Forum Meeting on May 19, 2010

Librarians' Forum
May 19, 2010
Hatcher Gallery
Attendance: approx. 70

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

Announcements

The next Librarians' Forum meeting will be Wednesday, June 16, and will be the annual promotion training session run by the Promotion Review Committee.  All librarians who are considering applying for promotion this year or in the future, and their supervisors, are invited to attend.

The Promotion Criteria Review Task Force report is being reviewed by LDG.

Congratulations to Beth Strickland who won the run-off election for Forum Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect.

Nominations for the Library's SACUA representative are open until May 28. Please nominate yourself or fellow librarians you believe will effectively represent the interests of the University’s librarians and libraries. A slate of candidates will be developed from the pool of nominees. Nominations will be accepted via email to libsenatenoms@umich.edu until 5:00 PM on Friday, May 28, 2010.

The next Forum Coffee Break will be on Wednesday, June 16, from 1:30-2:30 at Mujo Café.

The Forum Comment Box is up and running, allowing anonymous comments to the Forum Board from library staff.

The Library Diversity Committee is seeking nominations to fill four vacancies. For further information contact the LDC at ldc-lib@umich.edu, or go to http://www.lib.umich.edu/library-diversity-committee. Please consider nominating yourself OR someone you know. Please have your nomination to us no later than Wednesday, May 26th.

Jamie Lausch is the new North Quad Programming Coordinator.

Travel Committee Report

Yunah Sung, Forum Liaison to the Travel Committee, provided a summary of the Travel Committee's preliminary findings. (Slides are available to library staff.)

Yunah thanked committee members for their service, particularly those in Library Finance, who put in a great deal of time pulling together the data the committee worked with.

The Travel Committee was formed in response to last year's Librarians' Forum Travel Task Force report (link is staff only).  The Travel Commitee had three goals:

1. Reduce, not eliminate, out-of-pocket expenses for library staff
2. Reduce the need to pick conferences based on cost
3. Increase local travel

The committee proposes four new models for funding:

1. $1000 per year for any number of trips
2. $700 each for two trips a year
3. $750 for the first trip in a year and $650 for the second
4. $800 for the first trip in a year and $600 for the second

Yunah explained that the library does not have data for expenses in excess of $600, since that is all that is currently reimbursable.  The library does not know the real cost of travel, only what the library reimburses.

Q:  How many trips aren't being funded but taken on personal expense?
A:  We don't know, and it's hard to figure out.

Q:  Would staff at the Press and DMC fall under these proposals?
A:  Only for development travel, not for programmatic travel.  Most Press and DMC travel expenses are programmatic.

Q:  Why does option A have less money?
A:  Most staff took only one trip per year (2/3 of people who traveled took only one trip).

Q:  Who will select among these options?
A:  There will be a survey to secure staff views on travel.  

It was brought up in regard to the last point that there is a need for input from all staff, not just librarians.  Discussion ensued about whether Forum had a role in soliciting staff input.  Becky Dunkle (who serves on LDG) noted that LDG would likely seek broad input.

Librarian Salary Report

Donna Hayward presented a draft outline of data points (staff only link) that the library should be gathering to more routinely and consistently review librarians' salaries.  This is based on the reports and recommendations of last year's Salary Committee and Salary Analysis Task Force (links are staff only).

This document has been shared with LDG and proposes a set of processes to gather and review more detailed data on salary and retention.  Donna and Martin have had conversations with Bob Campe and Jane Havens to discuss ways to gather these data points.  Donna noted that it is also important to have more complete self-reported demographic data from librarians (as entered in Wolverine Access) so that we can better understand ourselves.

There is still work to be done on the data points, in conjunction with Library Human Resources and Library Finance, so that we can begin reporting on and reacting to the data.  The goal of this data collection and analysis is to resurrect the annual salary analysis process that Forum used to conduct, but has not for several years.

Q:  What about people with different qualifications (non-MLS) in librarian roles?
A:  Forum can only advocate for people in the Librarian job classification.  

Q:  What's the overall goal?
A:  Two goals.  First, to analyze salary equity and make requests for changes as appropriate.  Second, to identify and resolve retention problems.

Q:  Will this replace the annual salary report?
A:  No, it will be an add-on.  Which does not remove the need to resurrect the annual salary report process.

Q:  Can we do comparisons with peer institutions?
A:  Yes, we should, but we need to identify who our peers are first.

Update from Bob Campe

Conflict of Interest

Bob Campe was invited to discuss the Conflict of Interest/Conflict of Commitment form recently distributed to all library staff. He responded to concerns from staff about the new form.  He said that there would soon be an FAQ about this form available on the library web site.  The form is being changed to require that staff acknowledge receipt and understanding of the form without making a statement about the existence of a conflict of interest.  Staff who have already submitted the form do not need to resubmit, unless they wish to.  A new deadline for submitting the revised form will be announced shortly.

This form is a University-wide requirement in response to Sarbanes-Oxley reporting requirements.  All units need to comply with it. The library is not being singled out, and there is no particular event that has triggered this need.  It is an annual process; look for the form each May.

Librarian & Cultural Diversity Specialist Search

There is a good candidate pool for this position.

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 10:30 AM.