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Community Needs Assessment Committee • Minutes

Community Needs Assesment Process Group
Meeting: #30 (November 12, 1996)

Present: Amos Lakos, Sharon Lamont (Chair), Wendy Macpherson (Recorder), Ann Naese, Shabiran Rahman, Laurie Strome.

  1. The minutes of the October 22 meeting were approved as distributed.

  2. Amos has sent a memo to all staff inviting applications for membership in CNAG. He will send a follow-up reminder later this week.

  3. The presentation of the Community Needs Report was well received by Library Council. The influence of faculty on student attendance at user education events was obvious, and the differences between faculty and graduate student responses in this area were noted. Library Council members will take time to read the report and will discuss it further. Murray Shepherd would like to see the report available widely on the WWW.
    CNAG members should give any remaining corrections (e.g. typos) to Amos.

  4. TUG Policy Integration
    Ann and Sharon have reviewed the charts prepared by Susan Routliffe. CNAG can see no immediate contribution to make. However, Sharon, in speaking with Susan, suggested that care be taken to consult students, and that this not be left late in the process of developing common policies and procedures for lending.

    We suggest that a focus group would be a good way to gather student ideas. To help a facilitator prepare for a focus group of students, multiple questions need to be prepared in each of five or six areas or concern to the library.

    Sharon and Ann will read a small book on focus groups that Amos will send. They wil note the parts which are most important for all of CNAG to examine, by the November 26 meeting. Shabiran will find out if TRACE has resources on focus groups. Amos will call Mary Stanley to see if she contacted any possible facilitators. Finding students to join the focus group could be done through the student representatives to Senate, rather than through the student societies, which are more oriented to social events. January or February would be a better time to hold a group than December.

  5. Library Council Report - Amos Lakos.
    1. The training guidelines were approved.
    2. The Community Services Process Group is looking at its role in public relations.
    3. Tthe Library must not fall behind the rest of campus in providing access to the Internet and facilities for plugging in laptop computers. d) the survey of weekend users will be conducted on another weekend, November 16-17, before the data is examined closely.
    4. Murray Shepherd looks forward to the developing of strategic plans for TUG as a whole and for each library in TUG. For UW, this may clarify or confuse further the relationships between the departments and the process groups.
    5. The Publications Task reported. Amos and others found the rule- orientation a hindrance to preparation of publications. Amos will send out the publications report, and also copies of the Council minutes. He will maintain a complete file of Council minutes, especially since they are not entered on the Staff Web.

  6. Status of Projects
    1. User Needs Report - completed
    2. Weekend Users Survey - Pending Shabiran will bring us the data and report.
    3. TUG and User Services Policies - Current We are working on Focus Group materials.
    4. Organizational Reallignment Questionnaire - pending

      Shabiran is collecting these for compilation and comparison with the first questionnaire, and will report to both CNAG and Lorraine Beattie.
    5. Systems Help Desk Questionnaire - this is not a CNAG project. Shabiran has sent the report to Systems, who will add their responses before releasing the report.
    6. Study Space - current
      Laurie has made lists of available space, which she distributed today. We intend to do an observational survey of use of study space in both Dana Porter and Davis. Laurie, with Sharon's help, will arrange to do this in the next few weeks. A time trial will be done first.

  7. Agenda for next meeting, November 26.
    New member for CNAG
    Publications report
    Focus Group
    Update on Space Use Survey

    Agenda for December 10 meeting
    Organizational reallignment questionnaire
    Notes:
    We need to touch base on our responsibility to educate the whole library staff about surveys and the need to work in an unbiased way with objective/neutral data.
    Amos will be away from December 2, probably until January 2.
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July 27, 2005