The University of Kansas Libraries

KU Libraries Support Staff

KULSS Executive Meeting
Thursday, July 28th, 2011, 10:00-11:30
Anschutz 305

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: Mike Broadwell, John Stratton

No Previous Action Items

Group Reports

Group 1 (Adam):

• Mary reported at the cataloging meeting that Sarah Thomas is no longer working at KU Libraries as a result of her contract ending and there not being enough work at the annex. Her last day was at the end of June. She got a job at Midnight Farm.
• Cataloging had the ALA giveaway meeting and their accomplishments party was last Friday.
• They are re-carpeting the Cataloging area in September but it will have to be done in sections. They will have to remove the bookshelfs along the wall.
• Voyager will be upgraded soon.
  
  

Group 2 (Julie):

• The ramp at Watson still isn’t done.
• ILLIAD upgrades will be going on in ILL.
• Several Acquisitions staff are going to the NEKLS tech day in Topeka on August 2nd.
  
  

Group 3 (Sharon):

• Sharon Riley is on the Mentoring Committee and their charge is to make mentoring available for everyone.
• Invite new staff members, Andrea Back and Jill Mignacca to our next meeting.
• Spahr and Anschutz will get new furniture similar to what's east of the service desk in Watson. Their computers are getting upgraded and they are also getting some new computers.
• Stats on the number of laptops checked out are available. 17,000 laptops were checked out of Anschutz and 3000 checked out at Watson.
• The Anschutz consultation office is being moved to the 4th floor. They are currently looking for furniture for this space.
  
  

Committee Reports

Support Staff Senate: Nothing to report.

University Committee on Libraries: Nothing to report.

LOSDC: Nothing to report.

Mentoring: John Stratton and Mike Broadwell from the Mentoring Committee visited to discuss mentoring for all staff...

• After some hiatus this committee has been reformed and have already met with Dean about what they should be emphasizing early in their work. Mentoring is supposed to be for everyone but currently it is more focused on tenure-track faculty who work directly with their supervisor and a mentor. Mentoring for staff is less clear.
• They are meeting with staff groups, KULSS and LFPA to ask about our view of mentoring and what it should include. When they met with dean she wanted the committee to build accountability and trust. She wants to engage with USS and Unclassified staff in mentoring. She wants to help us promote skills and competencies and seek informal ways to further organizational goals and breakdown organizational silos. Anybody can be mentored or be a mentor.
• Mentoring: What is our view of mentoring and what could it offer staff?
  • KULSS: We want to know how mentoring can actually help a staff member. Faculty are required to do it and they get something out of it. This is not the case for staff so they participate less and are more apathetic. What will mentoring do for staff?
  • Mentoring should be done to raise staff up, not teach them how to do their jobs better.
  • Help to identify professional development opportunities such as the Emerging Leaders program. Work with staff to identify what their skills and strengths are and help them to work with that.
  • There is a place for mentoring staff interested in pursuing an MLS. After the meeting Adam had good idea about staff with MLS degrees shadowing librarians.
  • Staff could be involved in research projects librarians are doing. They can offer a different perspective and it also allows them to get in on authorship and work toward advancement on the scholarly side of things.
    • Mentoring: Involving people in research will require staff to work with their supervisor and a mentor.
• Mentoring: In the last 5 years the libraries have added 55 employees, most of which have been staff, not faculty. Everyone goes through orientation, but a mentor can help orient new staff to the libraries, such as where things are, what the organizational culture is like, who people are. Currently after orientation nothing happens. So what do you learn about what’s going on around the libraries? A mentor can help acculturate people to the organization.
• KULSS: There are a lot of roadblocks in getting people involved, such as getting supervisor support. Also, people don’t know how it benefits them.
  • Mentoring: There needs to be direct connections to what mentoring can do for you. The framework needs to be articulated for staff like it is for faculty.
  • KULSS: Identify what’s in it for us. What is the outcome for having staff involvement? This also needs to be communicated to supervisors and administration.
  • Mentoring: The challenging part of this is that there is a very structured system with staff. There is typically about 5% of time set aside for something that staff weren’t hired to do. There are 2 positions in Emerging Leaders for anyone to go every year. Staff can put their name out there to get that kind of development. The same thing goes for other types of development...there is money available for it.
  • KULSS: A great percent of staff are in procedure-based jobs that don’t stop so they feel they can't get away from their job to participate in staff development. It will really help if supervisors offer their support and encouragement. There should be enough bend so that they can attend. There are also staff that share 2 supervisors which can be more difficult.
  • Mentoring: Some of this responsibility has to lie with personal responsibility. People have to get involved, but the word does need to get out to supervisors.
  • KULSS: Get new staff involved. Get supervisors of new staff early on as well.
  • Mentoring: We can't lump all USS staff in one pool; some just want to do their 8-5 work. Maybe it would be better to target new staff as well as those that are engaged in development. The Mentoring Committee can help reach new staff. They can meet with staff groups to let them know they're here and they've already met with LOSDC to work with them on this. There are opportunities for staff to be engaged if they want to be.  They also need to get word out to supervisors. The next steps are to get out and spread the word by meeting with LFPA and Management Council. They're working from a strengths-based approach on what they can do to engage in growth.
• Mentoring Committee Members:
  • John Stratton - Chair
  • Kathy Graves
  • Kim Glover
  • Sharon Riley
  • Letha Johnson
  • Mike Broadwell – ex officio
• Visit their website for more information about mentoring.

Meeting Updates

Management Council (Next Mtg: 8/17): Management Council Retreat was 7/19 to 7/20...

• 50 people were in attendance including the Assistand Deans.
• Participants split into groups to look at the values in previous strategic directions and identify how we currently practice each value, how to improve it, and any that were missing from list.
• In the second activity they re-imagined roles and connections. Libraries' services and programs listed and they identified who will be dependent on them and who they are dependent on.
• The Administrative team gave mini reports.
• In the next activity they took each theme from the AD's presentations and identified 1 concrete outcome, who/what would be involved, and what resources would be needed.  

Dean's KULSS Meeting (Next Mtg: 8/2): Nothing to report.

Concerns to Bring to the Dean:

• Timesheets going electronic. People are starting to get freaked out about it so there may need to be some transparency about this change. Sharon advised that they’re still looking at practicality issues, but this information needs to be addressed before the rumor mill sets in.
• Share Julie's results of the picnic survey. Julie will attend.
• Meeting with the Mentoring Committee and the concerns we expressed with them.

Miscellaneous

• Low attendance at the General Meeting was possibly due to the fact that it was advertised at an hour and a half. Perhaps a 50 minute meeting would be better.
  • Also, perhaps staff don't know what KULSS can do for them or how it can benefit them.
• There is an organizational assessment project going on. They don’t want to do climqual, which focuses on identifying deficiencies. Instead they want to use an appreciative inquiry tool that will ask questions in a positive way. Jill will send out a call about this to see if anyone wants to get on board.

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 11th, 10:00-11:30 in Watson 503B.