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Library Managers

University of Waterloo
Library Managers, September 16, 2009
9:30 a.m., Davis

Present: Allan Bell, Betty Graf, Jennifer Haas, Mark Haslett (Chair), Michele Laing, Sharon Lamont, Susan Mavor, Alex McCulloch, Bill Oldfield, Richard Pinnell, Susan Routliffe, Mary Stanley, Debbie Tytko, Carolyn Vincent (Recorder)

Guest: Chris Halonen

Regrets: Eric Boyd, Annette Dandyk, Mary Stanley

1. Chair’s Remarks
• Updates
Mark welcomed Annie back and Alex in his new role as Head of Circulation.

Mark reminded the managers about the opening of the Grand River Conservation Authority collection on September 22nd and encouraged all managers and librarians to attend.

A new initiative at the University of Toronto is that a direct borrowing fee will be put in place for graduates and faculty members from other institutions beginning October 1st. Mark has informed Senate Grad Research Council about this change and will have further discussions with Bruce Mitchell.

2. Business Arising from July 22
Mark informed the managers that Mary and Nancy are working on feedback they received regarding the Library “Brag Sheet”.

Betty indicated that the books previously held in the Elliott Avedon Museum & Archive of Games chosen by WLU have been sent to them and the rest were donated to the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa and deleted from the catalogue.

3. Assessment Projects
Susan R. informed the managers of three assessment projects that we plan to participate in:

1. LibQual Canada – We will participate in the next run of this survey,
scheduled for January 2010.

2. Mines Survey - This survey is used to find out why and how we are
using journals on Scholars Portal. We did not participate in the survey when OCUL ran it in 2004 because there was no way for users to opt out and continue their search. OCUL is preparing to run the survey again and plans are in place for an opt out button so that no one is denied access to journals if they choose not to complete the survey.

3. SFX Survey - This survey was coordinated by Ryerson and we
participated along with Guelph, Laurier, Queens and Ryerson. We now have the data and need to analyze it.

Annie has been asked to provide leadership for these projects and will work initially with the remaining members of CNAC: Alex, Wish and Tim. Alex and Wish will participate in initial discussions about the projects and then one or both of them may be replaced by someone else from the Circulation Department.

Terms of reference for CNAC need to be reviewed but rather than delaying work on the three projects until a review can be completed, the review will be undertaken once the projects are well in hand.

4. Pandemic Planning
Susan R. informed the managers about some minor revisions made to the Pandemic Response Plan for the Library since June. An additional document outlining additional elements for our pandemic plan was sent to the managers prior to the meeting for review.

Action: Managers were asked to prepare a pandemic plan for their departments using the elements outlined in the document. We will review these plans at the October 7th meeting.

5. Update re Archives
Susan M. introduced Chris Halonen who will be working on a 1-year contract in Special Collections as Archivist: University Records and also with Carolyn Dirks, University Records Manager to review the existing collections of University records. Chris will also be acting as a member on the new task force on Long-term Preservation of Electronic University Records and working on revisions to Policy 12 & 13. Allan Bell is also a member of the new task force.

Susan M. indicated that Special Collections has a book2net kiosk for scanning on trial until Friday, September 18th. The book2net kiosk allows you to scan a book on a USB key. This is faster than scanning and can replace photocopying of books.

Allan introduced another company, Preservation Technologies Canada, who has a pilot project which transfers old magnetic media to DVDs.

Anita Streicher is working with Nancy Collins on a video entitled Using Archives and Rare Books for Your Research which will appear on the Digital Collections page on the Library website. Susan M. previewed the video for the managers at the meeting.

6. Around the Table Updates
Alex
Amy Zhao started Monday on an 8-month trial in the Circulation Services Department.

Ares went live for instructors in August and for students last week. It is up and running and generally going well.

Allan
Allan attended a SPOD meeting in Toronto two weeks ago. He also attended the final <odesi> External Advisory Committee meeting and reported that the Ministry of Finance was very complimentary and looking forward to a successful GeoSpatial Project.

Overall, Primo went well and they are currently working through the issues.

Communication will be sent out about Exchange and Systems will implement this in each department.

Michele
Michele reported that Agnes Kordiasz is now working at Musagetes on a 1-year contract.

Richard
UML is currently interviewing for a contract worker and hopefully will have someone hired soon.

Sharon
Sharon discussed the working from home initiative. One trial started at the beginning of August and three more requests have come through since.

Action: Sharon will send an email to Library staff indicating that we will be capping the number of trials. Library staff interested in working from home will be asked to send a formal request to their manager by the end of September. After this time, additional requests will only be considered for extraordinary circumstances.

A request was sent via email in the summer asking for volunteers to form an adhoc group to review the flex-time policy. The volunteers who replied were all from Porter.

Action: In an attempt to get a good balance from the departments and from the libraries, Sharon will send another email to Library staff to see if we get any further volunteers.

Debbie
Acquisitions is currently busy with serial renewals.

Susan R.
Susan pointed out that there is an article featuring Susan Mavor in the latest Grand magazine and also an article featuring Greg Hayton, Head Librarian at Cambridge Public Library.

Jennifer
Mark Smith has been hired as a Student Ambassador Intern who will be generating awareness of Scopus and other library services on campus by promoting them to fellow students, faculty members, professors and librarians.

Annie
The Alumni Project (what can we offer alumni?) will be available in winter 2010.

There has been an increase number of RefWorks sessions and Tim Ireland will now be doing all of the sessions.

Betty
The 1-year contract position in Item Prep will be staying on.

They are cataloguing old gifts as they continue to catalogue new material.

Next meeting: October 7, Porter


 


 


 


 


 


 

 

 


 


 


 


 


 




 




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October 2, 2009