LIBRARY ADMINISTRATORS AND MANAGERS GROUP
September 9, 1998

The meeting was called to order at 8:30 a.m. in Room 222 Hesburgh Library by Director of Libraries Jennifer Younger. Also in attendance were Joanne Bessler, Katharina Blackstead, Dorothy Coil, Jane Devine, Maureen Gleason, Stephen Hayes, Lou Jordan, Sonja Jordan, Alan Krieger, Doug McKeown, Thurston Miller, Carole Richter, Laura Sill, Marsha Stevenson, Carol Szambelan, Sherry Veith, James Wruck, Robert Wittorf, Lorry Zeugner, guests Doug Archer, Andy Boze and Tom Lehman, and secretary Melodie Eiteljorge.

The minutes of the meeting of August 26, 1998 were distributed and approved via e-mail.

Jennifer noted that minutes and agendas for LAM are now available on the internal Web site. Reminders of meetings and agendas will be sent prior to meetings. Any suggestions for agenda items can be submitted to Jennifer or to the secretary. In some cases approximate time limits will be placed after items, and sometimes it will be noted that a certain individual will lead the discussion. Aleph implementation will be added to the agendas of the next two meetings.

Jennifer distributed a draft of an ULON that will go out regarding results of the staff classification review. There was some discussion of this document, and suggestions were made for additions that might clarify some questions. The ULON will be distributed sometime within the next week.

Jennifer announced that Wendell Wickerham of Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott was arriving later in the morning. Open meetings for staff were scheduled to be held on consecutive days, Wednesday and Thursday, September 9 and 10.

Sherry Veith next reported on some new policies being implemented by the University. First, a new policy for pay advances will go into effect, restricting requests to certain circumstances. The policy states pay advances are primarily intended for ensuring timely payment of salary where paperwork has not made the necessary deadlines. It also addresses cases of hardship and how those will be handled.

Second, there is a new employee complaint procedure for non-exempt staff. This replaces the previous "problem solving procedure," which, it was felt, was not being utilized by staff to the extent intended. The new procedure involves specific steps with time frames. This is outlined on the Human Resources homepage.

The third new policy is pre-employment drug testing for newly hired staff, which was implemented on July 1. Sherry stated that this is based in part on the fact that Notre Dame was one of the few employers in the area that did not require pre-employment testing. The University is committed to ensuring a drug-free environment for the safety of students. At some point in the future this policy may be expanded to random testing for all staff. Currently we have random testing for people in certain kinds of positions, e.g. those who drive vehicles, work with equipment, etc.

Marsha Stevenson stated that she, personally, and many in the Reference Department have problems with this policy on many different levels. First, it starts with the premise that one must "prove" that he or she is not a drug user. Second, why is it only for staff, not faculty? She finds it objectionable and feels that it was "slipped in" over the summer without notice.

Bob Wittorf added that this extends to contractors who work on campus. Employees of our copy center, ICS, were required to have testing. Marsha added that awaiting their testing resulted in the temporary closing of a public service area. Bob added that the testing is at the expense of individual units.

Steve Hayes stated that he has questions about consistency. Concern for students has been noted as a reason for this, yet faculty directly affect students, and they are not tested. He asked about testing for high administrators. Sherry replied that all new non-faculty employees are tested, including high administrators. Human Resources is also among the group that currently receives random testing.

Maureen Gleason stated that this was discussed in the Human Resources Planning Group. Other universities were surveyed, and it was found that it is common practice to test staff and not faculty. Maureen also commented that while she understands the concerns stated, other University units represented on the HRPG felt there was a need for such a policy and were supportive of this initiative.

Jennifer asked what avenue there is for objections about this. Sherry replied that questions should go through Human Resources.

The next agenda item was the naming issue for the new system. Doug Archer spoke on behalf of the Screen Design Committee. Whether or not to include MALC is an issue. Ultimately the Screen Design Committee decided to recommend that we not name the system. Instead, we can use "Ex Libris" for the vendor and "Aleph" for the system. He demonstrated an interface screen.

Maureen asked: When the catalog is referred to in some other place, will we just call it the library catalog? Doug agreed that that is the intent. Lou Jordan noted the committee's observance that libraries began with a paper catalog. Then we had both a paper catalog and an electronic catalog. Now it is one again, with no paper. Thus, there is no need to distinguish.

There was further discussion of this proposal with general agreement. The "wording" on the interface screen can be easily changed or updated as needed.

Steve asked about addressing the question of vocabulary for the next level down, particularly for training purposes. We have a wide variety of modules within Aleph. Doug replied that the committee did not address this, because it is internal. Laura Sill pointed out that the GUI (Graphical User Interface) client is a suite of tools, not modules.

In regard to MALC, Jennifer stated that the group is evolving. The important question is where it is going and what we want it to be. We are following the lead of the University, yet at the same time we are a leader as well. One thing we will do is a collection analysis to determine overlaps, strengths, how the collections fit together, etc. We will include the Law Library.

The next item of business was public outreach issues. Kathy Blackstead led the discussion. She reported that during the summer she received a letter from Dean Carolyn Woo announcing the launching of a COBA alumni publication with a circulation of 25,000. This made her think about other alumni publications across campus and whether we should be shaping their content in regard to the Libraries. We should also be more active in providing articles for the Observer, etc. She asks LAM members to think about vehicles through which we should contribute so that we can assess the human resources needed to develop and maintain such an initiative.

A document on "Tasks of a Typical Systems (IT) Office in a Research Library" (Larry Woods' report from his site visit) was distributed prior to the meeting. Since several people had not had an opportunity to read the document, the item was deferred for a future meeting.

In turning back to Aleph, Jane Devine asked if the latest release of Aleph has been accepted, if the data conversion was successful, and if we are still intending to launch the system in January, with only four months to complete all the remaining development work and training. Doug replied that the latest release has not yet been accepted, although 90 percent of the deliverables are in place. The conversion has also not been completely tested yet. He is still confident that the January release is possible, despite ongoing requests for changes to the software.

Sonja stated that she had thought that sometime in mid August or early September we would have the ability for units to get into test and work with Aleph so that they could become familiar with the system. Doug responded that we have missed the deadline on that. However, it was to be the topic for a task force meeting later in the day.

The next item of business was a report from Jo Bessler on an employee survey regarding the review process. Prior to the meeting she sent a draft of the proposed survey, which was created by the Training and Development Committee. There was some discussion with suggestions for revisions. It was noted that the survey should be for the purpose of assessing the process, not the outcome. Jo will also present the draft to the Library Staff Committee. Once finalized, it will be distributed in paper form but also available electronically. Results will be posted in MOSAIC, and training issues will be separated out for the Training and Development Committee. Sherry Veith will do a statistical analysis of the results.

There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 10 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Melodie Eiteljorge
Secretary

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