Executive Committee Minutes 05/08/2024

LAUCB Executive Committee Meeting Minutes.

Wednesday, May 8, 2024,

10am-1130am.

Zoom.

 

Present

  • Ex Comm: José Adrián, Jesse, Michael, Christina, Misha, Kristie, Jackie, Jen.
  • Guest: Kate Peck.

Announcements

  • Check-ins.
  • Secretary duties: Becky on slate: assuming duties now? Michael will ask her.
  • LAUC directories.
    • José Adrián will message membership about updating LAUC-B and LAUC rosters with non-@library emails.
  • Call for DLA Committee volunteers coming.

Reports

  • Treasurer’s Report (Jackie).
    • FY25 draft budget in the LAUCB budgets folder.
    • Assumed head count and budget the same.
    • Budgeted values of allocations pending.
    • Thinking of pro-rating 2 year PD budget for folks who join with the period.
    • Desire expressed to fund a CAPA turnover event.
    • Can we accommodate folks who started in pandemic who never got a mentor lunch?
    • Michael will send list of folks who meet this criteria, based on LAUC-B record [done].
    • DLA is in FY25 budget.
    • Jackie welcomes any questions.
  • LEIC (Jackie)
    • Last meeting took place on April 18.
    • Discussed Bancroft Reckoning Committee; OBI Conference; Movie Night.
    • 5 people applied for OBI Conference funding but were waitlisted; 2 were funded. LEIC will work on smoothing this process.
    • Budget request cycle discussed; small group formed to work out details, including creating a budget request form.
    • LEIC objectives including subcommittees’ discussed. 
    • New subcommittee volunteers needed: email coming soon. We will need a new rep to come to Ex Comm.
    • Next meeting May 16.
  • Affiliated Libraries (Kristie)
    • TALAG is working on a possible guided tour of the Affiliated Libraries for the new UL.
    • Other welcoming ideas for new UL welcome; and all-Affiliated meeting may happen to brainstorm this.
  • LIBR Meeting (Christina)
    • May 2 meeting. 
    • JMM reported on text mining/AI and publisher negotiations. Rachael has been working on this to create satisfactory language.
    • NRLF funding: roughly $2m saved by having other UCs contribute.
    • Discussed writing a letter to Susan Wones, but much of meeting devoted to letter to new Chancellor Lyons. A copy will be shared with LAUC.
  • Meeting with the UL (José Adrián)
    • Meetings with new UL will be proposed.
    • Gave JMM the LAUCB slate names.
  • LAUC Statewide (José Adrián)
    • No meeting; meeting next week.
    • José Adrián was asked to forward a letter written by Columbia librarians’ letter to statewide to ask if LAUC has plans to address the attacks on UCLA students. Statewide said they approached UCLA librarians to see if they were intending to put out a statement. Deciding if a statement from statewide desired, or a letter individual librarians can sign. Conversation continuing.

Continuing Business

  • Questions regarding monographic allocations (Jesse)
    • Please see below: Background email from Jo Anne Newyear Ramirez.
    • There is no documentation on how selector allocations were devised in the past. It seems they were at least partially based on faculty/student FTE, and prior AUL preferences. Efforts to rebalance the budget in the past have been met with strong resistance from a number of selectors and collection managers. Some Division/Unit heads have moved funds within their divisions.
    • Monograph budgets don't always provide the best indicator of collections funding as some disciplines don't rely as heavily on monographs (sciences) vs other disciplines (arts and humanities).
    • Collections budgets going back to FY2015 are also available in the Selector Liaison Manual
    • Since 2017, the Library has lost approximately $5million from the collections budget, including the $1.7million cut taken over the previous two fiscal years. All budget cut information going back to 2017 is available from a tab on the Scholarly Resources libguide. 
    • Selectors are highly encouraged to attend the Collections Budget Forum held each fall. Recordings and documentation are available from 2020-present. 
    • To stretch collection budgets, selectors can make proposals via the Strategic Collections Acquisition program or anytime directly to the Collection Development Leadership Group (CDLG) through their division/unit head or Jo Anne/Jesse for major purchases. In the past, these have included funding for OverDrive, enhanced funding for Kanopy, and very recently Cambridge Higher Education.
    • Please reach out to your division/unit head or Jesse/Jo Anne for any additional questions about the collections budget or monograph allocations.
    • Background email from Jo Anne Newyear Ramirez, dated 04/29/2024:
      “The allocations have roughly been the same since I arrived in 2016. What has happened since 2016 are budget cuts. Over 5 million plus has been reduced from collections. All this information on the how and what is available on the public web site.
      Historically, I was not really able to determine how the allocations were set up but it seemed to me by running numbers that it was based roughly on Faculty FTE. Previous AULs, Jean, Bernie, Charles and Jim S., would enhance allocations based on selectors sending in a proposal. I saw a few of those, not all, and area studies was usually the recipient. I have not  chosen to follow this strategy and instead instituted strategic purchasing where Division Heads and EAL Director weigh in on purchases when I had money. Of course budget cuts have reduced my ability to do this as well.
      The budget plan consists of several elements which I have tried to enlighten selectors on at the budget forums. There are campus unrestricted funds, endowments/gifts and contracts (restricted).  The plan is divided into expected revenue, and then allocations (central allocations, selector allocations, endowment, and LBNL subscriptions). Of course some of the acronyms, such as central funds or CDL resources (Tier 1 and 2) may not be meaningful to non-selectors.
      See complete explanation of budget plan and serials reduction report; list of selector allocations going back a few years.
      I also want to note that as a part of the serial reduction project this past year there was Taylor & Francis savings and several central resource cancellations which was to go to a process to increase allocations for selected areas based on a methodology we were supposed to develop. All the Division Heads and the EAL Director and selectors indicated they would rather see their Divisions and Units reduction amount reduced than go thru this process.
      If selectors are the ones questioning the allocations, I suggest they bring up their issues to their Division head or Director and Jesse and I are also happy to discuss. It has always been my intention if we were to receive permanent new funding to have a process to only allocate based on a new methodology to underserved areas. Unfortunately we have not been in a position to do so over the past 8 years I have been here.
      I am sure Jesse can address questions but if the LaucB executive wants to set up a meeting with me to have Jesse and I walk thru the budget plan we can. I will definitely be doing another presentation to selectors in late August or early September once the new budget has been set up.”

New Business

  • Letter of introduction to incoming UL, Suzanne Wones
    • José Adrián and Christina working on letter for new UL to have when she arrives.
    • Can be shared with group once outline drafted; comments welcome.
    • Some ideas discussed, including transparency, values, professionalism/APM, advocacy in CoUL, PD survey results (if available or forthcoming).
  • Summer schedule
    • Transition meeting usually in August; June or July often skipped - do we have preferences? Seems like we will cancel July; may move date of June meeting.