Library Office Notes
University of Illinois Library
at Urbana-Champaign
No. 11, March 15, 2002
Edited by:  Dixie L. Trinkle
The deadline for submitting items for publication is
Wednesday at 5:00 p.m.
Send items to L.O.N., 230 Library, MC-522
E-mail:  trinkle@uiuc.edu
FAX: 217-244-4358
ALA Staff Awards 2002 Announcement

The Library Staff Steering Committee (LSSC) is pleased to announce the names of the two library civil service staff members selected to be the UIUC Staff Attendees to the ALA Conference in Atlanta, GA.

Congratulations to our attendees:  Donna Hoffman and Fang Huang

We had a wonderful response from many staff members this year.  We would like to acknowledge and to thank all staff who submitted letters of interest.  Conference participation by library staff will continue to be encouraged as part of an ongoing staff development program.

 

We hope the attendees will have a rewarding experience at the Conference and will, in turn, have opportunities to share their experiences with other UIUC staff members.

I personally wish to apologize for the late call for letters and for the shortness of time to submit letters.  The Committee will be drafting guidelines to serve as a reminder to the Committee to begin the process earlier and to ensure that consistent procedures are followed from year to year.  All staff are encouraged to submit again next year.

(Gil Witte, Chair, LSSC)

MARCH LIBRARY EXHIBITS

Women in our Government Organizations
Government Documents Library, Main Hall Wall Cases
http://www.library.uiuc.edu/doc/Exhibits/wohis.htm

Plutarco Elias Calles (1877-1945)
Mexican President from 1924-1928
Latin American Caribbean Library Display

Brave Women
Main Hall Cases

Leopold Sedar Senghor (1906-2001) ... l'homme d'etat, le poete, l'humaniste
Modern Languages and Linguistics Library

Asian American Experiences
Mueller Case, East Foyer

Abraham and Mary Lincoln:  Greatest President, Least Known First Lady?
Rare Book Room
(February 4-March 23)

University of Illinois and its Winter
University Archives

Euro:  Introduction
Law Library

University of Illinois Library Office of Development and Public Affairs

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Executive Committee Meeting Minutes
February 25, 2002

Present:  Paula Kaufman (chair), Dick Griscom, Janis Johnston, Bill Maher, Beth Sandore, Sue Searing, Beth Woodard, Greg Youngen

For the first part of the meeting the Administrative Council was invited to attend.  Ryoko Toyama, Director, New Brunswick Libraries at Rutgers University, spoke to the group regarding a framework for staffing allocation decisions that Rutgers uses.

1. Approval of Minutes of February 11 Meeting

February 11 minutes were approved.

2. Nominations of People to Serve on the Provost’s Retention Committee

Five names will be sent forward to the Provost’s office.

3.    Election of Vice-Chair

Leslie Troutman was nominated to serve as Vice-Chair.

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LSSC Meeting Minutes
February 27, 2002

Present:  J. Adamczyk, M. Crook, L. Engels, R. Hough, R. Jahr, S. McFarland, E. Schroeder,
J. Somera, J. Watkins, G. Witte

Guest:  Alan Conrad

I.  Minutes of February 13, 2002, meeting were revised and approved.

II.  Reports

A.  Admin Council (Jane)

--Tom Teper reported on the recent sub-basement (Bookstacks) leak and other environmental problems.  He suggested that all cardboard boxes be placed on pallets or use plastic tubs.  Other suggestions were included in a written report.

--Tom is working on a key policy for the entire library and on updating the Library disaster plan.

--AC discussed a moratorium on serial transfers to the Stacks.  This discussion led to the memo of February 18 by Betsy Kruger.

--AC discussed the problem of what we are to do in individual libraries before Oak Street is done.  If we can't transfer to the Stacks, some of us will have books piled on the floors of our libraries.  So a staging area is being considered (not in the Stacks) to put books, until Oak Street is completed.  Paula will draft an announcement for e-week to keep people informed of why there are boxes.

--Cindy Kelly is designing a database for GA information:  their skills, resume, job availability to assist people hiring GA's.

--The International Strategies Task Force report was distributed and some discussion followed.

B.  Faculty Meeting (Renee) -- Minutes posted.  Highlights are:

--Timetable for Voyager implementation reviewed (Detailed announcement since posted --- Please review!)

--Wendy spoke about the Women's Safety presentation she attended (announcement posted).

C.  Divisional Meeting Notes

Special Collections Division Report:

At the February 14 meeting, there was a discussion about personal safety in the Library.  This discussion included what had been done to improve personal safety and what areas within the Library System needed further improvements.  The result of this discussion was forwarded to Bart Clark.  One of the suggestions was to form a Library Personal Safety group, with faculty and staff included, to monitor personal safety issues.   Bart responded that Paula has established an Emergency Safety and Security Task Force comprised of Jennifer Hain, Wendy Shelburne, Tom Teper, and Bart Clark as chair.   The group meets once a month.  Currently, they are in the process of producing a manual to address such concerns.

III.  Updates/Discussions

A.  A draft of a Proposal for a CSE Retreat for committee to review and bring comments at the next meeting.  Draft was reviewed.  Second draft will be revised at the next meeting.

B.  A letter of concern for committee members to review was distributed.   Revisions were recommended and will be reviewed at a later meeting.

C.  'Spring Fling' -- A "Spring Fling" is being planned for CSEs to meet and discuss LSSC matters with their LSSC liaisons.  A tentative date in March is being planned.  A flyer will be distributed.

E.  ALA Scholarship -- Submissions were reviewed and two staff members were chosen.  After all interested parties are notified, an announcement will be sent out on libnews and placed in LON.

IV.  New Business

A.  Bart Clark has asked to meet with LSSC and the union stewards in regard to the staff lounges.  A special meeting will be set.

B.  *11 -- LSSC discussed speed dial and *11.  Wendy Shelburne sent out a note to all unit heads in mid-February regarding speed dial groups for all libraries and designating *11 to call security guards.

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EIRC Meeting Minutes
February 28, 2002

Present:  Hogenboom, Joseph, Olsen, Pilch, Quinn, Smith, Ward, Watson, Williams

Absent:  Schmidt, German, Bennett, Rinkel

The meeting was entirely devoted to making recommendations for expenditure of funds remaining in er14.  Prior to the meeting, Watson gave the committee a ball park figure for available dollars.  The actual amount left to spend will depend on a variety of factors, including the receptiveness of vendors to multi-year agreements for serial frequency items and discounts offered, pay-ahead arrangements to cover substantial price increases, and vendor accounting oddities.  Watson also provided estimates of costs for certain items where discounts might be negotiated or alternate means for gaining access to content might be pursued.  Committee members were asked to assign priorities prior to the meeting.

The Committee was guided primarily by divisional priorities in making its recommendations.  There was extended discussion on:

  1. PsychArticles.  Pilch and Williams presented a product review.  Discussion centered primarily on the fact that database is not yet complete and on problems with the interface. The primary concern re the interface is that as it currently stands limiting to PsycArticles within both PsychInfo and Journals @Ovid (where the journals reside) must be redone for each search.  However, we will be able to link to individual tables of contents of journals from the e-journal page.  The high cost of this database (perhaps $26,000 for 42 titles and three times the cost of the print) has been noted by research libraries and consortia generally and is also a factor for us.  We have a current independent trial and will soon be included in a trial to be initiated by ILCSO.   The Committee postponed making a recommendation.
  2. PCI Fulltext.  There were several points of concern.  First, there is only a small amount of full text currently in the database, and it is scattered over a wide range of subjects.  Currently 6% of the 3000 titles in the database are associated with full text.  This will increase to 7% once the current release (priced at $11,400) is completed.  Chadwyck Healey does expect to add more full text in the future in a second release, presumably for an additional ~$11,400.  Users will be frustrated when they get long results sets with only a few full text hits.  In addition, right now clicking on the full text icon in a citation does not always produce full text.   Articles may also be cut off in the middle when printed.  Given the scatter of journals in full text, searching the database might work for certain kinds of interdisciplinary subjects.  On the other hand, searches on specific topics may not retrieve much text.  Despite these defects, the Committee recommended that PCI Full Text be funded since the Humanities division assigned it a priority I ranking.

Other Recommendations:

Cost-effective solution for adding access to full text of Education journals
Chicago Tribune
Recurring cost of JSTOR Business Collection (archival fee funded by Library Friends Supplementary Fund)
Current Protocols in Molecular Biology (FY03 funding)
Current Protocols in Immunology
History E-Books
Eastview Regional Russian Newspapers

Purchases of serial frequency titles will involve multi-year contracts pre-paid on non-recurring funds.

Quinn and Hogenboom will take a look at and report on Biography Reference Bank, which was recommended by Reference but not ranked by the division.

The Committee also recommended maintaining the subscription begun last year for the New York Times Historical Edition.  We had previously been concerned about the amount and distribution of content still missing from the database (i.e., parts of years or decades scattered over the whole run).  The most recent reports of content now available in the database represent a considerable improvement.  Problems with the interface were also noted.  Some are the result of Proquest’s using its standard interface to search a single newspaper (e.g., users will be confused by having the option to limit to a single publication given that there is only one).  Results can be limited by a specific day, but not by month or year, a feature that would be very useful for searching a newspaper database.  The use of the standard PQ interface also returns large results sets as "At least 50," with no indication as you proceed through groups of fifty of how many citations there are altogether.  A new release from PQ may address some of these problems.

Next Meeting:  April 4, 2002

Agenda:  Finalize Gateway-related recommendations.

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