The University of Kansas Libraries

KU Libraries Support Staff

KULSS Executive Meeting
Thursday, November 3, 2011, 11:00-12:00
Milton's (Kansas Union)

Present: Jill Becker (Chair), Kristin Zachrel (Secretary), Adam Reilly (Group 1), Julie Woodrick (Group 2), Sharon Riley (Group 3)

Absent: Robert Szabo (Vice-Chair)

Guest: Andi Back

Previous Meeting's Action Items

Group Reports

Group 1 (Adam):

• Cataloging had their Halloween party.
• They had a going away party yesterday for Joy Mapes and Ade Martinez, whose temporary appointments ended. Aileen made a few different soups for the party.

Group 2 (Julie):

• Room 210 had a potluck.
• The Ordering/Claims unit in Acquisitions/Serials will be working together as a unit to discover ways to utilize their strengths.
• The Head of Access Services search is being closed. They are seeing what happens with the strategic plan to determine if the position is really needed.

Group 3 (Sharon):

• Administration:
  • Everyone's talking about the strategic plan.
• Anschutz:
  • The KU Tutoring group is hosting late night Math and Science Help sessions for students through the entire month of November.
  • They have two Research and Write-In Sessions to help patrons get a head start on their research papers. These sessions are staffed by librarians and Writing Center staff. There are two sessions in Watson Library also.
• Spencer:
  • They are getting ready for the grand opening of the new reception / reading room on November 29th.  Right now, they’re waiting for the floor covering to “cure” and then they’ll get all the furnishings of the areas in place. 
  • Spencer Library will be closed Wednesday, November 23 (day before Thanksgiving) to make the transition from the temporary reading room in the Johnson Room to the new space.
• Art & Architecture:
  • They had a hole in the wall that was repaired.
  • 3 weeks ago they had a fire. There was a pump in boys bathroom, which was an electrical trigger that caused a small fire at 6pm. There was a lot of smoke and they had to evacuate the building. As a result there were times they couldn’t use the bathrooms. All is well again.

Committee Reports

Support Staff Senate:

• The Huron HR/EO work group discussed recruitment, the hire process, performance management, and termination with cause. Notes are available from the discussion.
• Notes from SenEx.

University Committee on Libraries: Nothing to report.

Mentoring Committee:

• The Mentoring Committee sponsored two lunch sessions/focus group discussions this past month.  We targeted those individuals, chiefly faculty, who are mentors or being mentored to ask them a few questions about the program:
  • What would you like to achieve in a mentoring relationship?
  • How well have your mentoring relationships served your needs and interests?
  • How can mentoring program can be improved?
• Lunches were held on 10/18 and 11/1. John Stratton is in the process now of noting the information they shared and will take all that into consideration as they continue to evolve this program.

LOSDC:

• LOSDC Respecting Difference Action Group sponsored the Interactive Theatre that went very well. 
• LOSDC Facilitation & Meeting Effectiveness Action Group was not successful at scheduling Facilitation Training in the early fall.  They will be trying again to schedule a second round of training.

Meeting Updates

Management Council (Next Mtg: 11/16/11): Hasn't met yet.

Dean's KULSS (Next Mtg: 12/6/11): Last meeting was cancelled.

Concerns to Bring up with the Dean:

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

Miscellaneous

PRC:

• Andi, Molly and Jim were all interested in serving on the PRC committee. Jim has a complicated schedule that may conflict with the PRC meetings; however, once they meet and figure out the actions needed to accomplish their special charges, it may not be necessary for Jim to regularly attend the meetings.
• Robert Szabo will serve as the KULSS liaison.

Staff Development:

• Creative meeting strategies session (available on HR/EO)
• Create a survey with some options for sessions that they can rank. Review the highly ranked sessions and see what we could customize. Jill will put it together and send it to us.

Action Items for Next Meeting

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

• EEO Job categories

Next Meeting: November 17th, 10:00-11:00 in Art & Architecture (Room 104).