LAUC-B Spring Assembly Minutes
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
8:30 - 10:00 AM
Bechtel 120ABC
I. Welcome (M. Phillips)
- A brief welcome was given by M. Phillips.
II. Announcing New and Retiring LAUC-B Members (M. Phillips)
- There are no new librarians. Susan Garbarino from the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural
Economics has left.
III. LAUC-B Elections: Announcement of 2010-2011 Slate of Candidates and
Call for Nominations (J. Schultz)
- LAUC-B slate: for Vice-President/Chair Elect, Nick Robinson; for Secretary, Shannon Supple
and Jim Ronnigen; and for Library Representative, Kathleen Gallagher and Monica Singh.
- LAUC state-wide slate: for Vice/President/Chair Elect, Mitchell Brown and Maureen Russell;
and for Secretary, Michael Sholinbeck and Cynthia Marconi.
- Nominations from the floor were solicited, and none were provided. J. Schultz also announced
that LAUC-B will be voting electronically this year instead of using paper ballots.
IV. LAUC-B Committee Reports
A. CAPA Chair's Report (L. Jones)
- L. Jones announced the CAPA members and gave a brief summary of activities.
- Four position descriptions were reviewed: Reference and Instruction Librarian, Thomas J.
Long Business Library; University Archives Processing Archivist, Bancroft Library; San
Francisco Examiner Project Archivist, Bancroft Library; and Research, Outreach and Web
Services Librarian, Institute of Transportation Library.
- Two candidates for a position were interviewed (Business Library).
- Fifty cases are eligible for review, 10 of which are from Affiliated librarians. Four Ad Hoc
Committees were appointed to review 11 cases (5 career status and 5 promotion; 1
promotion/career status; 1 accelerated; and 1 distinguished status). Thirty-three dossiers have
been received. CAPA has completed review of twenty-one of them.
- CAPA is planning to revise the annual Fall reviews workshop, based on the report by the
CAPA Task Force on Special Issues. Everybody is encouraged to attend. CAPA is also
currently in touch with the Academic Personnel Office (APO) regarding the possibility for
dossiers to be submitted electronically in the future and will report back to ExComm soon.
B. Executive Committee Chair's Report (M. Phillips)
- M. Phillips acknowledged each of the ExComm members and announced that the LAUC-B
committees have been busy (reports were sent out previously and will be posted on the web site
soon). M. Phillips encouraged members to consider serving on committees. There were no
applications for the Townsend Fellow this year and no applications for LAUC research grants. J.
Spohrer is the current Townsend Fellow and has an exhibit on Dutch anti-Nazi literature in the
Layne Gallery on campus.
- C. Lee, Chair of the Distinguished Librarian Award Committee, briefly announced that she is
gathering members for her committee. The faculty member will be George Oster. An intent to
nominate message should be sent to C. Lee by May 30. Final packets, which include a C.V.
and up to 5 supporting letters, will be due in September. On the web site
(/dla/index.html) are the criteria, as well as a list of previous
winners. It is also fine to self-nominate for this award.
- The next LAUC-B Conference will be in Fall of 2011. I. Wang is the Chair of the conference
committee and a call will go out soon asking for committee members. The theme will be related
to trends in higher education and how libraries should or have already been responding.
- Templates for the Statement of Responsibility will be up on the LAUC-B web site soon for
members to use.
- The Affiliated Libraries Assembly will be held on May 4. Dan Greenstein will be the guest
speaker.
- Instead of a LAUC state-wide Spring assembly, there will be a regional meeting for the
Southern campuses on May 6 at UC Irvine.
- M. Phillips acknowledged the CAPA Task Force on Special Issues and thanked them for their
hard work. Members of the Task Force are: J. Eason, N. Kobzina, S. Supple, and C. Tarr. Their
task was to clarify the Berkeley procedures document as it relates to: 1) Distinguished status, 2)
the concept of degree equivalency, and 3) timeframe for next review in cases of out-of-cycle
advancement or cases of denied advancement. ExComm is ready to move forward with
publishing the newly revised Berkeley procedures. The most significant change in the
procedures is related to Distinguished status, which will be de-coupled from the merit review
process. Instead, it will be voluntarily sought and will be an honorific. ExComm is exploring the
possibility that members who go for Distinguished status will automatically get Emeritus status
upon leaving the University.
V. The Future for UC Librarians
This LAUC-B Assembly departed from the usual format. Rather than an invited speaker, the
meeting brought members of the library community together to discuss issues related to the
future of UC librarianship. This state-wide discussion was spearheaded by LAUC President
Lucia Diamond at the state-wide assembly in December.
A. Welcoming Remarks (T. Leonard)
- T. Leonard mentioned a book titled This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians
Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson. According to T. Leonard, this book reports what librarians
are really up to. Although the author notes 2 things that librarians have done wrong in the past,
everything else librarians have done have been great. The author even draws new analytics for
library professionals, calling them finders and also keepers.
- The Bain diagnostic report has been posted on UC Berkeley web site (see
http://www.berkeley.edu/oe/) and indicates that Berkeley could potentially save tens of millions
of dollars. T. Leonard encouraged members to view the PDF slides on the web site. He will
send a message out about the report soon, mentioning what he thinks are the best slides to
review. There is a lot of local optimization mentioned, but the report does not touch on the
Library much. Student services are noted in the report, but libraries are not perceived to be a
part of student services. An article in todays San Francisco Chronicle
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/13/BAIH1CTI5M.DTL) features the
results of the report.
B. Discussion Groups (Introduction by L. Diamond)
- L. Diamond mentioned that this discussion is based on position paper #5, which details the
functions of librarians in the University of California system. The purpose of having this
discussion is because there is a need to create a resource that administrators can use to find
information to lead us to future discussions. The hope is to more clearly define what a librarian
or library should look like in the future. With constantly changing technology and unreliable
budgets, something that can be easily amended is needed. This discussion started last
December at the LAUC state-wide assembly at Berkeley. Now, each campus is holding
discussions, and in May at UC Irvine, there will be a chance for the Southern campuses to
meet. This past year, the LAUC blog and wiki have been expanded so that librarians on all
campuses can have a virtual space to collaborate in.
- The topics for the discussion groups included: Reference, Scholarly Communication, Library
Personnel, Technology, Collections, Library Buildings, and Technical Services. Each group was
facilitated by an ExComm member, who also took notes on what was discussed.
C. Conclusion
- Each table shared a few interesting and/or provocative statements and provided brief
summaries of what was discussed. The conclusions from todays discussion will be posted on
the blog (http://laucassembly.blogspot.com/). Note that the heading "LAUC Assemblies Blog"
does not reflect the entire contents of the blog, as it has become more than just for the LAUC
Assemblies.