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April 2004 Council on the Libraries minutes

Council on Libraries
April 12, 2004
Treasure Room, noon to 1:30 pm

Present: Havah Armstrong-Walther, John Crane, Harold Frost, Teoby Gomez, Kevin Ha, Vernita Irvin, Douglas Irwin, John James, Cyndy Pawlek, Jeffrey Ruoff, Jeremy Rutter, Barry Scherr

Guests: Barbara DeFelice, Jim Fries

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1. Approval of Minutes (John Crane)

Minutes from January and February 2004 meetings were approved.

2. Food policy/Library (Doug Irwin)

  • Doug Irwin wondered if the library viewed food in the library as a problem/concern. He has noticed rather a lot in recent weeks.
  • There have been no reports of damage to library materials
  • No pest problems have been reported
  • No computer damage has been reported
  • There are “social” concerns/problems when some users are bothered by excessive food and drink being consumed by other users
  • This issue is cyclical and reaches predictable peaks at term end.
  • Cyndy Pawlek will meet with the staff in Baker-Berry Research & Instruction Services to discuss and review possible strategies for approaching this concern.
  • Some suggestions offered:
    • “Clean-up After Yourselves” campaign
    • set reasonable parameters designed to limit but not prohibit all food/drink
    • maybe a message delivered by a screensaver on the computers
  • Rauner Library has a strict no food/beverage policy and it is respected by all

3. Update on Librarian and Special Collections searches

Dean of Libraries and Librarian of the College (John James)

  • Advertisements sent out a couple of months ago; broadly advertised
  • Search committee met last week
  • Review of resumes begin April 15th
  • Interviews expected to begin in July/August
  • Don’t believe other institutions with vacant Dean of Libraries positions have yet made appointments (e.g. Brown, Chicago, Penn, UNC-Chapel Hill)

Special Collections Librarian (John Crane)

  • Jay Satterfield from the University of Chicago has been hired and will begin July 1, 2004.

4. Update on LibQUAL+ and DCAL (Cyndy Pawlek)

  • The library survey began today (12 April 2004)
  • E-mail notifications have been sent out; apologies if people received more than one email because they were on more than one email list.
  • Ads were placed in the Dartmouth and the Free Press
  • Posters were hung
  • Questions regarding the survey should be sent to Cyndy Pawlek or Bill Garrity in the Biomedical Libraries
  • DCAL (Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning)
  • Architectural design expected to be finished soon
  • Currently focusing on the video conferencing plans and trying to determine the best equipment for the program

5. Update on Education Programs, including RWIT (Pawlek, Susan Fliss)

  • Susan Fliss was unavailable today; will discuss next meeting

6. Scholarly Communications I - an overview of historical trends and where we're at now (John James, Jim Fries, Barbara DeFelice)

Barbara DeFelice and Jim Fries organized and facilitated the first of 3 discussions on "Scholarly Communication: Threats, Problems and Opportunities". In this first session, they described the major problems facing the scholarly communication system today, and how this system has developed and evolved over the last 300 years. They discussed the influence of social, economic, legal, and technological factors on the current condition of scholarly communication, and emphasized the challenges facing scholars, publishers, libraries, and universities. The next session on May 10th will focus on new models for scholarly communication and innovative projects that are addressing these challenges through opportunities provided by emerging information technologies. See PowerPoint show for details.