Present: Ariel, Bube, Crooks, Ford, Gelfand, Goldberg, Grahame, Horn, Hughes, Jacobs, Kaufman, Kiehl, Landis, Love, MacLeod, McAdam, Riggs, Ruttenberg, Sorrell, Tanji, Tsang, Tunender, Urrizola, Vecchiola, Wilson, Wong, Woo, Yu

Ariel called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone to the first general membership meeting of 2003-04.

1. Agenda Review and Approval of August 11, 2003 Membership Minutes

Ariel noted revised agenda in packets -- no additions made at 10/13 meeting.
Membership minutes from 8/11 were approved with the following additions:

Section IV: 3rd bullet: Insert "including acceleration files" after "no action"
Section V: 3rd item: Insert "transition" in "Systemwide Executive Board Meeting"

ACTION ITEM: Ariel will send meeting packets to those members not in attendance

2. Chair and Executive Board Report: Ariel and Landis

Ariel:

• The 2003-04 calendar is on the LAUC-I website and will be updated as new items are scheduled
• Chair is aiming to have agenda distributed one week in advance, and minutes soon thereafter (as noted on the calendar)
• Key themes for the year are 1) career recruitment and outreach and 2) mentoring -- both building on previous LAUC-I leadership and initiatives
• Packets include a draft strategic plan, developed last spring (Ariel, Landis, Davis-Kahl). It has been reviewed by Education and Outreach and Human Resources, and goes to LAUC-I Executive Board on 10/20 for official endorsement. Career recruitment was also discussed at the first "Lunch with LAUC-I" in July during which many productive suggestions were made and incorporated into the draft strategic plan. Please send comments about the plan to Ariel or to the LAUC-I Executive Board.

 
• Mentoring: The Professional Development Committee will take up the pilot proposal on mentoring previously developed by ALC in 2002.

 
• Bylaws: Thanks to LAUC-I's by-laws revision, Executive Board is now expanded to include all LAUC-I committee chairs, and it is clear that this new structure will be extremely productive. See the distributed packet for an updated LAUC-I structure, including several new responsibilities:
• The Vice-Chair now has fiscal responsibility for LAUC-I, and will provide regular budget updates to Executive Board and the Membership
• The Secretary is now responsible for maintaining the LAUC-I webpage
• Members at Large have expanded roles: Heather Tunender will serve as liaison between Executive Board and the LAUC-I representatives to UCI Academic Senate committees; and Manuel Urrizola will serve as the membership liaison, to encourage broader participation in LAUC-I. Tunender and Urrizola will each attend one LAUC assembly (MU in fall; HT in spring) and will be the lead reporters back to the membership in conjunction with the Chair and Vice-Chair.

 
• Standing committees: Ariel highlighted the 2003-2004 tasks of the Academic Librarianship Committee, the Professional Development Committee, the Program Committee, and the Library Review Committee.

 
• LAUC-I representatives to Academic Senate committees will have a transition meeting on 10/27 in LL 570 hosted collaboratively by LAUC-I Chair and UL.
• Budget Report: According to Landis, we have a tentative budget of $3,767.00 of which we have spent $42.23 on refreshments. No budgets are set yet, the figure is based on 2002-03. Ariel asked for suggestions of how to use LAUC-I funds, and reported that LAUC-I had no current plans to pay for a student assistant, as sometimes has been done in the past.

Landis facilitated this discussion, and emphasized the need to focus on the document at hand, not the history of the document. Landis distributed a document entitled "Guidelines for Librarian Personnel Actions within the UCI Libraries: Introduction for LAUC-I Membership Discussion."

Introduction: In 2002-03, the Academic Librarianship Committee was charged to meet with Judy Kaufman to discuss documentation related to the librarians' review process, including this "criteria" document. Kaufman wanted to see something final(ly) happen with this 20+ year old document. It has been around for years, and has been quoted in review documentation, but ignored since it wasn't official.

DISCUSSION

• Landis: The 2002-03 ALC redrafted the document, based on the latest (2001) revision. Their goal was to clean up the language, remove redundancy and internal contradictions -- not to reconceptualize the document. The current Executive Board and Judy Kaufman have reviewed and revised this latest draft. However, Executive Board did not reach a consensus on a specific recommendation to present to membership.
• Landis suggested the following possible outcomes: discarding the document; filing it as "advisory," with no official standing; or accepting it. Landis noted that some newer librarians on Executive Board had never heard of this document, prior to our examination of it in the latest round of editing.
• Ariel pointed out the possible outcomes on page 2 of "Guidelines for Librarian Personnel Actions within the UCI Libraries: Introduction for LAUC-I Membership Discussion," which Landis distributed at the meeting.
• It was noted that "criteria" was sometimes used in a confusing manner in the document -- not to refer to Review Criteria 1-4, but to performance expectations. Ariel suggested and the membership agreed that all references to "criteria" in the document should be to the actual criteria for review.
• Kaufman: If approved, the document would, along with the manual, become another local document, such as the factual resume guidelines, which are official. It would most likely be appended to the manual and would be quotable as interpretation of Criteria 2-4.
• Ariel: Nothing in this document contradicts the MOU or APM, it's a guide to help librarians, moreso even than Review Initiators. Recommended that further revisions make it even more clear that librarians need to participate in Criteria 2 OR 3 OR 4 -- and that "balance" means balance between Criteria 1 and (2 or 3 or 4). Provided suggestions for making this clearer in the document.
• Landis: Executive Board and Judy Kaufman would propose revision of document when needed.
• Kaufman: Would like LAUC-I to recommend this to UL Munoff for approval, even if it's not perfect. We will identify problems when they come up as it is used in the review process. Kaufman will stay on top of problems and inconsistencies. Others noted that this document would be revised in practice.
• Horn: As one of the early original authors, would like to see it approved as official.
• The membership discussed scenarios for librarian involvement in professional activities that are not directly related to criterion 1 -- such as a non-manager taking management courses. According to Kaufman, this document would allow for activities not related to criterion 1 -- librarians would not be penalized for pursuing such activities. Some institutions do not support criteria 2-4 type activity that is not related to a person's job. This document says you may pursue that activity, but other (more related) activity must be sufficient.
• Kaufman: This document allows for a mix of professional activity that supports the library as a whole, as well as the individual librarian. There is a distinction between being allowed to do something, and actually having it be valued by the institution.
• Some members questioned whether this document does what LAUC Position Paper #1 cautions against -- getting too specific about the criteria.
• It was noted that activity related to acting or interim assignments is not reflected in this document.
• MacLeod pointed out that the document specifies maintenance responsibility in section 2.2, Ariel underscored LAUC-I's collective responsibility to maintain its content.
• Tanji made a motion that LAUC-I accept the document with edits proposed at the membership meeting (Kaufman added friendly amendment to recommend to UL for final approval).

Ariel thanked the membership for its reflection, and will ask LRC and Executive Board to examine the document in one year.

4. ALA 3rd Congress on Professional Education (COPE 3) Report: Kaufman

Kaufman attended the 3rd COPE Conference and came away thinking librarians should know what library staff are facing.

• Presented the COPE 3 website on the ALA Website and highlighted in particular:
• Target Outcomes
• Background Reading
• There was a lot of discussion preceding the conference on the COPE 3 listserv.

• ALA is developing a resource center for support staff
• Library Workers' Day
• Revision of language in ALA documents to substitute "library workers" for "librarians" when appropriate
• LSSRT members on the ballot for ALA election
• A Task Force to investigate new dues structure

LAUC-I will link to Kaufman's slide presentation and to the ALA COPE 3 site.

Ariel asked Kaufman how LAUC-I might work collaboratively to advance the goals of COPE 3; Kaufman had no specific suggestions but said she would consider this.

5. LAUC-I Committee Reports: Committee Chairs

Jacobs, Program Committtee:

• Several programs in the works:
• Lunch with LAUC-I -- including three more based on the June 2003 program on publishing
• Next program: A tour of the Huntington Library -- working on budget
• Two programs recommended by LAUC-I Executive Board: Librarianship & Library School -- one for library staff and student workers and another for campus groups/students.

• ALC has reviewed the draft strategic plan on career recruitment and outreach
• Preparing a website
• Discussing with steering committee how to identify a roster of librarians to be involved in mentoring, so we can pass along information about where we went to Library School, etc.

• Working with Program Committee on a program on writing research proposals

• Has reviewed four appointment files this year

This was a brainstorming session, with the stipulation that funds be used for collective professional development. Several suggestions were made to use money for individuals -- those are listed separately, below, and may be considered in the future:

Collective uses:

• Programming costs in general
• LAUC-I Librarian(s) of the Year (model: UCLA)
• To fund well-known speakers during National Library Week
• Mentoring activities
• Training, e.g. on mentoring, developing internships, etc.
• A professional electronic resource of benefit to librarians/library workers (subscription costs)
• A program/workshop on worklife balance
• External experts and workshop leaders (such as Infopeople) for programs such as "how to publish"

• Mentoring activities, e.g. joint conference attendance registration
• Supplement to professional development funds for individual librarians asked to participate in something unplanned -- as an invited speaker, e.g.
• Supplement professional development for (underpaid) Assistant Librarians
• Funding for conference attendance within Career Recruitment Program, e.g. library workers or student assistants planning to become librarians, e.g. ALA Midwinter San Diego
• Funding for LAs to attend ALA -- transportation, e.g.

7. Membership Issues for Consideration in 0304: Suggestions/Brainstorming

Ariel asked the membership to use the new listserv (lauci@lib.uci.edu), so that messages will be archived.

The membership questioned the need to maintain an alias for the membership and Executive Board, in light of the listservs.

ACTION ITEM: The Ad Hoc Task Force (Archives & T Drive Structure) will discuss and report back to membership with listserv guidelines.

8. New Business

None