Minutes
LAUC-LA Executive Board 06-07
Tuesday, April 18, 2006, 1:00-3:00 p.m.
College Library Conference Room

Present: Janet Carter, Debe Costa (Chair), Miki Goral, Cynthia Lewis (Recorder), Aura Lippincott, Maureen Russell, Ken Wade, Hannah Walker
Absent: Keri Botello, Kris Kasianovitz, Diane Mizrachi  
Guest: Gary E. Strong 

1. Call to order

The meeting was called to order at 1:10 p.m.

2. Agenda review and announcements

Gary Strong will visit at 2:00 p.m.

3. Secretary’s Report

-Approved February 21, 2006 and March 21, 2006 Executive Board minutes

The minutes of the February 21 st and March 21 st Executive Board meetings were approved.

4. Chair’s Report (Costa)

There is still the issue of the remaining funds from both Esther Grassian’s LAUC presidency as well as the $9.00 LAUC-LA balance in the credit union account. We need to resolve what to do with these funds before the fiscal year ends. The best idea is to transfer the funds to Lise Snyder to use for her LAUC presidency.

Jan Goldsmith and Gordon Theil located a July 12, 1994 LAUC program cassette tape “Like Information for Chocolate.” The cassette will be given to Ethnomusicology and converted to digital format and placed in UCLA LAUC-LA Archive.

The issue about creating finding tools for use with the LAUC-LA Archive came up. Miki has been working on creating finding tools as she conducted a history of LAUC-LA some time ago. She went through all the files awhile back, but there is still plenty of work to be done. Miki continues to receive boxes of LAUC-LA material as librarians retire and clean out offices. She needs help going through the material to find missing documents and weeding out the duplicates. In order to do this, she needs time and space to spread out. Debe will put out a message asking for folks to help. The group can use the main reading room in Powell this summer in the morning as the library will be closed then. This can be the LAUC-LA Archive Task Force.

5. Vice-Chair’s Report (Russell)

No report.

6. Committee Reports

Committee Report - Committee on Library Plans and Policies - BSTF Report ( Walker)

Hannah reported that no further comments on the BSTF were received after our last meeting and she submitted the report to Debe.

Committee on Professional Governance (Wade)

We will discuss the wording for Standing Rule 1 next meeting.

Committee on Research and Professional Development (Costa)

On May 1 st, Debe will meet with Pat Hawthorne, Jenifer Abramson, Claire Bellanti, and Maureen Russell to discuss the local procedures for distributing funds to LAUC members .

CAPA Update (Goral)

Keri was in an accident, and thankfully, she is okay. She will be recovering at home. CAPA is continuing to work on reviewing files.

A question has come up about a procedural issue involving the use of signature sheets for Appointment actions. CAPA has been asked to start having signature sheets for Appointment actions. In the past, signature sheets have not been used.

Also, a question has come up about the role of the Library Human Resources representative on Librarian Search Committees. In the past, this person has served in an “ex officio” role. But now the LHR representative seems to be part of the decision making process. As CAPA works through the first year of using the new CALL, committee members want to make note of what clarifications need to be applied to the CALL. The Appointment procedure still needs to be developed more fully in the new CALL.

There are 35 actions during this Peer Review cycle, and so far, 13 packets have come to CAPA.

7. Gary E. Strong

Gary joined the meeting at this point. Debe asked about the latest news on the status of the BSTF report. Gary was pleased that there was such great interest in the report. The ULs will meet with SOPAG on May 4 th and 5 th. There is a 4 hour block of time designated to discussion of the report. Gary hasn’t seen the compilation of comments yet, but he was impressed with the level of discussion and seriousness with which the report was taken. The report will affect all of us in one way or another and he was pleased with the better than expected attendance at all the various meetings discussing the report. The LAUC-LA comments went to LAUC system wide. Some of the comments Gary heard included discussion about having one consistent interface, the capability to narrow a search, having a broad base for research, meeting the needs of new students and transfer students, and faculty wishes about putting materials on Reserve.

Gary discussed the CDL Recommender Project. CDL received a Mellon Grant and they are using UCLA data for research. This includes studying recommender functions - “People who selected this also liked this.” The research also includes using spell check… “Did you mean…?” Gary hopes to invite someone from CDL down to UCLA to talk about this project. There are possible problems with some of these features - spell check doesn’t work very well for multi-lingual searches. Limiting subject headings to just geographical is problematic. Gary also observed that there is not enough research going on in the field of cataloging. After all, subject headings and metadata are very similar. In addition, Gary talked about the no duplication policy and his hopes that usage statistics should trigger the ability to purchase additional copies of heavily used items.

The BSTF report raises important questions about how libraries use bibliographic resources to provide customer service. The services for sciences and for social sciences and humanities can be quite different. Gary likes the analogy of the library as laboratory. He hopes to engage faculty in these discussions as well.

Gary also mentioned that he will have some funds available for initiative grants.

Miki raised the question about signature sheets for Appointments. Gary responded that he is the one who asked for this to be done. This is meant to keep everything above board. Gary needs to know who participates in hearing each appointment. We need to document who is at each meeting so we know if there is a problem, i.e., if someone should have recused him/herself but didn’t. We need to be accountable and we need to be sure everything is above board so that we can prevent any future trouble from campus auditors.

8. Other Business

We will discuss the wording of Standing Rule 1 at the next meeting.

9. Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 2:56 p.m. without objection.

Respectfully submitted,

Cynthia Lewis
LAUC-LA Secretary