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Library Managers • Minutes

Library Managers , September 21, 2004
9:15 a.m. LIB 428

Present : Lorraine Beattie, Susan Bellingham, Eric Boyd, Jane Forgay, Betty Graf, Mark Haslett (Chair), Sharon Lamont, Richard Pinnell, Susan Routliffe, Mary Stanley, Linda Teather, Debbie Tytko, Annette Dandyk (Recorder)

Regrets : Michele Laing

  1. Business Arising from June 23 Meeting
    2 c. Annual reports – Mark has received a number of reports. The information will be used for the 2004 annual report which Mark would like to be available by the end of January. Format will be discussed at a future managers’ meeting.
    3. Archive Copies of Graduate Student Theses – Susan B and Susan R have reviewed the grad handbook and other documents. Susan R and Christine have met with Lynn Judge in the Graduate office.
    4. Update on Discussion re: ILL/DD – the “next steps” that were outlined have all taken place.
    6. Waterloo Unlimited – Shabiran Rahman will be our contact person for the time being.
    9. Library Blocks - pending further information. Sharon Lamont will follow up.

  2. Updates, Recognition and Commendation
    Mark expressed his appreciation and thanks to the many library staff in all departments who have been involved with and significantly affected by renovations in the past six months.

    Mark proposed that the Managers group begin meeting more frequently, on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of every month. Agenda items will be identified as needing response, for approval, for discussion, or for information.

    Mark summarized the September 20 Senate meeting:

    • Preparations are underway for the 6 th decade report; the Provost will send a campus wide memo next week regarding the planning process.
    • The Provost will give a budget presentation at the October Senate meeting.
    • President Johnston discussed the Rae commission. The Hon. Bob Rae will release a discussion paper on October 1 st in which he will suggest the questions that he will want to focus on during 15 “town hall” meetings in the next two months. It is expected that two meetings will be held in Waterloo, on October 29 and November 25. Visit http://www.raereview.on.ca/en/
      default.asp?loc1=home for more information.

    Staff Anniversaries
    July 10: Christine Jewell, ISR-Porter, 15 years
    July 17: Annette Dandyk, Library Office, 30 years
    July 19: Gail Henry, User Services-Davis, 15 years
    August 6: Elsie Freiheit, User Services, 5 years
    August 16: Jackie Stapleton, ISR-Davis, 5 years
    August 26: Doug Morton, ISR-Davis, 30 years
    September 3: Betty Miller, Resource Sharing, 30 years
    September 4: Agnes Janzen, Cataloguing, 25 years
    September 7: Jamie Russell, User Services, 5 years
    September 9: Jane Britton, Special Collections, 30 years
    September 19: Adairsh Ramlall, User Services-Davis, 10 years
    September 25: Richard Hastings, User Services-Davis, 15 years

    OCUL Forum
    An OCUL Forum has been combined with the OCUL Directors meeting, tentatively scheduled for December 7-9 at Guelph Humber College . Emphasis will be on SFX and Scholars Portal. Decisions about who should attend are pending receipt of the agenda.

    Pharmacy
    Jake Thiessen, Associate Dean at the University of Toronto has been named as interim director for the UW School of Pharmacy. He will hold that position for at least one year and will serve as project manager for setting up the School.

    KPL
    An editorial in the KW Record encourages KPL not to rush headlong into erecting a new building.

    WPL Report
    The City of Waterloo commissioned a report which was released recently and which lists nine recommendations, two of which point to University connections. Mark has discussed the report with Tim Jackson, Chair of the WPL Board.

    Proposed TUG Trellis UGM (November 9)
    A TUG Trellis user group meeting has been tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, November 9. The day long event will take place in the Davis Centre.

  3. Cambridge Architecture Update
    Richard provided an update:

    • The Musagetes Library opened last week;
    • There are four full time staff: Michele Laing, Amy Townsend, Daspina Fefekos, and Jason Tran;
    • Currently hours are 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday; evening service will be offered once casual staff are trained;
    • Most of the books are in place; rare books and periodicals will be moved when security and environmental controls have been completed;
    • Materials are being signed out manually, but computers are expected to arrive soon;
    • Watcard service will be offered; the book detection security system has been installed;
    • Mail and freight are delivered once a day by Central Stores; a van shuttle service for students from UW to Cambridge runs once a week;
    • Students have been returning to UMD to use cartographic data (GIS and paper copies), but Richard hopes to find a way that allows for easier access;
    • The official opening is tentatively scheduled for Friday October 22.

  4. Departmental Reorganization
    With the integration of ILL/DD and TUGbars, User Services is undergoing reorganization.

    Changes include:

    • Three distinct units: collections (managed by Ann Naese), resource sharing (managed by Wish Leonard), and lending services (co-managed by Alex McCulloch and Melanie Watkins);
    • Library security will be grouped with lending services (previously collections). A new position for a Library Security Supervisor will be created;
    • In the past Alex was the sole Systems contact; now managers will contact Systems directly for issues within their areas;
    • Some job descriptions will be rewritten.

  5. Update re: Cultural Change in Davis
    Recommendations from The Task group to Plan for Cultural Change in the Davis Library are being acted on. Brochures describing the changes are being distributed to people as they enter the Davis Library. Sharon Lamont and Jim Parrott have been working to determine appropriate sanctions and will review the matter at the October 5 th Managers meeting. Signage is on order. Regular monitoring to ensure compliance will be written into the Library Security Supervisor’s job description.

    Staff orientation sessions to introduce cultural change issues and changes to the layout of the Library have been scheduled for October 7 and 8. All Davis staff including casuals will be invited. Since many staff regularly work in Davis (Cataloguing, Facilities, Systems, people attending meetings), it was suggested that all staff be informed of the location of quiet study areas. It was recommended that staff travel through staff areas rather than public areas when going to the conference room.

  6. Systems Update
    To date 35 accounts have been set up in Bookit. Seventeen people attended the training sessions. Anyone wanting a web instruction guide should contact Linda Teather. A decision on how to implement Bookit for the rest of the Library will be put on hold for at least a month.

    ARL and CARL surveys have arrived. The five CARL surveys have been condensed to three and the Data Survey has been dropped. ARL has introduced e-metrics (measurement of electronic use, expenditures, etc). For the regular surveys, we will follow the same process as last year with Gail Sperling and the UW Statistics Group doing the initial data compilation, followed by a review by Linda and Library Managers before submission. For the e-metrics survey¸ Linda will convene a group to determine appropriate sources of data.

    In the past a group of CDROM databases were available to users only on dedicated in-house workstations. Chris Gray has been developing a MS Terminal Services-based system to deliver these via the web. We expect this will go live within a few days, at which point these databases will be available at all in-house workstations as well as to remote users.

    Public printing usage in Porter and UMD for May 1 to August 31 exceeds the same four months in the previous year (at Davis, Porter and UMD).

  7. Expenditure Reduction – How We Did It
    All campus departments were asked to make a two percent budget reduction in fiscal 2004-2005. The Library realized its reduction of $147,800 by a combination of salary and non salary dollars. Funds from two vacant positions and three reduced work loads were released to meet 79% of the cut, and the remaining 21% was released from non-salary accounts.

  8. Organizational Structure – ISR Department Heads
    Four areas were identified as requiring attention at the February 17 all staff meeting on organization:

    • ILL/DD
    • Management of ISR functions
    • Cataloguing
    • Executive level

    The Library has undergone two percent budget reductions in each of the last three years, and in modelling for the future it would be prudent to assume further reductions. A static staff complement has been assumed although Mark will continue to make the case that the Library requires more permanent staff.

    There were no applicants for the Davis position when the two ISR department head positions were posted. The Library Executive Committee subsequently met with ISR librarians and presented the opportunity of a secondment but there were no responses; therefore, the position will be recruited externally. Library-wide implications include:

    • the vacant position that has been funding some coop and contract positions will no longer be available because it will be needed to fund the Davis department head position;
    • we lose the flexibility of releasing the vacant position if faced with another budget reduction;
    • there will soon be two Library Assistant vacancies in Davis ISR. One will be filled immediately but the other will be held open so that those funds can be released if there is another budget cut.

    Next steps:

    • Interview for the Porter position, recruit externally for the Davis position, and recruit for one Library Assistant;
    • Once the Porter ISR Head has been appointed, funds will be provided for a contract librarian up to one year to ease the transition created by the vacancy (assuming the position is filled from within ISR);
    • Davis ISR will be asked to consider how some of their needs for an additional assistant could be met through the use of one time funds;
    • Focus will be on: filling the Davis and Porter ISR department head positions; Cataloguing matters (e.g. metadata, volumes and type of work required, level of knowledge to do it, etc.) and the relationship with ejournals and databases; filling vacancies (e.g. Mark’s former position, and other retirements that occur in 2005).
    • Lorraine informed the Managers that she will be taking early retirement effective January 31, 2005 .

Next meeting:
Tuesday, October 5, 9:15 a.m.
Davis Library

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August 17, 2006