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KULSS Exec
Meeting Minutes
Thursday, Jan 11th , 2007
Spencer Library, Johnson Rm – 10-11:30am
Present: Monica Claassen-Wilson (FY07 Chair), Jill Becker (FY07 Vice-Chair), Angie Rathmel (Secretary), Kevin Fussell (Group 2), Nishon Hawkins (Group 3), Robert Szabo (Group 4); Victoria Williams (Night/Weekend Supervisor, Anschutz); Mary Ann Baker (USS Senate/Senate Committee on Libraries)
Absent: Denise Swartz (Group 1)
Approval of previous meeting’s Dec. 7th minutes
DONE
Approval of previous meeting’s action items
| WHO? | BY WHEN? |
WHAT? |
Denise |
|
Contact Pinnacle Career Institute re: rates for massages (hourly or per 5 or 10 min. session) (FREE, 3-4 people to do 10-15 each) YES, free 10 min sessions available |
Denise |
|
Contact Anna Hines as potential presenter (Efficiency) DONE, will do if she is here. |
Denise |
|
Contact Nancy Hawkins and Janet Hamburg for potential presenter (Laban Dance) |
Denise |
|
Research cost of Ice Cream Social (bill from Stella’s reception) DONE $500 |
Group Reports:
Grp 1: Acq/Ser, Reference, Collection Development, Administration, Facilities
- Hired Rebecca Smith, Library Director of Public Relations and Advancement
- Reorganization of Reference services headed by Interim Director of Reference, Fran Devlin.
Grp 2: Cataloging
- N/A
Grp 3: Access Services, Mail Room, ILL
- E-reserves have almost completed their deadline items for start of Spring semester
- Reorganization of service desk staff now supervised Interim Director of Public Service, Rhonda Sharp who will move over to Watson.
- Minor reconfiguration of the service desk complete.
Grp 4: Anschutz, Annex, Art, Engineering, Music, RCL, Spencer
- ANSCHUTZ
- Reference Librarian and Tier 2 Specialist full-time as result of Reference Service reorganizations (formerly two Tier 2 specialists, with Ref Librarian as back up).
- Victoria Williams started as Night Weekend supervisor on Jan 3rd.
- ANNEX
- ART
- ENGINEERING
- Staff area being moved around on 1st floor to include dedicated reference desk.
- MUSIC
- RCL
- Lissa Lord’s “Dissertation Research Blog” http://www.dissertationresearch.blogspot.com/ was named as one of the Top 100 Education Blogs by Online Education Database website (OEDb). See http://oedb.org/library/features/top-100-education-blogs
- SPENCER
Committee Reports
University Support Staff (USS) Senate
- Keith Yehle, KU legislative liaison, came to talk about the university's top budgetary requests:
- deferred maintenance
- 2008 project/operating budget
- $5 million for cancer research
Note that our area legislators are very supportive of KU. USS Senate encourages KU folks to get word out to friends and family in other parts of Kansas to get their legislators to support higher education as well.
- Working on evaluations of supervisor, will begin look at examples of forms.
- Tuition Assistant Survey
- DRAFT version of the Executive Summary results of this survey was shared and will eventually be given to the Provost.
- Annual Salary Notifications
- There are different sorts of salary/increases information being given out by the departments across campus. USS Senate working on one uniform document that would come from a central office on campus (HREO? Chancellor? Provost?) directly to all USS folks.
Senate Committee on Libraries (SCL)
Summary Notes for 12/7/2006
Present: Barry Newton (Chair), Barbara Thompson, Holly Mercer, Lorraine Haricombe, Michael Krueger, Heide Crawford, Mary Roach, Kent Miller, Nancy Hawkins, Joyce Pearson, David Holmes, Robert Hanzlik
Absent: George Marakas, George McCoy, Jason Heard, Woochan Shim, Bob Timm, Lennea Carty, Mary Ann Baker, Lorin Maletsky, Charles Marsh, Nolan Jones, Cayla Witty
Barry Newton, Chair of the Committee, called the meeting to order. Lanis Atwood, Assistant to Dean Lorraine Haricombe will be taking notes for the meetings. The Chair asked Lanis to contact committee members to set up meeting times for next semester. A motion to accept the minutes from the last meeting was made and seconded.
The agenda for this meeting was to discuss Item #7 of the Committee’s charges:
Discuss the library needs of different academic disciplines, including the impact of technology, and what financial and physical resources are appropriate to meet these needs.
This item was touched on last year and it was felt that it needed to be re-introduced and sketched out more completely. Barry suggested that perhaps faculty would benefit from:
- a better understanding of how decisions are made regarding the Library material’s budget allocations in the various disciplines,
- a better understanding of the differing needs of the various disciplines and how changes in scholarly publishing are affecting the acquisitions of library materials in various disciplines
- broader communication and more involvement of faculty in the various disciplines
There appears to be a feeling amongst some faculty that the Library is not doing all that is needed to support them. Dean Haricombe noted that the Library is trying very hard to be responsive to the needs of the faculty and students. The Library is currently evaluating data received from LibQUAL+, a survey tool used this past spring by the Library, to help identify service quality issues. This tool is used internationally by libraries to identify benchmarks and will allow us to compare ourselves with our peers (ARL, Big 12, AAU, etc.). Currently, we only have KU’s information. We have not yet gone to the next step of comparing ourselves with others in all of the survey categories.
Dean Haricombe reviewed the differences between the 2003 LibQUAL+ survey and the 2006 LibQUAL+ survey, looking at the various categories and some of the ratings that were provided. These ratings show an increase in rank over the 2003 survey and a fairly high satisfaction with current library services.
Serials cancellation was the next item discussed. Dean Haricombe reported that a serials cancellation project would take place in the spring. This will be the second phase of a serials’ cancellation project that began a year ago. The Library has received no additional resources so it must continue to look closely at the material budget and make cuts and reallocations. Discussion ensued on the best ways to involve faculty in the serials cancellation project. The library administration encourages its bibliographers to work closely with departmental library committees and individual faculty in identifying materials that might be candidates for cancellation. The faculty would like as much information as possible in order to assist them in making informed decisions about any cancellations.
Meeting adjourned 5:00 p.m.
Diversity Committee (DC)
- Recently decided to follow the “increased visibility” suggestions that were sent out by Angie back in March of 2006 and had one of our committee members submit a call for volunteers in Info Matters. At this time we have added one new member to the committee: Deborah Dandridge. This is still fewer members than we had projected so we will be trying other options to get people to volunteer (such as the “bring a friend” option also suggested by Angie).
- We had met with Dean Haricombe during the fall to inform her about our committee and to pick her brain about ideas she might have. She was very supportive of continuing to follow the progress (and, in the meantime, the stalemate) of the Minority Residency Program we had proposed. She suggested we attempt to put on one big event per semester as opposed to trying to do several smaller ones, which we could never really find the time to get off the ground. We mentioned the possibility of an IS-wide committee and she was supportive of the greater visibility this would ensure. This semester and each one thereafter we will try to meet with Dean Haricombe at least once to keep her up to date on our committee.
- Currently, we are in the process of organizing an event for Black History Month. We would like to have KU Professor and Independent Film-Maker Kevin Wilmot come to speak and share part of his movie CSA: The Confederate States of America. Channette Kirby has taken the responsibility of contacting him and seeing if he can fit us into his schedule. Once the details are nailed down, we will submit this information to InfoMatters. Snacks will be provided.
Staff Development (SDC)
- No report
Planning and Resources (PRC)
- No report
Support Staff Employee of the Year 2006-07
Committee
Donna Brewer (ex-officio, non-voting)
LFA:
KULSS-Exec(non-voting): Kevin Fussell
Julie Warrick
KULSS
KULSS
KULSS
Friday, February 16th (evaluations due Feb 22nd)
Ask Denise re: library digital camera do get Julie Warrick’s picture on the web.
Staff Development Workshop
Food:
- Breakfast/Lunch via Union (need menu to catering by Mar 7th, need total count by noon Mar. 19th)
- Ice cream social at Watson via purchase/reimburse buckets of ice cream and toppings
Speakers:
- Will invite Terry Proctor to our next meeting to discuss ideas for Supervisor/Staff relations session.
- We will also discuss in more detail next meeting how to format and who to ask to present on Library Hierarchy Debunked session.
- Robert/Denise to confirm other participants and get an idea of their presentation format for us to list in the registration form.
Registration:
- Form needs to be due by March 1st
Action Items for next meeting:
| WHO? | BY WHEN? |
WHAT? |
Monica |
|
Ask if nominations can be sent to libraryadmin@ku.edu |
Jill |
|
Invite Erin to next meeting to discuss Diversity Committee. |
Kevin |
Feb. 16th |
Ask KULSS to volunteer for SSEYA |
Robert |
Feb. 16th |
Ask KULSS and LFA to volunteer for SSEYA |
Robert/Denise |
Feb. 9th meeting |
Confirm all possible presenters and get summary of content. |
Next meeting will be Thursday Jan. 25th , 2007 in Watson Conference Rm B.




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