The Annual Meeting 2012

Minutes taken by Chris Krupp

 

The directors’ reports were presented in writing, in advance of the meeting. At the meeting itself, following bagels, pastries and beverages, Mara spoke. Then the directors and Mara responded to questions from the audience.

Report from Mara Saule

As Thanksgiving approaches, Mara expressed her gratitude that we have such a supportive community, and that we do such a good job of taking care of each other. She led us in a moment of remembrance for our colleague, Brenda Hutchins, who will be greatly missed. Plans are underway for a more tangible memorial, for Brenda and perhaps for our other departed co-workers.

Mara introduced our new staff and faculty members: Jimmy Allen, Gary Atwood, Amber Billey, Valerie Carzello, Laura Gewissler, Andrew Horvat, Nelson Sears, Jill Viens, and Coco Zephir. We also have Laura Underhill working to fill Brenda’s former responsibilities until a replacement is found. Linda Howell and David Trautman will be joining the Libraries soon. A few staff members have changed responsibilities:  Nancy Bercaw is now a Program Specialist; Dan DeSanto has joined the faculty of I&IS, Sarah Paige moved to I&IS, and Fred Pond has relocated from Dana to Bailey-Howe I&IS to fill in for some sabbaticals. Mara also made a special mention of thanks to Peter Spitzform and Albert Joy, who shared the helm of Collection Management upon Tina Kussey’s departure, until Laura Gewissler’s recent arrival.

Mara explained that some major initiatives are underway. The Learning Commons physical addition for Bailey-Howe has been moved to a lower priority, so for now we will focus on improving, renovating and re-thinking the existing building. The long-anticipated move of Special Collections to Billings is coming closer to fruition; fundraising has been going well. Special Collections 50^th Anniversary was a wonderful event, with an inspiring talk by Mark Dimunation. Our new discovery tool, CatQuest, has been rolled out, and the fine-tuning phase is underway. The JSTOR project resulted in the weeding of some print journal titles that were redundant to our electronic access, but during this process some issues arose with the faculty. As a result, the Faculty Senate now has a Library Advisory Committee. The Vermont Digital Newspaper Project has been very productive, and the search for Tom McMurdo’s replacement is underway.

Mara commented that our new University President, Tom Sullivan, mentions the Libraries often, and Information Literacy is one of his themes. Dr. Sullivan is aware of the “domino effect” of moving Special Collections to Billings, and the resulting opportunity to fill the vacated space. Mara also pointed out that it’s also time to revisit the Strategic Plan for the Libraries, which concludes in 2013. Should the plan be updated, or totally rewritten? The Dean’s Council will meet with an Organizational Development consultant to lay groundwork for future strategic planning. Mara also said that there’s a possibility that the LRA might be physically expanded to contain more items, but this is in a very early stage of investigation.

A new Provost will eventually be hired, and the Provost traditionally has a great deal of influence on the future of the Libraries. It’s not clear what new initiatives might come from the top levels of the University. President Sullivan highlighted four capital improvement projects for UVM: The re-librarying of Billings; the establishment of an Alumni House; the renovation of science labs in Cook and Votey; and a multi-purpose facility, which is envisioned as a venue for large events that will also have some classroom space. This last item is not well formulated yet. Overall, the University is now shifting towards a vision of fewer students (with more of them being international or transfer students) and more faculty; President Sullivan thinks this will give us a better balance. The University will also soon be initiating an Academic Review Process, which involves a period of self-study followed by an external review – and the Libraries would be taking part in this activity. Finally, there’s a plan afoot to offer some fully online professional master’s degree programs, and there is talk of instituting a full Summer Semester to better take advantage of our capacity and resources.

Questions and Answers

Juliet Young asked about the JSTOR project. Mara answered that the faculty concern was about accessibility to print, and the value of the print journals as a scholarly artifact. Selene Colburn added that we will continue to purchase print until the electronic access is obtained, but we won’t necessarily bind and archive those print issues.

Albert Joy asked for clarification about the Learning Commons addition to Bailey-Howe, versus the interior renovations. Mara said that discussions have just started, and we will all be engaged in any reconfiguring that goes on. It will be a multi-year process, and we’ll do the easy fixes first.

Trina Magi asked about the online degree programs – do we need to build in library support for these? Mara explained that the Masters in Public Health is the closest to being online-ready. But the proposal is complex, and it needs buy-in from Continuing Education, and the specific department, in terms of faculty involvement and quality control. These programs will probably be offered in 8-week segments instead of the more usual 15-week time slots, and this requires retooling of infrastructure. The new Provost will determine whether this idea goes ahead in a big way, or if will grow more gradually.

Juliet asked if the expansion of the LRA would result in the closing of the Williston Annex. Mara said this isn’t clear yet, but we are clearly out of space. Getting a third offsite storage space is simply not feasible. However, the cost of expanding the LRA might be prohibitive.

Collection Management Report

Peter Spitzform and Albert Joy then gave the report for the Collection Management Division, which wasn’t included in the written report due to the lack of a Director in the past year. Albert reported that Kathy Bohan is happily enjoying her retirement. Acquisitions has been about electronics, in large terms. Kathy’s job has been retooled so that Jimmy Allen can support electronic acquisitions, digitizing of licenses, and better use of the ERM. Meanwhile, Katie Cooper has taken on new duties, including supervision of the bindery student. Albert also praised Zhanna Gordon’s fluency with PeopleSoft’s financial reporting.  We’ve also acquired lots of “cool new stuff” including streaming media (such as the Complete BBC Shakespeare plays), Proquest historical newspapers, Safari tech e-books (with 57,000 views so far this year!), and thousands of books through the Hathi Trust. Harper’s Weekly is now online, which will help preserve our antique print copies which were heavily used. We also acquired two big Springer ebook collections and Elsevier backfiles.

Peter then spoke, thanking the Collections Team for their work in analyzing and selecting the best resources to get. During the summer, the Circ Dept. was having trouble shelving books because the stacks were so full. Wendy Gunther and Chris Krupp responded by going through the Qs, Es, and Hs, pulling hundreds of clearly obsolete and redundant copies. The Ps also need attention, but this is a larger project; many of these will be flagged and moved to the LRA by professional movers, sometime in the new year. He reported that Rush Ordering has been going well, a method has been worked out to firm-order ebooks from YBP, and a new workflow now makes clear which books are sitting on the New Book Shelf. In cooperation with the Dept. of Libraries, the Vermont Online Library Project has re-upped subscriptions to some Gale publications, Chilton’s Auto Repair, and Powerspeak (a language learning tool), and all of these are also available through Voyager.

More Questions and Answers

Wendy asked whether the LRA would become open-stacks if the plans for expansion are allowed to go forward. Mara said it’s too soon to know that.

Albert asked if we’re leveraging the possibilities of Social Media. Alison Armstrong replied that the Reference Dept. is using text and email, but not much Facebook. Selene said that there’s a decentralized approach with multiple contributors, for Facebook; Selene and Nancy give loose oversight to that aspect. Selene has several social media campaigns lined up for the spring semester. There are questions about how to assess the investment of time. It’s a brave new world, and Selene said she’s open to ideas and suggestions.

Trina asked Paul Philbin about Kor Kiley’s position and how it’s being reconfigured. Paul said that Kor used to tend the physical servers, but now they’re virtual here (with the physical servers now housed in the Technology Park, where ETS maintains and upgrades them). So, what is left for us is managing the applications that are running on those servers. David Trautman brings Mac experience, tech support for multimedia development, support for the MatLab in Lafayette, and expertise that will come in handy for the Libraries’ websites.

Jeanene Light asked about our site license for the Copyright Clearing Center. Paul responded that the University’s General Counsel is writing up the specifics, and then it will eventually go on the website. The Center for Teaching and Learning will need to work with faculty to explain the details of the policy. Essentially, the Libraries will be the copyright center for the campus. But for now, the policy itself is still just a draft. Paul added that the license comes with some handy ready-to-use materials to share with the University community.

Jane Hendley spoke in recognition of the quiet workers, of whom much is expected, but who are often overlooked. Mara agreed that the big initiatives get the attention, but on the ground, the work is done by many different individuals, and it is important to recognize and acknowledge the daily work and invisible tasks that are essential to our effectiveness. Alison added that the Libraries valued and respected Mara’s efforts, as well.

Chris Burns asked, in light of the July flood at Dana, whether there’s a formal disaster plan in effect. Albert responded that the Disaster Preparedness Committee has been training for disaster response, but not so much for the next step, which is disaster recovery. Chris Burns said that Lyrasis has a 3-part webinar on disaster planning which might be useful. Marianne Burke added that Dana has a different environment – it’s almost as if they’re living in a condo, with the building manager under the direction of the College of Medicine, but any substantial changes also have to be approved by the Fletcher Allen Board of Directors. She appreciates support from all quarters!

Treasurer’s Report

Jimmy reported that the treasury has $233. He also announced that this year’s charitable effort would be directed towards the Food Shelf. People may donate cans, cash, or online through this website:

The meeting adjourned at 11 a.m.