Hello everyone,
Congratulations to Pat Jones, PT Martin and all the ESFAC members on the success of their proposal to the Student Fee Capital Improvements Committee for expanded seating and other improvement to the BookMark Café! The café will receive $50,000 in improvements due to their efforts! Students will really benefit.
The other budget news is still not good, with a 5% cut overall. We still hope the state legislators will reconsider their cuts to MU by the end of their session in early May. Please try to come to one of the open forums on the Libraries’ budget; details went out this week. There are two sessions, so we accommodate most schedules, I hope.
The other bad news is the Chancellor’s announcement of a hiring freeze. I’ve reported on that to Library Assembly and MULAC. Watch NewsNotes for a summary, and bring questions to the open forums. You will see an ad out soon for the supervisor of the offsite depositories. This position has been vacant since Brian Cain left, and we need to fill it for health and safety reasons. It has been re-classed to a non-library title, to better suit the warehouse aspect of the work.
LMT will be working on goals for the Libraries later this spring, and we will be sharing them will all staff.
Campus Facilities will be working in Room 202 over Spring Break to take down the temporary offices (that have been in the south end of the room for years) and painting in 202 in planned for this summer. Room 114 is scheduled to get some new blinds. These are needed improvements, and I know we all welcome them.
I’m off to talk to the Illinois ACRL meeting tomorrow, but will be here next week. See you soon,
Ann