New Brunswick Libraries Faculty
May 21, 2004

Minutes

Present: Stephanie Bartz, Jeris Cassel, Howard Dess, Mary Fetzer, Rebecca Gardner (chair), Tom Glynn (recorder), Brian Hancock, Karen Hartman, Bill Hemmig, Heather Huey, Ron Jantz, Trevani Kuchi, Patricia Libutti, Mei Ling Lo, Jackie Mardikian, Laura Mullen, Penny Page, Francoise Puniello, Thelma Tate, Lourdes Vazquez, Karen Wenk, Connie Wu.


Acting Director's Report- Francoise Puniello

All five of our colleagues who were up for reappointment have been reappointed. Congratulations to Triveni Kuchi, Jim Niessen, Eileen Stec, Patricia Libutti, and Sara Harrington.

Marty Kesselman received a grant from the USDA for $95,000 as a co-principal investigator with Geetha Ghai from Food Science. Karen Wenk and Ryan Womack form the Libraries and Dan O'Connor from SCILS are also named as investigators in the grant.

Hector Perez-Gilbe will be returning to RUL after his one-year leave. At that point the science librarians may wish to discuss how subject responsibilities are allocated among the science selectors.

Bill Hemmig has graciously agreed to serve for one year as the acting music librarian based in Douglass Library.

Laura Mullen will be promoted to Librarian IV in September.

Francoise and the University Librarian met with Holly Smith, the Dean of FAS, and Barry Qualls, Associate Dean for Humanities, to discuss library matters in relation to the university's academic priorities. Within the sciences, stem cell research will be extremely important in the coming years. Ethnic studies generally will be stressed. In particular, the African Studies Program will soon offer a graduate certificate. In the humanities, film and Anglophone literature are becoming more important. The meeting also discussed information literacy in light of the recent information literacy symposium and how to incorporate it into the undergraduate curriculum.

The University Librarian's cabinet at their last meeting discussed at length the organizational structure of the libraries in light of our problems recruiting a library director for New Brunswick. Cabinet feels we need to examine the benefits and disadvantages of our current organization, particularly how our local structures relate to the system-wide structure. To facilitate a discussion of these issues, we have hired a consultant, Sheila Creth. Creth, formerly University Librarian at the Universities of Iowa and Tennessee, will visit the libraries in the summer. It was stressed that she will act as a facilitator, that there is no hidden agenda and everyone is encouraged to participate.


New Brunswick Faculty By-Laws Clarification- Rebecca Gardner

Presently the by-laws do not stipulate that the faculty chair must be tenured. This presents a problem since, in the absence of the associate director, the faculty chair serves as acting director of New Brunswick Libraries. There was general agreement that only a tenured librarian from New Brunswick Libraries should act in that capacity. In accordance with parliamentary procedure, a by-laws change to that effect was introduced at this meeting and will be voted on at the next New Brunswick faculty meeting.

Faculty Lines- Francoise Puniello

The acting director will appoint an exploratory committee to examine our options regarding two or three open faculty lines. Francoise asked if we have any advice to give to the committee. Some of the comments included that we need to be careful about the number of librarian Vs that we hire. Not only is it possible for the university to take back lines when they are filled over time with Vs, but we are in danger of creating a form of second-class citizenship within a tenure based system when we do so. If we do hire librarian IVs and Vs, we need to be very specific about what we expect of them. There was some concern that the subject specialist librarians were getting stretched too thin, that we need to use at least some of the open lines to relieve the burden on them. One member suggested we consider creating new kinds of titles, such as map librarian or GIS librarian. It was the sense of the New Brunswick faculty that the exploratory committee should report back to the faculty and that librarians should be encouraged to give suggestions and advice to the committee.

Announcements

Ballots for next year's chair/chair elect have been sent out via campus mail.


New Brunswick Director Issues

The New Brunswick faculty convened itself as a committee of the whole and declined to take minutes on this agenda item.


Respectfully submitted by Tom Glynn,