Library Managers, May 3, 2006
9:30 am, Porter Library
Present: Susan Saunders Bellingham, Jennifer Haas, Mark Haslett (Chair), Michele Laing, Sharon Lamont, Shabiran Rahman, Susan Routliffe, Mary Stanley, Linda Teather, Debbie Tytko, Melanie Watkins, Wish Leonard (Recorder)
Regrets: Eric Boyd, Annette Dandyk, Betty Graf, Richard Pinnell
- Chair’s Remarks
Recognition and Commendation
- Mark noted Wolf Dandyk’s 30th anniversary in the Library as of May 31st.
Updates
- Waterloo hosted two training sessions recently: the ARL/LMSI three-day session held at Resurrection College, and the two-day CLA Serials Cataloguing session organized by Alison Hitchens and held in the Davis Centre Conference Room.
- There will be a TUG Users meeting held at the University of Guelph on June 1st; the morning session will consist of updates of the past year’s activities, and the afternoon session will be a prototyping session.
- Mark and Charles Woods will be giving a presentation, at the Brown Bag session on May 4th, of the Voyager EndUsers session they attended.
- Mark acknowledged the persistence of Circulation Managers and Systems in getting the automatic feed of emails from QUEST into TRELLIS and stated that IST was now working on the outstanding interface issues, which would include passing barcode information into TRELLIS.
- Mark noted that he will not be present for the next Library Managers’ meeting as he will be attending ARL/CARL sessions in Ottawa.
- June 10, 2006 is the effective date for universities in Ontario to comply with the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act. It will mostly be business as usual. Some ‘tweaking’ needs to be made to UW’s Policy 19. Further information is forthcoming.
- June 1, 2006 is the date set for making the website ‘live’ that will contain job descriptions at UW. [Action: Sharon will have a preview of this site and will advise managers if anything needs to be done]
- An update on the university’s 6th Decade Plan was given. To date four faculties have made presentations to Senate, and two more are yet to be done. Four working groups have been formed with the focuses being on: 1) staff engagement, 2) staff as educators, 3) student engagement, and 4) co-op education. It was noted that group participants have recognized the profile of librarians as educators.
- Business Arising from April 19 Notes
#4 Last Copy Agreement – Susan noted that some modifications were made to the document.
Action: Susan and Mark will meet with ISR Librarians this Friday morning to talk about the agreement.
Within this same business item, Susan mentioned that the Project Charter for the weeding of the Annex is more or less finished, and noted that Jennifer and Shabiran will be UW’s representatives on this project. Action: Susan will send a copy of the charter to all staff next week.
- UW Data Working Group/Performance Indicators
Linda Teather spoke to the topic of performance indicators and stated than an annual report to the Board of Governors is due in October of each year. The UW Data Working Group has a fairly aggressive timeline, with most of the work on the 2006 indicators due by the end of June. The Group will be using the web collaboration tool, SharePoint. The 2005 indicators will be updated to reflect feedback from the Performance Indicators Task Force and the Data Working Group has been encouraged to develop additional indicators, especially ones that relate to the 6th decade report. Discussion followed on assessment measuring and benchmarking perspectives.
Action: Sharon and Susan There will be further discussion about possibly setting up an ad hoc meeting to delve further into these issues.
- Inventory and Security System Implementation Update
- Status of tagging: Davis almost finished, should be completed by May 24 gift announcement. Porter will begin immediately after, anticipated completion date: March 1, 2007.
- Security Gates installation: Eric is chairing a group that is working with Plant Ops for the Davis installation. No confirmed plan as of yet. Anticipated completion date: August 2006.
- Security after RFID: Circulation Services managers are working on various scenarios to present to the Implementation Team, then Library Managers.
- Porter: equipment (i.e. workstations and self-check) installation anticipated to take place in mid-May.
Action: Sharon will investigate if something can be done with airflow issues in the Davis Centre Great Hall.
- Friends of the Library and 3M Event
Mary Stanley announced that May 24th would be Library Day at UW. Starting at 10 am would be an event in Davis Centre, Room 1301 where 3M would make their official statement about their ‘gift-in-kind’ to the University Library. In the afternoon there would be the Authors event sponsored by Friends of the Library, and held in the Theatre of the Arts. Staff are encouraged to attend both events.
- Budget Cut Update
This year there is a 1.5% across the board cut, affecting the Library’s operating budget. The Library expects to handle this cut through attrition and by taking advantage of the 3M implementation, which has resulted in releasing funds from the circulation casual budget.
- Posting of Associate IT Position
Mark hopes to have a draft of this position ready by week’s end to share with Library Managers and the librarians for input/comments.
- UW Work Placement Positions
All position descriptions submitted were approved for posting.
There were 13 positions:
Cataloguing – 2
Circulation Services – 6
Map Library- 2
Systems – 3
- Casual Staff Employment Issues
Sharon shared a few best practices reminders:
- Staff hired on a casual basis can only be hired for a maximum of 15 terms.
- Hiring is generally on a term at a time basis.
- When specific shifts are being offered for the entire term, the hiring manager needs to provide the casual staff member with a contract of casual employment that outlines the terms of employment, including the end date and that continued employment is not guaranteed. The contract is signed by the staff member.
- Each term the contract indicates the number of terms already worked. Once the person enters the 14th term, the supervisor personally reminds the staff member that he/she can only work 1 more term.
- Near the end of the 15th term, the supervisor gives a small gift (funded by Library Office).
- Severance is paid at termination.
Recently HR suggested that we also provide formal, written termination notice to anyone we decide not to rehire (e.g. someone that just isn’t working out after working a couple of terms).
Next Meeting: May 17, Davis Library
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June 1, 2006
