Executive Committee Minutes 08/21/2019 | UC Berkeley Library Staff Web

LAUC-B Executive Committee - Transition Meeting

August 21, 2019, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
303 Doe Library

Present (continuing): Naomi Shiraishi (chair), Jane Rosario
Present (outgoing): Marlene Harmon (recorder), Brian Quigley, Melissa Stoner, Gisele Tanasse
Present (incoming): Ramona Collins, Susan McElrath, Stacy Reardon, Emily Vigor
Absent (outgoing): Randy Brandt, Kiyoko Shiosaki
Absent (incoming): Jim Church, Jianye He

Guests: J. Dickinson, C. Lee

Announcements (J. Rosario)
- New librarians: Kristina Bush, Susan Swarts and TImothy Vollmer
- Plan for about 1 month overlap for transition from outgoing executive committee to incoming committee
- LAUC-B documents have been moved from the bCourses site to Box. Possible issues with submitting documents
- Regular, paper archives are in Bancroft
- J. Rosario is updating procedures for the executive committee chair, and may be asking for feedback from committee members
Year in Review Reports
- Secretary (M. Harmon)
  - The 2018-2019 permanent records (Executive Committee and assembly minutes, committee reports, election materials) are being compiled and will be passed on to the new Secretary for deposit in the Archives next year. Last year’s records will be deposited in September.
  - LAUC-B Excomm materials and documents have recently been moved to Box. All secretary documents have been updated.
  - Our Current membership is 93 librarians
    - This Library/Affiliated split is 72 Librarians/21 Affiliated
    - The represented/non represented split is 73 represented librarians and 20 non-represented
    - Last year at this time there were 90.4 members (i.e., 91 librarians, one being a less than 50% appointment).
    - According to APO, only one retired librarian was granted Emeritus Status this year, Susan Koskinen. Last year 4 librarians were granted Emeritus Status: James Larrabee, Waverly Lowell, Jean McKenzie and Nick Robinson.
  - Neither the Fall nor the Spring Assemblies followed the standard format for LAUC-B Assemblies. Rather than having a speaker, LAUC-B members attending the Fall Assembly took part in focused discussions on barriers to LAUC participation. The Spring Assembly was a Combined Library and Affiliated Libraries Spring Assembly and Celebration of Library Research sponsored by the Committee on Research and Professional Development along with LAUC-B.
Treasurer (R. Brandt)
- Reported, in absentia:
  - Current balance is $46,778.12
LAUC-B Candidate Lunches (G. Tanasse)
- Gisele stepped in as coordinator for candidate lunches when Kortney Rupp left last year.
- There were 28 candidate lunches this year, double last year’s number
- All lunches were at the Women’s Faculty Club
LAUC-B Mentoring Program (K. Shiosaki)
- Written report submitted, in absentia:
  - The Mentor Program matched 22 LAUC-B librarians this year resulting in 11 LAUC-sponsored lunches. The mentor coordinator uploaded a spreadsheet for 2016-19 mentor/mentee pairs to the new Box folder “F. Library Representatives”
LIBR Meetings (N. Shiraishi)
- Between December and May, four LIBR meetings were held. Discussions mostly revolved around the Elsevier situation and the policy on open access publication for dissertations and theses.
  - Elsevier situation
    - UC began with negotiations with Elsevier last summer in an effort to get an integrated agreement that covers access to Elsevier journals as well as default OA publishing for UC authored articles at a reduced cost, which Elsevier refused. After the contract expired on December 31, the deadline was extended and negotiations continued. But an agreement was not reached and UC announced the termination of negotiations in February. Elsevier suspended UC’s access to new articles in July. UC has perpetual access to most of the older articles and there are alternative ways to get new articles, such as finding OA copies, online repositories, or ILL.
  - Rachael Samberg attended the May meeting to explain UC’s strategic directions for open access and the Cambridge University Press Pilot Program that combines subscription fees and article publishing fees, which is the type of agreement UC is seeking with Elsevier and other publishers.
  - OA policy on dissertation and theses
    - Current Berkeley policy is that dissertations must be open access immediately or after a 2-year embargo. The committee reviewed a proposed system-wide policy and expressed some concerns. The committee thinks that the policy needs to address issues such as publishers who are reluctant to publish manuscripts from dissertations available in an OA repository, how to justify a longer than 2 year embargo that is needed in some disciplines, and how to cover the OA publication costs for students.
LAUC Statewide Conference Calls (N. Shiraishi, J. Rosario)
- Position Paper Number 5: After lengthy review by the LAUC Statewide Committee on Professional Governance this was revised as “The Academic Librarian in the University of California (formerly Position Paper No.5)”. It is a statement on what UC librarians do. Berkeley librarians Dean Rowan and Jean Dickinson worked on the new statement.
- Systemwide Library and Scholarly Information Advisory Committee (SLASIAC) may write a letter in support of Elsevier boycott. Discussed whether LAUC should do so as well.
- Roger Smith, LAUC President, formed a system wide task force to work on the issue of academic freedom for librarians.
- LAUC Statewide’s big theme for the year: “Barriers to Engagement in LAUC”. This attempts to address the problem of finding LAUC members to run for statewide and local division offices and to otherwise become involved in LAUC.
- How should LAUC change to best serve its members?
Chair’s Year in Review Report (J. Rosario)
- This was an eventful year for the University of California and for the Berkeley campus. Contract negotiations between the librarians’ union, UC-AFT, and UCOP resulted in a shift to the salary scales for union-represented librarians. (Non-represented librarians’ salaries later followed suit.) This was especially crucial, given the difficulty in retaining early-career librarians who could not afford to live in the Bay Area on the old salary scale. Also as a result of the negotiations, the issue of academic freedom came up, as in “do librarians have academic freedom?” This caused a lot of discussion resulting in a systemwide task force to examine the issue. As of this date, we seem close to adding a new section to the APM that would guarantee this right for all academic employees. At Berkeley, it was a year of changing personnel, with departures and retirements followed by a spate of new hires, including two new AULs, something unprecedented in recent years. And of course, the boycott of Elsevier is a major event. The Library is transforming into something new, and LAUC-B must change with it, and continue in its guiding imperative to serve its members.
- Vacancies in the Executive Committee and other committees: this was a challenging year for LAUC-B. One month into the term, the Vice Chair, Cody Hennesy, left for a job in Minnesota. In November, one of the Library Representatives, Kortney Rupp, left for another job. Fortunately, Naomi Shiraishi stepped up to be Vice Chair, and Giselle Tanasse assumed Kortney’s role. Committee appointments also had turnover, especially the Research and Professional Development Committee. Chris Tarr, Chair of the Nominating and Elections Committee, did an excellent job of recruiting new officers and committee members, and delivered a full slate for the local election.
- Regular meetings with UL: meetings continued to be informative and cordial. Jeff Mackie-Mason was especially supportive in facilitating CAPA’s work with the Library’s Human Resources Department,which had its own issues with staff vacancies.
- Assemblies: for the Fall Assembly, we had scheduled a speaker from the law school, but that person had to cancel their appearance two days before the Assembly was to be held. ExComm had to scramble to come up with a replacement program, and we found it in the “Barriers To Engagement In LAUC” initiative put forth by statewide LAUC. We made it a members-only session and held discussions on this topic. We gathered participant comments and submitted them to statewide LAUC, as we were charged to do. For the Spring Assembly, R&PD Co-Chairs Jeremy Ott and Celia Emmelhainz proposed an event, “A Celebration of Library Research,” where librarians and staff would present their research projects in poster format. With the gracious support of the Committee on Affiliated Library Affairs Chair, Melissa Stoner, we were able to provide refreshments. Jeff Mackie-Mason gave an insightful keynote speech to begin the event. This event was popular, and we propose repeating every other year.
- Statewide participation: we continued to participate in the monthly conference calls. Significant topics included discussing “Barriers to LAUC Engagement,” gathering feedback from the membership as to why members are reluctant to be involved on the statewide and divisional level, and coming up with targeted actions to resolve the issues. The LAUC Committee on Professional Governance finished its revision of Position Paper #5, The Academic Librarian in the University of California. Dean Rowan and Jean Dickinson of the Berkeley Division were part of this effort.
- Continuation of initiatives from the Social Justice in Academic Libraries Task Group report included convening the Social Justice Events Planning Group, co-chaired by Jean Dickinson and Corliss Lee.
  - Social Justice Metadata Project proposal brought to Cataloging and Metadata Council. Susan Edwards enquired about whether the project could be done; SJEPG supported the effort and attended a meeting but the work was started by and done by others.
  - Incorporating Social Justice and the Framework in Information Literacy Instruction, ACRL Instruction Section webinar hosted by SJEPG, May 20, 2019
- Presentation of the Professional Development Survey by Jeremy Ott and Rebecca Miller
- Academic Freedom brown bag suggested by Susan Edwards and facilitated by Celia Emmelhainz
- LAUC-B Working Group on Academic Reviews report authored by Jesse Silva, James Eason, and Virginia Shih
- Distinguished Librarian Award held December 11, 2018, organized by Jennifer Nelson, honoring Elizabeth Dupuis and Deborah Jan.
- Ad hoc committee to review Berkeley Procedures appointed, members are I-Wei Wang and James Eason
- Special Purpose Account for LAUC-B established by Lynne Grigsby at my request
- Volunteer form for LAUC-B offices and committees created by Chris Tarr
- Catalog and Metadata Librarians Interest Group appointed as an ad hoc committee, steering committee members are Imad Abuelgasim, Randal Brandt, Jean Dickson, Jane Rosario, Naomi Shiraishi, Christina Tarr
- LAUC ExComm documentation moved from bCourses to Box for (we hope) increased ease of access
Continuing/Outstanding Business
- SJEPG Update (C. Lee and J. Dickinson, guests)
  - Working Group members are Jean Dickinson (co-chair), Corliss Lee (co-chair), Angela Arnold, Natalia Estrada and Michele Morgan; Elissa Thomas recently left the Library.
  - Events sponsored this year include:
    - Lightning talks: What’s in a Subject Heading? Confronting Metadata Bias, organized by SJEPG, January 31, 2019
    - Bringing Social Justice Behind the Scenes: Transforming the Work of Technical Services North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) webinar, organized by SJEPG, April 18th, 2019
  - Forthcoming Event:
    - Brown Bag Discussion: Bias in the Machine: Teaching about search engine bias and metadata bias, September 19, 2019
  - SJEPG supported the project about local subject headings first proposed by Susan Edwards, with work done by CaMEL, CDC, and Library IT
- Conference Planning Committee (M. Stoner)
  - Both conference speakers have confirmed
  - Sessions have been selected
  - Pleased at the response from many out-of-state and public library librarians who have shown interest in the conference topic, “Shelf Awareness: The Intersection of Social Justice and Critical Librarianship”
- Thank you, welcome, and transfer the gavel (J. Rosario)
  - Outgoing and continuing ExComm members were thanked.
  - Incoming members were welcomed and thanked for their willingness to be nominated and serve.
  - The Chair ceded to Naomi Shiraishi
New Business
- Information for new ExComm members (N.Shiraishi)
  - Questions about Box. Currently J. Rosario is the owner. LAUC-B Secretary will most likely have ownership in the future
  - Suggested new ExComm members read the LAUC-B bylaws
  - Mentor and lunch coordinators need to be determined
  - Time and place for monthly ExComm meetings.
    - Continue as currently scheduled - every second Wednesday, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm, 303 Doe Library?
  - Events, 2019 - 2020:
    - LAUC-B Conference, Oct. 4, 2019
    - Fall Assembly in November.
    - LAUC Statewide will be at Berkeley in Spring 2020
      - Will need to organize a special committee to plan it
    - There will be a Distinguished Librarian Award Committee in 2020. J. Rosario will chair
    - 2021 - The year of the next LAUC-B Library Conference
Committee Appointments
- Motions to appoint LAUC-B members to the following committees moved, seconded and unanimously approved:
  - Claude Potts and Christina Fidler to the Committee on Diversity
  - Liladhar Pendse, Susan Powell and Lara Michels to the Committee on Research and Professional Development
  - I-Wei Wang, Lisa Rowlison de Ortiz, and Christina Marino to the Nominations and Elections Committee
  - Adam Clemons to LAUC Statewide Committee on Diversity