University Librarian's Cabinet: Minutes of the May 3, 2005 Meeting

Present:

Boyle, Fetzer, Fultz, Gaunt, Sewell, Zapcic

Videoconferenced:

Mullins (from Newark)

Absent:

Agnew, Golden, Puniello

Guests:

Ron Becker

University Librarian's Report - Gaunt

• Three meetings with staff have been concluded in New Brunswick and Newark. The final one will take place next week at Robeson. Each meeting has been fruitful and many similar comments made. A summary of the discussions with potential follow-up ideas will be circulated broadly.
• The mentoring workshop for tenured and non-tenured librarians will take place on June 7. Cabinet will participate in the tenured librarian discussions. A general "hold the date" announcement will go out shortly. Mark Winston, SCILS, and Kathryn Deiss, ARL, will facilitate the discussions.
• At the May 20 meeting of the Council of New Jersey College and University Library Deans, Directors and University Librarians meeting there will be a program from the Films Media Group (formerly Films for the Humanities). There has been interest expressed by an NJEDge committee to have VALE become a broker for media across the academic institutions in NJ. Because media is handled very differently in every institution, not frequently by the Libraries, VALE is unsure if it will be feasible for libraries to fill that role.
• Judy Gardner will be meeting with the directors and access services staff in Camden and Newark to discuss better integration of access services staff into the existing functional groups. This will make it easier to engage appropriate staff in decision-making.
• The Planning and Coordinating Committee, as part of the process of reviewing workload issues identified as a challenge to our future in the Sheila Creth discussions, will be recommending that all existing committees undergo a self-review. The committee will coordinate the effort for the faculty committees, and Cabinet will be asked to review those for which its members have responsibility. Sample questions to consider will be prepared.
• The LibQual+ survey has been completed with close to 900 responses. Many respondents added written comments, which are being coded for various uses. We will get results in several weeks, but will also have the data for our own uses.
• Dr. Furmanski gave a brief report at the Deans Council on the promotion and tenure cycle and emphasized a number of issues that will be included in the Libraries' annual workshop for faculty on the promotion and tenure process. Several areas were stressed: external reviewers, peer narratives, and promotion to PII.
• Chuck Hedrick also gave a few announcements at the same Deans Council about Rutgers' involvement in Sakai and the new faculty survey. Progress made in both areas will be tested over the summer with a few departments.
• The Senate voted on the issue of clinical faculty at its last meeting and did not expand its use. All the information is on the Senate website.
• There is no news on the state budget except what was announced some time ago - our base budget will be the same but not all salary increases will be funded.

CRL Annual Meeting Update - Sewell

• Sewell attended the CRL Annual Meeting on April 14-15 in Chicago. He toured the facility and attended the reception. Bernard Reilly, CRL President, made a presentation on "E-CRL" - Prospective Scenarios for Digital Conversion of U.S. and International Legacy Materials and Cooperative Acquisition of Digital Scholarly Content." Sewell distributed to Cabinet the "CRL President's Report to the Council," in which Reilly states that their four objectives are to aggressively pursue and promote strategic collection development on a cooperative basis, optimize resource sharing with and among CRL member institutions and end-users, promote and support action on the North American and global levels for cooperative preservation of print and digital scholarly materials, and expand CRL resources and revenue streams. During the ALA meeting in Chicago, CRL will be offering tours for people Thursday and Friday. Sewell encourages librarians to attend. May be beneficial to think of CRL as a "branch" library. Sewell will think about doing a report at Collection Development Council.

RLG Annual Meeting Update - Boyle

• Boyle attended the RLG Annual Membership Meeting on April 18-19 at the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California. The topic of the program was "Spotlight on Innovation." Michael Schrage, co-director of the E-Markets Initiative, MIT Media Lab, made a presentation on "Long Overdue: Rethinking the Librarian's Role in a Post-Google World." Although Schrage was not totally familiar with the university library environment, his comments were thought provoking; his basic idea about innovation is that it arises from competition. Jim Neal, Chair, RLG Board of Directors, pointed out that our stewardship role vs. competitive innovator might not be a match because of public good; even in terms of organizational structure, we have to think about it. We were encouraged to compete. Blaise Agüera y Arcas, President and CTO of Sand Codex LLC, made a presentation on "SeaDragon: A new approach to storing and navigating very large visual collections." Sarah Tyacke, Keeper of Public Records for the United Kingdom Government, Historical Manuscripts Commissioner and Chief Executive of The National Archives of England and Wales, made a presentation on "Creating the New National Archives," and addressed how the digital revolution has revolutionized the National Archives' approach; how they have important obligations to be forensically solid; and made the point that as archives age, so are their primary audience - they are over 50 and middle class. They are now making a push to reach out to the next audience; videoconferencing with schools who will use the archives in the future is important. Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project, reported among other findings that there are nine digital divides that they track. Mark Stefik, Research Fellow, Palo Alto Research Center spoke on "The New Sensemakers: The Next Thing Beyond Search is Sensemaking," or what we do with information when we are trying to understand relevant parts of our world. To wrap-up, James Michalko, RLG President, discussed new outreach for membership, goals, and committees.

Strategic Plan Update - Becker

• Becker distributed to Cabinet a list of the seven questions the Strategic Plan Committee has been discussing. Reported that at various times the committee has split into subcommittees to study how the plan would affect teaching, undergraduate learning, and research. Plan to start working on an outline at the next Strategic Plan Committee meeting. Becker attended the New Brunswick faculty council meeting; Golden will talk to people in Camden; not sure if Au is setting up meeting in Newark. Would like to have open meetings with faculty and staff fairly soon; will provide an outline to work with. Thinking of using the University's stated mission - the five points and work into that. To facilitate Cabinet discussion, Becker reviewed the seven questions with Cabinet to elicit comments and input. Fundraising was not included at this time because priorities for fundraising need to be determined based on the plan itself. Becker has been meeting with Gaunt after each Strategic Plan Committee meeting to keep her informed of progress.

Announcements

Zapcic:

• Zapcic and Gaunt attended a successful fundraising event in Washington, DC on April 20 to help raise money for the Harrison Williams archives. Former Ambassador William Hughes and Jeanette Williams helped to organize the event.

Fetzer:

• Fetzer announced that Ryan Womack received tenure.

Mullins:

• Mullins mentioned at a previous Cabinet meeting that Newark has been having security issues and concerns related to the public use of the library. Campus has hired a security consultant who will be looking with the library for about a month. This team looked at the law school last year, which resulted in some changes in entrance and exit controls.

Boyle:

• Boyle met with UMDNJ to discuss extending joint degree privileges to Newark and Camden campuses. Next steps are to compile and compare a list of all joint programs.
• Searchpath was the focus of articles in The Daily Targum and the Rutgers Focus.
• Gaunt and Niessen responded to an editorial in The Daily Targum on intellectual property.

Sewell:

• Sewell was contacted by a reporter from the Newark student magazine, The Observer, and was asked questions about the collections and how Newark fits into the system. Should be coming out any day.