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Library Managers

University of Waterloo
Library Managers, February 4, 2009
9:30 a.m., DC 1568

Present: Annie Belanger, Allan Bell, Eric Boyd, Betty Graf, Jennifer Haas, Mark Haslett (Chair), Michele Laing, Sharon Lamont, Susan Mavor, Ann Naese, Bill Oldfield, Richard Pinnell, Susan Routliffe, Mary Stanley, Debbie Tytko, Annette Dandyk (Recorder)

1. Chair’s Remarks

• Recognition and Commendation
Anniversaries:
Dec 1, Faye Abrams, OCUL Project Manager, 30 years
Dec 2, Gerald Underhill, Circulation Services, 20 years
January 23, Janet Wason, Library Services for Persons with Disabilities, Porter ISR, 20 years

• Updates
Mark reported on the February 3 Board of Governors meeting. Of significance:
o The Provost provided an update on the state of the current year’s budget and the anticipated situation in next two fiscal years. A summary is given in the February 4 Daily Bulletin. http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/2009/feb/04we.html
o Library Executive Committee is looking at the impact of potential 5% cuts to the operating budget this year and next. Once the scenarios are finalized Mark will bring it to a Managers meeting.
o A new UW campus master plan, dated January 19, 2009 was approved. It includes a mention of the library, specifically building a library storage facility below grade into the Arts quadrangle. A summary and a link to the master plan are available on the web http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/2009/feb/05th.html

• Around the Table Updates
Mary
The Update Report, which focuses on student experience will be ready for Mark’s February 23 Senate presentation.

In an effort to continue to engage with students around the theme of Valentines Day, they will be invited to submit photos of their favourite spot in the Library and why they love it.

Annie
ISR staff are beginning to work on several different projects including a pilot on retention policy. In response to a request from the Office of Alumni Affairs, they are looking at the possibility of more access to resources for alumni, particularly enhanced access to online products.

Annie will be on a 6 month leave from March 2 to August 31.

Debbie
All of the backlogged approval books have been processed and no more will come until the freeze ends. Velma Smith has been helping in Special Collections; Lesley Wade, Anne Unger and Vera Starz have been helping in ILL/DD. This will continue until the end of April.

Ann
Circulation Services appreciates the help they have been receiving from Acquisitions and Cataloguing staff.

During the Winter 2009 exam period Circulation Services will carry out a trial where Porter and Davis Libraries will operate as study halls during the extended building hours period. There will be no reduction in extended building hours, only in the services offered. Circulation desks will be closed, but two attendants will be on duty at each site. During the trial stats will be taken, a monitoring log will be kept, and students will have an opportunity to give feedback.

Michele
Two new casual staff recently finished training.

Musagetes Library will run a Haiku contest for Valentines Day.

Because of very low usage of the Musagetes Library during reading week last year, Architecture students will be polled to determine if they would be adversely affected by 6:00 p.m. closure during reading week this year.

Sharon
A new policy (Policy 61) on religious accommodation informs employees on their rights with respect to the human rights code: “The university will provide time off to accommodate religious observances; however, there is no obligation to provide paid time.”Anyone wishing to take time off for religious observances should inform their Manager in advance. http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/policy61.htm

A year ago the Managers group approved a recommendation by the Infrastructure Committee to disband. Managers are not aware of any issues that have resulted from this decision. Sharon will send a message to staff asking for their comments.

Sharon thanked the group for supporting the Civil Workplace session, held January 29. It was a valuable session and feedback from those who attended has been good. In response to comments about the merits of a follow up session, Sharon will contact Matt Erickson about the possibility of a debriefing session.
Action: Sharon

Bill
Virtualization of the servers continues and is working smoothly.

Systems staff created a web site for a German bibliography titled German Canadiana in Ontario: Research Portal that Jane Forgay and Helena Calogeridis have been working on. http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/ogbib/

Allan
The campus IT review meetings went well and it is anticipated that the report will be sent to the Provost by the end of the month.

Allan will attend an OCUL discovery layer meeting with TUG and other institutions on February 9. Allan is going as part of the OCUL Scholars Portal discovery group. He will provide an update at the next Managers meeting.
Action: Allan

Betty
The next withdrawal bulletin will be distributed soon. IRMC will talk about the timing at its next meeting.

An LC classification training session is scheduled for February 10 and 11.

2. Business Arising from November 26

Deferred.

3. Fundraising and Development – next steps

In Fall 2007 Library Managers met with Tracy Bailey and started talking about future fundraising. Three themes emerged - space, e-initiatives, and enhancing student experience.

Early last year LibExec and Mary met with the campus master plan committee and discussed how the Library’s needs could be incorporated into the master plan. Consequently, the new master plan integrated one of the Library’s key needs - a library storage facility. There are many other building projects on campus looking for money. Major gifts at UW are now considered to be over $100,000. Space is still a priority with fundraising but two e-initiatives are the focus at present. Mary has been working with Susan M and Allan on two projects: Putting the Past into Pixels, and engine.

Susan M described the Putting the Past into Pixels project underway in Special Collections. Recognizing the uniqueness of over 60 special collections documenting local family and urban history, they plan to make the collections available electronically. Two cornerstone projects include making 95 years of the Waterloo Historical Society’s Annual Volume, and making Elizabeth Bloomfield’s Waterloo Regional Bibliography available electronically.

Susan has met with a variety of people who have done research in these areas and who have an interest, and has applied to the Waterloo Regional Heritage Society for a grant to help with the cost of scanning. Work has started on the task of identifying some local foundations that may be able to contribute, as well as some individuals. For the Library to reach the level of funds required for this project we will require some government funding.

Allan described the “Engine” project, an open access e-print repository for engineering. Leeanne Romane was approached by Weihua Zhuang -- an Engineering faculty member who is the editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology -- who was interested in creating a pre-print service for engineering. IEEE allows authors to archive pre-print versions of articles before they are published in a journal. Allan has been working with Adam Patterson and Weihua, and the launch is tentatively scheduled to launch next month. The project has received financial support from the Provost as well as the Vehicular Technology Society, and will allow us to leverage our existing resources and knowledge to explore 21st Century publishing models.

The project will make engineering papers available to researchers much more quickly than is possible with current commercial publishing models. In the future, we will explore emerging trends in assigning "authority" in an electronic environment by experimenting with Web 2.0 technologies to create models for post publication peer review.

Mary – next steps: we have identified the projects; now we need to recruit more champions, identify prospects, talk to ODAA, and approach potential donors. Fundraising major gifts is a time consuming process and can take 12 to 18 months.

4. Zoning for Noise Pilot in the Davis Library

Noise has always been an issue in the Davis Library and feedback from students in several surveys clearly demonstrates that students want more quiet study space and feel that the Library should address this problem. Jennifer, Anne Fullerton and Melanie Watkins have been looking at ways to address the noise situation. Jennifer gave a presentation for a proposed pilot in Davis.

During the pilot, noise zones would be created in the Davis library. The yellow zone, where some noise can be expected would include the lower level, the library entrance, service desk area and group study rooms. The red zone would be designated as silent areas and includes the current silent study areas, study carrels around the perimeter on the main floor, and the glassed-in silent study room. The group study table area on the main floor would be zoned either silent or quiet, preferably silent. The pilot would be advertised in various ways before and during the pilot, the zones will be monitored, and students will be given opportunities for feedback. Assessment will occur after the pilot.

There was significant discussion after the presentation. It was agreed that the noise committee should continue to develop the proposal before the plan is approved for implementation.

Next meeting: February 18, Davis


 


 


 


 


 


 




 




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June 10, 2009