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KULSS Exec

Meeting Minutes

Thursday, May 15, 2008
Watson Conference B, 10:00-11:30am

Present: Jill Becker (Chair), Nishon Hawkins (Vice Chair); Angie Rathmel (Secretary); Denise Swartz (Group 1); Eleanora Drury, Lars Leon, Billie Conway (PRC); Mike Broadwell (Libraries HR)
Absent: Robert Szabo (Group 4); Julie Warrick (Group 3)

Approval of 5/1/08 meeting’s minutes.
DONE

Approval of previous meeting’s action items

WHO?	BY WHEN?	WHAT?
1. Jill	5/2/08 – DONE	Email kulib-l about Colored Bag Lunches. Send additional invite to new hires.
2. Angie	DONE	Email Mike re: May 15th KULSS meeting to discuss Grievance Committee
3. Nishon	DONE	Email Eleonora re: May 15th KULSS meeting to discuss PRC
4. Jill	DONE	Invite LFA Rep to May 15th KULSS meeting to discuss PRC and Grievance Committee
5. Denise	DONE	Reserve alcove in Union for Colored Bag Lunches
6. Sarah	DONE	Resend feedback from SD speaker to Angie
7. Jill	By end of FY	Gather staff development documentation
8. Jill	By end of FY	Clean up folders on G drive, add things (agendas, etc.)

Group Reports:
Grp 1: Acq/Ser, Reference, Collection Development, Administration, Facilities

Libraries hosting retirement reception for Janet Revenew (and Joy Fry and Barry Bunch) on June 5th
New hire, Kyle Sederstrom begins Monday May 19th in Preservation.
Acquisitions authorized to fill Kathy Lathrom's position.

Grp 2: Cataloging

Tami Weatherholt, Sarah Thomas, Lora Farrell, and Carmen Orth-Alfie are working on a presentation for 2008 Brick and Click.

Grp 3: Access Services, Mail Room, ILL

2 new color scanner for public use available.
Resource Sharing held successful open house.
Resource Sharing looking into possible pilot projects.

Grp 4: Anschutz, Annex, Art, Engineering, Music, RCL, Spencer

ANSCHUTZ

N/A.

ANNEX

ART (submitted by Ann Snow)

ENGINEERING

No report, but see update from Jeff McAdams

Last Friday was the last day of finals here, so right now we're in the lull between semesters. The library is gearing up for renovations this summer (sound familiar?), but they have rather grandiose plans that, personally, I don't think will happen completely. Anyway, there are lots of architects, engineers, and various other people with hard hats walking around and marking things down on big sheets of paper.

If you miss seeing my face and hearing my voice, then you'll be able to encounter a virtual Jeff sometime soon. We've recorded an audio tour of the library and taken pictures for a slideshow. At some point these will be put on our web site. It's not great, but it's something. And we'll have to redo it again when the renovation is over.

That's pretty much it from here. I hope things are going well at KU.

Toodles,

Jeff

MUSIC (Submitted by Nancy Hawkins)

SPENCER (submitted by Mary Ann Baker)

Had a nice reception for Rick and Susanne Clement. We'll have our own reception for Barry's retirement on June 11th.
Work proceeds apace to get Barry's replacement but it is looking less likely that someone will be in place before Barry leaves in mid-June.
You all no doubt read that we will be closed 8-9am during the summer as a trial run. If it seems to be OK, we'll keep doing it during the academic year as well.
You also probably heard that our Deborah got the distinguished librarian award. With that and the recognition of her by the KS City Area Archivists, she's having a good Spring!
We're shipping off a huge collection to the Annex, the Watkins Collection of over 600 cubic foot boxes. That will leave us with a good chunk of space in our stacks.
Harmony Middle School children will visit us on Monday and Wednesday. Scads of kids (who come in waves) will be learning about our holdings and Kansas history.

Committee Reports
University Support Staff (USS) Senate (Submitted by Mary Ann Baker)
University Support Staff (USS) Senate and Executive Committee, May 2008

The newly-named Task Force on Staff Assessment of Supervisors and Managers (previously the task force on evaluations of supervisors) has kicked into a higher gear and has begun a testing phase of the assessment form. The task force is also consulting with the Office of Institutional Research and Planning (OIRP) to produce a scannable form.

The USS Work Group (combination of USS staff and KU admin folks, formed after we became university staff) reports that a vote at Fort Hays for their classified staff to become university staff failed and they will remain state classified staff despite strong Fort Hays administrative support for the change. The USS Work Group is also trying to become more active and proactive in addressing USS needs.

The senate will have its annual retreat on Thursday, 24 July.

We are trying to disseminate the vast amount of "There is honor in the work" brochures (tells some of the USS story on campus with photos and quotes, etc.) around campus. After the initial mailing to KU faculty and staff, getting the rest of the 5000 brochures distributed around campus fell through someone's crack. If you can think of some good places to leave the brochure, please let Mary Ann know.

The Personnel Committee is arranging to meet with Ola Faucher (head of KU's Human Resources Dept) to talk about shared leave, abuse of leave policies issues and the possibility of phased retirement for USS.

We're investigating whether we can support a mini-Wheat State Tour for USS to participate. It would be a day tour within a 150-mile radius. If you have good suggestions for places that USS should visit, not just to learn about the places but also to have the places get to know USS, let Mary Ann know.

For all that Lindy Eakin has done to support USS (we would probably still be classified staff without him) the Senate agreed to compose a resolution to show our appreciation for his work on our behalf. Lindy recently decided to be a history professor instead of Vice Provost of Administration and Finance. Diane Goddard will take over the Vice Provost position on an interim basis until they fill Lindy's position.

One of our USS constituents has requested that we look into the rising cost of parking at least somewhere near KU. I think we agreed to investigate.

We elected our EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) representatives, who will represent the different KU EEO categories on the USS Senate Executive Committee. Library Assistants and Library Associates as well as secretarial and clerical staff on campus are represented by the EEO 4 rep, Teri Chambers. For those of you in other EEO categories such as accountants (EEO3) check here in a few weeks to see who your representative is: http://www2.ku.edu/~clsenate/eeo2000.shtml. Of course, you can always consult with any member of the USS Senate with your concerns. EEO categories are used in the USS Senate to make sure that we proportionally represent the USS on campus.

We still have some openings on the Senate. You too could be called "Senator". Let Mary Ann know if you are interested.

University Senate (Submitted by Mary Ann)
Executive Committee (SenEx), 6 May 2008 Joint meeting of FY08 and FY09 members
FY08 business:

Brief reports from the constituent senates’ presidents mostly revolved around transitions to the FY09 senates
There was a discussion of who should be members of the Employment Benefits Task Force. Bill Crowe was chosen as chairperson, Kathy Jansen was confirmed as the representative from the USS Senate and members from the other senates will be chosen with diversity in mind.

FY09 business:

We settled on a date in late May and another in early June to discuss the charges of the FY09 US committees and recommend members and chairpersons.

University Committee on Libraries (UCL – submitted by Nancy Hawkins)
The Senate Libraries Committee is finished for the academic year and will not meet again until next fall. The chair, David Holmes from Psychology, will be posting the annual report online at the University Senate's website if any are interested in it. Lanis will probably have more info about that process since she is the recorder for the committee.

Diversity Committee
Met to today to bring our newest member, Mike Broadwell, up to speed with our history.

IS Development Council (ISDC)
Unconference May 22, 2008. Register for lunch by Friday, May 16th.
See flyer or KULSS’s Staff Development page for details.

Mentoring Committee (submitted by Nancy Hawkins)
The Mentoring Committee is in the process of gathering data to be placed on a website available to ALL library staff with an interest in either mentoring or being mentored. Please announce to KULSS Exec and to all KULSS that Friday, June 13, at 10:00 the KU Libraries' All-Staff Meeting will be presented by the Mentoring Committee for the purpose of informing attendees about our work. We hope to make this a very interesting meeting with visual aids, hand-outs, and maybe even song and dance--who knows! (Nikhat Ghouse is chair of this dean-appointed committee.)

Planning & Resources Committee (PRC)
See Apr 14th Minutes and May 12th Minutes

PRC Discussion
All instance where you are doing something for LFA, so also for KULSS.
KULSS agreed to pursue striking the statement from PRC charge: “and participate in a timely manner in the Libraries' budget activities.” (and create a ballot for code change).

Grievance Committee Discussion
Follow up on discussion with Dean and HR (see below). LFA rep was not in attendance. Decision to recruit for this year and look to further discussion about the scope of this committee in the coming year. Discussed again the need to clarify process for grievances and making the distinction between grievance and employee relations/personnel issues. Such issues often involve employee/supervisor relations. Discussed possible approaches: 1) Creating a climate of respect and empowerment to support staff by educating people about the resources available. 2) Following up on previous discussion with Dean regarding consistency with solicitation of comments to supervisor evaluation.

General Meeting
SSEYA
New members introduction (possibly ask Mary Ann to speak about University Governance?)
Lorraine: climate of respect (2 approaches – climate and assessment) / merit
Mike: Introduction and follow up to Lorraine’s topic.
PRC and Grievance Committee – plans for the coming year (something concrete by Fall meeting?)

Meeting Updates
Meeting w/ the Dean 5/5/08
See notes

Action Items for next meeting:

WHO	By WHEN	WHAT
Sarah		Talk to Carmen about possibilities for recruitment for KULSS in her unit.
Sarah	Upon above	Talk to Lora and Leila
Jill	ASAP	General Meeting date for Lorraine
Angie		Make ballot for general election (include Grievance Committee)
Jill		Talk to Sheila and Kyle about participation
Angie		Add Kyle to Group 1 membership
Group Rep		Email re: June 13th All staff
Angie		Update SSEYA.
Angie/Jill		Update Holly re: LFA members for 08-09 Grievance Committee.

Next meeting will be May 29th 10-11:30 (location TBD)

PARKING LOT:

Make up a written plan for Staff Development for future KULSS
Review Grievance Committee

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