SIRS (McKeldin Service+ Information & Research Services
Desk Committee)
Minutes of meeting
December 6, 2000
Present: Glenn Moreton, Ross Laguerre, Eric Lindquist Evelyn Yocco,
Cindy Todd, Susanna Van Sant, Bill Stanek, Gerri Foudy

1) Service Plus Questionnaire Discussion.  The group thanked Glenn for
his work assembling the survey responses and creating the report.
We had a lively discussion reviewing the survey results.  In summarizing
the positives we noted that those serving the desk believe that overall
we have a good service attitude and that one of our biggest strengths is
our ability to work together successfully.  Some of the things that we
need to work on are staffing levels, training/student staff skill levels,
and better referrals among those on the desk.  We discussed some of the
frustrations that librarians feel when they observe other librarians whose
behavior at the desk is not meeting the standards that we aspire to.  For
example, librarians playing solitaire while at the desk or appearing to be
too busy to serve users.  If nothing else, the librarians serving at the
desk should be role models for student staffers.

SIRS agreed that Cindy would forward copies of survey results to MIS, Desi
and Lori, and to other units specifically mentioned in the survey results
with the understanding that the survey is not for public use.

We reaffirmed our intention to discuss this survey in TIP at a future date.
Cindy asked that SIRS reexamine the results with the goal to identify specific
problems that SIRS itself could work on.

We discussed what we learned from actually creating and
doing the survey:  1) it's hard to get people to fill out
surveys, 2)  the survey may have been too long, 3) why
didn't we send this out electronically?  It would have been
easier to fill out, 4) this is a very busy time of year to
ask our colleagues to engage in this effort, 5) might be
interesting to do focus groups.

2) First floor reconfiguration.  Cindy  passed out copies of SPIT's latest
plans for the first floor.  SIRS will begin working on planning for
reconfiguration.   We need to determine  how large a reference collection
we can REALLY fit into the proposed space and plan how that collection
will look. Gerri will look for statistics and other kinds of data that will
help us estimate how many workstations we want and how to best arrange them.
We agreed to begin planning for reconfiguration of the
Information Desk and we discussed the possibility of
visiting any local libraries that might help us think about
a new kind of desk arrangement.  Core staff will start
planning for their new office space.

Other Items:  Cindy posted the scheduled meetings for Spring Semester.
Our December 20th meeting will include visits from Mark Wilkerson and Anne Masnik.
We agreed to have another weeding "party" in January.

We had a brief discussion on creating an expanded SIRS and
its relationship with the new Information and Research
Services Team (renamed from Working Paper #2).

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Cynthia Todd
Coordinator for Information & Research Services
McKeldin Library
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
ct15@umail.umd.edu