Executive Committee Minutes 04/29/2014

LAUC-B Executive Committee

April 29, 2014

10:00 a.m. to noon

303 Doe Library



Members Present: Lynn Jones (chair), Cody Hennesy, Elliott Smith, Susan Edwards, Jim Church (recorder).

 I.  Announcements

  • The LAUC-B election will take place on June 2.  Nominations have been made and will be announced at the Spring Assembly.
  • The LAUC B Social Hour will take place on May 15 from 4- 6 pm at the faculty club.
  • The Distinguished Librarian Award committee encourages librarians to submit nominations.
  • Candidate lunches have been set for the Digital Services Librarian at the School of Public Health Library.
  • Rebecca Miller, the new natural resources librarian, will be starting part time on July 14 and will be full-time as of August 4, 2014.

II.  Reports

a. Treasurer's Report  (Lynn Jones for Lisa)

The current budget stands at $ 94,869. 

b. Committee on the Library, Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate  (report from Rita Evans)

NRLF Subcommittee – AUL Erik Mitchell confirmed that UCOP will not be providing funding or management for NRLF or any expansion. NRLF funding has changed significantly in the past five years as UCOP funding and spending has been revamped. UCLA plans to build out SRLF using its own funds. M. Lovell asked that subcommittee finalize the report so it can be submitted to DIVCO. This is a critical first step in what will be a lengthy process to expand NRLF, particularly with no funding having been identified.

New Funds – Academic Senate Chair Betty Deakin said that almost all of the additional money for the libraries is coming from declining funds, including the $3 million from the Chancellor’s office and $2 million from The Library’s own funds. Although the faculty has been asked to contribute $4 million, those funds have not yet been set up. In Deakin’s opinion, the commission bought time to formulate a long-term solution rather than the solution itself. A permanent endowment to provide adequate funds would probably require $120-240 million. Comments: the lack of library committees and participation from librarians in faculty meetings will not help to prompt faculty to contribute funds; most faculty see library services as central services rather than something they should be asked to contribute to from $4000 allocations.

Open Access – The Office of Scholarly Communication is handling negotiations for an RFP for a harvesting tool. The tool will identify new publications and alert faculty that they are eligible for deposit but it will not do any actual depositing.

Mass Digitization – Erik Mitchell reported that Google is loaning a robotic scanner to NRLF and dissertations and theses are candidates for an initial mass digitization project. A group is exploring mass digitization of federal documents. Federal document collections at UC are being audited for duplication. The 3,000,000th volume will be sent soon for the ongoing Google Books project. Any title which is out of copyright will be immediately available from Hathi Trust as part of a pilot to begin this summer.

III.  Old Business

a. Approve March Excomm Minutes

The minutes were approved.

b.  LAUC-B Spring Assembly agenda review (Lynn Jones)

Lynn reviewed the agenda for the Spring Assembly, scheduled for Wednesday April 30 in the Morrison Library. The Nominations Committee and CAPA will present brief reports.   Chair Lynn Jones will present her report.  Jim Church will announce retirements and new hires in the secretary’s report.  The business meeting will be followed by the Cultural Diversity celebration.

IV.  New Business

a. Proposal for sharing professional development findings – Lynn Jones

Excomm discussed possibilities for sharing learnings from professional development events: some kind of meeting or forum where people come to share what they learned at professional development meetings and/or conferences.  Various ways of doing this were debated: in the councils.  Over coffee or lunch?  At special events like a lightning talks?  

Action – The chair will contact the Professional Development Committee to form a subcommittee on sharing results from conferences.

b. LAUC-B Internship page revision (Lynn Jones)

The Committee on Diversity web page on internships is obsolete.  The page needs direction and purpose: what is it and who is it for. The origins and the rationale for an internship section residing on the cultural diversity web site were discussed, and Excomm agreed that leaving the page in its present state was  not acceptable.  Lynn will talk to librarians who have hired interns, and to LHRD, to gain their perspectives about what the page should say and where it should reside.

The next Excomm meeting is scheduled for Wednesday May 14.