LAUC-LA Executive Board Meeting
March 25, 2008 (08-06)
1:00-3:00 pm
Schoenberg 1230 (Green Room)

Present: Sharon Benamou, Keri Botello, Valerie Bross, Cathy Brown (recorder), Hong Cheng, Julie Kwan, Toshie Marra, Maureen Russell, Heidi Sandstrom (chair), Amy Tsiang

1. Call to order

The meeting was called to order at 1:06 pm.

2. Secretary's report

The January 22, 2008 Executive Board meeting minutes were approved as written.

3. Committee Report - CAPA (Kwan)

CAPA is reviewing files; about four to five have not come in. Kwan has found CAPA work to be a very rewarding experience. The Ad Hoc committees are productive which is very gratifying. The Ad Hoc Committee orientation went very well with 33 in attendance. Sandstrom thanked Kwan for conducting the session and Tsiang for doing the arrangements. In general Ad Hoc committee members have not felt they need any kind of credit for their work (which is confidential and therefore not mentioned in data summaries). Kwan feels the list of people who have served might be useful for appointment on next year’s CAPA. There are already 23 who have served. The stream of appointment reviews has slowed.

4. Announcements

Kwan said the Ad Hoc training was not listed on the LAUC-LA web summary of activities calendar.

Marra, Brown, Botello, Kwan and Sandstrom are attending the May LAUC statewide Assembly at UCI. ACTION: Sandstrom will send out a message on LAUCTalk in early April inquiring who is going and whether she needs to arrange for van transportation.

5. Chair’s report (Sandstrom)

Mentoring Lunch for New Librarians: Kwan, Cheng, Brown, and Russell attended the luncheon on March 20. Seven new librarians were in attendance, along with Gary Strong, and Pat Hawthorne and Jenifer Abramson from HR. Next time, Sandstrom will open it up for any LAUC-LA members who wish to attend in the mentoring role. Cheng thought it went well; he learned a lot too. Kwan enjoyed talking to the new librarians. Sandstrom said it was a challenge to facilitate and felt there was too much “how-to” detail on peer review. Brown concurred. Russell felt it was a little more formal than she anticipated. Kwan said it would be valuable to mention that we’re academic appointees and we have a peer review process. Overall, it was nice to have the new librarians attend with Strong in an informal setting. Sandstrom forgot to ask for a fact about them that doesn’t relate to their work, which she thought last time was a good icebreaker. ACTION: Sandstrom with talk with the HR people prior to the next luncheon.

Kwan asked if new people need an ombudsman, or do they talk to each other?

Academic Senate Committee on Libraries and Scholarly Communication: The Committee met in March. Sandstrom said they further discussed the YRL renovation, and also intellectual property as it relates to course packs. A pilot was done on course readers in which they looked at twelve random course readers and found that 80 percent of the content was already licensed by the Library. ASUCLA is willing to work on trying to decrease the overhead and prices for students. They asked the Library for help.

OID was working with faculty about podcasts: whose property do they become? There are risk factors for the faculty and they want guidelines. Strong talked a little about the budget—departments are concerned about possible ten percent cutbacks.

Since last month’s LAUC-LA executive board meeting was cancelled, Russell asked about the February meeting and the YRL renovation interest on the part of the Committee. The Committee would like a podcast update in May and discussion about the Library Strategic Plan.

For Board approval: Since it was originally asked over email, Sandstrom asked for the Board to approve Esther Grassian to serve as the replacement for Deborah Whiteman on the Nominating Committee. The Board approved it unanimously.

6. Further Committee Reports

Committee on Professional Governance (Benamou)
Sandstrom sent the committee a charge to review amending the Bylaws regarding a name change from the Committee on the LAUC-LA Distinguished Librarian Award. Copies of the charge were distributed to the Board. The committee will review the charge and Benamou will bring it to the Board for a vote at the April meeting. If approved, it will be presented to the membership for approval at the Spring Membership meeting in May.

Russell felt it would be good to start the discussion on LAUCTalk since before it was a very passionate issue. We could explain the rationale before it comes up for discussion at the Spring Membership meeting.

Benamou said the committee discussed the matter and Ruby Bell-Gam will do some research. There was a question about it being an awards committee and whether they could give out any other awards. ACTION: Russell will email Miki Goral for clarification. Historically, it was a way to honor librarians they felt were distinguished which could come at any time in their career and not be tied to the capstone step. Benamou said the committee feels the discrepancy in the name of the award and the name of the committee is confusing.

Mentoring Committee (Botello)
Botello had been out with illness and a death in the family but is back at work. Aura Lippincott received 63 interest responses from LAUC-LA members so they are in the process of pulling a mentoring group together.

Committee on Programs (Tsiang)
For the Ad Hoc Peer Review Committee orientation, they ordered enough food for 25 but 38 came, but it worked out okay. They spent $66. Sandstrom said they spent $116 on the Mentor Luncheon. It might be possible in the future to split it 50/50 with LAO.

The Spring Membership meeting will be held on May 1 from 1-4pm. The Librarian of the Year reception will be held from 2:30-4. Tsiang will send out an email on LAUCTalk and ask for a RSVP count. The room at the Faculty Center now costs around $400. The Librarian of the Year should be told at about what time the award will be given for family and friends to arrive. The Chair will know who that person is prior to the award.

Sandstrom will look at the budget but it was fine what they did in the Fall, which cost about $1600. There is a $5000 annual budget for LAUC-LA. Tsiang said she cut back from the previous year because there were a lot of leftovers. ACTION: Sandstrom will send out a “save the date” email on LAUCTalk.

Committee on Research and Professional Development (Cheng)
Cheng said there was not much to report. The committee recommended Maria Jankowska’s proposal for the research grant. She was the only applicant. The statewide committee’s practices differ from year to year. This year they didn’t come back to the campus committees to discuss the applicants. At the moment, Cheng does not know what the status of the statewide grant awards is.

Sandstrom said that LAUC President Bob Heyer-Gray reported there were seven total proposals and the statewide committee is looking at two good ones.

Cheng will probably have another brown bag orientation in May. He will also mention the nine mini grants again. At the December orientation they had past awardees talk which was very valuable. Jankowska submitted her application after attending the brown bag.

Librarian of the Year Committee
Sandstrom reported on behalf of Julie Graham that they have a faculty committee member, Vivek Shetty, School of Dentistry faculty member, who is also the Past-Chair of the Academic Senate. They have sent out the message to faculty on BruinPost, and now flyers have been distributed. The deadline for nominees is April 4.

Per a question by a board member, Brown said that flowers are not allowed to be given to the Librarian of the Year recipient, as it’s considered a gift. The clock is considered an award, and must be under $75.

7. Other Announcements

In other announcements, Sandstrom said there was a conference phone call with the statewide Executive Board, but not a lot is going on. She will forward a message regarding the Next Generation Melvyl.

8. Tours for New Librarians

Russell brought up the tours for new librarians, for either the Mentoring or Program committee to organized. Other Board members are interested. Maybe three a year, at locations such as SRLF, Film & Television Archive, Ethnomusicology Archives, and the Ethnic Studies Centers libraries. Maybe they can be started this summer. ACTION: the Committee on Programs will discuss.

9. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 2:30 pm.