Present: Lorraine Beattie, Jane Forgay, Betty Graf, Mark Haslett (Chair), Christine Jewell, Sharon Lamont, Richard Pinnell, Susan Routliffe, Mary Stanley, Linda Teather, Debbie Tytko, Annette Dandyk (Recorder)
Regrets: Susan Bellingham, Eric Boyd
Guests: Ruth Lamb, Wish Leonard
Business Arising from August 19, 2003
There was a special meeting of the joint Managers/LBPC group on September 9th, where the draft of the Library’s Accessibility Plan was revised. It will be forwarded to Rose Padacz. The issue of a campus Accessibility Plan was to be discussed at the UW Executive Council meeting on September 10.
#1. Special Recognition Award: Mark will follow up with Bruce Mitchell next week. Bruce enjoyed meeting with the group and may return once per term. A meeting with Bruce and the Managers who report to him has been scheduled for October 6. Mark has not yet had an opportunity to meet with library staff to discuss the special recognition awards, but hopes to be able to pursue this further in a week or so. In the meantime, staff with concerns could contact the Staff Association.
#2. Business Arising: Access Copyright and AUCC have come to an agreement in principle on an extension of the license.
#3b. Quality Assurance Fund Proposal: At last night’s Senate meeting President David Johnston expressed some concerns about the downturn of the economy and the upcoming elections, and how they might effect this proposal. He remains hopeful however that the outcome will be positive for UW.
#7. Update from Systems: Following the recent virus and blackout, Systems Managers have prepared a report that identifies the Library’s vulnerabilities, and have created an aggressive task list to make the Library’s computing environment more secure. Managers wanting a copy of the report should contact Linda. It is hoped these tasks may be completed by the end of December. While most of the security measures will not be visible to staff, one that will be visible is password hardening. Password criteria have not been as rigid in the Library as elsewhere on campus. Security software has detected that people have been trying to hack in to library computers. Linda will send out an information message to all staff, asking that people change their NT server (Papyrus) passwords on September 30.
#9. TUG Stats & Reports: Cognos training will be scheduled in the near future for Library staff involved in running reports. Both Linda and Gail Sperling found the training session with the external trainer to be highly informative. Linda and Sharon will meet to determine which User Services staff require training.
Action: Linda, Sharon
The U.S. Ambassador to Canada and his wife, Mrs. Jan Cellucci, will be in Waterloo the afternoon of September 24. Mark will provide Mrs. Cellucci, a former Associate University Librarian, Collections at Boston College, an ARL Library, with a brief tour of the Library. [Subsequent to the meeting, the visit was postponed due to an illness in the Ambassador’s family.]
Susan R reported that the library, and particularly use of the public workstations, has been extremely busy in the past few weeks. It may be that people are coming to the Library to check their course schedules and email. Turnstile counts at entrances confirm that numbers are significantly higher. At this point ISMC and User Services staff will monitor the situation and try to determine why there is an increase in usage this early in the term, and the impact. Signs have been posted asking people to limit use to 10 minutes so that others may also use the computers. Susan asked the group to forward suggestions for ways to monitor usage to her. ISMC will review the situation in a couple of weeks.
Bill Oldfield celebrated his 25th anniversary in the Library on September 1; Amy Chan celebrated 35 years on September 9.
Mark has received a report from Marian Davies about recent changes on the 2nd floor and commended their efforts. Some of the projects that Marian and the 2nd Floor Reconfiguration Group facilitated include shifting of the reference collection; arranging for a barrier to be installed between Browsers and the collection; and, a new-book shelf. He will forward the report to the Managers group.
Action: Mark
Mark commended Laurie Strome, the 30 or more Library staff, and the Browsers staff, for helping to welcome students during the recent orientation week.
Mark thanked all for their support after his fathers’ recent death.
The 1st fall issue was distributed September 11; the next issue is scheduled for October 9th, and will continue to be published once a month. Suggested topics for future issues include: highlights of changes on the 2nd floor; promoting wireless access in the Library; profiles on coop students employed this term; promoting the last few orientation session in October; mention of orientation week activities in the Library; Jan Cellucci’s visit; work of Librarians with UWone; and, the Library’s and campus Accessibility Plans. Susan R is working on a schedule to have Librarians provide items for “New Resources”. These resources would also be highlighted on the Library’s home page for a 2-week period. It was suggested that the link for news@yourlibrary be removed from the home page if publication is not maintained on monthly basis.
When publication of news@yourlibrary first began, there were concerns that it could be construed as spam and therefore was not distributed widely across campus. The initial distribution included Deans, VPs, etc. and gave people an opportunity to subscribe - currently there are 230 names on the list. A link resides on the Library’s home page, and a few liaison librarians have a link from their signature line.
There was brief discussion about including departmental Chairs in the distribution, and also targeting new faculty. Mark would like to discuss the matter with Bruce Mitchell, and asked Mary to provide him with a list of current recipients. It was noted that UW Graphics also has an electronic publication and that they have built a distribution list from their customer base, which is an option the Library could also consider.
Action: Mary
The formal announcement of a $1M donation to the Davis Information Commons is scheduled for November 4, in the ICR lounge. The event will focus on UW’s past, present, and future.
Work is underway finalizing another major gift for the Library.
The report was brought forward for information and to determine what the next steps should be. Mark commended the User Services Assessment Group on their work stating, “the report is well written, thoughtful, and provides useful recommendations”.
The purpose of the survey was to assess current and future value of the Library’s reserves service. Three goals were set: Identify satisfaction level of current faculty users of Reserves; obtain more information about non-users and what alternatives are being used; and, gather information about the future of Reserves in the electronic age.
There was a 10% response rate, representing a good cross-section of the campus. Responses revealed that faculty do value the reserves service and want to continue with both paper and E-Reserves. Many faculty members also made suggestions for improvements.
Wish reviewed the 12 recommendations and proposed next steps. Recommendation 3.4 requires further clarification – specifically, where copyright fees should be paid from in future, and the maximum that the Library would be willing to pay to support E-Reserves. During the Pilot, the Library paid Copyright fees, and the survey shows that Faculty expect the Library to pay. The Pilot is in its 2nd year. Currently costs are paid from Operating funds (not the Acquisitions budget). The committee supports approving in principal moving into a production level of service, pending the clarification of some details.
Sharon Lamont, Jane Forgay and Susan Routliffe will determine how best to review it with the Liaison Librarians.
Action: Sharon, Jane, Susan R
Mark will send a note of thanks to Jack Cooper, IST for his assistance with the project.
It was noted that Shabiran had asked to participate because of her interest in surveys. Her expertise and connections proved to be valuable to the group and she will continue to be a member of the User Services Assessment Group. The group had decided that in future, when they have identified a project and the goals, they would notify the rest of the Library staff prior to beginning the actual work.
Human Resources has implemented a new casual payroll system, accessed via myHRinfo. Department payroll clerks input data in the sheet for the appropriate pay period, and make it available for processing by HR. For audit purposes, Annette Dandyk will continue to sign a hard copy for each Library department that submits casual hours, and forward it to Payroll. Most departments do not have a backup person to complete payroll. In the event that a departmental payroll clerk and Annette are both away, Gerald Underhill will serve as a temporary backup.
Withdrawal/Relocation Policy
Susan R provided some background to provide a context – work was underway in Davis to relocate abstracts to the Annex. It was discovered that many of the abstracts were duplicated electronically. While consulting the withdrawal policy, Susan R discovered that many parts of the existing policy needed revision and that electronic material was not referred to at all. The policy was subsequently revised by IRMC, with input from Susan B, and Ruth Lamb.
Susan reviewed the changes and asked the group for feedback and comments. Minor word changes were made. Susan specifically asked for opinions about using the word “discard” instead of “withdraw”. Some people feel that discard means to put in the garbage and does not as fully reflect what we are doing, especially since withdrawn material may be given to other institutions. No consensus was reached, and the matter will require further discussion. Susan will review the revised policy with ISR librarians, and then bring it back to Managers/LBPC to determine next steps.
Space constraints should not drive collections policies, therefore, a caveat about UW being a Research Library will be added (stating that some materials may be retained even if they fall within the categories of material being considered for relocation or withdrawal). We need to determine whether there is an overarching collections policy that specifies that this is a research library. If we don’t have such an overarching policy we may need to develop one.
Action: Susan R
Architecture Branch Library: Update
Richard distributed a proposed floor plan of the Library (version 6), and a document outlining anticipated costs (prepared at the request of Geoff McBoyle, Dean of FES.) Earlier this summer Richard had outlined three options for a Branch Library in the new facility. The Director of the School of Architecture (Rick Haldenby) believes that a full branch is the only viable option.
Set-up costs (one time) are expected to amount to over $480,000, and would be funded by the FES. There will be additional expenses for shelving installation, workstations set-up, and inserting security strips in materials.
Ongoing annual operating costs of the Branch, funded by FES and the Library, are projected to be approximately $270,000 and would include: staffing (full-time and casual), communication and supplies, computing equipment renewal, and library materials. The Library would fund two staff positions, the Architecture book budget, the Approval fund, and electronic resources.
External contracts are being awarded this month, as are some of the internal contracts. Richard will call a meeting of the task group sometime next week. IST is drafting a computing plan that should be completed soon.
Next meeting: October 21
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