General Assembly Meeting

Paley Library Lecture Hall
Tuesday, September 9th, 2003
2:00 P.M.

Present:C. Bell, A. Berhanu, C. Brigham, C.Cunningham, M. Darby, M. Edsall, A. Goldstein, A. Harlow, C. Lang, J. LeBreton, B. Mayes, M.Pastine, F. Rowland, B. Schoolar, S. Stormont, M. Thomas, S. Thompson, A. Vara, C. Weng, T. Whitehead, B. Wright.

Introduction – The Minutes of the General Assembly Meeting of May 13, 2003 were approved as amended.

1. Elections Nominations and Elections Committee. (SamStormont and Carol Brigham). Ballots were collected and nominations from the floor were requested.
2. Congratulations to Carla Davis Cunningham for her promotion from LI to LII.
3. Report of the University Librarian, Maureen Pastine
   1. The Kardon Storage/Retrieval/Access working group continues to work on the project of planning for the moving of volumes to the new storage facility. Jonathan LeBreton and Maureen Pastine are working with Facilities Management and the Design Architect to transform the facility into usable space for library storage. The date for the move has not yet been finalized. Updates will be forthcoming.
   2. Strategic plans for Temple’s schools, colleges, and libraries are due to the Provost by December 31, 2003. The library’s initial draft will be completed prior to November 1st, 2003, in order to gather further input from stakeholders and library personnel prior to completion and submission. This plan is focused around fundraising efforts for the next few years. Members of AAL will be in the working group to assist in completing the final mission, vision, and goals/objectives, as well as the working group for the strategic plan. All library staff will be notified when the results of the external review are known. Information from the LibQUAL survey will also be used in the Strategic Plan.
   3. Subject Specialists are submitting and will be maintaining a list of needed purchases by subject and interdisciplinary areas for any potential new funds that might be made available for acquisitions and access. These lists must include order/purchase information prior to submission to the Chief Collection Development Officer who will then review for final requests with the University Librarian and Jonathan LeBreton before a request is submitted to the Provost and President each year. In future years, this work must be done prior to June 1st at the end of the Fiscal Year.
   4. The Library will be having an all staff meeting to discuss the LibQUAL results and setting priorities for the most crucial needs.
   5. We anticipate another all staff meeting with the Provost and President to discuss the external review once the results are available.
   6. Margaret Jerrido’s recent submission of a grant proposal was approved for approximately $14,000, and Mary Edsall’s recent submission of a grant proposal was approved for approximately $38,700.
   7. The Director of Library Development will be working for 20% of her time with the University Press. The Libraries will be working on collaborative projects with the Press. We are pleased that Alex Holzman is the new director of the University Press.
   9. Department heads have been provided a copy of and the URL for the Association of Research Libraries’ “Research Libraries and the Commitment to Special Collections”, approved by the ARL Board of Directors on February 6th, 2003, and forwarded to the Art Directors on August 7th, 2003.
   10. The University Librarian thanked everyone for another highly productive and successful year.
   11. On September 11th, Dancing in the Stacks, a performance and conference will be held in Paley Library, hosted by the Philadelphia Dance Collection at Temple, Mary Edsall, director.
4. Election results

PARA (Promotion and Regular Appointment) Committee – Aslaku Berhanu, Mark Darby

Continuing Education Committee – Carol Lang

Sam Stormont thanked all those who were willing to run for election for these committees.

1. New Business – Travel Reimbursement Allocation

Jonathan LeBreton introduced a new travel reimbursement allocation proposal which was already proposed to the Administrative Council and to the Steering Committee. Currently there is a three-tiered structure. This structure, by limiting the amount that a librarian can be reimbursed for any one conference, may be discouraging librarians from attending certain conferences depending upon location.The new proposal will set the dollar amount allocation for each librarian for the entire year of $800.

A variation of this proposal would be that, depending upon the percent of underutilization of the funds, an additional reimbursement of $100/year may be offered to those who have not yet achieved regular appointment status as librarians. Any leftover funds would be needed for exceptional circumstances, and for non-librarians (i.e. systems personnel) to attend local seminars, etc.

The Library would still need to know everyone’s conference plans at a set time to plan for the funds. Maureen Pastine encourages all librarians not only to attend, but also to be actively involved in order to build a scholarly reputation. Professional association meetings in a subject area are also considered to be beneficial and relevant.

Librarians could elect to stay with the three-tier system, or to go with the flat allocation.

From the floor it was proposed that participation on a committee or presenting at a conference be justification for funding on a higher level. Another idea proposed was to post organizational committee participation publicly on the library’s website so that librarians would be more visible to other professional associations. Funding for conferences is a particularly important commitment to incoming librarians.

A proposal was made and voted upon that Jonathan will develop a plan, which will be implemented for one year, after which time the matter will be revisited.

Forum

The Librarians adjourned to the Law School Library, where library director, John Necci gave a tour of the recently renovated facility. The Law School Library houses 600,000 volumes on twelve stack levels, and serves 1,000 students and 58 faculty members. Stacks are closed, meaning that the library patron requests to see an item which is then individually retrieved by a staff member. The Summer of 2003 saw Phase I of the library renovation, and Summer 2004 will see Phase II. The tour ended with refreshments in the historic Rawle Reading room. William Rawle was the author of the first commentary on the United States Constitution. In addition, he was founder of the law firm “Rawle and Henderson” in 1785, the firm with the longest continuous practice in the United States.

Chairperson Sandi Thompson thanked John for the fascinating tour, for hosting the Academic Assembly of Librarians forum, and for his gracious hospitality.

Anne Harlow, Recorder — November 10, 2003