LAUC-B 2024 Spring Assembly Committee Reports

LAUC-B 2024 Spring Assembly Committee Reports
Submitted for the Spring Assembly on May 6, 2024

Committee on Affiliated Libraries Affairs (CALA)

Report for the 2024 LAUC-B Spring Assembly
Prepared by Kristie Chamorro & Cyrana Dowell
May 6, 2024

Committee Members
Kristie Chamorro, Chair, 2024
Cyrana Dowell, Vice Chair, 2024
Betsy Frederick-Rothwell, TALAG Chair, 2024
Christina Velazquez Fidler, ex-officio, LAUC-B Vice-Chair, 2024

Activities
This year we continued to gather and review documentation for this committee after some past confusion regarding the roles and responsibilities of CALA members within LAUC-B.  

We also planned and hosted the Affiliated Libraries Fall Assembly, which was held via Zoom on December 5. The assembly featured presentations from Betsy Fredrick-Rothwell (Environmental Design Archives), Kris Kasianovitz (Institute of Governmental Studies Library), and Kristie Chamorro (Law Library). In collaboration with LAUC, we also organized the LAUC Winter Social at Freehouse on December 6 (flyer copied below). Despite a heavy rainstorm, which impacted attendance, the event provided a great opportunity for LAUC members to get together.  Based mainly on the challenge of winter weather, we have decided to move the social event to the spring in order to encourage higher attendance rates and provide more flexibility in selecting a venue.

CAPA 2024 Spring Assembly Report

Members, 2023-2024
Ramona Collins, Affiliated Libraries Representative, Interview Coordinator (2025)
David Faulds (2026)
Jennifer Nelson, Affiliated Libraries Representative (2024)
Liladhar Pendse, Position Description Coordinator (2025)
Anna Sackmann (2026)
Naomi Shiraishi (2026)
Samantha Teplitzky, Chair (2024)

Interviews
CAPA interviews all candidates for positions in the Librarian series to share information related to the Librarian review process and evaluate their potential for obtaining career status at Berkeley. Since November 1, 2023, CAPA has conducted 12 interviews for 4 positions: 

Discovery Librarian (Library IT)
Head, Licensing and Electronic Resources Unit (Collection Services Division)
Literatures & Digital Humanities Librarian (Arts & Humanities Division)
Pictorial Curator (Bancroft Library)

Position Descriptions
CAPA reviews position descriptions for openings in the Librarian series. Since November 1, 2023, CAPA has reviewed 7 position descriptions: 

Revised Licensing Librarian (Collection Services Division)
Sciences Instruction Librarian (Sciences Division)
Public Health & Optometry Librarian (Sciences Division)
Deputy Director (Bancroft Library)
Assistant Head (2 versions) (Sciences Division)
Cataloging and Metadata Librarian for Rare Materials (Robbins Collection, Berkeley Law)

Academic Review

CAPA has met weekly since March 13, 2024, to review 27 cases, including 3 for promotion, 3 for career status, and 1 for both promotion and career status. We charged 3 Ad Hoc committees to review these 7 cases. CAPA has completed reviews for the promotion and career cases as of May 1, and plans to complete the review process for all cases by May 28.  

Comments
CAPA plans to update content for the Fall review workshop. Please send your suggestions and ideas to the CAPA Chair.

While CAPA has long made loose recommendations for the page count of self-evaluations, we have found that length varies greatly due to font choice, margins, and other formatting. We have also found that effective and successful dossiers do not necessarily require long narratives. As a result, CAPA would like to transition to word count ranges for the self-evaluation portion of the dossier. To that end we have analyzed the word count of self-evaluations (excluding goals sections) for the past two cycles and found the following.

All reviews have an average of 2850 words. By type, standard merit reviews have an average of 2500 words, ranging from a minimum of 1200 words to a maximum of 4700 words. Reviews with a request for a greater than standard increase have averaged 3500 words and ranged from 1400 to 6000 words; promotion and career, from 1400 to 6000 with an average of 3500; and special reviews from 1100 to 1600 with an average of 1400. 

We welcome comments on this topic and expect to issue recommendations for word count ranges (for the self-evaluation portion of the dossier) in the fall.
 

Nominating and Elections Committee Report

Report submitted by Melissa Stoner (Chair)

Only one member's term last year ended resulting in our Nominating and Elections Committee (NEC) continuing with three continuing members this year, along with two new members, for a total of five NEC members.

The NEC updated the LAUC-B Volunteer Form (2024-26), and sent it to LAUC-B membership in March along with a reminder to identify members interested in serving on the Executive Committee (ExComm) and other committees, including LAUC statewide committees and LAUC Vice Chair. The responses were helpful, but it was necessary for the committee to also do one-on-one outreach to encourage LAUC-B service. 

Next year’s election slate for Executive Committee (2024-25) is as follows:
for Chair: Christina Velazquez Fidler (current Vice Chair/Chair-Elect pro tem)
for Vice Chair/Chair-Elect: Salwa Ismail (The current Chair, Jose Adrian Barragan, will become Past Chair)
for Treasurer:  Jackie Gosselar 
for Secretary: Becky Miller
for two Library Representative seats: Jessica Tai, [awaiting confirmation from 2nd rep.]
for Affiliated Library Representative-Elect/CALA Vice Chair: Charlotte Daugherty (The past year’s Rep-Elect/CALA Chair, Cyrana Dowell, will become the Affiliated Rep on ExComm)

We will also take nominations from the floor during the spring assembly. Biographies for all candidates will be available on the LAUC-B website when voting begins.

Thank you,
Melissa Stoner (2024)
Salwa Ismail (2024)
David Eifler (2024)
Gisèle Tanasse (2025)
Kate Peck (2025)

Committee on Research and Professional Development (R&PD)

Report for the 2024 LAUC-B Spring Assembly
Prepared by Timothy Vollmer and Claude Potts
May 2, 2024

Committee Members
Claude Potts, Co-chair, 2024
Timothy Vollmer, Co-chair, 2024
Corliss Lee, 2025
Julia Larson (Affiliated Library Representative, 2025)
Dean Rowan (Affiliated Library Representative, 2024)
Ann Glusker (Statewide R&PD rep, ex officio member)

Activities

LAUC Research Grants
On January 31, 2024, the statewide research & professional development committee sent out the call for proposals for LAUC Research Grants. In the spring, LAUC members proposed mini grants ($500 max) or presentation grants ($600 max). Proposals were due to our local R&PD committee on February 16, 2024, and a reminder was sent to LAUC-B members on February 12. Our committee received two mini grant proposals. Julia Larson and Dean Rowan reviewed proposals. In the end the committee only sent one to the statewide R&PD committee for consideration because the other was deemed to be ineligible per LAUC grant guidelines. 

New(ish) Librarians Event
Our committee is hosting the annual New(ish) Librarian Presentations on May 9, 2024 from 3-4pm on Zoom. The event has been a way for library staff to learn from (relatively) new librarians about their jobs, projects, and unique aspects of their work. Presenting this year will be Kris Kasianovitz, Osman Celik, and Ruth Haber. All library staff are welcome to attend, and we’ve also invited student library workers to join the Zoom. 

Following the presentations, LAUC-B will also host a happy hour for members and library staff at Freehouse from 4:30-6:00pm. Join us for drinks, snacks, and discussion with colleagues. Thank you to LAUC-B Ex-Comm for securing a budget to provide food and drinks for the Happy Hour attendees. 

Corliss Lee, Claude Potts, and Tim Vollmer coordinated the presentations and happy hour.

[Event report back]: There were 55 people in attendance (via zoom). Two of the presenters have shared their slides: Ruth Haber, Kris Kasianovitz. The Happy Hour at Free House was also a success, with about 25-30 attendees.
 

LAUC-B member survey on professional development activities

A topic of discussion at the February 2024 LAUC-B Executive Committee meeting was librarian professional development funding. There was an interesting discussion—prompted by Sam Teplitzky and Jeremy Ott—about potentially re-running a 2018 survey of LAUC-B members regarding their professional development (PD) activities and experiences.  

An updated survey will gather useful data for LAUC-B regarding: 

• How often librarians engage in various types of professional development in-person vs virtually, especially following the COVID pandemic;
• The factors that are preventing librarians from participating in professional development activities; 
• The percentage of Library and LAUC-B funds librarians are using annually, and whether librarians are seeking additional funding or use personal funds to supplement PD activities; 
• The kinds of local professional development programming librarians would like the UCB Library to sponsor;
  and more.

LAUC-B’s R&PD committee agreed to take on this task. We are in the process of working to update the survey questions (special thanks to Ann Glusker and Jeremy Ott).  LAUC-B Ex-Comm has offered some suggestions and guidance. We aim to launch it in May 2024 and have the survey open for 2-3 weeks. Following that members of the R&PD committee will analyze the responses and generate a concise report. Conduct survey response analysis and generate a report with the main findings. The report will be shared with Ex-Comm for review, and eventually shared with the full LAUC-B membership. 

Library Researcher Working Group
The Library Researcher Working Group (LRWG) hosts a monthly informal forum where library professionals engaged in scholarly and creative projects can share and discuss their ideas with peers. Co-convenors this year were Naomi Shiraishi and Tim Vollmer.

We’ve held five meetings in the Spring 2024 semester (January-May). Our topics have ranged from hearing a report back on a LAUC-funded research project, previewing a lightning talk for a conference, hearing about an Oral History Center workshop related to future research, previewing a panel presentation on copyright and AI, discussing best practices in conference poster design, and more.