Minutes of March 15, 2005 meeting

Present:

Rose Barbalace, Susan Brower, Asuncion DeChavez, Jazmine Faherty, Jill Morrow, Ramon Negron, Fred Onorato, Roselyn Riley(recorder), Michele Tokar, Penny Weniger

Excused:

Brian Stubbs

Agenda

• Announcements/Updates
• Unit Maintenance Concerns
• Current Projects Update
• Table Tents
• Purpose Statement Review
• Group Review and Discussion Topic
  • Guidelines for Using and Filling out Incident Reports
• Information Sharing

Announcements/Updates

1. Douglass had 2 staff accidents recently. Chiaki fell down the stairs in the upper periodicals and sprained her ankle and Kayo Denda had a glass cabinet fall around her while preparing for an art exhibition at the library.
   1. Accidents Reports - This is an online form that has to be submitted to Risk Management whenever an RU employee is injured on the job. The Health and Safety Committee will be evaluating RUL's accident procedures at their next meeting. Penny and Jill, who are both members of that group, will report any developments at the next SFFG meeting.
2. A sub-group has been created to work on the floor plan project - in conjunction with the Collection Management Functional Group. Members will be: Andy M., Melanie R., Rose B., Michele T., Jazmine F., Eddie S, Roselyn R. and Penny W.
   1. University Space Management allows access to their database of university floor plans to university employees who apply. Penny has applied and is awaiting approval to view the information contained in the databases in hopes of garnering information that may aid the sub-group.

Unit Maintenance Concerns

Some general facilities points were shared with the group.

• Be persistent in dealing with facilities. Repeated requests can sometimes garner faster response. Send e-mail requests for status checks to your unit's Admin. Assistant. This will allow the Admin. Assistant to maintain a paper trail of how often, how long, etc.
• Check emergency exits to make sure they are free of debris and snow.
• Be vigilante of floor conditions during wet/slushy days. Post signs, as needed, alerting patron's to wipe their feet as the floors maybe slippery when wet.

LSM - Gary, the head of facilities for LSM is leaving next week. The LSM staff will miss him because of his diligence and responsiveness to facilities matters.

Current Projects

Table Tents - Fred shared the prototype he created. There is one blank side on the tents that Melanie R. suggested could be used to include a statement on cell phone usage in the libraries. The group approved that addition. Fred will add this onto the prototype and present at next month's meeting. The tent will be sent to Roger and Judy for approval. When approval is received, the tent will be posted on the NBL page and/or various T drives for staff to copy and ask student assistants to fold and place where appropriate.

Purpose Statement - The group reviewed the revised statement. The group, with a minor change of wording, approved the following:

The Security and Facilities Functional Group will meet monthly to examine, discuss, recommend, and implement policies and procedures related to safety, security, and facility maintenance issues. The group will work towards implementation of best practices to

• Ensure the safety of our users and staff while in the libraries
• Protect the collections from theft and vandalism
• Educate our colleagues in handling emergencies and security issues appropriately
• Assure that facility maintenance issues are reported promptly and followed up to completion.

Discussion and Review

Guidelines for incident reports:

1. A student involved in an incident asked to have a copy of the incident report to show a professor. So the issue was brought forth to the group: Should we share our incident reports with people outside of RUL? The group thinks - NO, but agrees that University Counsel would need to be consulted to find out the university's official policy. This is a matter that will continue to be explored.
2. Should student staff be allowed to fill out incident reports? The group decided that student staff could fill out the form during an incident, and then give it to a staff member for review and approval. The staff member would be responsible for submitting the report.
3. When is it appropriate or not appropriate to include the names of people involved in an incident on the report? The group determined that when filling out incident reports, staff have to be conscious of what they are writing - especially not using language that places blame on any of the people involved. If a name is not a requirement in explaining the incident or is not pertinent to the report, it may not be necessary to include. Since police reports have all the names in them, the group thought that lines could be added to the incident report form in order to fill in police report number and name of officer who handled the situation. This way if more specific information was needed, such as names, then library staff could contact university police. Penny will revise a draft of the form and submit to Roger and Judy for their input and/or approval.
4. The incident report guidelines would be further revised to include the role of student staff in filling out incident report forms.

Information Sharing

Douglass: The collection in the East room is being shifted.

Alexander:

• New HVAC system in the old wing is being installed, so there are temperature fluctuations.
• Rose found a minor water leak by the office refrigerator. The leak appears to be coming from behind the wall. Facilities is unable to handle this repair, so a plumber will be called.
• Construction in the East Asian Library. A new entrance into the McDonnell room is being built.

Kilmer:

• An exploding urinal at Kilmer, handled by student staff on duty, flooded onto the floor and carpet. However, the water was of no threat to the collection.
• Custodians plugged the carpet-cleaning machine into an outlet shared by a RUCS computer. The PC started smoking. The computer lab was called and determined that the PC had died and is out of commission.
• The alarm at Media went off one evening after that area was closed. The police came in response but no evidence of foul play was found. The Media staff later thought the door looked like it had been tampered with and that a $1500 projector was missing from the unlocked cabinet it is usually stored in. Thankfully, the projector was located, and it was attributed to a paperwork error.

Math: The library's carpets were cleaned.

Annex: The HVAC system is being worked on to try to prevent leaks. No leaks yet, but many temperature fluctuations.

LSM:

• The carpet and floors are being cleaned.
• A strange noise that sounded like galloping horses was heard between the bathrooms on the 1st floor.
• The library has been funded to reupholster 100 more chairs.
• Michele is interested in finding out how to get some works of art for LSM as it might help to make the library look more attractive.
• There is a new display at LSM of African American Female Scientists.

ART: New sprinklers were installed.

Final discussions arose regarding:

• Francoise shared some information with Penny about her correspondence with Chief Roberson of RUPD. RUPD has suggested that the libraries' attempt to education patrons about keeping their personal belongings safe. The group reviewed the suggestion of creating bookmarks or flyers to help with this. The group feels that not all library patrons come to the circulation desk (and not all units have guard desks) for flyers to be effective. The group would like to monitor the success of the table tents before creating any new literature. An additional suggestion would be to make periodic PA announcement, particularly during exams, alerting patrons to be mindful of personal belongings.
• Penny brought up the proposal to have panic buttons at that the guard desks of Douglass and Alexander. The button would ring to the Circ desk, and would be used when the guard on duty felt threatened and needed immediate assistance.
• Roger would like all groups to do training during the summer. Penny asked the group to brainstorm possible ideas.
  • Current ideas: training students and part-time staff on conflict management and emergency procedures
  • Training session or dramatization of a patron attempting to exit the building with un-checked out materials with suggestions on how staff should handle.
  • Ergonomics' workshop

The next meeting: Tuesday, April 19, 2005, LSM Special Collections Room, 3:00-4:30PM.