The University of Kansas Libraries

KU Libraries Support Staff

KULSS Executive Meeting
Thursday, December 2, 10:00-11:30
Watson 503A

Present: Jill Becker (Chair), Meredith Huff (Vice-Chair), Kristin Zachrel (Secretary), Adam Reilly (Group 1), Julie Warrick (Group 2), Robert Szabo (Group 3)

Absent: None

Previous Meeting's Action Items

• Jill emailed Kent about the break room survey. He advised that it will be sent out either today or tomorrow by Mike Broadwell.
• Jill will continue working on the draft questions.
• Jill has compiled the brainstorming list.

Group Reports

Group 1 (Adam):

• Aileen Ball started training in the Annex.
  
  

Group 2 (Julie):

• Room 210's potluck went well.
• Kent and Jeromy are trying to get a second express printing station in Watson.
  
  

Group 3 (Robert):

• Spencer will start holding open presentations next week for the Special Collections Librarian position.
• Spencer is starting a project to downsize the reference collection so that reference materials will only be in the Reading Room. They'll be downsizing approximately 175 shelves of space, which will be re-cataloged and put in the stacks. Beth Whittaker wants this completed by the end of Spring.
• An Art committee has been formed to place art in the public areas of the libraries. Courtney Foat is the chair of this committee.

Committee Reports

Support Staff Senate: Nothing to report.

University Committee on Libraries:

• Lorraine discussed the Strategic Planning work groups.
• Ada Emmett gave a report on open access information to promote what they do and making herself available to discuss open access issues.
• There is a section in the Huron report about whether or not libraries should have their own IT department. The libraries in the report that were compared to us are not actually our peer institutions. Lorraine explained that this is the reason we need our own consultants.
  • The charge this year is to review the decoupling and the Huron report. The committee chair, Isidro Rivera, would like more information before making recommendations because the section of the report that pertains to libraries is so small. He held several open meetings and wrote a summary. His report is available at http://www.lib.ku.edu/staff/docs/Finalversion_Libraries_report_state_2010rev.pdf.
• Jill will ask Sheila about her attendance at these committee meetings.
  
  

Libraries Organizational Staff Development Council (LOSDC): Nothing to report.

Mentoring Committee: Meredith will contact Beth Warner to find out who will take over this committee when she retires.

Meeting Updates

Dean's Council (next mtg: ?):

• November 19th Meeting Minutes
• The Huron report will be shared with Management Council soon.
• 40 boxes of Dennis Moore's papers have been given to the Spencer Research Library. They will go to the Annex until they're ready to be processed.
• Room use policies were discussed. Beth Whittaker has written policies about using the rooms in Spencer. A draft policy is in place. There is no fee in place for non-library groups to use these rooms. Many events occur in the evening, which must be staffed  with a full-time staff member to close and students to direct guests to the bathrooms and other areas. The policy needs to be more clear about food and beverage rules and a fee to compensate for student wages. They want to create an online form to help attain information so the person who sets up for the event will know how many attendees to expect so they can be more prepared.
  • Kent agreed to look at alternative software methods for reserving rooms library-wide.
• Discussed the purpose of Management Council. The argument was that agenda items have been submitted by members of Management Council so these items need to be discussed.
• Discussed the abuse of KULIB-l: nobody agreed it was being abused.
  
  

Management Council (next mtg: 12/15): Nothing to report.

Dean's KULSS (next mtg: 12/7): Nothing to report.

Concerns to Bring up with the Dean: Draft workshop budget.

Workshop:

• Look at last year's budget to get an idea of what to submit for this year's budget. Jill will try to submit the budget on Monday, December 6th and ask the Dean if this needs to be discussed in person.
• From the brainstorming session there was a strong interest in the health/nutrition/wellness realm that could go beyond an information table. There were several comments about recipes, nutritional content, and fitness at work, such as how many calories you can burn by walking to the 5th floor for your meeting. Yoga was also popular.
• Other popular items:
  • Chair massages
  • Retirement and KPERS
  • Ice cream social
  • Drum circle
  • Meditation
  • Involve Terry Proctor
  • Office 2010 changes
  • Trivia Bowl with suggestions for different kinds of trivia
  • Potluck breakfast: there was lots of food for this last time but not enough time to eat it all. We might need to allot more time or do a session at Watson over breakfast and do the registration at Watson.
• Location: could we have the event in the library? Could we have it at Spencer? They have 3 rooms available and food could be located in the Lounge or the North Gallery. We could even have a session in the North Gallery. Meredith will check the calendar to see what's available.
• Robert could check with the Merc about a nutritionist.
• Emotional intelligence in the workplace (Terry Proctor) and Personality type in the workplace (Kathleen Ames-Oliver): Jill would like to contact both to see if they can customize something similar to these sessions for us. She'll find out which day of the week over Spring Break will work best for them and we can schedule our event accordingly. Can we get something tailored to our needs? There is a $15 materials fee for the assessment test, which we can't afford so we need some customization.
• It would be good to do 1 substantial half-day session and have several smaller sessions for the other half of the day. Comments from last time noted that sessions were too short but we could work with this and structure the day differently.
• The idea for a session on team building and learning about your co-worker's personality style is something we've never done before.
• Office 2010 and KPERS could be concurrent afternoon sessions because they're very popular.
• We should survey the larger group to find out what they're interested in.
• If we have the event at Spencer we could hang displays in the North Gallery.
  • An idea for a poster is library terminology.
  • Talk to wellness and sustainability people to find out what we can make available on our display tables, but we should also turn this into a session.
  • There are lots of great ideas in the compiled list for displays.
• Spencer space: the Johnson room has a computer; the smallest room has a flatscreen TV; the other room has a projector. AV equipment can be moved to the different rooms. Tables and chairs are available.
• If we have the event at SRL Becky might be able to do her History of the Jayhawk.

Action Items for Next Meeting

Parking Lot
(Items to be aware of for the future, not necessarily discussed in current meeting)

Next Meeting: December 15, 9:00-10:30 at Milton's in the Kansas Union