University Library Committee 1998-1999

Annual Report

From: James Schombert (Chair 1998/9 University Library Committee)

To: Senate President Jeff Hurwit

Re: Annual Report of the University Library Committee

Date: 5 May 1999

Dear Senate President Jeff Hurwit:

This memo contains the final report of the activities of the University Library Committee. The current membership, legislative history, minutes of our meetings can be found at the Comm web site (darkwing/~libcomm). At this time, we recommend to the Senate that the Library Committee be disbanded and its duties transfered to appropriate Dean. While the duties of the Committee are not overwhelming to its members, we find that we have less than marginal impact on the Library and its operations.

The Head Librarian and his staff do a superb job, their performance rating was extremely high from their recent external review. In addition, the Library is well connected to the needs of faculty and the students through its numerous surveys and the Library membership on most of the important committees on campus. The lack of demands on the Committee reflects in low attendance and our inability to find a chair for next year.

Faculty governance is important. However, governance is not served by overwhelming the faculty with committee work. I believe a marginal improvement can be made by eliminating committees that duplicates work. And I believe that the LibComm falls under that category. The recommendation to eliminate the LibComm only met with slight resistance from the membership, and I hope you will consider our recommendation.

Maintained by: Sheila Gray, skgray@uoregon.edu
Last Modified: 08/14/2006