Minutes: Public Services Task Force November 19, 1998 (meeting #9)

Present: P. Bischof & Corliss Lee (Co-Chairs), Lissa Bell, N. Brailo, C. Tarr, R. Tennant (recorder), R. Love, A. Concepcion, B. Whitson, P. Soriano

Guests: P Janes, P. Maughan, D. Sommer

Announcements

1. Peter Soriano was welcomed as the new representative for Main Circulation. Nensi Brailo will remain on the Task Force.

2. Regina Minudri's talk is being summarized; approximately 35 persons attended.

3. The location for the Ober/Farley Early Bird is being determined; at the moment, South Hall 110 looks like the best option.

4. P. Bischof and C. Lee provided an update on the idea to hire a consultant with some of the $200,000 for enhancing public services to study the feasibility of shifting books in the Main Stack to move high-use materials onto fixed shelving.

In summary, the reasons for not putting this forward as a one-time proposal at this time were: The Main Stacks are expected to fill up within 3-5 years and we will need to replace existing fixed shelving with compact shelving anyway. NRLF will fill by 2000 and the new building will not be ready until 2002-2003. In the meantime, all new books will need to be housed on campus.

Moving materials from compact to fixed shelving means moving some materials from fixed to compact shelving, which may cause problems for other disciplines. It would certainly be complex and expensive. PSTF hesitated to recommend such a difficult and expensive process only to have it become moot within a few years.

It was proposed that when the Doe Moffitt Public Services Working Group is constituted, that PSTF recommend that they look into this situation more thoroughly and consider whether it would be possible to move high-use materials to fixed shelving. This issue is obviously tied in to the long-term problem of space for collections, on and off campus. Meanwhile, one of the "one-time investment" proposals concerning the Main Stacks includes a suggestion to create a "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) document to explain this and other similar situations to our patrons.

Agenda

1. RUSA Reports

Phoebe Janes, Pat Maughan, and Nensi Brailo reported on their experiences at the Reference and User Services (RUSA) conference, which they all thought was a useful experience. They will also be providing written summaries of what they learned for the PSTF to make available to Library staff on the task force Web site. Pat also described the various user surveys she has performed over the years for The Library:

- user focus groups (UCB faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates)
- information literacy survey (seniors in Political Science and Sociology)
- information literacy survey (seniors in History, History of Art, and Philosophy)
- CLR (now CLIR) sponsored survey of faculty and graduate student use of and satisfaction with Library collections and services (Departments/Schools surveyed: Ancient History & Mediterranean Archaeology, Business, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Classics, Latin American Studies, and Political Science)

2. Meeting with G. Lowell

Our reasons for meeting with G. Lowell were discussed, which will mostly be our charge, what we have accomplished so far and what we are planning to do. C. Lee and P. Bischof are drafting a message to G. Lowell as a precursor to the meeting. The draft will be forwarded to the TF membership before going forward.