Forum Meeting on February 17, 2010

Librarians' Forum
February 17, 2010
Hatcher Gallery
Attendance: approx. 35

The meeting was called to order by Forum Chair Martin Knott at 9:05 a.m.

Announcements

Martin Knott announced the FutureLibCon Conversation to be held at 2:00 today in the Hatcher Gallery. The topic is "seamless service."

The next two Forum coffee breaks will be February 22 from 11-12 and March 10 from 3:30-4:30. Both will be held at Beanster's in the League.

As mandated by the Librarians' Forum By-Laws, there will be a call for nominees to the Forum Board. There are four positions available: 2 Members at Large, the Vice Secretary (Secretary Elect) and Vice Chair (Chair Elect). The call for nominees will come out in March.

SkillShare

Donna Hayward introduced the 7 SkillShare participants who are presenting today, representing 3 partnerships:

1. Elena Koustova and Emily Hamstra
2. Celia Ross, Rebecca Welzenbach, and Sara Henry
3. Megan McGlynn and Revati Kakaraparthi

Elena Koustova and Emily Hamstra

Elena Koustova works in Technical Services on licensing. Emily Hamstra is a learning librarian in the Undergraduate Library.

Elena wanted to see the public services view of her work, involved in licensing electronic resources.

Emily attended meetings with Elena, in which a license was reviewed. This was helpful because it led Emily to better understand what happens after a resource is selected (part of her job). Sticking points in the licensing that Emily learned about include making sure that walk-in users (not affiliated with U-M) can access the resource and ensuring that vendors do not place limits on the way downloaded resources can be used.

Elena added that lots of things can complicate licenses. While she wasn't sure how useful the meeting was, it was good to provide an overview.

Emily learned that it was interesting to that smaller vendors can be more troublesome than larger vendors; smaller ones don't have the experience or legal resources available. It made her wonder if it was always reasonable to work with smaller resources from a cost-benefit point of view.

Elena's group manages about 350 licenses.

Elena described her experience observing Emily. She spent about 9 hours on SkillShare ,including meetings. She would have liked more time, and would have liked to start earlier. It was hard to find mutually convenient times.

Elena observed a reference desk shift, attended a meeting, and an instruction session for undergraduates. The instruction session was notable for the balance Emily struck between the topics Emily needed to teach and keeping the students' interest. On the reference desk shift, it wasn't very busy, but that meant that Elena could ask questions and get more information on what she saw. The general reference meeting was very useful -- good to hear discussions of how decisions about possible resource cuts might be made.

Emily discovered that Elena's group has a lot of the vendor information that Emily and her colleagues have spent time tracking down from vendor -- this was a valuable lesson.

Question: Did what you observed change the way you work?
Emily: When I'm selecting, I will have more awareness of the time involved in completing a deal. Is it worth doing in all cases?
Elena: It would be good to have more communication at the unit level.

Celia Ross, Rebecca Welzenbach, and Sara Henry

Celia Ross is a new librarian at the Kresge business library, working there since June. She wanted to become more involved and knowledgeable about libraries at Michigan to see more traditional reference and instruction. Kresge does things a bit differently.

Becky Welzenbach works in SPO and has been there full-time for just a few months. Works mostly as a project manager on electronic journals. Doesn't have a lot of interaction with patrons.

Sara Henry is a subject specialist librarian at AAEL. Does selecting, reference, subject support. Feels a bit isolated being up on North Campus.

Celia said they met as a group and gave a tour of each others' areas. Celia showed them the new business school building. She was particularly interested in learning from Becky about journal publishing and the changes online journals are creating in scholarship. Also interested in comparing reference at Kresge and AAEL. She noted a sense of community on north campus that doesn't exist on central or at the business school.

Becky found it interesting to see the 'end user' side of journals. Interested in learning how to make journals more findable and usable. It's good for her to think about SPO's resources from the user perspective, as opposed to the publisher's. Likewise, was interested to see how Kresge and AAEL track reference questions. SPO does a lot of customer interactions, but dosn't track details as much.

Sara said that Celia and Becky's questions helped her to look at her job in a new way. She was impressed with the detail in SPO's documentation (Becky noted that they have a lot of student workers, and a lot of turnover). Kresge tracks even more detail than AAEL, putting all their chat sessions and direct-to-staff emails into Footprints. Kresge does a more interaction and outreach with faculty -- something to learn from.

Celia notes that Kresge's BI sessions are relatively well attended. They have drop-in sessions that students attend. She thinks its because business school students have more motivation to learn the tools for their own merits than students in other schools might.

Celia noted that the "suit-to-beard" ratio between north campus and the business school are inverse of each other.

Question: What topics are taught in the drop-ins?
Celia: Mostly on specific resources.

Question: How many students are on the project teams (part of the B-school curriculum)?
Celia: There are 4-5 on each team; 96 teams total. Each librarian (including the director) works with 15 or so.

Question: Compare and contrast reference at the two libraries?
Becky: I didn't observe a desk shift, so didn't really see it.

Megan McGlynn and Revati Kakaraparthi

Megan McGlynn manages students, shelving for Shapiro, and works on the reference desk. She wanted to know about another department to better answer patron inquiries.

Revati Kakaraparthi handles book to and from the bindery -- gets them ready and inspects them when they come back. She wanted to know more about the libraries she serves but doesn't see. She spent 2 hours with Megan on the reference desk.

Megan said she was curious what happened when she sent books off to the bindery. It was good to see how the process flows. Binding a serial is very complex. (Serials get the same color; monographs get a randomly-selected color.) She also saw preservation -- what happens to books when they are returned wet, moldy, or otherwise damaged.

Revati splits time between bindery preparation and serials. She observed many questions about printing when observing Megan on the reference desk. She noted how Megan did technical support and helped students with writing (using the Online Writing Lab). In the stacks office, Megan showed her how items are returned and how requests are handled.

Question: Do we bind anything in-house?
Megan: Yes, fragile items are bound in-house.

Question for the Panel

Question: How are transactions logged at Kresge?
Celia: We just capture it, what kind of questions, and chat or email transcript, in Footprints. We don't track tech-support-type questions.

Communication

Martin noted that the Forum welcomes input anonymously -- staff can use campus mail to send a message to any Board member.

Name of Monthly Event

Martin brought up the topic of the name of the monthly event, "Librarians' Forum". Librarians' Forum is two things: the formal body for librarians, and the monthly meeting organized by the Forum Board. The Forum Board is aware that, although these sessions are meant to be inclusive of all library staff, some feel that it is for librarians only. So we have two questions: 1) Should we change the name of the monthly event? 2) What should the new name be?

There was much discussion about the role of Librarians' Forum, the need for a body for librarian governance issues, and the need for all-library events of the type Librarians' Forum organizes. This discussion will be continued at the next Forum meeting and on the Forum blog.

The meeting adjourned at 10:30 AM