The University of Kansas Libraries

KU Libraries Support Staff

Present: Monica Claassen-Wilson (Group I representative), Kevin Fussell (Group II rep), Denise Swartz (Group III rep), Mary Ann Baker (Group IV rep & note-taker), Rebecca Claassen (guest), Jeff McAdams (chairperson), Mike Rusche (vice-chairperson)

Committee reports:
§ Angie Rathmel, chairperson of the CC Personnel Committee (CC PC) reported that:
o Janet Revenew is working on sprucing up the Watson staff room, possibly with new paint and furniture. There are no funds for a new refrigerator.
o Sandy Gilliland has a copy of the combined group organizational chart and will take a few weeks to review it.
§ CCEB gave CC PC an additional charge to work on a new edition of the Libraries’ Who’s Who. This a compilation of voluntary submissions by library staff by name and lists the person’s position, department, outside interests, scholarly pursuits. We may even include photos -- again, only voluntarily submitted.
§ There are efforts being made to have people who are interested in KULSA activities meet and discuss the future of KULSA. Denise will contact people about getting started on the Libraries’ contributions to holiday family adoptions.
§ The new time in/out system for students will be in effect soon, probably after spring semester. It has been estimated that using the new system will save $25,000.
§ Keypads for the outside doors of Spencer and Watson are being or will shortly be worked on.
§ There were no other committee reports. Mike will make a good effort to have reports from the joint committees for next time.

CC Group reports:
§ Monica (Group I) reported that Retrieval Services is starting up their new system, Illiad,. The department also helped with the installation of 20 new Dell computers by configuring the computer settings & software programs all at once. A good time was had by most. There are still several positions in the dept. open.
§ Kevin (Group II) reported that the Dean gave a presentation on the library space issues & the BARD to the Cataloging Department. They discussed some processing issues of items, which might end up in the BARD. The BARD will hold 800,000 books (in comparison, the Annex holds 70,000+10,000 from Spahr Engineering Library). It’s possible that the BARD might be located on land near the old Riverside School.
§ Denise (Group III) reminded us that the Administrative Office is reorganizing office space next Tuesday and Wednesday. There’s a nice article about the Preservation Dept./Conservation Lab in the UDK today.
§ Mary Ann (Group IV) reported that Spencer Library would have a building-wide staff meeting on Friday and the keypad for the outside door was being worked on. Jeff shared that folks in Spahr are preparing for a reorganization move during Spring Break.

Library initiatives
§ The consensus about the talk on the Information Services (IS) strategic plan and HVC2 (High Velocity Change, High Volume Collaboration) was that everything seemed vaguely nebulous and that there wasn’t much there of a concrete nature. The one thing that stood out, though, was that the Printing Service, should the law be changed, would probably be changed into something else, possibly scanning services.
§ We discussed the changes in communication and decision-making in the libraries. It seems that teamwork is no longer valued as much and that “front-line” people, the ones who do the work, are no longer brought into the decision-making process and valued for their input. The justification for no longer consulting all the staff involved is that doing it that way takes too much time to have everyone’s input. It was pointed out that time could be taken at the beginning of a process to bring everyone to the table and have everyone have a stake in the success of the process or time could be taken at the end when it comes down to the people doing the work and problems and questions arise and ill will has been created.

State-wide initiatives
§ Mary Ann pointed out that the Regents’ institutions’ Classified Senates position paper was a focused, consensus of the priorities of the Classified staff of all those institutions. The items on the list are in no priority order. Each is important. We offer the paper to the legislators with every expectation that the items will be at least be considered, if not enacted.

Discussion items for meeting with the Dean and Sandy:
§ Feedback on the IS and HVC2 talk
§ Time in/out system – status, implementation
§ Keypads– status, implementation
§ State budget picture – how is the university faring, how’s it looking for next year
§ Spahr and Spencer activities -- update

Next meeting CCEB meeting: Wednesday, 19 November 2003, 1-2:30pm, Watson conference room A