Minutes of January 7, 2010 Meeting

Present:

G. Agnew, S. Bartz (recorder), N. Borisovets (co-chair), V. Bowman (guest – remote), M. De Fino, M. Fetzer, J. Gardner, R. Gardner (for K. Au), M. Gasparotto, S. Harrington (co-chair), S. McDonald, F. Puniello, C. Radick, W. Ren, E. Stec, R. Womack.

Excused:

S. Beck, T. Glynn, M. Kesselman, C. Sterback

1. Approval of the Agenda

The agenda was approved as distributed.

2. Discussion of the December 3, 2009 minutes

Minutes were distributed yesterday via email and the Sakai site. Corrections should be sent to Sara by January 15.

3. Discussion on USC Composition

In her capacity as Faculty Coordinator Vib asked for Council input on the composition of the User Services Council. The issue arose following a request that consideration be given to simplifying the faculty bylaws by eliminating the detailed listing of Council members. This would eliminate the need for constant updating of the bylaws when positions change, while allowing for additional flexibility in Council membership. Bylaws changes would likely be proposed in the fall for discussion at the November faculty meeting.

PlanCo created a task force to look at council membership. That task force provided a list of discussion points and possibilities for changes to membership. Although there was no clear recommendation, the thought was that only positions that must be included in the council should be mandated in the bylaws rather than having the entire membership mandated. There needs to be a balance between flexibility and practicality as well as consideration of how the council actually gets its work done.

USC had an extended discussion which broke down into three main questions:

1. Are there positions/members that are essential to the Council and others that should only be pulled in when topics under discussion warrant it? (e.g., Should the chairs of committees such as IPAC and WAC be members, or is a representative from each group sufficient? Or should a representative only be called in when needed? Is the Council too large?)
2. Should there be campus representatives (Camden, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Newark) plus representatives from SC/UA and TAS, or would it make more sense to call them unit representatives and cover the same 5 areas?
3. Does USC need 4 elected disciplinary representatives, or is discipline not really relevant for user services? Would 4 elected faculty representatives make more sense? Does disciplinary representation prevent people who have no real disciplinary affiliation from being viable candidates for election?

There was also some suggestion that the Council has been working well since its inception in 2008, and it’s too early to think about making changes. We may not need to fix something that isn’t really broken. We may also want to think about a closer examination of Council composition as part of the action plan for 2010-2011.

Sara will compose an overview and post it to the Sakai site for further discussion. Comments need to be passed on to Vib by March 1 so that she can report back to PlanCo.

4. Follow-up on E-Books Task Force Presentation: Next Steps for USC

The Task Force may transition to a working group, but there are two main considerations for USC:

• Should there be a web page for e-books like the Indexes and Databases page?
• How do we think patrons are likely to look for/find e-books?

The consensus was that a separate e-books list like the e-journals list would be a disservice to users. E-books should be listed in IRIS along with their tangible counterparts so there is only one place users need to know about to find content. Rather than creating an e-books page to parallel the Indexes and Databases page, it might be more useful to create a page that explained e-books more generally with information on how to locate them and what kind of plug-ins might be needed to view them. The Dana Media page was suggested as a model: http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/libs/dana_lib/media/dana_media.shtml not in terms of the design of the page, but more of the idea that we have a page describing a type of format.

5. Discussion of Agenda Items for Spring 2010 semester

Suggested topics included:

• Text reference (already scheduled for February 2010)
• Revised Faculty Guide
• Ethnographic study
• Report from the Cool Library Spaces Group
• Netbook lending at the Art Library
• A review of “Active Publications, Forms, and Signage”
• Building maps and related services
• E-books (for 2010-2011)

Additional suggestions are most welcome.

6. Instructional Video reserve Group

At the request of Jane Sloan, a Video Reserves Working Group has been charged “To investigate issues relating to, and recommend or develop a plan for, making digital videos available for course use by adding video to the current streaming e-reserve service.” Jane will chair the group. Other members are Katie Anderson, Ka Neng Au, Dave Hoover, Jill Locascio, and Jan Reinhart. Questions and comments should be sent to Jane with copies to Natalie.

7. Revision to Public Service Policy Memos and Other Policies

The nine PSPMs posted on the staff pages and the related public pages need to be reviewed, updated, and the content coordinated. Sam may be able to provide some history of the changes to individual PSPMs if needed. Members of USC will review their assigned PSPMs and circulate suggested revisions to USC for discussion at the March meeting:

• PSPM 1 - Access to Library Resources and Services – Stephanie and Judy
• PSPM 2 - Reference and Information Service – Wen and Natalie
• PSPM 3 - Instructional Services – Eileen and Sara
• PSPM 4 - Resource Sharing: Interlibrary and Rutgers Request Services – Judy and Ryan
• PSPM 5 - Library Service During Adverse Weather Conditions – Francoise and Caryn
• PSPM 6 - Cooperative Access Arrangements – Judy and Ryan
• PSPM 7 - Copyright Guidelines – Caryn and Jeanne Boyle
• PSPM 8 - Mail Delivery and Pick Up – Judy and Ryan
• PSPM 9 - Communications – Melissa G. and Rebecca

Sara will contact Jeanne about PSPM 7 and send a message to USC outlining the details and the deadlines for the task.

8. Updates/information sharing from AULs serving on Council

Fetzer – There will be a student completing a practicum from France arriving in early February. Sara Harrington will provide supervision.

Agnew – Grace will be making a presentation with Kurt Wagner at the VALE conference on Friday about the status of the OLE project. There will also be a presentation on open source OPACs.

Puniello – Media services are currently unavailable in New Brunswick/Piscataway due to the ongoing move of the department from Kilmer to Douglass.

9. Information Sharing

Harrington – The Mobile Devices Task Force has been charged. Current members are: Joe Abraham, Katie Anderson, Anne Butman, Jon Gibson, Priscilla Lee, Choong Hoong Liew, Mei Ling Lo, Sam McDonald, Chris Singh, Gene Springs, and Myoung Wilson. Any member of USC who would like to volunteer for the task force should contact Sara.

Radick – Bonita Grant is back from sabbatical; Ron Becker is starting his sabbatical, but contacts for while he’s away have not yet been announced.

R. Gardner – There have been several recent calls from emeritus faculty who have lost remote access privileges. It was suggested that email reminders be sent to remind emeriti that they need to renew annually. Judy will follow-up.

1/7/2010sb, rev. 1/12/2010