New Brunswick Libraries Faculty Meeting
April 15, 2005

Attendees:

Attending: Kevin Mulcahy (chair), Jackie Mardikian, Eileen Stec (recorder), Ferris Olin, Jane Sloan, Mary Fetzer, Mei Ling Lo, Kayo Denda, Laura Mullen, Penny Page, Ryan Womack, Tom Glynn, Lawren Chester, Howard Dess, Jim Niessen, Francoise Puniello, Karen Hartman, Jeris Cassel, Ron Jantz, Martin Kesselman, Ying Zhang (guest), Rebecca Gardner.

Guest Ying Zhang was welcomed, and Lawren Chester (Kilmer) was introduced.

Agenda & Minutes
The agenda was approved. January minutes were not submitted; the February meeting was devoted completely to discussion of restructuring NBL and minutes were not recorded.

Director's report - F.Puniello
Travel rules have changed, so when applying for travel money as a committee chair or member, proof of the position must be submitted. The Library received less travel money this year, more librarians were traveling, and professional staff travel funds were increased. In addition, ACRL held its bi-annual conference this year, which also drew down funds.

Year-end funds are going primarily to LSM and new exhibit cases were ordered (the non-exploding type).

Global outreach initiatives—because gift book acceptance is creating severe space and handling problems, we should stop accepting books for the program. Instead, connect donors directly to the contacts listed on Mei Ling Lo’s web page.

Report of exploratory committee on open lines—J. Cassel
Instructional Technologist and Information Literacy Leader are on hold; the South Asian Studies Librarian position is evolving. Two positions previously distributed via email were discussed. NBL faculty supports the proposal for a Data Architecture Librarian. When approved, Ron Jantz is expected to move into the position. The Social Science Data Librarian position was discussed, along with related concerns. Points raised include:

• The SCC is becoming more of an RUL unit, rather than NBL; concern revolves around losing another NBL faculty line.
  
• The positions are needed in the SCC because the unit has been inundated with RUL and RU projects. Newark and Camden have hired individuals to handle digital projects on their own campuses and NBL doesn’t have similar positions; the SCC is centrally focused, not NBL focused.
  
• There is concern that the Research and Development nature of the SCC be maintained, and we should look at NBL lines to create the support needed.
  
• Current digital projects are instituted from the top of the library hierarchy. The current bureaucratic approval process should not stymie smaller faculty research projects. Top down projects do not appear to be subjected to the same arduous process.

A motion was made and seconded to accept the two positions. Further discussion continued on the Social Science Data Librarian position:

• A suggestion was made that the Data Librarian position not be limited to social science data. The committee designed the position to be somewhat curatorial in nature, that social science data is quite homogenous compared to science data. The data sets from Astronomy vs. Chemistry do not fit into a similar data framework (some data is image, rather than text, etc). The position to take on creation of new digital science data sets should be the responsibility of the Digital Sciences Librarian.
  
• The Data Librarian would require specific statistical skills and an understanding of the academic discipline is important, so the position was designed to have a contained scope.
  
• Concern was raised about the collection development responsibilities for the Data Librarian, that liaison duties and handling funds could become onerous in addition to all the other responsibilities. The committee did not intend this position to have liaison responsibilities, only consultative duties regarding data sets for different social science collectors. The subject collectors would handle the fund management.
  
• Recommended changes to the position description were 1) removal of wording listing specific departments and primary focus, or to change wording to be illustrative and not limited to specific departments, 2) specify only raw data processing, e.g. not transferring data from .PDF files, remove the phrase “full-text”, 3) Add a sentence describing a team based environment 4) indicate tenure requirements, and 5) make the academic library experience “preferred” rather than “required” to allow applicants from “think tanks”.
  
  Motions were made endorsing each position and each passed. The exploratory committee will consider the points made during the discussion.

NBL Faculty structure—K. Mulcahy.

• Jackie Mardikian will be chair starting July 1, 2005.
  
• Open positions were elaborated on previously and all require tenured faculty. Since the faculty forcefully argued in the February discussion for the current NBL structure, with a director and faculty governance, those eligible were encouraged to validate their support by running for office.
  
• A suggestion was made to create a nominating committee to make recommendations for candidates to fill positions in the following year.
  
• Do we want a broader range of faculty attending our meetings, i.e. from different units? No strong sentiment was raised to change our current practice, and indicated the desire to continue to invite other faculty as appropriate to topic.
  
• We must continue structure discussions as planning for RU and RUL evolves.
  

How do we decide NBLF priorities? Issues raised in discussion:

• Do we only take on small issues because of the energy required for the larger issues?
  
• Prioritization seems to rely on project champions.
  
• Can we prioritize by NBLF discussion looking for consensus? It was suggested that we use time at meetings to brainstorm and open creative collaboration opportunities; discuss how we do things differently at our libraries. Perhaps we should use a creativity expert as our facilitator. A small group was formed to prepare ideas on how to structure our meetings for this purpose. Ron Jantz, Ferris Olin and Marty Kesselman constitute the group.

Brief updates:

• Jim Niessen’s report highlighted the first 4 of the resolutions the Library Committee was proposing to the NBFC at the Friday afternoon session in the Teleconference Lecture Hall.

1. Strategic Plan: That Rutgers University Libraries (RUL) continue to seek consultation from the New Brunswick Faculty Council as RUL develops its new Strategic Plan.
   
2. Digital Project Possibilities: That RUL and faculty consult with each other about the kinds of digital projects that are possible to increase the cost-effectiveness of scholarly communication, such as faculty-run e-journals using the RUL platform, digital dissertations, "self-archiving" (preprint/post prints), and datasets.
   
3. Faculty Input in Setting Digital Project Priorities: That the faculty advise RUL on the priorities and sequence for the digital projects outlined in item 2. This input would occur through the RUL Advisory Committee and through campus-based library committees such as the NBFC Library Committee.
   
4. Updating the RUL Scholarly Communication Web Site: That the RUL continue to update their “Scholarly Communication and You” web site and to inform faculty about relevant issues, policies, resources, and so forth.
   
   · These were approved along with the other 2 resolutions:
   
5. Consultation on the RUL Scholarly Web Site: That the “Scholarly Communication and You” web site be developed by RUL in consultation with faculty input from the RUL Advisory Committee (see item 6 below) and from campus-based library committees, such as the NBFC Library Committee.
   
6. The RUL Advisory Committee: That the RUL Advisory Committee continue to function as a “Standing Committee on Scholarly Communication,” as envisioned by last year’s NBFC resolution.
   

• April 27th, there will be a joint program sponsored by OIRT and RUL on collaboration for information literacy.
  
• Eastern Kentucky University Libraries requested and has received the development files to adapt the tutorial “Plagiarism and Academic Integrity” for their own use.
  
• Research Committee of NJLA gave their annual award to the editors and contributors to the book Global Librarianship, Martin Kesselman & Irwin Weintraub, Eds, and RUL contributors Jim Niessen, Tom Glynn, Patricia Libutti and Thelma Tate.
  
• Ferris Olin announced The Women Artists Archives National Directory (WAAND) project, funded by the Getty Foundation, has begun and activities are listed at http://waand.rutgers.edu/
  

  Respectfully submitted,

  Eileen Stec