Executive Committee Minutes 3/12/03

Minutes – Meeting No. 7 – March 12, 2003

 

LAUC-B Executive Committee Meeting

Mar. 12, 2003

10:10 am – 12:00 pm

303 Doe Library

 

Present: M. Cochran (Chair), B. Anton, A. Urbanic, B. Quigley, S. Koskinen, M. Mahoney, D. De Lorenzo, B. Bohl (recorder)

 

Guests:Esther Grassian, Sarah McDaniel, Tom Leonard

 

Absent: M. Snow, L. Cushing

 

Handouts:

·LAUC’S Information Literacy Initiative: Timeline

·“Information Literacy” (IL): A Sampling of Definitions and Standards

 

This meeting of the Executive Committee was open to all members. Esther Grassian (LAUC president), Sarah McDaniel (Co-chair of the LAUC Information Literacy Task Force) and Tom Leonard (University Librarian, Berkeley) were invited to this meeting to discuss a personal view of Information Literacy, work of the Information Literacy Task Force, and the UL’s perspective, respectively.

 

Sarah McDaniel opened the discussion by reviewing the timeline leading to the formation of the Information Literacy Task Force (http://www.ucop.edu/lauc/committees/iltf/index.html), and explained the role of the Task Force and LAUC in moving the initiative forward. The IL Task Force originated from a proposal made by UCI at their 2001 Fall Assembly that “LAUC create a position paper stating the UC Librarians’ position on Information Literacy.” This led to the LAUC Resolution on Information Literacy which was approved in May 2002.The LAUC IL Task Force was formed and charged in October 2002.A preliminary definition of “information literacy” was developed at the Dec. 6, 2002 meeting.“Information literacy is the ability to identify an information need, locate information efficiently, evaluate information, and use information effectively.” The definition is broad, and is intended to be used as a communication tool; it continues to be reviewed and amended as task force members are added.

 

On Feb. 3, 2003 Esther Grassian (LAUC President) and Carol Hughes (HOPS) made a presentation on information literacy to the University Committee on Education Policy (UCEP). See http:www.ucop.edu/lauc/uceptalk.doc UCEP members recommended that the task force begin by working from the bottom up on this issue, by approaching faculty and administrators at the campus level.

 

March 10, 2003 revised part no. 2 of the charge to read:

2. Identify key issues to consider in developing information literacy initiatives for the UC campuses.

 

Sept. 30, 2003 if the revised completion date for parts 2-3 of the charge.

 

Tom Leonard spoke next about how the local culture of a particular campus determines the fate of curriculum changes.It is difficult to accomplish anything by consensus within the UC system, change is usually accomplished campus by campus. Each campus has to buy into the idea, and change is more likely from the campus up.

 

Esther Grassian provided an overview of LAUC and its functions, explaining that it is an advisory body for the UC president modeled after the Academic Senate.LAUC’s involvement in the IL task force is advisory, at the policy level and not at the implementation level. Esther discussed various definitions of “information literacy” and stressed that we need to formulate an overall statement on information literacy that doesn’t dictate policy. Information literacy is life-long learning, and should be focused on the learner rather than the teacher.We need to find faculty who are interested in the issue so that ideas can “bubble up” to the Academic Senate.

 

Once the Task Force has completed its work, the results will be turned over the to University Librarians.

 

A general discussion followed the presentation.

 

 

Reports (submitted via e-mail)

 

Meeting with the University Library – M. Cochran

 

Discussion centered around the New Librarian’s reception and the March 12 ExComm meeting with LAUC President Esther Grassian on the topic of information literacy.Tom also talked about the AUL Collections position remaining under the hiring freeze.He stated that the hiring freeze, in general, is the best policy for now, and that if a program supporting release time was developed, it could help the situation.

 

Senate Library Committee Report – A. Urbanic

 

The Library Committee of the Academic Senate met on February 28th, the following items were discussed.

 

1)Tom Leonard updated LIBR on the general library budget. The Library, along with all Academic programs is being asked to project reductions of 5%, 7% and 10% for the following FY

2)T. Leonard briefed the members on the Collections budget situation. Members were provided with the URL for the Collections page and updated on reduction plans.

 

3) Elaine Tennant mentioned that the Library was included in campus discussions concerning building security during protests or other disruptions.It is acknowledged that libraries are particularly vulnerable during their extended hours.

4)Bill Webster agreed that the impact on libraries should be a required part of all new academic initiative proposals. To date there are 5 proposal finalists.T. Leonard reviewed them and discovered that only one actually considered library impact in its proposal.The other proposals were distributed to appropriate selectors for comment on library impact in their area.

5) T. Leonard updated LIBR on the plans to decant the Unbound Periodical/Newspaper/Microform unit.

6) Prof. Stephen Miller of the Classics Dept. came to discuss a proposal to display a number of classical plaster casts in Library space.The casts were donated to the university many years ago and their cleaning and preservation is a project for advanced students in the Classics Dept.Space in the Brown Gallery and other library spaces were considered.The Brown Gallery was considered a space which was stylistically compatible with the classical figures.Also at issue was the display of other types of art in the library space.Discussion will continue at future meetings.

7) A request for a faculty participant on the DLA committee was brought forward (Dan Wilson of the German Dept. has been appointed to the committee)

8) E. Tennant mentioned a note from Prof. Starr on the difficulties he encountered accessing certain on-line databases.The committee thought this was not a LIBR issue and felt that the problem had been handled properly by the Library. Several selectors have already addressed this issue with Prof. Starr.

 

Candidate Lunches – B. Quigley

 

LAUC hosted one candidate lunch in February, for a temporary position in Bancroft.

 

Treasurer’s Report – M. Mahoney

 

As of February 28th, the LAUC-B funds had a balance of $90,553.31.

 

The next Executive Committee meeting will be held Wednesday April 9, in room 303, Doe Library.