Skip to the content of the web site.

Information Services & Resources

Home

Information Services and Resources, Dana Porter Library
Departmental Meeting
January 11, 2013
Dana Porter Library Room 428
10:00am - 12:00pm
Minutes

Present: Annie Bélanger (chair), Helena Calogeridis (recorder), Nancy Collins, Marian Davies, Eva Dodsworth, Jane Forgay, Dave Gall, Alison Hitchens, Tim Ireland, Sandra Keys, Judy McTaggart, Patrick Miller, Jonathan Morgan, Leeanne Romane, Carol Steele, Janet Wason, Margaret Yuen

Regrets: Agnes Zientarska-Kayko

  1. Approval of the minutes of Oct. 5, 2012
    Minutes of Oct. 5, 2012 - approved.

  2. Business Arising from the minutes
    No business arising.

  3. Dave Gall introduction (Dave)
    Dave thanked the members for a warm welcome and talked briefly about his academic background and his current position as the new library associate. His responsibilities include service at the information desk, assistance with collection management, assistance with instructional sessions, and special projects, e.g. uploading to YouTube.

  4. Admin Matters (Annie)

    a. Posting of minutes to the departmental web
    Posting of approved minutes from SharePoint to the departmental web became a low priority for Rose. A decision was made to pass this activity on to a library associate within the department. Also, the older minutes should become archived at some point, keeping the current and previous years only.
    ACTION: Carol will take over this responsibility

    b. Liaison changes update
    Annie supplied the most recent information about the latest changes to several liaison librarians’ portfolios, following her initial email message to the department.
    Effective immediately, Leeanne is now also responsible for: Drama & Speech Communication and Women’s Studies. Marian will retain her membership on SWEC (Status of Women and Equity Committee) with her new portfolio. Effective May 1, 2013, Nancy will become responsible for Sociology and Legal Studies. For the duration of her secondment, Christine will not attend departmental meetings regularly and cease her Information desk service.
    ACTION: Leeanne and Marian will alternate to cover Monday evening shifts
    ACTION: Nancy will cover March 3 Sunday shift
    ACTION: Judy will update the winter term desk schedule
    ACTION: Nancy will update the liaison librarians information in the Plexiglas holder at the Information desk
    ACTION: Respective liaison librarians will have their business cards updated to reflect their portfolio changes

    c. Performance appraisal
    Annie sent out an email referring to a SharePoint document “Performance Appraisal Time Again!” and asked that members check this information, which includes a revised Staff Performance Appraisal preparation form and the departmental goals. Annie will start booking staff members’ calendars for 1 1/2 hour slots shortly.

    d. Technical support
    Ramsay now starts 30 minutes earlier on the Help desk, at 12:30 pm. His back up from Circulation Services now remains in the building to provide a more readily available support. A separate arrangement was made for Davis Centre.
    ACTION: Annie will submit a request for all-year co-op Technical support

    e. Other issues
    i. A question was raised about the planned new cubicle in the former secretary/reception area. Annie confirmed that the new cubicle was in the process of being built to house casuals and technical support co-ops. In addition to that, a new shelf will be put up near the front entrance.
    ACTION: Annie will move the travel forms to the office back space and attend to an office clean up
    ii. Eva enquired on behalf of the Geospatial Centre about a signage update and the status of chairs on order. The Centre still has a temporary paper sign, which is rather worn. Annie confirmed that the required chairs should be arriving in a few weeks.
    ACTION: Annie will check with Carl about a permanent sign
    iii. Annie asked whether the department needed more space heaters.
    ACTION: Annie will order additional space heaters as requested

  1. Around the Table (All)

    Jonathan announced that the University of Waterloo Library is hosting this year’s Map Library Assistant’s workshop. The biennial meeting was last hosted in 2011 by Carleton and Ottawa Universities. The 2013 conference is being co-organized by Jonathan Morgan of the Geospatial Centre and Sara Perkins of the Musagetes Library. Sessions will be held on both the main University of Waterloo campus and at the School of Architecture in Cambridge. The website is at: http://uwaterloo.ca/map-library-assistants-workshop/.

    Eva reported that:
    • Geospatial Centre co-op student from last term has accepted a casual position at the Centre, so the Centre is enjoying the benefits of hiring somebody already trained and familiar
    • The Centre’s KCI high school student, Autumn, has her last day on Jan 18th. Her help with all of the Centre’s digital projects was really appreciated.
    • The Centre is pleased to announce that the 5th floor computers are now equipped with ArcGIS, providing an extra level of service to those who need to work on their GIS projects when the Centre is closed or busy
    • Marian, liaison librarian for Recreational Studies, had connected Eva with Tory Glover who teaches Rec 422. He had wanted to include a mapping component in his course and had subsequently met with Eva. They worked together to create the course content and assignments. Eva will be offering 6 lectures, writing three tutorials and two assignments for them.

Judy will be providing some enhanced training for the evening and weekend Circulation supervisors. A meeting has been scheduled with Jamie Reilly and Sarah Martin to assess the training needs and co-ordinate the training delivery.

Carol is busy helping Janet with alternative format requests received from students who need their textbooks in electronic format.

Leeanne mentioned that she was again offering tours for International Students, as arranged through the SSO office. There were 4 tours scheduled during the week of Jan 14-18th. Also, Leeanne is submitting a proposal for “Fiction Identification Project”.

Janet is contributing to the Porter Zoning Design Project, which is redesigning the stacks study space to create differing types or zones: Group, Quiet and Silent study.
Accessibility features, such as electronically adjustable study tables will be incorporated.
Janet, along with Alex McCulloch, will be giving tours of the library’s accessibility features (service desks, signage, aisle widths, Adaptive Technology Centre, etc.) to two campus groups: The Space Information Advisory Group, chaired by Bruce Mitchell, involves individuals from all over campus, including Sharon Lamont; and the Needles Hall Unit Space Committee.

Margaret reported that the Environment @Library blog should be publicized in the Faculty of Environment at the end of January. Agnes and Margaret greatly appreciate Patrick’s assistance in keeping this project on track.

Jane is busy with the delivery of 9 workshops in her subject areas.

Nancy thanked everyone for the warm welcome back to ISR. She provided an update on:
• the various communications projects that she will be working on relating to the Library Review until the end of her secondment
• the University’s identity refinement process
• the Outreach Committee’s activities, encouraging everyone to send in ideas for Outreach events and promotional materials
• TUG Conference planning, encouraging everyone to hold the date for the conference which will be held on Friday, April 19 at the CIGI campus in Uptown Waterloo

Tim reported that:
• The meeting of some liaison librarians with the Student Success Office staff went well. Librarians presented some of their liaison activities, and the SSO staff presented some of the activities in which they participate. There is a great opportunity for significant collaboration between the library and the SSO.
• In November, Tim and Nancy made a pitch for the MDEI (Master of Digital Experience Innovation program) students at Stratford campus. The pitch was successful and DEI 623 will be using the library as the basis for their Project Management course. The challenge issued to the students was “How do we create awareness of library resources” and “Help us become the coolest library in the world”. Dave, Nancy and Tim will be meeting with the class in the next couple of weeks to solidify some aspects of the challenge.

Annie reported that TUG-IR will co-ordinate a number of collection review activities aimed at the reduction of older circulating monographs, based on the Last Copy Agreement. These activities include:
• identification of rare books, which will be kept
• review of textbooks in the Annex (selectors will share a list of targeted titles in their respective areas)
In addition to that, de-duping of serials, triggered by JSTOR 4 installation, will take place.

Alison is attending ALA Midwinter in Seattle and doing a presentation on Primo in a consortia environment. She is also organizing 2 RDA pre-conferences at OLA. The next few months will be very busy as she prepares for and delivers training to TUG cataloguing staff on the new cataloguing standard, RDA. She is also really busy with Primo, working with Ex Libris to solve some Primo-Voyager interoperability issues.

Marian is the new liaison librarian for Fine Arts and Philosophy, keeping Recreation and Leisure Studies. She is looking forward to working in those areas.

Patrick is working on LINC videos as well as preparing for the winter 2013 LINC workshops.


March 26, 2013