Library Assembly Meeting
October 22, 2008

All officers were present.
Meeting came to order at 2:05 PM

Director's Report
Ice Cream Social
-         Larry Wilt (LW) announced that the ice cream social held prior to the Library Assembly (LA) meeting was sponsored by the LEC to honor all thosewho have served on Cheers through the years, for all the work they do/have done to support staff..  He announced each current member's name and presented them with a 40 GB portable hard drive as a token of appreciation.  He also gave each LA officer the same generous gift.
Reception & Gallery Tour
-         LW reminded the attendees that there would be a pre-reception in the Gallery at 3:00pm hosted by the Friends of the Library in honor of retired faculty and staff.  Those present would have the chance to meet the new Provost, Elliott Hirshman.  The virtual tour of the current Gallery show,The Creative Photograph in Archaeology, led by Dr. Mason of Ancient Studies would begin at 4:00pm.
Building Projects
-         The roofers are 2/3 of the way through their 90-day time limit.  We still do not know their exact end date.
-         Elevator repair with asbestos removal was successfully completed Tuesday 10/21/2008.
Budget
-         The University must give 1.5% of their budget back to the State.  That equals ~$115,000 of the Library's budget.  However, that amount is covered by salary savings.
Archivist Position
-         The Search Committee has come to a decision and LW has asked the Provost to make an offer for the Archivist position. 
Homecoming Festivities Thursday 10/23/2008
-         There will be some garage closings.
-         Thursday evening there will be fireworks in front of the Library.  All safety precautions are in place.
Coffee Shop
-         LW has the full set of plans for the new coffee shop.  Anyone who wants to see them may do so.
-         The new plans are improved from the original plans, and the structure will not be as imposing as initially was proposed.
-         They are awaiting final approval and will have the cabinetry constructed off-site and installed in ~9 weeks.

Open Announcements
Maryland Charity Campaign
-         Linda Durkos (LD) announced that the University wants 100% participation in the Maryland Charity Campaign this year. Everyone was encouraged to participate, even if they can only give $1.00.  An anonymous donor has said that if 705 UMBC employees donate to the campaign, s/he will give $25 for each donor.
-         The deadline to give forms to LD is 11/18/2008.

UMBC Staff Awards
Michael Dick discussed the upcoming Staff Awards and passed out a brochure with more information.
-         There are four (4) types of awards
o   Presidential Distinguished Professional Staff Award
§  Eligibility: full-time Exempt staff
§  Award:  $2,500 for professional development
o   Presidential Distinguished Staff Non-Exempt Award
§  Eligibility: regular, gull-time non-exempt staff
§  Award:  $2,500 for professional development
o   Jakubik Family Endowment Staff Award
§  Recognizes staff contributions to student success
§  Eligibility:  staff member who has worked at UMBC for at least 5 years
§  Award:  $500 stipend and honored at UMBC event in Spring 2009
o   Board of Regents USM Staff Award
§  Eligibility: any full-time exempt or non-exempt staff member who has worked in the USM for at least 5 consecutive years
§  Award: $1,000 stipend and honored at UMBC event in Spring 2009 and by the Board of Regents in Summer 2009
-         UMBC has had 17 Board of Regents Awards through the years.
-         Nominations:
o   Submissions due 10/30/2008
o   Nomination form:  www.umbc.edu/StaffAwards
o   Forward to the Staff Awards Committee (SAC) in the Office of the Provost
o   Nominate your fellow staff members!  You can even nominate yourself.
o   The SAC will meet after 10/30/2008 to make their selections

CDMWG Report
Janet Hack(JH) of the Communications and Documentation Management Working Group discussed the upgrade of the Allshare folder.  Michelle Flinchbaugh informed the LA of the CDMWG decision regarding informal communication.

1.       Allshare Folder Structure Upgrade
a.       New Folders
                                                              i.     Committees:  for committees and working groups
                                                             ii.     Interdepartmental:  for projects shared between 2-3 departments, or short term projects
                                                           iii.     Library-wide: for entire Library, e.g. liaison list, faculty publications list
b.      Folders will be moved by noon on Thursday, 10/23/2008
c.       JH will send out an email notifying staff of the move, including the names of the CDMWG members in case anyone needs any help.
d.      Those with linked documents were warned that the links may break due to the move, and were encouraged to contact CDMWG members to help with changing the links.

2.       CDMWG & Informal Communication
a.       The CDMWG members prefer to focus on written documentation and do not wish to take on the work of improving verbal/informal communication.
b.      A call must go out for members for a Communications Working Group

Department Reports
1.   Accounting & Receiving:  Three copiers will be delivered on Monday 10/27/2008 - 1 for Reference and 2 for Serials. Alla will be back on Monday. 

2.   Acquisitions:  All documentation is now uploaded in Confluence, including procedures and bookmarking.

3.   BMS: Staff has started working on the Rosenfeld cleanup in Special Collections.  They have trained their second student in copy cataloging.  Vicki Sipe thanked the Reference department for making space for them during the days when the roofing project caused unbearable odors and noise.  She also thanked Steve Jones and LITS staff for installing software for BMS staff in Reference and Special Collections.

4.  Circulation: LaTanya West welcomed Austin Smith, the new 30-hour LTI who has replaced Sherma's position.  Shifting:  5^th floor > serials were withdrawn; 7^th floor > finished shifting.

5.  CMILL: The book sale will be held in the Rotunda on Wednesday, November 12^thfrom 9:00am to 7:00pm and Thursday, November 13^th from 9:00am to 4:30pm.  There will be a preview for faculty a week before the book sale for them to find items for use in their academic departments.  Natalya returns at the beginning of November.

6.  LITS:  Staff members are being sent out to check people's computers for individual applications to ensure compliance with copyright.  Please note that they are not spying on us, they simply need to know about individual software applications.  LITS has been handling the audiovisual needs for the Library as well, and has been very active this month.  The new A/V equipment on the 7^thfloor and in the Gallery (permanent projectors) has helped this process.

7.  Media: There will be renovations to Room 259 this fiscal year, including the installation of a flat screen TV and a PowerPoint presentation space.  There have been lots of loans, and this month has been their busiest, with 6,000 non-reserve rentals and over 8,000 reserve transactions.

8.  Reference: The new Science Librarian, Shu Qian, starts Monday, 10/27/2008.  Reference will hold a reception and invites everyone to come meet Shu on Monday between 10:30 - 11:30 am.  There will be three in-person interviews in November for the other open Reference Librarian position.  The Reference department is still giving instruction classes, but they appear to be slowing down.

9. Serials: The shift in the West Wing is almost complete. Marcus Dagold thanked Peggy Randle and the Serials students for processing the many gifts that were received.

10.  Special Collections (SC):  There are 17 new collection records in the catalog.  The finding aid to the Albin O. Kuhn papers is now online: http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/specoll/Kuhn/index.php. Many classes have visited SC this semester and our statistics are very high.  We led a brown bag tour for the Visual Arts department and hope to reach out to more departments.  All of the plastic is finally off the shelves!

Committees and Working Groups
1.   Cheers: Halloween events:  50/50 raffle tickets will be sold starting Monday, 10/27/2008.  The drawing will take place on Friday, 10/31/2008.  Cheers members will distribute goodies on Friday as well.

2.  LEEC:  They are planning for events in January.

3. Building Report:  *Melissa Button is recovering and is expected to return in a few weeks.  LW thanked Simmona Simmons for standing in to get the payroll done.  Computer chairs are being ordered for the demo Student Learning Center (SLC) and to replace broken user chairs.  The SLC project, led by May Chang, is moving forward.  They have the initial vision meetings with the architect in November.  The vault for high value items in SC will be more like a cage with card swipe access.  It will be located at the back of Room 110 (the "bowling alley").  Refurbishing funds came from the campus and the proposal for the vault has gone to the campus project manager.  The Lower Level:  The long-term plan:  to get rid of shelving & furniture parts and make space for collections and processing. Shelving is being removed from the first floor and will go to the basement.  In the future, the lower level will be fitted with fixed shelving, eventually to be replaced by compact shelving.  The movement of the Porter collection to the basement has been held up until Facilities Management fixes the leaks in the large air handler pipes. LW has requested the pipes be insulated to avoid mold growth.

4. PR & Marketing: The No Food & Drink sign is going to stay as is, but may be re-worded in the future.

5. Library Web Group:  Nothing to report at this time.

6. CONTENTdm: The website for the public interface is almost ready to go live.  It should launch shortly.  Staff will be informed about when it will be publicly available.  The next project will be to scan the Hughes company glass plate negatives.  Susan Graham is working on a test batch to share with Vicki Sipe so that they can produce a workflow for scanning and metadata.  DRAFT by Susan Graham, 10/23/2008