1. Matthew “Matt” Ducmanas is the new special collections cataloger in Cataloging & Metadata Services. Matt has been working at Temple Libraries as part-time cataloger of the McGlinn Theater Collection.  He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Ohio State University and his MSLIS from Drexel. While he was working here, he also served as a librarian at the Moore College of Art & Design. He also has experience at the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals and the Free Library of Philadelphia. He has no pets, but has been nurturing the same spider plant since the third grade.
2. Kimberly “Kim” Tully is the new curator of rare books in the SCRC. Kim was previously at Miami University in Oxford, OH, where she was Curator of Special Collections.  Her BA is from UPenn, and she holds an MLIS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an MA in History from the University of Notre Dame. She is interested in opera and Bollywood.

A fund raising plan is being seriously designed. A naming gift could be an endowment for future funding of the library.

Conversation turned to professional librarianship and staff eligibility for TAUP and AAL. Lucia expressed concern that the various professional staff members who don’t hold a master’s degree in library science are being excluded from conversations at AAL. Some examples given of positions that fit this category were given and included post doc positions, potential scholarly communications position, digital library initiatives positions, and potential CLIR fellow positions. 

Through the course of the discussion some official definitions were brought up. The definition of “librarian” from the TAUP bargaining agreement is: “All full-time professional librarians functioning primarily as librarians, on the Paley Library budget or in a College or School included in the bargaining unit.” 

Additionally, the AAL bylaws regarding membership were read: “All full-time professional librarians of the Temple University Libraries or covered by the TAUP Collective Bargaining Agreement shall be voting members. Other librarians serving Temple University who have advanced degrees in librarianship are invited to attend but may not vote or serve on committees. Any interested full-time staff member of the Temple University Libraries who is considered to have academic qualifications comparable to a librarian may be voted into membership.” 

It was noted that non-TAUP librarians, such a department heads and HSL and Law librarians and are represented in AAL and they and support staff are represented on committees.

A question was raised about whether the Libraries or the University could provide assistance for staff who would like to pursue an MLS or otherwise continue their LIS education in programs outside of Temple. This was attempted in the past as a partnership with Drexel, but Drexel was not very cooperative about it. Some people expressed concern about how this type of thing would be defined as a benefit and how it would be determined what kinds of classes would be acceptable.

The conversation returned to the issue of getting more ideas from more people to official bodies. Some expressed that having a group of professional librarians is a good thing and some felt that the All Staff meetings were sufficient opportunities to bring ideas from other staff to the organization. Others felt that the All Staff meetings are too big to have a consequential conversation. A suggestion of having another group for more broadly defined professional staff was given but there were concerns about having too many official groups. The Assembly was reminded that the AAL bylaws state that any full time staff with professional credentials can attend AAL meetings and the Assembly can vote new members in. Revised wording of membership to AAL could be written and voted on in upcoming meetings.