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KULSS Exec
Meeting Minutes
Thursday, October 4th, 2007
Watson B, 10:00-11:30am
Present: Jill Becker (Chair), Nishon Hawkins (Vice Chair); Angie Rathmel (Secretary); Denise Swartz (Group 1); Kevin Fussell (Group 2); Julie Warrick (Group 3); Robert Szabo (Group 4); Monica Claassen-Wilson (IS Professional Development Council, KULSS-Exec Webmaster); Nancy Hawkins (UCL)
Absent:
Approval of 9/20/07 meeting’s minutes.
DONE
Approval of previous meeting’s action items (you can cut and paste or fill-in from agenda)
| WHO? | BY WHEN? | WHAT? |
1. Denise |
DONE |
Reserve room for Fall General Meeting on 10/18 |
2. Angie |
DONE |
Contact Mary Ann Baker about deadline for HR/EO Self Study, resulted in Ola coming to our General Mtg. |
3. Jill |
DONE |
Mentoring email |
4. Jill |
Oct. 15th |
Draft Staff Development plan |
5. Jill |
DONE |
Contact PRC about communicating with KULSS Exec |
6. Jill |
DONE |
Contact Al Mauler and Holly Mercer about KULSA membership |
Group Reports:
Grp 1: Acq/Ser, Reference, Collection Development, Administration, Facilities
- New Administrative Assistant, Maggie Brooke, began Sep 24th.
- Monica has been promoted to an Unclassified Professional position as Library Web Master.
- Acquisitions department
- LA position (to replace Linda Copp) will start Oct. 8th
- New Herman Miller equipment will not arrive until mid-Nov.
Grp 2: Cataloging
- Kevin was on TV for a fire that occurred on Tuesday.
Grp 3: Access Services, Mail Room, ILL
- Looking at architectural plans for the new service desk
- Architects blue prints reviewed and will create another one based on comments.
- Still hope to install of winter break.
- Night and wknd supervisor to begin Monday Oct. 8th ; will train 8-5 initially.
- Lockers for study spaces being investigated based on faculty request for the following current procedure:
- a yellow form can be placed on a stack of book to reserve them for a certain period (formalized, has always been informally done by patrons).
Grp 4: Anschutz, Annex, Art, Engineering, Music, RCL, Spencer
- ANSCHUTZ
- Bill Crowe now office in Anschutz.
- ANNEX
- Faculty/Staff reception Friday 3:30pm.
- ART
- No report
- ENGINEERING
- No report, but Jeff McAdams reports from University of Texas, San Antonio (UTSA):
I'm progressing very well here at UTSA. So far I've taught a few library classes and given some tours, and I continue to work many hours on the reference desk.
The school here is hard to understand and explain. While it has a lot of money, it doesn't have enough. They building wonderful new buildings constantly, yet many of the buildings are in desperate need of updating and renovation. There are plenty of students and teachers, but the support staff is not big enough to accommodate them all. I'm not meaning to criticize, but to me this university does have some contradictions forced onto it because of its young age and simultaneous abnormal growth.
The library is a fantastic place to work. The people are all very nice and professional. There seem to be two types of employees: those who have been here for 20+ years, and those who are still quite young and just started. I haven't really met any in-betweens, yet.
I wish I could mention any projects or fun things that I have been doing, but really it's just been a routine settling in and orientation period for the past month. I did have a great talk with one of our assistant deans, who started the same day I did, and she seemed very down-to-earth and approachable. We both talked about the myriad of opportunities that exist to jump-start this place into high-gear. I'm excited about the future, so hopefully I'll have more substantial offerings soon.
I hope all is well at KU; I miss everyone a lot.
Rock, chalk, Jayhawk,
Jeff
- MUSIC (Submitted by Nancy Hawkins)
- No report
- RCL
- No report
- SPENCER (submitted by Mary Ann Baker)
- Bill Crowe is no longer Spencer Librarian.
- Meredith Huff has arrived and taken over Tanya's position as "Office Manager" for Reader Services.
- We're looking for someone to take over Kathy's position as "Office Manager" for Reader Services on a temporary basis while Kathy takes over the temp unclassified position to help Sherry with other Reader Services needs.
- Audrey Coleman (UCP) just passed her certification exam so now she's a Certified Archivist.
- You can count on less than 10 fingers how many months Barry has left to work before he retires and takes off for CA.
- There was a nice reception Friday, 21 Sept, to honor Dana and Sue Anderson for their support of the acquisition and processing of African American primary research materials. Deborah Dandridge's brief talk was stellar! Me, I had a good time directing folks to the North Gallery like I was a stewardess pointing out the amenities of the pressurized cabin, you know, two fingers in each hand pointing, etc. A lot of people laughed at that.
- Academic Success folks took a tour of the joint recently.
- We've had a moderate number of readers and classes using our materials. Of course, I'm only in Reader Services 10-15 hours per week so I don't see everything that's going on all the time.
Committee Reports
University Support Staff (USS) Senate (Submitted by Mary Ann Baker)
- The University Support Staff Senate Exec Committee meets tomorrow so I'll report on that later.
- You should SAVE THE DATE November 14th, 10:30am, probably the KS Union, when Sandy Praeger, KS Insurance Commissioner, comes to talk to us about insurance, particularly health insurance. It's too late for changes in our benefits for next year, but we can let her know our concerns for subsequent years.
- Since Kevin asked, the University Support Staff Senate task force on evaluations for supervisors has been meeting through the summer. We've been working on a form and have narrowed 150 potential questions down to about 50 and we're hoping to get down to 40. We're asking folks at the Office of Institutional Research and Planning (OIRP), School of Education, and HR/EO to look over what we're doing and make suggestions. It's not a done deal that we'll be doing evaluations of our supervisors anytime soon but we're still working on it. We're suggesting that the process for staff be voluntary and anonymous. We'll see how that flies ...
University Senate (Submitted by Mary Ann)
There's gobs of information including notes about what happened last week when the University Senate Executive Committee (SenEx) met with the Board of Regents on the KU campus in the reports from Crowe and Levy. [At the University Governance website: http://www2.ku.edu/~unigov/governminutes.shtml] there are [minutes] from the Provost's meeting with the Senate on September 13th that include lots more than I remembered to tell you. Note from the agenda for Thursday's meeting that we'll be discussing the administrative change in Research and Graduate Studies.
Have a good week! Mary Ann
University Committee on Libraries (UCL)
Met Oct. 2nd at 2:30 in Watson A. David Holmes is the new chair (Prof of Psychology)
LFA Charges/KULSS Charges addressed
SenEx Special Charges:
- Review selection process for materials to storage
- Digital initiatives and access to library materials
Dean gave PowerPoint presentations of the Library Goals and Points of Pride.Received compliments on improved communication and Annex Open House.
FY08 budget increase in collections mentioned.
Diversity Committee
- After summer haitius, met Tuesday Oct. 2nd at the West Annex. Next month plan to select another event topic. Stay tuned.
- Erin will step down in January from her 3 years serving as chair, but will continue to be a member of the committee. They will be looking for a new chairperson.
IS Professional Development Council (ISPDC)
No meetings scheduled. Monica will no longer serve on this committee (as she is not USS rep anymore).
Planning & Resources Committee (PRC)
Nothing to report.
Fall General Meeting Planning (10:30 –12)
Mentoring
Admin leave funds procedure
Ola coming
- HR/EO Self-Study
- Health benefits
Website Updates
Merit page preview
Agenda Items for the next Meeting with the Dean
Monday, October 15th, 11:00-11:45am
PRC’s role in Staff Development
Replacement for Monica in ISPDC.
Poster sessions posted on Anschutz bulletin board
Review Merit information on our website
Fall General Meeting plans (Donna, Lorraine to speak about Mentoring/ Shannon, Denise to speak about Admin travel requests)
Action Items for next meeting:
| WHO? | BY WHEN? | WHAT? |
Denise |
|
Bring up with Shannon again re: SEYA plaque |
Angie |
|
Flyer for Fall Gen Mtg and send out to kulib-l |
Angie |
|
Communicate with Ola and/or staff about HR/Self-Study, Health and KPERS changes |
Jill |
|
Personal invite to Holly, LFA chair |
JIll |
|
Shannon, Denise, Lorraine, Donna about Gen Mtg content |
Denise |
|
Food for General Meeting |
Angie |
|
Update Maggie and Meredith on membership. |
Next meeting will be our Fall General Meeting on Oct 18th in Watson A&B.
PARKING LOT:
Follow-up on merit questions from Spring KULSS General Meeting
Orientation Committee updates.




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