Library Assembly Meeting
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
1:00 – 2:00 pm
159 Ellis Library

Attending:  Members: Laura Buck, Erin Zeller, Gary Cox, Matt Stottle, Steve Clayton, Stephen Stanton, Mark Ellis, Bette Stuart, Suzy Bent, June DeWeese

Ex-officio: Ann Riley (LMT), Jim Cogswell (LMT), Deb Ward (LMT), Felicity Dykas (MULAC)

Guests: From Digitization Unit, Catalog Dept.: Elaine Huntsucker and Regina Guccione

Absent: PT Martin

• Announcement:
  • Director Jim Cogswell: LMT held retreat last week.  A written report will be out week of July 5^th.  Planning an Open Forum July 21^st, 2- 3:30 pm.   Focus will be on staff input.  The biannual All Staff meeting will be August 16^th. (CORRECTION – it will be August 18^th).
  • Committee Chair Bette Stuart:  Library Assembly election results:  Jack Batterson will represent Cataloging.  Karen Witt will represent Special Collections.  The Acquisitions vote ended in a tie. A representative will be named after this week’s run-off election.
  • MULAC Chair Felicity Dykas:  This is her last Library Assembly as MULAC representative.  Next month, MULAC will be represented by incoming chair Anne Barker.

• Dual Appointments:  What are the implications of employees who work in two different departments?  Should they be allowed to vote for representatives in both departments?  If only one, which one? If both, can they be a representative?  Can they potentially represent both departments?  Or have concurrent appointments – one representing each department?
  • Discussion:  after discussion it was concluded that this was a bylaws issue.
  • A suggestion was made to create a bylaws subcommittee.
  • Some felt the issue should just be dealt with rather than creating another subcommittee.
  • Chair Elect Gary Cox suggested that we discuss by email.

• Follow-up discussion of Ex-Officio members and their membership status.
  • Roberts Rules definition of ex-officio was distributed by email prior to the meeting suggesting that members in such status are, by the positions they hold, full members with votes and all privileges.
  • Discussion shifted to whether or not specific members, in this case ex-officio, should be non-voting members?
    • List of ex-officio members of Library Assembly:
      • Library Management Team (LMT) members = up to 4
      • Staff Representative Committee (SRC) Chair  = 1
      • MU Librarians and Archivists Committee MULAC Chair, LMT =1
  • Jim Cogswell, as Director of Library and member of LMT would prefer to not have a vote.
  • It was pointed out that it isn’t really a decision making body so there really aren’t a lot of votes.
  • Also since every department is represented, does having groups like SRC and MULAC present double representation?
    • Some asked, “If needed, what does the department representation lack?”
    • Others felt the unique roles of MULAC and SRC merit full membership.
      • MULAC = Librarian/Archivist representation.
      • SRC = an ombudsman role.
        • SRC is not department specific.
        • SRC is not classified/academic specific.
  • Ann Riley as someone who was on the task force to create the charge of the Library Assembly:  It was the intent of the charge for the Library Assembly to control its own bylaws.  It was also discussed and decided that bodies such as SRC and MULAC would have full memberships.

• Draft Library Assembly Review – Draft of the survey were shared.
  • After considerable discussion the Assembly agreed upon 7 questions to be distributed via survey monkey.
  • Ann Riley is going to share electronically with Library Assembly so that they can review the text one more time before the survey gets distributed to the Library Staff.