillion as the new Library Specialist for the closing shift. Dulcie began her position at SSHEL this week.

Central Public Services: Lonnie and Ben reported the following highlights from the most recent CPS Division meeting.

The Undergraduate Library will be adding a Virtual 360 space. The Undergrad Library’s Room 289, which had been a computer lab, will be reconfigured as an instruction room.

All staff are encouraged to attend Savvy Researcher workshops. The list of these workshops can be found here: http://go.library.illinois.edu/savvyresearcher

Jen-Chien Yu announced that a Library user survey of undergraduate students is scheduled for this fall, and a survey of faculty Library users will be conducted in early spring 2019.

Jake MacGregor visited the CPS meeting and the group learned more about his professional background. Jake is working with Zoe Revell to coordinate their work in Staff Development and Training. Meeting attendees asked Jake questions about plans to hire a more diverse range of employees as Library Academic Professionals and Faculty. Jake said that this will indeed be a priority in Library hiring.

CDC (Collection Development Committee) has representatives from Central Public Services. Currently all of those representatives are faculty, but the opportunity to serve on CDC may soon be offered to Academic Professionals, too.

Karen Hogenboom reported that the development of Main Library Room 220 is still in progress, awaiting the next set of plans from the architects, as well as approval of further funding.

Faculty Meeting: Angie and Ben reported the following highlights from the most recent Faculty Meeting.

The main focus of the meeting was Library committees. Executive Council had recently decided to dissolve some committees that had a primarily advisory role, and some Faculty members expressed that, in the future, they would like be given a chance to provide input about these decisions beforehand. In the spring, there will be a review of existing Library committees. A possible new committee that has been proposed would focus on collaborating with the Discovery Partners Institute. For information on this institute, see: https://dpi.uillinois.edu/

Following up on the recent 2% across-the-board salary increase, Dean Wilkin mentioned that there may soon be some additional increases for Library Faculty members.

Arts & Humanities: Shoshona reported that Paula Carns of the Literatures & Languages Library is now serving as Division head and chaired their most recent meeting. This was new English and Theatre Librarian Matthew Roberts’ first Arts & Humanities Division meeting. The job description for a new Art & Architecture Librarian is currently under review by Executive Council.

There was some discussion at this Division’s meeting of the future of Main Library Room 220. Library personnel have observed that patrons seem to enjoy using this area as a quiet study space, and some graduate students have specifically stated that they like having this quiet work space available. There is some concern that the current technology in the room is not being used very much, so Library personnel are not sure that additional technology in this room would be used enough to justify the expense.

>Residence Hall Libraries: Laura reported that University Housing conducted phone interviews with candidates for the Residence Hall Librarian position during the weeks of Sept. 10th and 17th. They have now scheduled on-campus interviews for October. The Residence Hall Libraries will be holding book club meetings to discuss this year’s One Book One Campus selection, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Anyone is welcome to attend these discussions! Students living in University Housing can get a free copy of the book (while supplies last!) if they participate in a book club meeting. 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.

Technical Services: Tammie reported that Linda Morris and Lynn Wiley will both be retiring soon. George Gottschalk and Wendy Shelburne will be sharing duties that had been performed by Lynn. Content Access Management (CAM) and Acquisitions will merge, with M.J. Han as Unit Head.

Notes sent via email by Cristina: Cristina wasn’t able to attend the most recent Tech Services Division meeting, but she spoke with a colleague in her department who informed her that there wasn’t an agenda and that discussion centered on the new system to replace Voyager. The Library is waiting for approval from CARLI to begin using the new system. The plan is to ease into it over an 18-month period. The new system is expected to go live in Summer 2020. The Preservation Services/Special Collections Division interviewed two Conservator candidates in early September to replace book conservator Cher Schneider, who left the position in December 2017.

Campus Review of Academic Professional Positions: Tammie reported back from the recent Open Forum regarding the future of Academic Professional positions campus-wide. On a case-by-case basis, some U of I Academic Professional positions will become Civil Service positions, with the benefits, similar job security, and with positions potentially covered by Union representation that come along with the Civil Service classification.

Discussion of Associate University Librarian Candidates’ Presentations: Those of us from LSSC who were able to attend the recent presentations by candidates for AUL found that these presentations were primarily focused on research and faculty, and did not mention issues of primary concern to staff much, if at all. We are unclear about what the chain of command would be as far as staff reporting goes, once the new AULs have been selected. Erik will draft an email about this concern to David Ward, who is soliciting feedback on the candidates’ presentations. We want to be sure that the impact on Civil Service staff will be taken into consideration as the reconfiguration of AULs’ roles is determined.

Library Building Project: Some of us from LSSC were able to attend Tom Teper and John Wilkin’s Library Building Project Update on September 20th, or to watch it via the live stream. This was the first of what John and Tom plan to be quarterly Open Forum Updates. If you didn’t get to attend the update and haven’t had a chance to watch it yet (or just want a refresher), you can find it here: https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/t/1_ga1ojcrt/66202541

Specific plans for reconfigurations of the Main Library and Undergraduate Library are still very much up-in-the-air and dependent on funding. Tom Teper mentioned that a new Library Building Project website outlining plans as they develop and addressing Frequently Asked Questions about the project should be up within about a month.

The Staff Training and Development Committee is already talking about how the process of renovations will impact Library employees, and how to best protect everyone’s health and safety while work is being done within the Main Library and Undergraduate Library buildings. During our LSSC discussion, Erik noted that, beyond the “Change Management” training that Tom had mentioned as a possibility, it will be important to have adequate training for any changes to staff duties and responsibilities as the Library is reconfigured and service points may change. Erik will contact Kim Matherly to see when Tom will next be holding office hours, so that we might talk with him about LSSC’s role in facilitating staff communication to administration of any concerns or suggestions regarding the Building Project. We might want to set up a web form specifically to collect staff comments on this topic, so that all Library employees can have a chance to voice their ideas, either anonymously or not, as they prefer.

Setting LSSC’s Course for this Year: Erik suggested we list LSSC’s priorities for this year. Here’s what we mentioned:

-Library Building Project—Actively facilitate communication between staff and administration.

-Main Library’s Staff Lounge—Continue to look for furniture in better condition. (See last point of these minutes, below)

-Investigate potential funding for civil service attendance of conferences and trainings

-Kim H. explained that, typically, when a civil service employee wants to attend a professional conference, they seek approval from their Unit supervisor, who then contacts Greg Knott (in the Business and Human Resources Service Center) with the request, who then contacts the Library Dean about possible funding.

-We discussed looking for other resources of funding for staff to attend conferences, such as seeing what scholarships might be available from organizations such as the American Library Association, the Illinois Library Association, the Association of College & Research Libraries, etc. We think it would be great to create a web page compiling such resources, which staff members could consult to find out about funding options.

-We discussed asking Zoe Revell (in Staff Development and Training) about the possibility of offering more webinars relevant to staff’s jobs, as well as about how to enable and
encourage staff to participate in such webinars (for example, encouraging supervisors to approve staff members’ taking time to attend webinars).

-Promoting staff participation in professional organizations—This might also enable staff to find greater opportunities for attending professional conferences and trainings.

Visit to the Main Library Staff Lounge: We concluded the meeting with a visit to the Staff Lounge, so that we could see the chair and bench that Angie and Lonnie had found at Campus Surplus. These new (to us) pieces look nice and are comfortable—thanks, Angie and Lonnie! Angie has volunteered to serve as the main point of contact for our continued research, in cooperation with Library Facilities, to find more replacement furniture, as well as to have the older furniture removed (especially the broken pieces!)