Academic Assembly of Librarians
General Assembly
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Paley Lecture Hall, 2:00 PM

MINUTES

Attending: Larry Alford, Derik Badman, Steven Bell, James Bongiovanni, Carol Brigham, Mark Darby, Sebastian Derry, Kristina DeVoe, Andrea Goldstein (chair), Carol Lang, Molly Larkin, Gregory McKinney (recorder), David Murray, Fred Rowland, Brian Schoolar, Adam Schambaugh, Gretchen Sneff, Sandi Thompson, Al Vara

•  Approval of minutes of the 1/13/09 meeting:
  • The minutes were approved.
• Remarks by the Dean of Libraries (L. Alford):
  • Larry had had a meeting with the Provost earlier in the day and discussed emeritus status with her. A couple of changes had been suggested; she was supportive of emeritus status and would consider how to make it work. Also, she had met with Tony Wagner to review the budget situation; they have been meeting with the Academic Assembly across campus. If invited, she is willing to speak to the AAL assembly about the budget; this would probably require calling a special meeting.  Actual cuts were still undetermined. There will be a permanent $1.15 million reduction for next year, including $491,000 this year.  The proposed materials budget contains no inflationary increase; that will be part of the $1.15 million reduction. This will result in a $1 – 1.3 million loss of purchasing power. It will be necessary to find ways to offset this by making some cuts this year in back runs, new electronic resources, facilities work, other things.  There has been some savings from the hiring freeze. Larry has asked for permission to use this money for services and licensing fees; this would make the budget whole for next year. A 10-14% cut in services and licencing for 2010 would give us time to plan how and what to cut. We could systematically plan how to deal with faculty and other issues. The University still continues to be concerned about enrollment next year, especially in regard to transfers.
  • The new Health Sciences Library will be open by July 1st and will be the intellectual center of that campus. It will also be one of the best Health Sciences facilities anywhere. There continues to be administrative support for a new library on Broad Street, although not officially, where the temporary buildings (Pearson Hall, for example) in the McGonigle area are now located. It would be a ‘signature’ building for the University and would give Temple a notable presence on Broad Street. Financing is the problem.
  • Carolynne Martin continues to work on replacing furniture, etc. It may be slower than planned, but it will happen.
  • Congratulations to Sebastian for the success of the Media Services Department.
  • Larry asked for questions. David Murray asked about the role of Paley, and the Quadrangle, if a new library were built. Larry stated that a decision had been made not to tear down any buildings.
• Old business:
  • There was no old business.
• New Business & announcements:
  • Steven Bell announced that the Scandinavian librarians were coming March 26th in the afternoon. There would be 18 of them. More details would be announced later.
  • Gretchen made an announcement about the new cellphone audio tour, and also announced that there would be an E-Resources Fair at SEAL on March 25th.
  • Kristina DeVoe reminded everyone of the upcoming Continuing Education Event on March 25th, a presentation of Urban Archives by John Pettit.
  • Fred Rowland suggested that someone talk to the librarians about the Jewish Archives.
  • David Murray stated that the deadline for Library Prize submissions was approaching. He further stated that all the judges had been lined up and that everyone should continue to advertise the event.
  • Steven Bell announced that on April 2nd, Rich Sweeney would lead a Millennium Panel Session, the 1st half of which would be in Kiva Auditorium, in discussing the Millennium Generation.  The 1st part would be targeted at faculty, and the 2nd part at Temple students.
  •  Sebastian announced that the interview which Fred Rowland and he did with Leslie Banks would be available in a few weeks.
• Adjournment:
  • The meeting adjourned at 3:30 PM