10:00-11:30am
Attendees: Erin Foster (guest), Adnan Malik, Mohamed Hamed, John Shepard, Manuel Erviti, Abby Scheel, Virginia Shih, Toshie Marra, Jianye He, David Faulds, José Adrián Barragán-Álvarez, Scott Peterson, Stacy Reardon, Lynn Cunningham, Jeremy Ott (facilitator), Frank Ferko, Sheehan Grant, Claude Potts, Ruth Haber, Susan Xue (recorder)
Announcements
No announcement
Welcome/introduction to Erin Foster, Service Lead, Research Data Management Program
Erin Foster introduced herself and her work.
The RDM Program continues to be a partnership between the Library and Research IT. Erin's position as 'Service Lead' for the RDM Program is administratively within Research IT now rather than the Library; however Erin does report to the Library in part through Salwa Ismail.
Erin currently works with the Acquisitions on the process of datasets acquisitions; and finding out those datasets that require special access permission.
She is very interested in working with A&HC members, figuring out how her role can support their work, promote data management, and bringing her expertise to researchers whom members work with.
She is happy to help with existing work in data management that A&HC members are doing. She thanks Stacy for getting her involved in Digital Publishing Series and will do a class with Scott in September.
Erin will be happy to come to A&HC meeting again to have more structural conversation if members have work to share.
Update on the work of the Cataloging and Metadata Council, which is in need of a new representative from the Arts and Humanities Council (A. Malik)
Adnan Malik reported that the Cataloging and Metadata Council (C&MC) needs a new representative from the A&HC; he has served on the committee for the past two years.
Adnan updated that the C&MC stopped regular meetings for a while, in order to re-assess the role of C&MC, and to get IT staff involved in the context of SILS work. The committee will start to meet again.
The C&MC is basically a forum for catalogers and people who are involved in any aspect of cataloging to discuss policy and issues, and come out with recommendations. One example was that the C&MC discussed and recommended changing the offensive subject heading "Illegal alien".
Going forward, SILS implementation will be the major focus for the next few years, and should result in especially stimulating discussions. A&HC's input will be important in this.
C&MC's next meeting will be in September. Meeting schedule is every first Monday, 3pm, every month.
Mohamed Hamed asked if the rep needs to attend other meetings to know enough about cataloging, in addition to attending C&MC meeting. Adnan noted that the role of the rep is more a bridge and communicator between the councils, it is not necessary for the rep to have cataloging background.
Jeremy encouraged members who would like to volunteer to contact him.
Discussion: What do we want from the Council during the exceptional upcoming academic year?
In his opening remarks, Jeremy Ott reminded the Council that one year ago we made some changes based on a survey conducted within the Council. We cut various council and expertise group reports unless there is important business to discuss, reduced the number of meetings, and focused more on presentations about members' work and professional activities, such as international trips. Now in virtual space, we should think again about modifications. This discussion is for us to take a look again at the survey/results last year, and see what is important to members as far as content, meeting time and other issues are concerned.
Today's discussion will also address an enhanced charge received from Beth Dupuis, and shared by Jeremy. Beth asks all councils to consider diversity, equity, and inclusion as an addition to their charges this year: "The UC Berkeley Library stands firmly in opposition to discrimination and systemic oppression. Social justice, equal rights, and equal treatment for all are bedrock principles for the UC Berkeley Library, as we fulfill our public mission. Recent events have made clear that we must do more to address racism in the workplace and in the campus community. Without changing the primary purpose of this group, you should carry out your charge in a way that advances the Library's commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion within the context of your group work. I will ask that the charges (and rosters) for all your groups are updated on our Staff web site. This new statement is meant as a complement to your core work -- adding this lens to the specific subject or functional focus that your group champions."
Jeremy Ott proposed that "we set aside circa 15 minutes at the end of each meeting to hear from one or two Council members, including brief Q and A, on an example of diversity, equity, and/or inclusion from within their own work as subject specialists. This could be reading and explaining a short passage from a writer from a marginalized group or who addresses these issues within your subject area, it could be listening to a recording, or viewing a work of art, which relates to these themes, or it could be news of something important that you or your colleagues are doing within a professional group. Other ideas are welcome. There are no bounds of time or place for this, and I hope that we will hear examples of these themes within or related to our work that correspond to the wonderful geographic, cultural, and chronological breadth of expertise which lies within this council. We will learn from each other, which is one of the best functions of the Council, and through our minutes, our colleagues in the Library and beyond will learn more about us and our tremendously diverse collections and professional endeavors. Beyond our revised charge, this new part of our meetings will support the Library's strategic plan vision statement 3. Grow as an adaptive learning organization."
The discussion was conducted in four breakout rooms for 15 minutes to address the four questions in the survey last year, the new topic and Jeremy Ott's proposal. As before, Council members are especially interested in presentations on their own local work and professional interests, presentations on their collection development and conference travel (now through Zoom), presentations by non-Council library staff, and presentations by staff/faculty of the UCB or broader academic community. Function Council reports and discussions of short readings continue to be of lower interest, while library and campus tours, ordinarily of some interest, are largely impractical at this time. The current meeting frequency of circa seven meetings per year remains desirable, while 90 minutes (currently) and 60 minutes were both considered appropriate meeting durations. Going forward, we might choose to end some meetings at less than 90 minutes.
Other suggestions include that the Council prioritize matters that cannot be accomplished over e-mail, spend less time on special resource discussion/voting, attempt to engage with faculty and graduate students, and advocate for the continuing importance of print materials.
The Council was supportive of the enhanced charge section on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and of Jeremy Ott's proposal to address it. DEI is at the heart of much of what Council members do, and members' presentations and discussions going forward will help them to be better aware of each other's work and, through the minutes, represent this to the Library. It was noted that DEI relates to issues that are of current concern to council members, including strategies for the processing of collections on under-represented groups (which do exist but are impacted by staff time), and the risk of excluding many global voices that do not fall within typical US/UK online resources as print ordering continues to be restricted and has in other ways been deemphasized.
Next meeting: October 1, 2020