Present: Wendy Batson, Jack Batterson, Abbie Brown, Felicity Dykas, Tammy Green, Terri Hall, Steven Hammer, Ann Riley, Marcia Strong, Bette Stuart, & Deb Ward
Next meeting scheduled for ????
Discussion on Future of Library Assembly:
The following proposals were presented for discussion—
At the conclusion of the meeting, it was decided to hold open forums for all library employees regarding the proposals show below. As Library Assembly is a representative body of the libraries as a whole, it would best serve to have input from those it represents as to whether it should continue as is, continue with changes or be disbanded. The forums would promote discussion and other possibilities for this group.
Proposal #1 – Keep Library Assembly as is with charge to
- Serve as a communications group and forum to share information across units
- Act as advisory to the Director of Libraries.
- Operational matters may be discussed. Any decisions or actions will be referred to the appropriate library entity.
- The Chair or Library Director may poll the Assembly
- All members are responsible to communicate reports of the Assembly discussions to their respective areas and to solicit information and questions from those areas for presentation to the Assembly as needed.
Proposal #2 – Keep the Library Assembly’s current charge (as above), but add the following charges:
- Improve the quality and effectiveness of communication within each department and unit. Model & encourage honest communications
- Provide a forum for ethical discussion of issues, in an atmosphere of mutual respect and propose solution collectively (problem solving with honesty, creativity, collective & effectively)
- Employees can make recommendations, proposals and requests for the development of departments (employee must work for that department), development of library services and resources. All recommendations, proposals and requests will be discussed and reviewed within Library Assembly and passed to the appropriate persons in the MU Libraries.
- Form a learning community, dedicated to employees’ concerns, ideas, actively representing the best interests of employees and improving morale (with sincere actions).
- Pursue, foster and nurture excellence, by encouraging great leadership (with our four core values, Respect, Responsibility, Discovery and Excellence), professional development of co-workers and development of individual departments or units.
Proposal #3 – Model charge after that of MU Staff Advisory Council
- Advise Library Director of matters of mutual interest to MU Libraries staff
- Provide an appropriate and effective channel for bringing staff concerns and interests to Library administration
- Act as a liaison for staff and administration
- Handle matters that are referred to them, those that the Library Assembly initiates and those that the Library staff may request
Proposal #4 – Structure has Library Director, Recorder provided by Administrative Office, two elected officers: Chair and Vice Chair. The rest of the membership consists of the current Library Assembly departmental divisions, but without elected representatives. Divisions can set up rotating Reps, so that more staff can participate in meetings and less time is required of any one representative. Or if the dept. div. chooses, they may keep sending the same Rep. to all the meetings.
Departmental Reports:
RAIS Report (Wendy Batson)
On June 8, the MU Libraries Government Information Department hosted its 31st annual Missouri Federal Depository Library Program Conference. The following libraries sent representatives: St. Louis Public Library, Washington University, Saint Louis University, St. Charles City-County Public Library, Missouri University of Science and Technology, MU Law School Library, Rockhurst University, William Jewell College, Truman State University and the Missouri State Library. Marie Concannon spoke on “Maximizing the Benefit of your Depository Status.” MU Libraries Director of Advancement Matt Gaunt was a special guest presenter, speaking on how to use FDLP collections and services to attract private donations for the library.
Digital Services Report (Adrienne Arden)
We have been working with LTS on a script to process material that we will submit for inclusion in the HathiTrust. It now works! Four additional volumes of the Vetusta Monumenta were added to the HathiTrust a few days ago. We have one left to process and submit. Check out the volumes currently available: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100807769. A big thanks to Mathew Stephen for his work on the script.
In anticipation of being able to contribute to the HathiTrust regularly, Tammie Busch scanned a volume of the Illustrated London News from 1913. This volume will fill in a gap in the volumes already available in the HathiTrust. Read more about the Illustrated London News and view the volume we have digitized in the MU Digital Library at: http://dl.mospace.umsystem.edu/mu/islandora/object/mu%3A351999. We will be submitting this volume to the HathiTrust soon. We will keep this single volume in our digital library as a way to point to the HathiTrust collection, where additional volumes we scan will live.
The Platbooks of Missouri are a collection that is heavily used by researchers and genealogists. In order to facilitate the use of the digitized collection, Adrienne Arden has been adding area coordinates to the page names. This is a small change that will make sought after pages easier to find. Cass County example: http://dl.mospace.umsystem.edu/mu/islandora/object/mu%3A129292/pages
Recently, when digitizing a 1916 thesis, we found a treasure. Folded in the back was a hand-colored map of Missouri, showing the distribution of soils. When viewing the map, you will learn where in Missouri you might find Knox silt, Marshall silt, Shelby loam, Summit silt, and more. The original map was included as Plate X in the thesis "The Soils of Missouri" by Henry H. Krusekopf. The map the author used was published in 1914 by the Missouri Bureau of Geology and Mines. The base map shows railroads, cities with a population of over 5,000, and county seats. A copy of the map is available in the map collection in the MU Digital Library. http://dl.mospace.umsystem.edu/mu/islandora/object/mu%3A355185.
Felicity and Tammie will be attending ALA in Orlando this month. Tammie is going as a Public Library Leadership Fellows in the MU SISLT program. Felicity will be busy with committees (ALCTS Continuing Education and the Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access), visiting vendors, and attending programs.
We have been working with LTS and the Journalism Library to setup a new file-sharing method that will give the Journalism Library a digital storage site for Journalism Masters Project files. Digital Services will be able to retrieve files from the site so that they can be added to MOspace. Journalism Masters Projects often include numerous files and the new server space will accommodate the number and size of files often included. We’ll be testing the use of this new site with the 2016 Journalism Masters Projects.
Health Sciences & Veterinary Libraries (Terri Hall)
Amanda Sprochi currently has a cataloging practicum student, Natalia Wiggins-Prelas. Her practicum will conclude at the end of July.