University Library Committee

June 11, 2008
Minutes

PRESENT: Deb Carver, Alisa Freedman, Julie Haack, Andy Karduna, David Levin, Alex Mathas, Eric Mentzel, Gina Psaki, Dev Sinha

GUEST: Laura Willey, Access Services

The meeting was called to order at 2:05 p.m. by Chair Sinha. He announced that he will not be continuing as a member of the ULC as he will be on sabbatical next year. Deb thanked Dev and the other members for contributing to a very productive year.

UPDATE ON AUTHORS' RIGHTS
Dev provided a brief update on the status of the authors' rights initiative. The Senate unanimously approved the recommendation of the committee; implementation is the next step, which includes:

providing a brief presentation during the new faculty orientation sessions in September (Andy has agreed to help with this)
include information on the library's new faculty website
invite Russ Tomlin to attend a ULC meeting next year to discuss more ideas on how to educate faculty on authors' rights
Bring speakers to campus. NOTE: Carl Bergstrom, Biology Professor from University of Washington, will be on campus November 7 to discuss the scholarly publishing industry, journal economics, and techniques such as Eigenfactor.org for journal ranking.

The first ULC meeting in the fall should continue this discussion. It is important that faculty need to be made aware of the importance of using an author's addendum.

UTILIZATION OF CLASSROOMS, GROUP ROOMS, AND FACULTY CARRELS
One of the library's objective's is to maximize the use of space and create space/services which encourage faculty and students to use the facility. Laura Willey, Assistant Head-Access Services, gave a brief overview of the handout on use of public rooms in the library. Staff surveyed classrooms, locked and unlocked group study rooms, faculty and graduate carrels during Winter '08, with observations being made at various times throughout the day from the middle of Week 3 to the end of finals week. The recorded use is shown below:

ITC Classroom 97%
Unlocked study rooms 85%
Locked study rooms 76%
Large group/seminar rooms 59%
Edmiston Electronic Classroom 14%
Faculty/Graduate Studies 5%

Use of the electronic classroom is quite low. To increase use of that space, it will become an open room - where users may go in to use the computers when it is not reserved. The larger group/seminar rooms also reflects a lower usage rate. In an attempt to increase use of those spaces, the library has made five of these rooms available to the Registrar for classroom scheduling. The Classroom Committee will be consulted on upgrading those rooms with the appropriate technology. The rooms will still be available for student study groups to reserve when a class is not in session.

Even though the 64 faculty/graduate study carrels are all assigned (2/room), usage is extremely low. There are many students looking for quiet study rooms and when they see all these spaces empty, they question why they cannot be made available to students for studying. ULC members were asked how they would react to some of these rooms being transferred to the pool of rooms for studying, or how we might make faculty use them more. The committee offered several comments/suggestions:

Use might be low due to inadequate lighting - no natural light except in studies on 4th floor.
Some faculty may only use space to store material; maybe find another location for this type of service that would also include tables to do work
Carrels may not be necessary for some faculty as they can have books delivered to their department
Some faculty may be willing to allow students to use their room at various times during the day - although this could be difficult to manage
Focus on faculty working on tenure - give on a term basis, with option to renew
Look at GTFs - could use as office space
Install locked cabinets in the rooms - some faculty might be willing to let students use the room at various times throughout the day for studying

In summary, it was suggested that the library keep all the rooms for faculty and graduates for this coming year, focusing on 5th year faculty and GTFs. The library will attempt to conduct another room use survey winter term and will report back to the ULC in the spring. If the use rate is still low, we will re-visit the idea of converting some of the rooms into study spaces for individual students.

ULC PRIORITIES
The library set up a blackboard site for ULC members to provide input on the possible priorities which were discussed at the May 6th meeting. Due to busy schedules, there was little feedback posted to the site. Dev asked the group to discuss and identify the top priorities to focus on next year. He briefly reviewed the 10 items introduced at the May meeting. They are listed below:

Better utilization of Scholars' Bank
Electronic format of theses
Customized library interface web pages
Initiate a publishing consortium for faculty and administrators
Information and technology services subcommittee
Funding/Lobbying
Additional staffing/hours
RLSC/Space utilization
Tracking faculty publications
Information sharing - how to educating faculty/disseminate information

Discussion followed. The committee feels that all ten warrant consideration, but felt that the focus next year should be directed towards the following priorities:

Funding for the library. It will be important to see how the new budget model affects the library. The committee could consult with the library's development team on helping with the library's fund raising efforts and could also lobby the legislature when appropriate.
Publishing consortium. JQ Johnson will take the lead role in this and Dev will help when he is available. Deb added that a recent survey of the 108 ARL libraries showed that at least 44% of the libraries already have an active suite of publishing services for their campus and with another 26% in the planning stages. Libraries are helping with copyright advice and dissemination of content.
Customization of web pages. Creating web pages aimed at specific departments. Faculty and graduate students would find this very useful.
Information sharing. How do we share information with all faculty on campus? Make information more visible on the web page.

One discussion point that the committee felt was a very good idea for the library to implement is to create an ongoing exhibit in the library featuring "new publications by faculty."

The meeting adjourned at 3:40.

08/09 ULC OBJECTIVES
Below is a summary of possible agenda items for 08/09, submitted by Dev following the meeting:

Summer/fall, send letters addressing funding for the Regional Library Service Center.
Fall, start working on ideas for additional library funding. Invite the Library's Development Team to attend a meeting to help brainstorm ideas. When appropriate, invite some ULC members to meet with donors.
If there is movement on a pan-university publishing coalition, discuss and help revise the proposal, presumably later in the year, to be presented to the Senate.
Customization of library pages; initiate discussion and if necessary, work with subject specialists. May not be necessary if subject specialists are able to work directly with their departmental representatives.
In the spring, revisit the process of assigning faculty and graduate study rooms; did room use increase during 08/09?
Communication with faculty - how do we share information? Invite a representative from university's communications office.
Follow up on authors' rights.

Maintained by: Sheila Gray, skgray@uoregon.edu

Last Modified: 09/18/2009