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

MINUTES

Attending: Larry Alford, Steven Bell, James Bongiovanni, Carol Brigham (chair), Carla Cunningham, Mark Darby, Sebastian Derry, Kristina DeVoe, Andrea Goldstein, Jonathan Le Breton, Gregory McKinney (recorder), David Murray, Brian Schoolar, Sandi Thompson, Al Vara

• Approval of minutes of the 09/08/09 meeting:
  •  Approved.
•  Update on Scholarly Communications  (S. Bell):
  • Steven distributed a handout with an update on Scholarly Communications.  In his presentation, he spoke of three items: 1) SC at the national level, 2) SC on campus, and 3) the SC Committee. At the national level, the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPPA) makes sure that the public has access to research which has accepted Federal funding. The next step is to require other Federal agencies which have accepted Federal funding to provide access to the public. At this point Sandi asked whether this had begun with ERIC yet.
  •  Steven then spoke of open access letters and agreements, mentioning specifically NIH Policy Implementation (SPARC).  This was followed by a discussing of Open Access Week, Oct 19th through the 23rd. On Oct. 20th, Steven gave an ITUG presentation on the topic of author’s rights.
  • There is a Temple University Scholarly Communications Committee, the purpose of which is to create awareness about Scholarly Communications. The members of the committee are Mark F. Geblhard, Jane Gordon, and Chris
  • Steven finished by mentioning that the documents that librarians were asked to take to faculty last year was an inventory of Scholarly Communications. Many faculty asked how they would know who was doing what.
• Remarks by the Dean of Libraries (L. Alford):
  • In the past few weeks, Larry has been occupied with his trip to China and Tibet, his mother’s birthday, OCLC, etc. He congratulated Al, who will retire at the end of the year, and spoke of how much he will be missed.
  • In regard to the budget, the state still has not passed a budget. The freeze on hiring is still in place; when that is lifted will depend on when a state budget is passed.  It is not clear what is going to happen. We have permission to hire a firm to work with us for planning a new building. The first step is to develop a building program, then to get the money, then to begin construction, and finally, to move. There is progress being made on this.
  • Steven asked whether focus groups would happen first or whether that would follow the construction. Larry replied that we the users need to be involved
  • Carol Brigham asked whether there would be a Holiday party this year. Larry replied that he didn’t know but could not think of any reason why there should not be one. Carol would meet with Staff Council to discuss it.
• Old Business:
  • According to Larry, there has been no progress on Emeritus Status for Librarians.
• New business/announcements:
  • Carla Cunningham was welcomed back from a long absence.
  •  Jonathan reminded everyone that the freeze on travel funding applies only to out-of-state travel.  Larry then stated that the definition of in-state travel is going to expand to include Washington, DC, New York, and Delaware.
  •  The Merit Committee has been formed. The members are: Sebastian, Andrea, Carla, Jim, Derik, and Krystal.
  •  Sebastian announced that there is a new DVD display section, located in the same area as the new books display.
  •  Larry identified the photos in the room as being those taken by a student who travelled to Bolivia.
• Adjournment:
  • Meeting adjourned at 3:40 PM