The University of Kansas Libraries

KU Libraries Support Staff

KULSS Executive Meeting
Thursday, August 11th, 2011, 10:00-11:30
Watson 503A

Present: Jill Becker (Chair), Robert Szabo (Vice-Chair), Kristin Zachrel (Secretary), Adam Reilly (Group 1), Julie Woodrick (Group 2), Sharon Riley (Group 3)

Absent: None

Guests: Jeromy Horkman, Andrea Back, Christen Caton

Previous Meeting's Action Items

Group Reports

Group 1 (Adam):

• Mary Roach's husband is doing better after his surgery.
• Nothing else to report.

Group 2 (Julie):

• Jon Allen, from Acquisitions/Serials, resigned. His last day was Tuesday, August 9th. He's moving to Rochester, Minnessotta.
• Ella Choromanska hired 3 new students for the fall. She's beginning paperwork and orientation for the new hires.
• Microforms are moving to Anschutz in summer 2012.

Group 3 (Sharon):

• Admin:
  • Jill Mignacca and Sharon Riley took tours of the libraries yesterday.
• Anschutz:
  • Robert hired 3 students and may hire 2 more.
  • Will get 40 new computers before the semester starts. They’re very small computers and will need to be secured so they don’t get stolen.
  • The Libraries Art Committee hung about 30 pieces of art. The name labels are falling off so they will have to change the adhesive used to hang them. They want to have a projector outside the building to project art on Budig.
    • Robert thinks it would be fun to do a film festival on a projection screen on Budig.
• Art & Architecture:
  • Hired 1 student and 1 other hire is pending. One of the new student hires is an Architecture student from China so she will be able to handle the many of the East Asian books in their collection.
  • Shifting folios.
  • Andi has toured most of the libraries except Law and the Hatch reading room in Marvin (the Architecture reading room).
• Spahr:
  • Sending all printed theses and dissertations to Anschutz.
  • Getting new laptops.
• Music & Dance:
  • They have lots of wire bookends they don’t need so they will send them back to Anschutz.
• Spencer:
  • Meredith received the Jayhawk of the Month award. 
  • Drilling, pounding, crashes, thumps and bumps, music, and sawing can all be heard from the Reading Room.  The FO crews are here and starting the demolition of walls.  It’s destruction time.  Meredith will be getting photos taken and post them to Facebook. She's been sharing them with Sarah Kanning so she can post them to the Libraries Flicker page, etc… 
  • Kent and the FO Movers will be over tomorrow (Tuesday) to relocate some of the lockers into the Lobby area. Patrons will still have a secure area for their belongings as construction includes a new entrance to the Locker room with glass windows so people won’t feel trapped and isolated in the locker room.
  • Meredith will be posting a job for student positions for Reader Services. Processing will be hiring students as well.
  • Whitney Baker has scheduled herself to work in Spencer on Tuesdays; they are hoping this will give her more opportunity to meet with Spencer Staff on preservation projects and issues, as well as cut down on Whitney’s back and forth time.Whitney has also set up  some Mold Training sessions this week to teach the Reader Services and Spencer Processing students about how to identify and handle items they come across with Mold issues. 
  • Aeon is set to go LIVE on August 17. Patron Registration, Call Slips, etc. will all be kept track online.  They’ll have useful stats for collection usage.
  • Scanning for the Gould digitization project is underway.

Committee Reports

Support Staff Senate: Nothing to report.

University Committee on Libraries: Nothing to report.

Mentoring Committee: Nothing to report.

LOSDC: Nothing to report.

Meeting Updates

Management Council (next mtg: 8/17): Hasn't met yet.

Dean's KULSS (next mtg: 9/6):

• KULSA staff picnic survey results:
  • Lorraine wants to have the picnic and thinks everyone should go to build a sense of community.
  • The picnic will be held on Saturday, October 8th, the date that received the most votes on the survey. Fall break is October 10th, whcih may work against this date though.
  • Lorraine volunteered to be on the planning committee. Julie will contact people who offered to be on committee so they can get word out early.
  • Many people commented on the survey that they would prefer to have the picnic during the workday. Lorriane said this could be a problem for payroll to have the picnic during the workday and she wanted it to be something staff could bring families to.
• Electronic paysheets:
  • This change is related to the People Soft updgrade, which is at a standstill due to the Huron Report. There is no discussion about using this as a timeclock; it is just to manage payroll online. The timeclock system will just be used to for student workers; it will be a biometric system that scans their fingerprints instead of requiring them to punch in a number. This will be addressed in Monday Musings.
• Mentoring Committee for Support Staff:
  • This was just a recap of the meeting with John and Mike. Lorraine said it could be introducing new staff to the culture of the libraries. It will give staff someone to go to who isn’t their supervisor to find out about committees, campus, library culture, etc. She wants it to happen more.
  • Some Support Staff have no interest in professional development. Mike cautioned that when we generalize about Support Staff ambition we consider how much is related to supervisor approval versus personal decision.
  • Lorraine offered to pay for the first lunch between mentor and mentee.
  • She talked about a special initiatives fund for creative ideas. Strengths overlap with mentoring.
    • Andi offered an idea for more tech development for Support Staff.

       

Concerns to Bring up with the Dean:

• Budget for half-day staff development event.

Miscellaneous

Half-Day Staff Development Event:

• Everyone needs to come up with at least 1 idea for the staff development event by the next meeting.

• We might be able to have it in Watson 455.

Staff Profiles

• We want to get profiles of all the staff and put it on the KULSS website so there is no login.
• The profile should highlight things such as hobbies, places you’ve lived, non-work related interests, what you do in the library, why you might need to call me (what I am responsible for), etc. Staff can supply a picture but they don’t have to. 
• Robert had a list of questions but he doesn’t like them anymore so he’ll revise them.
• Robert wants to talk to people instead of just sending an email, but he should still send out the questions via email before meeting with them so they can think about their answers.
• Robert wants to do profiles twice per month.
• Maybe we can get Lorraine to put an announcement about it in Monday Musings letting staff know we’re doing this.
• The first profile will be about Robert. Then he will invite people individually.

Action Items for Next Meeting

Parking Lot
(Items to be aware of for the future, not necessarily discussed in current meeting)

• Huron discussion.

Next Meeting: August 25th, 10:00-11:30 in Music & Dance (Group Study Room).