Minutes
LAUC-I General Membership Meeting
Monday, 10 June 2002
1-3pm, Science Library, Room 104
Present: Ariel, Bell, Bube, Crooks, Davis-Kahl, Goldberg, Grahame, Heiman (recorder), Hughes, Jacobs, Kaufman, Manaka, McAdam, Novak, Renton, Riggs, Ruttenberg, Tanji, Tseng, Urrizola, Vecchiola, Vick, Wilson, Yu
Steve MacLeod, the Chair, was absent. Pauline Manaka, Vice Chair/Chair-Elect, facilitated the meeting.
Research librarian Rob Bell was welcomed to his first LAUC-I meeting. The members in attendance introduced themselves.
Sally Tseng, the Head of Serials Cataloging, was thanked for her contributions to the UCI Libraries and LAUC-I. She is retiring the end of June after 21+ years of service at UCI. A retirement party is planned for June 27.
1. The minutes of the May 13, 2002 meeting were approved.
2. Discussion and Endorsement of the LAUC-I Professional Development Activities & Funding Recommendations, Policies and Guidelines [attached].
Manaka began the discussion by briefly reviewing the development of the document. The final Report of the AdHoc Committee to Evaluate Professional Development Funding Process was submitted to the LAUC-I Executive Board on March 9, 2002 and later discussed at the LAUC-I General Membership meeting of March 28, 2002. The Professional Development Committee then worked with Judy Kaufman, AUL, Administrative Services and the Executive Board on developing policies and guidelines for implementation of the recommendations. The AdHoc Committee consisted of Julia Gelfand, Cathy Palmer, Wanda Pittman Jazayeri, and Vicki Grahame, chair.
Some highlights of the discussion, making note of changes made:
- Recommendation 2, bullet 2 (Professional development activities should be discussed as part of the librarian annual plan process in consultation with the librarian's review initiator).
Jim Crooks recommended that "as part of the librarian annual plan process in consultation" be deleted in order to avoid possible complications resulting from changes in the annual plan process and to provide more flexibility in requesting activity time and or/funding. Vicki responded that the annual plans are flexible and can be revised throughout the academic year if needed. Kaufman pointed out that the tie in with the annual plan process was something that UL Gerry Munoff wanted as part of the policy. Pauline noted that this had been discussed during the General Membership meeting of March 28 and its minutes had been approved. It was decided to retain the statement without alteration.
- Recommendation 2, bullet 3 on oversight and accountability. The AdHoc Committee recommended the elimination of the requirement for librarians to provide written reports of their activities to the Professional Development Committee. It was noted that the Early Birds where librarians reported on their activities were never a requirement of the Professional Development Committee, but were introduced in the past in lieu of a written report and evolved into being seen as mandatory. Instead, the Committee is recommending that Department Heads and AULs decide how librarians can best give feedback on their activities. Final sentence of this section revised to read: Instead urge all Department Heads and/or AULs to encourage librarians to give feedback on their activities within their Departments and Divisions.
- Second paragraph of the Policies and Guidelines ("All funds for LAUC-I professional development … or any other source."). For additional information on discussion of this section, Pauline provided links to two Web sites:
A. Sections 1, 3 & 5 Article II (Objectives): LAUC-I Bylaws
http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~lauciweb/foundations/3_2.html
B. Article 3 of the Memorandum of Understanding (Contract) on "Professional Activities & Development"
http://www.ucop.edu/humres/contracts/lib/
During discussion Judy pointed out that in Article 3 on Professional Activities and Development when "the University" or "the University of California" is mentioned in providing funding that it means from the Libraries regular funding or budget, and not the Office of the President as some people misinterpret it to mean. Except for Berkeley, all funding for professional development comes from the Libraries' regular funding. It was decided that the reference in the second paragraph of the Policies and Guidelines to the Office of the President led to confusion as to the sources of funding and was unnecessary as to implementation of the recommendations. So the paragraph was edited to delete all by the first sentence: All funds for LAUC-I professional development are allocated by the University Librarian from the Libraries' regular budget.
- Policies and Guidelines, last sentence of third paragraph to read: Members of the Librarian Series who are appointed at any time during the fiscal year are eligible for that year's full allocation.
- A question was raised why journals were singled out as a format excluded from eligibility for professional development funding. In the discussion that followed, alternative sources of funding for professional development materials were mentioned. Joan Ariel encouraged librarians to let her know if there were professional materials she should be ordering for the collection as library science bibliographer. Lorelei Tanji said that some materials would be eligible for purchase under the "Library Use" funding code. It was eventually agreed that journals should not be excluded. Consequently, the Policies and Guidelines section dealing with "the purchase of books and software" was changed to read the purchase of books, journals and software; "Requests for book" changed to Requests for books and/or journals; "purchase the books" changed to purchase the books and or/journals; and, "Subscriptions for professional journals and association membership dues are not eligible for professional funding" changed to Association membership dues are not eligible for professional development funding.
- Larry Heiman inquired whether the implementation of the guidelines on professional development funding would impact on the current method of allocating administrative funding. Judy said that what would impact the implementation would be the budget. She added that guidelines for administrative funding were currently being revised and would be more flexible than in the past. In response to Joan, she added that activities currently funded by administrative funding would not be impacted by implementation of the recommendations. This discussion led to Professional Development Form being changed to Professional Activity Form as well as a change in the title of the document under discussion to LAUC-I Professional Development Activities & Funding Recommendations, Policies and Guidelines. Judy said the new form covering all requests will be available to be filled online and then printed for signatures of supervisors. Activity requests will be able to be tracked electronically.
- A move was made by Manuel Urrizola to endorse the recommendations and guidelines as altered during the discussion. A vote was taken and passed unanimously. The Executive Board will present the endorsed recommendations to Administration for its consideration. Judy anticipated that Gerry would be in agreement with the recommendations since they had been consulted all during the process. Responding to a query by Joan, Judy said she and Gerry would try working something out to give an indication early in the fiscal year of projected funding.
- Vicki pointed out that the Executive Board would need to discuss the future of the Professional Development Committee because its responsibilities would be virtually eliminated with the implementation of the recommendations. Pauline said this would be discussed by the Executive Board in conjunction with formation of a charge for the incoming Professional Development Committee. Joan recommended a collective discussion involving the entire membership and Pauline agreed to discuss at a future General Membership meeting. Stephanie Davis-Kahl suggested the sharing of information on research and publication as a possible focus. Joan agreed and endorsed the discussion of grant as well as publishing opportunities. Sally said that writing grant proposals could be very time consuming, but recommended bibliographers investigate collaborating with faculty.
- Colby Riggs suggested that a better method should be developed for distribution of LAUC/LAUC-I documents and/or attachments. She recommended use of a shared drive for LAUC documents. Yvonne Wilson pointed out that a document on archival material was developed about two years ago and that Judy Horn and Jackie Dooley contributed in its development. Archivist Jennifer Jacobs volunteered to take part in further discussion of this issue by the Executive Board who would then get back to the General Membership.
3. Announcements.
- LAUC/LAUC-I ballots were due to John Sisson by 4 on June 10.
- LAUC President Debbie Murphy has been invited to the University Librarians 6/24/02 meeting.
- The LAUC transition meeting is scheduled for 8/16/02 in San Francisco. Joan, Steve, and Pauline will be attending.
- Judy said she would soon issue a charge for an ad hoc task force on guidelines for parties. It will include representatives from LEA, LAUC-I and Administration.
- On the agenda for the July 8 General Membership meeting:
Annual review of the Academic Personnel Procedures for Librarians (AAP-L)
Review of annual plan procedures.
The meeting was adjourned.