Executive Committee Minutes 04/12/2023

LAUC-B Executive Committee Meeting
April 12, 2023, 10-11:30am

Present: Jesse Silva, Jennifer Dorner, Jackie Gosselar, Sine Hwang Jensen, Susan McElrath, José Adrián Barragán-Álvarez, Christina Velazquez Fidler, Lara Michels

Guests: Jennifer Nelson, Kate Peck, Hilary Schiraldi, Kendra Levine

  • Announcements
    • Jesse will be away for the May meeting. José Adrián will run that meeting.
    • Jennifer Nelson reported that the Research & Professional Development Committee has completed planning for a “newish” librarians event that will be held May 25th, from 3-4, on Zoom. It will be followed by a happy hour at Freehouse from 4:30-6:30. R&PD thanks LAUC-B for funding this event.
       
  • Reports
    • Treasurer Report (L. Michels) -  Lara has met with Heidi Hallett and has been given access to Business systems in order to review LAUC-B expenses.  Lara is still working out how to interpret the information. 
    • Meeting with the UL (J. Silva) - Jeff shared with Jesse and José Adrián that Library public services staff have received some abusive and rude comments from users. Jeff asked that Librarians who witness something like this happening please intervene. The Library has received the budget letter from campus and we will have a flat budget next year, which doesn’t account for inflationary costs. The campus did agree to assist with some compensation increases. 
    • LIBR (J. Barragán-Álvarez) At the time of the meeting, no LIBR member had been asked to join the DIVCO task force. There were a few announcements about the University budget that weren’t promising. A report from the Department of Education’s International and Foreign Language Education (IFLE) was presented that made some recommendations related to library services.  Jo Anne spoke to LIBR  about the serials reduction. She also shared the news that CDL redistributed the cost of resources to make the cost shares more equitable. The savings this year will help offset the serials cut.  Jeff joined the meeting and reported on the flat budget allocation. Two students from the Young Democratic Socialists of America were invited to speak and the notes include their comments. 
    • LAUC Statewide (J. Silva)  - Much of the meeting was related to the Assembly. SCLG minutes are now being posted regularly. The new charge for the print strategy team was reviewed and approved. Many campuses seem to be facing budgetary issues next year. 
    • EIC Update (J. Gosselar) - The bulk of the meeting was focused on the funding proposals and most were voted on. They weren’t able to get through all of them during this meeting.  Funding for this year will roll into the next fiscal year. They also discussed committee membership and succession planning. The Spaces subcommittee met with Jen Brown and Nicole Brown about the Moffitt Renovation and how EIC could be involved.
       
  • Continuing Business
    • Planning LAUC-B Spring Assembly- Jesse proposed keeping the Assembly to a minimum, as everyone is overstretched. The meeting could be one hour, consisting mostly of reports by subcommittees. ExComm agreed. Jennifer Nelson suggested that someone could report on what has been done so far on the Research Librarian Values statement. Susan McElrath volunteered to report on that and feedback at the Assembly will be welcomed. Jesse will send out a message about the plans to LAUC-B. 
    • Research Librarian Values - Discussion tabled for now. 
    • LAUC Statewide Assembly  - Jesse will be attending, and he will appoint 3 additional delegates from the LAUC-B members attending.
       
  • New business
    • CAPA update (H. Schiraldi) - Hilary reported on two issues of interest to LAUC-B.
      The first is CAPA’s role in the reclassification of staff into Librarian positions. Classifications into the series do not always involve CAPA, though one of CAPA's charges is to review all librarian job descriptions and interview all candidates for librarian positions. No exception is explicitly made for reclassifications, so it seems that reclass appointments should also go through CAPA, meaning that CAPA should review the job descriptions and interview the candidates. This issue came to CAPA's attention via APO not via the Library admin. CAPA updated its manual to reflect CAPA's role in reclass appointments and not just regular recruitment. The second relates to reviews on non-represented librarians. CAPA was made aware that a new policy allows non-represented librarians who have reached the highest pay step be awarded additional steps not defined in the non-represented salary scale. It’s unclear whether this change can or should affect CAPA’s merit review procedures. She shared the letter from the Vice Provost for the Faculty to Jeff Mackie-Mason that outlined this change. Jesse and José Adrián will raise this issue with Jeff at their next meeting. 
    • ExComm needs to select a new-to-UC librarian to award funding to attend LAUC statewide (funding comes from statewide LAUC). Misha Coleman is the only librarian attendee who meets this requirement, so she will receive the funding.
    • UC Libraries partnership program (K. Levine) - Kendra reported that the Diversity Committee is responsible for the staff mentorship program. They are questioning whether it was effective and they want to relaunch this as a partnership program.  They plan to take this to Roundtable at the end of the month for approval.  Staff should know that they have supervisor support to take part and not have to do it on their personal time. 
       
  • Future Business
    • Summer meeting schedule - Agreed that ExComm will not meet in July. The meeting in August will be the transition meeting.