Public Services Steering Committee
July 3, 2002
Minutes
Members Present: Gary Cornwell, Jan Swanbeck, and Carol Turner
- Library West New Addition and Renovation
The Library West Collection Preparation Committee submitted its recommendations for the new
addition/renovation. There have been several changes to the original plans for the new addition
and renovation. The Library will not receive funds above the $30 million that has been
allocated to complete the new addition, as well as, renovate the current building.
The current building was inspected and found to need extensive work prior to renovation.
This has resulted in the below changes.
- The new building will be much smaller.
- There will be less space for Collections.
- The new building may house services and staff space.
- Current building may house books.
- There will probably not be book box as originally configured.
- It looks like we will still have some type of storage collection since
we are getting a smaller building.
There have not been any further meetings with the design team. Steve is supposed to send out a
notice when the team should meet again.
With the new LMS we will have to submit new location codes. It would be useful to have
decisions made about the location of materials before these codes are submitted.
Dale asked Steve to look again at how many books will fit in the existing Library West and she
had Barbara get information on shelving costs if we moved into the storage building.
Realistically, we may have to move shelving from LAD to the storage facility and possibly
purchase one range of the high shelving and gradually replace standard shelving with that as we
have money
- Development Officer
Sandy Melching (new Development Officer) would like to reinstate the Gift Opportunity Committee
to work on proposals for donors.
Gary C. talked to Meg Scharf at UCF about seeking a grant to share staff training expertise
statewide. For example, Peter McKay might provide training sessions at other SUS institutions
for their staff on business resources. Carol T. thought this was a good idea.
- Athletes Orientation
UCF has been having an athlete orientation day before school starts for the several years.
Gary contacted Jeremy Foley (Athletic Director). Keith Carodine responded and they are very
interested. Gary contacted Jana Ronan and they are looking at having 10 groups of 10 or more
athletes that will receive classroom instruction and instruction on how to conduct research for
papers.
- Lib Qual +
Carol T. will forward an email to PSSC with the responses to the Lib Qual + Survey. The results
of the survey should indicate if we may want to do further surveys and/or have focus groups.
- Culture of Assessment
There will be a Culture of Assessment follow-up on Wednesday, July 10, 2002.
- Solinet
Trudi DiTrolio has arranged for Solinet training on August 14th. The workshop for
paraprofessionals titled Reference 101 is being renamed Public Services 101 and adapted to meet
the specific needs of UF staff. Trudi has suggested a panel (made up of Gary, Lori, and Pam) to
discuss Reference/Public Services interactions and issues after the Solinet training.
Carol T. feels like this would fit into our goal for training and improved customer service
techniques. The training should focus on being approachable, being helpful, being able to
interact with the patron in such a way as to determine what they need, and whether you can help
them or if you need to make a referral.
Gary C. – We still have not internally answered how far Circulation staff should go and at what
point do they start being a reference librarian and at what point to they stop when there is
Reference staff available to assist patrons.
- FISH – A Service Attitude
Carol T. requested that staff be encouraged to attend this workshop on July 25. Even if we
don’t adopt the whole “FISH philosophy”, it’s a way for staff to look at there jobs and to have
more fun doing them.
- IFAS – Distance Learning
Tracy Irani and Ricky Telg from IFAS are doing a study about UF’s distance learning programs and
how effective they are. They reported their findings to one of Distance Learning Advisory
Committees. In their report Tracy made a passing reference to that fact that she had taught a
distance-learning course and that her students had trouble using library resources. Carol T.
spoke with her. She said that IFAS is moving more towards distance learning courses that are delivered via the web. The typical students are working professionals who haven’t been to school in a long time and are very far removed from libraries. They need very basic information without jargon on how to get to library information. She said having technical information would be useful. Carol T. is going to look at how this information can be incorporated to our web page. Carol T. welcomed any suggestions. Gary felt that some of the onus of this should go onto the students. He feels that if they are pursuing a graduate degree and are expecting to do it by distance learning that they should at least visit the University. The library could set up distance-learners orientations. Lori D. talk to a couple of guys that are coordinating the executive MBA program who were wanting all their students validated. She and Carol T. met with them. Those students come for a weekend and when they leave they have a library assignment but Carol T. doesn’t know if they actually have library instructions. Carol T.
feels we need to offer this type of instruction via the web for distance learners. Carol is
revising the web page and designing bookmarks highlighting the URL.
Carol T. will check with Barbara Oliver about the status of the 1-800 number.
- Evaluations (Faculty)
Gary C. spoke with Steve S. concerning faculty evaluations. Steve feels that 3% (maybe) of
employees fall in the exceptional level, overall maybe 12 % in the outstanding level, and the
remaining percentage of employees fall into the average and above average. Given this, there is
concern about how faculty ratings are being handle across the board. It doesn’t seem fair to any
one group of employees to have the somewhat inflated system that has been used for years taken
out of use if every department is not going to evaluate by the new standards. For instance, if
one department rates all employees average (doesn’t use current inflated system) and another
department continues to do ratings based on the inflated system. Also, this rating is part of
the evaluation letter and goes forward in the T&P packet. Carol T. feels we need wider
discussion and that perhaps different levels should be rated differently.
- Bonuses
Concern was expressed that the names of staff that received bonuses were not published. It is
not quite clear why the names of winners are published for awards such as Davis Productivity
and Superior Accomplishment, but not for bonuses. Gary C. thought that the division chairs
meeting and ranking division members in terms of bonuses was great. It gave everyone within
the division input to the process. He thinks this type of meeting should also include division
heads.
- Priorities for Public Service the Coming Year
Carol thought it would be useful for PSSC to review the list of priorities and agree upon what
the priorities should be for Public Services
- Improve access to electronic and digital information.
- Improve the web.
- Provide service functions.
- Manage LMS migration activities.
- Improve customer service techniques and community sense of service.
- Technology training.
- Process mapping to eliminate or simplify redundant report or procedures.
- Increase visibility and interaction with user staff training and planning.
- More library sponsored programs, innovative and intellectual activities.
- Better user knowledge of library services.
This is the list that was drafted at the last PSSC meeting.
- Lib Qual + + - analyze returns and take action based on them.
- Library West Addition/Renovation.
- Provide service functions.
- LMS implementation.
- Culture of Assessment follow-up and planning based on what we’ve learned.
- Goal Settings – Individual and Unit.
- Plan & Assess.
- Keep in mind, What does this do for our users?.
- Maximizing ease of use of electronic resource.
- Better off campus promotion of library services/resources.
- No jargon – how to promote.
- Academic influence.
- Promote/incorporating information literacy into academic programs.
- Customer service training.
- What are we counting? Review and revise our statistics gathering and reporting to align with
goals.
- Assess Reference service and varieties including email and RefeXpress (and evaluate
Question Point as an aspect of reference service).
- Assess ILL.
- Customer service.
- Electronic format for requests.
The first three priorities are major. The rest are continuing goals. Many tie to Five Star
Service.
There will be Question Point training on Tuesday, July 9th. Carol T. has to tell the Question
Point staff how many accounts we want.
EBSCO Host will be here on Monday, July 8, 2002 from 2:00p – 4:00p.
Assessment of vacancies should be a priority. Carol talked with Dale yesterday and it looks
like we will start filling positions. Carol asked that the positions descriptions for vacant
positions be reviewed to see if any changes are needed.
We are in need of staff to teach ENC1101.
What stats are we getting and are they helpful? Currently stats are being underreported by
staff. It might be better if we do sampling rather than trying to gather stats on a daily basis.
Carol D. and Lori D. should be involved in this discussion therefore it will be readdressed at
the next meeting. There is a possibility that we will start in September. Gary will mention
this to Collean Seale. This will be the major topic at our next meeting.
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