University Librarian's Cabinet: Minutes of the May 4, 2004 Meeting

Present:

Boyle, Fultz, Gaunt, Golden, Mullins, Puniello, Sewell, Tehrani, Zapcic

Absent:

Agnew

University Librarian's Report - Gaunt

• May Deans Council meeting cancelled; the next meeting is tentatively scheduled for June 7.
• Gaunt will attend the ARL Membership Meeting May 11-14; anything that needs attention will need to be submitted by noon Monday.
• P4P process has begun and is moving along; appraisal forms and recommendation worksheets are due in office of the UL no later than May 14, 2004. Gaunt will meet with Boyle and Troy following ARL to finalize the process.
• Executive Vice President Furmanski forwarded a message to the Deans and Directors from Devco (New Brunswick Development Corporation) informing them that Devco is constructing a state-of-the-art 250-room hotel and executive conference center in downtown New Brunswick. The new Heldrich Hotel and Conference Center at Heldrich Plaza will be able to accommodate meetings and gatherings as early as mid-2006. They invite us to consider making application to the professional, academic, and trade organizations in which we are active members to consider holding their annual gatherings at The Heldrich beginning in the fall of 2006.
• Gaunt wrote a letter of support for an EDUCAUSE/Internet2 NMI-EDIT Outreach grant that Agnew will co-PI with George Laskaris of NJEDge. If funded, the grant would potentially spur development in New Jersey for statewide network authentication.
• Gaunt has not yet heard about accountability meeting with Furmanski but will continue to put together a report based on Cabinet members' mid-year reports. It will be on a future Cabinet meeting agenda for discussion. Gaunt will follow-up with Furmanski on budget and salary program for t-coded employees.
• Gaunt will attend the End-of-Year Awards at the President's house at 2 p.m. today.

Debriefing on RLG Annual Meeting – Golden

• Golden represented Rutgers University Libraries at the RLG Annual Meeting at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC on April 26 and 27. The theme of this year's meeting was "The Evolution of Cultural Institutions." Dr. David Weinberger, Fellow, Harvard University's Berman Institute for Internet and Society spoke on "Messiness as a Virtue" and the way in which we are "informationalizing" our world. Dr. Margaret Hedstrom, Associate Professor, University of Michigan spoke on "CI2: Cultural Institutions/Critical Infrastructure." Dr. John Unsworth, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign spoke on "Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences." Day 2 focused on "The Evolution of RLG" and was devoted to RLG's own changes and adaptations, major pieces of work the organization is engaged in, and RLG's mission and objectives. The meeting was informative and spurred Cabinet discussion on a variety of topics, including organizational changes at CRL and ARL.

DLI-II Focus Group Update - Gaunt

• Focus groups with students and faculty on all three campuses have been completed with positive feedback. Reports from recorders are being submitted to Gaunt. Gaunt attended the focus group held on April 28 at the Library of Science and Medicine that Dan O'Connor facilitated. Twelve faculty members in the science disciplines participated. Gaunt will meet with focus group facilitators Dan O'Connor and Marie Radford in June to decide how their final report should be formulated; report should be ready by mid-June. Patricia Libutti is finalizing a report based on information gathered from the liaisons from their disciplines, which should be ready by mid-May.

Rt. 18 Report Follow-up – Tehrani/Gaunt

• Tehrani submitted draft report to task force members and Cabinet to make sure everything was covered. For the purpose of requesting funding, the final report should be divided into two sections: one with changes directly affecting users (external), and another with changes in working conditions to support the libraries as well as the users (internal). The report will be a preliminary assessment. Costs that are known should be included in the report; other specific and unknown costs will have to be determined at implementation. Following Tehrani's revision, Gaunt will distribute the final report to rul_everyone. Need to maintain flexibility when the Rt. 18 project begins; even if Rt. 18 work begins in January, it may take six months for the construction to actually start.

Discussion of University Policy Related to Flextime and Compressed Workweek Arrangements – Boyle/Gaunt

• Cabinet discussion focused on flextime and compressed workweek arrangements as a revision in the University Regulations & Procedure 3.6.15 (formerly 30.17) and not as something that needs to be implemented now; the focus may change when the university has made its decisions relative to the Rt. 18 construction and how their decisions will impact our faculty and staff and hours. In determining alternative work arrangements, the policy makes it clear that "the implementation of Alternative Work Arrangements shall be at the discretion of the employee's department. Prior to implementing any form of Alternative Work Arrangements for union-eligible staff, departments must contact the Office of Labor Relations." When making decisions for the units, the appropriate Director or AUL will approve any changes.

Process for Looking at the Organization - Gaunt

• Because we were unable to offer the position of New Brunswick Library Director from the pool of candidates, Gaunt suggested that we step back and review the scope of responsibilities for the position and the relation of both campus and central operations. This review should be beneficial for future recruiting and also to ensure that our structure will move us forward for our long-range plan. As a start, Cabinet will review organizational structures that currently exist in peer research libraries and generate scenarios. A follow up meeting with a facilitator will be scheduled if Cabinet determines it would be beneficial to the process. From there we will broaden the discussion beyond Cabinet.

Announcements

Zapcic:

• Mike Carroll will transition out of his role as President of the Rutgers University Foundation and Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations as of July 30, 2004.
• The Libraries will be featured in the University's Year-in-Review video.
• As part of a video that the Office of Admissions is putting together for their Web page, Gaunt was filmed in a clip that will highlight the Libraries.

Boyle:

• The May 6 "Information Literacy and Student Learning at Rutgers: Standards, Competencies and the Search for Strategies" symposium in the SCC is underway. Packets will be hand delivered to Newark and Camden. Seventy people have registered. Barry Qualls will do the introduction and Gaunt will do the closing.
• At the next Cabinet meeting Boyle will do a debriefing of the meeting with instructional librarians that was held last Friday.

Mullins:

• The Fats Waller Centennial Celebration will be held Saturday, May 8. Due to the large attendance, the venue had to be changed to the Robeson Center in Newark.

Sewell:

• The Rare Books and Manuscript Appraisal Day was held on Sunday, May 2. Over 40 people attended and the appraisers worked non-stop for almost five hours. The event was well received.
• Selector Budget Request Forms are being submitted; some have been very specific and are useful; hope to incorporate it into budget request.

Fultz:

• Table covers with the RUL logo are now available for use at events; faculty and staff are encouraged to send Fultz e-mail when needed.

Golden:

• Golden apologized for conflicting information about telephones in Camden; tie lines from New Brunswick and Newark are working. Some office phones are still not working.

Puniello:

• Puniello gave a library tour to a contingency from Sweden that was visiting Kyu Whang's office. Interesting to note that their university doesn't own its own buildings. They are rented to the university. The changing nature of libraries was discussed.
• Hopes you have received your invitation to the May 17 "Celebration to Inaugurate the Renovation of the Mabel Smith Douglass Library"; dancers from Mason Gross School of the Arts will be featured.