Present: Bell, Bisom, Bube, Crooks, Davis-Kahl, Ford, Gelfand, Goldberg, Grahame, Heiman (recorder), Horn, Hughes, Jazayeri, Kaufman, Landis, MacLeod (chair), Manaka, McAdam, Renton, Riggs, Sisson, Sorrell, Tanji, Urrizola, Yu

Eva Sorrell, the Electronic Resources Cataloger, was welcomed to her first LAUC-I meeting. Julia Gelfand introduced Gayatri Singh, a summer intern attending the School of Information & Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The minutes were approved after a brief discussion of future distribution of LAUC-I documents. Colby Riggs and Diane Bisom said they were willing to work with the Executive Board in improving the distribution process. Pauline Manaka, incoming LAUC-I chair, has hired a student who will be posting documents and other information to the LAUC-I Web site.

Judy Kaufman led a discussion of the proposed revisions to the procedures, which were finalized after comments on an earlier draft were solicited from the LAUC-I membership. The changes were broken down into two groupings—"minor changes" and "substantive changes". She pointed out that the most significant change was no longer requiring ad hocs in some situations.

Judy had intended that all UCI librarians need only consult one source document for policies and procedures in application of the review process. When this proved impossible because of all the changes that had been made to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), two separate APP-Ls were produced, one for represented librarians and one for managers and supervisors. However, the changes to local procedures and the location of procedures are identical in both with only the sources that are cited being different, the Academic Personnel Manual (APM) for managers and supervisors and the MOU for represented librarians.

Jim Crooks asked for clarification of item 2b5 on page 27 of the APP-L for Represented Librarians. This refers to meetings by Reviews Initiators with the AUL or UL to discuss the candidates' reviews at the beginning of the review process. Julia said the review was tainted or possibly biased if such a meeting took place so early in the process. Kaufman said the purpose of the meetings was to give the AUL or UL the opportunity to indicate which issues need to be addressed in the review and to give the RI a clear understanding of what documentation would be required, e.g. sometimes letters are required or submitted to enhance the documentation. Julia responded that why not provide this information to the division rather than on an individual basis. Kaufman said it is to the librarian's benefit to ensure that something isn't missing in the documentation if the RI is recommending a positive action. Judy Horn pointed out that this is not a change and is what has been done in the past.

Proposed Changes in Use of Ad Hoc Committees in UC Librarian Reviews

The purpose of ad hocs in the review process is to give the Library Review Committee an outside perspective on a person's work and accomplishments. The proposal to discontinue the use of ad hocs in some situations resulted from concerns raised by the LRC. Currently, ad hocs are required if the LRC disagrees with the RI, even if the LRC is unanimous in its recommendation. Horn questioned the need for ad hocs in cases where career status or promotion is obvious to the LRC. UCI has more ad hocs than most campuses. Two were appointed the current academic year when none were expected and there were 6-8 the year before. The proposal allows LRC to recommend appointment of an ad hoc rather than have it be required.

There was further discussion on whether we no longer were going to require an ad hoc if career status were at issue, e.g. the RI recommends for and the LRC is unanimous against recommending career status. The UL could still ask for an ad hoc if he had concerns. The procedures will still allow for request of ad hoc if negative decision on career status is involved. People expressed some reservation since the RI really has the most direct experience with the librarian under review. The UL receives three recommendations—the RI, the AUL and the LRC. The ad hocs create a fourth. The librarian under review gets a copy of the letter to Gerry from the RI and the AUL. He will also get a copy of letter from Gerry if Gerry is in disagreement with the LRC. This gives the librarian the opportunity to work with the RI on influencing the final decision.

Julia said that with the amount of work that goes into the preparation of factual resumes the RIs should address any problems with their content before they go to the LRC. Judy said Human Resources is already addressing this since certain RIs consistently have problems in their application of the process.

In response to a request from the UL to structure librarian recruitments as flexibly as possible, Judy Kaufman proposed "we continue to ask for the ALA accredited MLS degree for all librarian positions, but that library managers also determine on a case by case basis whether there are qualifications other than an ALA-accredited MLS degree that can be offered by a candidate as an alternative to the ALA accredited MLS degree."

"Preferred" would be used for the MLS degree as was done in the research librarian recruitment.

Some issues raised in the discussion that followed:

--Would they still be in the librarian series? How would they be reviewed and be able to meet the criteria for advancement? It was expressed that the appointment would be the easy process and that the problem would be in the review process that followed. They will still be required to undergo the review process. Kaufman will continue to meet with each candidate and go over criteria they will be judged by.

--This would be the rare occurrence. Appointed of candidates with the MLS would still be the norm. All things being equal, a candidate with an MLS would have an edge over a candidate who did not have an MLS.

--The change would allow pursuit of candidates with subject expertise who did not have an MLS.

--Gerry doesn't want the MLS as a requirement and it will have to be justified to be required.

The meeting adjourned.