The University of Kansas Libraries

KU Libraries Support Staff

KULSS Executive Meeting
Thursday, August 25th, 2011, 10:00-11:30
Music & Dance

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

Guest: Molly Altman

Previous Meeting's Action Items

Staff Profiles

• Robert put together a list of questions for the staff profile including:
  • Name
  • Nickname
  • Library department and job
  • Hometown
  • Time in Lawrence
  • Other town you have lived in
  • Other jobs you have had
  • Professional goals
  • Hobbies
  • Interests - in arts, reading, food, travel, exercise, electronics, misc.
  • Something about you that might surprise us
• We also thought a question about pets/children should be included.
• All Exec members should fill out their profile and make suggestions for additional questions. We will finalize the profile at the next meeting.

Group Reports

Group 1 (Adam):

• Cataloging had their Novel login updated yesterday. There were some problems with the login update.
• Started painting the Watson break room yesterday.

Group 2 (Julie):

• Grad printing is down.

Group 3 (Sharon):

• Anschutz:
  • The new Recreational Reading display has arrived. So now there is something to read in Anschutz.
  • The new Reference "Outpost" desk is in place on the 4th floor adjacent to the Writing Center.
  • We are in the process of hiring new student assistants.
  • New carpet and Group Study rooms will be installed on the 4th floor in October.
  • The Lib Art event, "Student Art in the Libraries" will be this Friday from 4-6 in Watson Level 3 East, and Anschutz Level 3 South. Physical and digital displays will feature works by 25 students in Watson and 14 students in Anschutz. Student artists will be on hand to talk about their work.
  • The Anschutz Open House/pizza party will be next Wednesday from 11-2. Watson will have an open house the following Wednesday.
• Spencer:
  • Sunday, August 21st, Spencer hosted the breakfast for the scholars that walk up the hill. Tami Albin, Beth Whittaker, and the Dean were in attendance.
  • Demolition continues in the Reading Room. All the interior walls have been removed. It's uncertain when they will begin knocking out the walls in the Lobby area. Stay tuned.
  • Reader Services is hiring student assistants. Have a referral, send their name to Meredith Huff at huffme@ku.edu.
  • Aeon, the online patron database and call slip/check out program, went LIVE last Wednesday. Staff are adjusting to the new system and since they aren't in the newly renovated Reading Room, they are still working out some kinks in the workflows. For the patrons that are getting newly registered, once it is explained they would be able to view all history with call numbers and be able to submit their call slips before coming to the library, they all seemed really pleased. They can spend less time in SRL if they make their call slips before coming in and having the history will be great for many of the regular patrons.
  • The goal for the Reading Room opening is somewhere between October 1st and October 15th.
  • Starting this Saturday, Spencer will be open Saturdays 12-4 until December 10th, the last Saturday until the Spring semester. They will be closed the Saturdays of Labor Day, Fall Break, and Thanksgiving.
  • Meredith gave Jill and Sharon an exclusive tour of Spencer and the stacks. She will talk with her supervisor about setting up some Spencer stacks tours around the time of the Reading Room Grand Opening if there is interest in Library staff seeing what's behind their locked doors.
  • For those who want to register into their Aeon system go to: https://aeon.lib.ku.edu/aeon/ and click on "First Time Users" in the bottom corner to create your username and password.
• Music & Dance
  • Molly inquired about getting a bookeye scanner for M&D. Robert is going to discuss this with Kent.

Committee Reports

Support Staff Senate: Next meeting is September 7th.

• From the SenEx meeting:
  • USS Senate President, Dennis Constance, reported that the Executive Committee had been working on charges for the Senate's committees, the possibility of getting some effective meeting training for the group, setting up a mini-Wheat State bus tour, and addressing concerns about the recent voluntary retirement State program in which KU employees were not able to participate.
  • Almost completing charges for University Senate Committees. With the exception of the International Affairs Committee, charges for all the US committees were approved.
  • Review of amendments to the University Senate Rules and Regulations (USRR): We approved sending on two of the suggested amendments to the full US: Review and Approval of Unit Grievance Procedures (USRR 5.2.1.3) and the Grade Replacement Policy (USRR 2.2.8). A third amendment, for Honorary Degrees (USRR 3.2), was tabled to fix the wording structure. We'll review it in two weeks at the next meeting.
  • Review of editorial amendments to the University Senate Code and the USRR: We approved forwarding all the amendments to the Provost and Chancellor.
  • Changing for Excellence and Strategic Planning Initiatives: We agreed to include these initiatives on our agendas and discuss them as needed. The President of the US noted that the Chairperson of the US Committee on Libraries had met with the Dean of Libraries concerning the August 15th Huron Report.

University Committee on Libraries: Nothing to report.

Mentoring Committee: Nothing to report.

LOSDC:

• Communication & Collaboration:
  • LOSDC has a small collection of books on staff and organization development available for one week checkouts from Watson.  They are located on the shelves near the Watson Reference service points.  The items can be browsed in-person or by searching for “Library Staff” as instructor on http://www.lib.ku.edu/reserves/eres/ reserves.
  • Building on the Dean's reminder earlier in the summer that all should be using Outlook as their work calendar and keeping it up to date, we are helping HR and Library Technology Instruction to support training needs, as well as introduce new options in Outlook that would make some of our communication more efficient. Specifically, we are creating new instructions for the library admin and development calendars (forthcoming), instructions for embed link/attachment of calendar-able items, and updating rooms available to book within Outlook. We had been exploring a wider-reaching master Calendar proposal which is currently turned over to Dean's Exec and is being explored in tandem with the somewhat separate evaluation of room reservation systems.
• Facilitation & Meeting Effectiveness:
  • Will be scheduling a second round of facilitation training for this Fall. We will attempt to schedule to fit those that specifically responded to the Doodle poll last spring but were not available for the first round of training. Once scheduled, the training will be announced and open to all. If someone is specifically interested, the can email Carmen.
  • Also looking to establish a listserv or other communication option for those interested in facilitation training and for those with training to streamline communication about opportunities for practicing facilitation skills. Ideas?
• Respecting Differences:
  • Respecting Difference has met 8/23 to continue discussion on the provost's diversity statement and the university policy to write a draft library diversity plan. Jen was charged to work on this and asked the Respecting Difference Action Group to work on this with her.
  • There are upcoming events (Interactive Theatre and Thilford Conference) -- refer to the libguide and look for announcements via email.
• Strengths:
  • Have worked twice with Rebecca's unit to experiment on tools to help groups to use strengths to help understand each other.
  • Looking to have an update at next All Staff on Strengths if there is room on the agenda.
  • Will be having two sessions/ month starting in September on specific strengths open to all staff.
  • Helping to promote and financially pay for more staff to take KU HREO Strengths Essential class
    • KU HREO will present their three hour Discover Your Strengths workshop on September 7 from 9am to noon.  This is a great way to begin to understand Strengths concepts.  This session “helps you identify your talents and start working on strategies for applying your strengths in your daily life”.   If you’re interested, please talk with your supervisor and get signed up.  Our H.W. Wilson ALA Staff Development Grant will fund the $17 registration. See http://www.hreo.ku.edu/training/register/982 for more information.  
      • Reimbursement instructions: After supervisor approval, you can then register on the HR website, after which you will receive an e-mail confirming your registration.  If payment is due for the class, the confirmation e-mail received will ask you to provide payment information.  YOU MUST forward that e-mail to LibAid in order for payment to be processed.  This is the ONLY way that we are made aware of the need for payment, so this step is critical.
  • Will have a presentation sometime in the fall from an expert on the subject.
• Leadership:
  • Amalia & Victoria's presentation on Emerging Leadership experience at KU was very interesting! The Dean had very encouraging remarks for them and those in attendance. We will post their PowerPoint on the LOSCD Leadership page soon.
  • The summer LLAMA Management webinar series was not well attended. Content was good, but could have been more succinct. Good content related to Facilitation & Meeting Effectiveness (e.g. how to manage when you don't supervise the people involved (like in meetings)). LOSDC has the archived version on its LOSCD Leadership page as well.

Meeting Updates:

Management Council (Next Mtg: 9/21): Minutes from the 8/17 Meeting

• They had a follow up to the Management Council discussion meeting about their purpose – if they are a decision making body or an information sharing body.
  • Lorraine gave permission to review their charge and membership and empowered them to make changes and decide what they want the group to be.
  • Agendas will now be decided by Management Council and will not be vetted by Dean's Exec. Agendas will be sent to kulib and not just to members since it's an open meeting. Perhaps this will encourage people to attend the meetings.
  • If Dean's Exec and the Dean already know their decision then don’t create groups to make decisions. An example of where Management Council should help is with the hiring plan for 10 new positions so they can weigh in on how they were decided and ranked. Also the budget should have been reviewed by Management Council.
  • Huron is an opportunity for Management Council to have a coordinated response to a very serious issue.
  • There is no consistency in the definition of management – are we managing people, services?
  • Management Council should make a charge for themselves rather than Dean's Exec making charges for them.
  • There are more levels involved than Dean's Exec and the Dean (Provost, etc.), but Management Council only sees 2 levels up.
  • If Dean's Exec doesn't take the recommendations that Management Council makes they need to know why.
  • The Management Council purpose statement is contradictory because the Dean doesn't make decisions on the day-to-day function of the Libraries.
• The Dean reported that the Huron case plan will be developed and move forward.
• It is our understanding that the overstaffing issue was related to the number of faculty librarians in comparison to our peer institutions.
• Lorraine said the Huron directions in their plan is a much higher priority than finishing our strategic plan. Lorraine said we can't afford higher level people making decisions that should be made at middle management level – it’s a waste of resources.
• Jill suggests paying attention to this information so you can contribute to the conversation.

Dean's KULSS (Next Mtg: 9/6): Nothing to report.

Concerns to Bring up with the Dean:

• Budget for the half-day staff development event.
• Staff profiles

Action Items for Next Meeting

Next Meeting: Thursday, September 8th, 10:00-11:30 at Milton's (Kansas Union).