2010 Spring Assembly

LAUC-B Spring Assembly Minutes

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

8:30 - 10:00 AM

Bechtel 120ABC



I. Welcome (M. Phillips)

- A brief welcome was given by M. Phillips.

II. Announcing New and Retiring LAUC-B Members (M. Phillips)

- There are no new librarians. Susan Garbarino from the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural

Economics has left.

III. LAUC-B Elections: Announcement of 2010-2011 Slate of Candidates and

Call for Nominations (J. Schultz)

- LAUC-B slate: for Vice-President/Chair Elect, Nick Robinson; for Secretary, Shannon Supple

and Jim Ronnigen; and for Library Representative, Kathleen Gallagher and Monica Singh.

- LAUC state-wide slate: for Vice/President/Chair Elect, Mitchell Brown and Maureen Russell;

and for Secretary, Michael Sholinbeck and Cynthia Marconi.

- Nominations from the floor were solicited, and none were provided. J. Schultz also announced

that LAUC-B will be voting electronically this year instead of using paper ballots.

IV. LAUC-B Committee Reports

A. CAPA Chair's Report (L. Jones)

- L. Jones announced the CAPA members and gave a brief summary of activities.

- Four position descriptions were reviewed: Reference and Instruction Librarian, Thomas J.

Long Business Library; University Archives Processing Archivist, Bancroft Library; San

Francisco Examiner Project Archivist, Bancroft Library; and Research, Outreach and Web

Services Librarian, Institute of Transportation Library.

- Two candidates for a position were interviewed (Business Library).

- Fifty cases are eligible for review, 10 of which are from Affiliated librarians. Four Ad Hoc

Committees were appointed to review 11 cases (5 career status and 5 promotion; 1

promotion/career status; 1 accelerated; and 1 distinguished status). Thirty-three dossiers have

been received. CAPA has completed review of twenty-one of them.

- CAPA is planning to revise the annual Fall reviews workshop, based on the report by the

CAPA Task Force on Special Issues. Everybody is encouraged to attend. CAPA is also

currently in touch with the Academic Personnel Office (APO) regarding the possibility for

dossiers to be submitted electronically in the future and will report back to ExComm soon.

 

B. Executive Committee Chair's Report (M. Phillips)

- M. Phillips acknowledged each of the ExComm members and announced that the LAUC-B

committees have been busy (reports were sent out previously and will be posted on the web site

soon). M. Phillips encouraged members to consider serving on committees. There were no

applications for the Townsend Fellow this year and no applications for LAUC research grants. J.

Spohrer is the current Townsend Fellow and has an exhibit on Dutch anti-Nazi literature in the

Layne Gallery on campus.

- C. Lee, Chair of the Distinguished Librarian Award Committee, briefly announced that she is

gathering members for her committee. The faculty member will be George Oster. An intent to

nominate message should be sent to C. Lee by May 30. Final packets, which include a C.V.

and up to 5 supporting letters, will be due in September. On the web site

(/dla/index.html) are the criteria, as well as a list of previous

winners. It is also fine to self-nominate for this award.

- The next LAUC-B Conference will be in Fall of 2011. I. Wang is the Chair of the conference

committee and a call will go out soon asking for committee members. The theme will be related

to trends in higher education and how libraries should or have already been responding.

- Templates for the Statement of Responsibility will be up on the LAUC-B web site soon for

members to use.

- The Affiliated Libraries Assembly will be held on May 4. Dan Greenstein will be the guest

speaker.

- Instead of a LAUC state-wide Spring assembly, there will be a regional meeting for the

Southern campuses on May 6 at UC Irvine.

- M. Phillips acknowledged the CAPA Task Force on Special Issues and thanked them for their

hard work. Members of the Task Force are: J. Eason, N. Kobzina, S. Supple, and C. Tarr. Their

task was to clarify the Berkeley procedures document as it relates to: 1) Distinguished status, 2)

the concept of degree equivalency, and 3) timeframe for next review in cases of out-of-cycle

advancement or cases of denied advancement. ExComm is ready to move forward with

publishing the newly revised Berkeley procedures. The most significant change in the

procedures is related to Distinguished status, which will be de-coupled from the merit review

process. Instead, it will be voluntarily sought and will be an honorific. ExComm is exploring the

possibility that members who go for Distinguished status will automatically get Emeritus status

upon leaving the University.

V. The Future for UC Librarians

This LAUC-B Assembly departed from the usual format. Rather than an invited speaker, the

meeting brought members of the library community together to discuss issues related to the

future of UC librarianship. This state-wide discussion was spearheaded by LAUC President

Lucia Diamond at the state-wide assembly in December.

A. Welcoming Remarks (T. Leonard)

- T. Leonard mentioned a book titled This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians

Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson. According to T. Leonard, this book reports what librarians

are really up to. Although the author notes 2 things that librarians have done wrong in the past,

everything else librarians have done have been great. The author even draws new analytics for

library professionals, calling them finders and also keepers.

- The Bain diagnostic report has been posted on UC Berkeley web site (see

http://www.berkeley.edu/oe/) and indicates that Berkeley could potentially save tens of millions

of dollars. T. Leonard encouraged members to view the PDF slides on the web site. He will

send a message out about the report soon, mentioning what he thinks are the best slides to

review. There is a lot of local optimization mentioned, but the report does not touch on the

Library much. Student services are noted in the report, but libraries are not perceived to be a

part of student services. An article in todays San Francisco Chronicle

(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/13/BAIH1CTI5M.DTL) features the

results of the report.

B. Discussion Groups (Introduction by L. Diamond)

- L. Diamond mentioned that this discussion is based on position paper #5, which details the

functions of librarians in the University of California system. The purpose of having this

discussion is because there is a need to create a resource that administrators can use to find

information to lead us to future discussions. The hope is to more clearly define what a librarian

or library should look like in the future. With constantly changing technology and unreliable

budgets, something that can be easily amended is needed. This discussion started last

December at the LAUC state-wide assembly at Berkeley. Now, each campus is holding

discussions, and in May at UC Irvine, there will be a chance for the Southern campuses to

meet. This past year, the LAUC blog and wiki have been expanded so that librarians on all

campuses can have a virtual space to collaborate in.

- The topics for the discussion groups included: Reference, Scholarly Communication, Library

Personnel, Technology, Collections, Library Buildings, and Technical Services. Each group was

facilitated by an ExComm member, who also took notes on what was discussed.

C. Conclusion

- Each table shared a few interesting and/or provocative statements and provided brief

summaries of what was discussed. The conclusions from todays discussion will be posted on

the blog (http://laucassembly.blogspot.com/). Note that the heading "LAUC Assemblies Blog"

does not reflect the entire contents of the blog, as it has become more than just for the LAUC

Assemblies.