LIBRARY EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
July 18, 2006
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon

Present: Baughman (facilitator), Brown, Lowry (timekeeper), Ruschoff, Schreibman (via Skype), Vikor, Williams, Wray (scribe)

Topic: Faculty Activity Reporting Process
Dr. Mona Levine and Donna Williams provided LEC with an overview of the new Faculty Activity Reports (FAR) system. FAR will combine information previously provided in 3 types of reporting: merit, outside activities/conflict of interest, and non-instructional workload. FAR has been in use for one year on campus, and library faculty will soon use FAR to enter information required by campus, starting with reports on calendar year 2006. At some point, exempt staff will use FAR to report outside activities. LFA Advisory Council will discuss the FAR system at a future meeting. Initially the Libraries’ primary FAR Contact will be Jane Williams. When hired, the HR Manager will become the primary contact. Williams will coordinate the initial round of training, with subsequent training perhaps moving to new faculty/staff orientation.

Topic: Leadership Development Institute (LDI)
Applications were reviewed. The form that library staff uses to apply for LDI will be reworked. LAG will be asked to promote LDI with all staff in the fall. It was noted that LDI is open to librarian supervisors.

Topic: Labor and Assistance (L&A) Allotments
Discussion about how GAs are distributed and how they should be funded continued. Salaries for GAs currently come out of Division L&A allotments. It was noted that GAs have a stipend, whereas graduate student employees are hourly student assistants. L&A discussion will continue at a future LEC meeting, including the GA funding/allocation model and specific divisional FY07 L&A needs.

Acquisitions Budget for FY 2007
While the Libraries did receive a budget increase for acquisitions, it was not sufficient to cover the full inflation in all types of library materials. Several steps are being taken.

1. A serials cut of significant magnitude will occur. There is a concern that the serials review process undertaken in the spring of ’06 with involvement of the teaching faculty included a sense that no cut was forthcoming. This will require a message that is consistent across the campus so that there is common understanding about what happened.
2. FY07 discretionary collections purchases will be capped at 75% of last year’s spending until the end of the calendar year. This cap will be reassessed at this point, based on expenditure information available to us then, including primarily serials renewals.
3. The Libraries are looking for ways to stretch the acquisitions budget further.
4. Charles Lowry and Jim Klumpp (ULC Chair) have sent a memo to the Senate Executive Committee explaining the acquisitions cuts and the impact of the planned cuts.
5. Language to share with faculty about the planned Library response will be developed by the CMT.

Topic: The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006
No FRPAA hearings have occurred in Congress, but the proposed law may yet come up for a vote this year. If FRPAA becomes law, the Libraries will need to do an educational effort with faculty about what FRPAA means. Note: There are links to information about FRPAA and other scholarly communication issues within DRUM.

Topic: Pop-Ups

• Draft Avian Flu Pandemic Plan. Lowry will inquire about adding language about the libraries into the draft plan. The draft plan needs review with an eye to public services and keeping remote access to online services functioning. This will have to be done in the larger context of a plan that calls for closure of the University.
• International Visitors. When groups of international visitors request to visit the Libraries, Jill Fosse and Jennifer Hanna will clarify the requests and then work with Division Directors to identify what staff should be involved in meetings.
• USMAI Funding for Salaries. LEC in principle supports the following recommendation: All USMAI staff in ITD will be moved to the UM Libraries operating budget. The UM Libraries will bill USMAI a percentage of ITD staff salaries. Benefits of the change: fringe benefits would be paid by campus, and it will be easier to share work within ITD as there would not be separate CP and USMAI teams. Ruschoff and Denise Wright will work out the details.

Topic: Announcements

• Wray: Yelena Luckert and Karen Patterson have been named 2006-7 CTE-Lilly Fellows by the Center for Teaching Excellence and the Office of Undergraduate Studies.
• Brown:
  • The dates for LFA meetings for the near academic year are finalized; he will send an email to the library staff about these meeting dates very soon.
  • The LFA Plan of Governance Task Force has been formed and the first meeting of the Task Force will be scheduled later this month.
  • LEC will be invited to participate in the first fall meeting of the new LFA Advisory Council. This will be during the 10AM -12PM timeframe on September 15th; details will be forthcoming.
• Schreibman: The grant proposal, The Elsa von Freytag Loringhoven Digital Archive and Collaboratory, was in the last stages of proofing to be submitted to the National Endowment for the Humanities Grants to Preserve and Create Access to Humanities Collections.
• Ruschoff:
  • Sally Sinn, formerly of the National Agricultural Library and CLIR, has agreed to come on board as Interim Head of Acquisitions. She will begin the week of August 7th. Sinn will have an orientation with Jan Siar and the Acquisitions staff on July 25th.
  • University OIT has introduced a new program to allow students, staff and faculty to purchase preconfigured Apple and Dell computers at prices below standard discounts. The computers will come preconfigured with a 4 year warranty. Repairs (if needed) will be performed on campus. This program is a very good deal! Check out the website for more details: http://www.act.umd.edu/
• Lowry: Indicated that his development/travel workload is ramping up because of the new Capital Campaign that will be announced in the Fall. This work tends to be "opportunistic" and so may well cause disruptions in scheduled meetings. He asks for some forbearance.

Topic: Agenda for July 25, 2006

• Interlibrary Loan Processes and Costs
• Role of Supervisors with Search Committees

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