Present: Peggy Alexander, Keri Botello (Chair), Hong Cheng, Debe Costa, Cheryl Kelly Fischer, Esther Grassian, Andrea Lynch, Elizabeth McAulay, Diane Mizrachi, Louise Ratliff (recorder), Lise Snyder, Ken Wade (Parliamentarian)

1.  Call to order.  The meeting was called to order at 1:05 pm.

2.  Agenda review and announcements. The order of the agenda was changed.

3.  Approval of Minutes/Secretary’s report.  The minutes of October 28, 2008 were approved as corrected.

4.  Old business

2008 Fall Membership Meeting. Attendance was good. Lynch would prefer more time spent on introducing the new librarians. People liked the brochures. McAulay suggested doing introductions at both the Spring and Fall meetings.  This will be put on the agenda for the Spring Membership Meeting. Snyder noted that the Spring Meeting will focus on the Librarian of the Year and asked whether this might present a problem.
           
            Grassian reported on the Librarian of the Year Committee (LOTY) activities. The committee investigated funding needs, and came up with additional ideas for honoring the winner: a plaque containing the names of award winners could be displayed in YRL; the awardee could select a book to be added to the library in his or her name; the awardee could receive a professional development monetary award or a clock or a certificate.  Esther wanted to know if the Exec Board approved of the idea of writing a draft proposal and submitting it to Library Development, who would seek funding. Discussion followed. The Board agreed that the LOTY Committee should draft a proposal and show it to the Board before sending it on to Gary Strong.  McAulay moved to ask Esther to do this.
            Snyder asked about the question of notifying the nominees.  From the notes taken at the Fall Membership Meeting, it seemed that people want to notify the nominees by letter, but it was not clear about notifying Gary Strong. Esther said that the committee will include a recommendation in their report to send a letter to each nominee notifying them of their nomination, with a brief summary of the reason for the nomination.
Costa suggested putting this in the Call as an example, under Awards & Honors. The Committee to Review the Call would need to do this next year.  The Executive Board agreed.
            Grassian said that the letters won’t be sent until after the spring meeting, so we will be able to send copies to Gary if the group decides to.

            Botello passed around agenda for LAUC Statewide Fall Assembly, which will consist mainly of panels. Jake Nadal will represent UCLA  as a member of the first panel. No agenda is available yet for the board meeting the following day.

5.  Chair’s report

            Botello reported on the Senate Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication (COLASC) meeting held Nov. 6, which focused on the budget.    
            The UC-wide Committee on Library chair, Larry Armi, is interested in open access (a 2-year-old document which has not been passed by any of the divisions). Our local chair (Butler) believes that it is better to work on an implementation plan. White papers will be written locally; a Task Force is being chaired by Butler and he has asked for feedback from us. Mizrachi will attend their next meeting.  Another topic was use of microforms in the library: discussion of the technology & ability to make copies. It would be expensive to digitize it; copyright issues exist.
            Snyder relayed Rita Costello’s past work to investigate equipment that could create PDF files from microforms. McAulay and Costello were on the Collection Development Committee, and they referred it to PSC. Outcome is uncertain.  MacAulay will consult with Costello and  inform Botello, who will apprise Butler of the status.
At a previous meeting there was confusion about the meaning of a section in the APM; Snyder’s rephrasing of it was clear, and the Senate committee agreed that the language should be clarified.

Botello reported on the LAUC conference call of Nov. 13.  There were many applications submitted for Travel Grants to attend the Fall Assembly. There was a discussion concerning the requirement that the awardees be “new librarians,” which was purposefully vague. There was consensus that this year they all would be funded (7) and next year the language will be tightened up.

6.  New Business

Topic: the statewide LAUC webpage as a clearinghouse. Botello asked the LAUC-LA Exec Board what we want listed there. There was discussion about inclusion of local policies there.  Some of the categories were suggested by the ULs, and some by the LAUC Executive Board. The purpose of this is unclear. Keri said this is to be a sort of gateway for the ULs.  We will ask Gary about this when he comes to this meeting today, so we can have a better understanding.

LAUC-LA Webmaster.  Our new local webmaster has been encountering difficulties, some due to technology. Botello & Ratliff are consulting. The Board agreed that webmaster policies and procedures need to be documented, and a policy document be written about appointment of the webmaster.

7.  Conversation with UL Gary Strong:

Botello had asked Gary for insights from campus & statewide about budget developments. Gary indicated that things are unclear. He passed around a copy of his blog Q&A. Yesterday there was news of a mid-year additional cut, and another 1% (maybe for next year) or $800-900 thousand  for us. The impact is actually double!  He really wants people to post comments and said it is hard to answer questions that are not asked!  He will answer as best he can; just contact him.  The link to his blog is here: http://blogs.library.ucla.edu/universitylibrarian/

He stressed that in his asking what we will do with 90%, he wants our ideas about what our major focuses will be, what will we do. UCOP has downsized by 450 positions.  CDL may not be impacted, because it provides significant savings to campuses and is necessary in order for campuses to qualify for grant funding.  Elsevier alone was $51 million over 5 years, at last contract, a very large sum.

UCLA has never had a strategic plan. He thinks that some degrees will be discontinued. This must go through the Faculty Senate, so it will be a slow process. In most schools, the state money goes to ladder faculty; there will probably be significant staff layoffs.

Botello brought up the statewide LAUC website as a “clearinghouse,” an idea which resulted from a September UL group discussion. Gary recalled that his concern was with a lack of any UCLA librarians being named as statewide representatives.  Snyder explained that when she was president, all names were put forward because there weren’t very many. The ULs make most of the decisions, and their advice is sought for other appointments. Gary said there was a discussion about where LAUC would report in the Office of the President. The OP (Dan Greenstein) sensed that LAUC was not putting forward any names.

Gary recalled that one of the functions the ULs see for LAUC is a professional clearinghouse, but there were no details given at that UL meeting. LAUC could serve as a clearinghouse to share professional concerns and issues with the ULs.

Costa suggested that statewide LAUC should have a discussion about what should be on this page. Gary suggests looking at LAUC’s strategic professional focus.  For example, “calls,” discussions on distinguished step (that is all scattered around), research (results of the research grants).  Start looking at our professional scope to frame what goes into the clearinghouse, which could then help the ULs better understand what LAUC is doing.  Gary then left the meeting.

8. Vice-Chair’s report. Mizrachi and nothing to report.

9.  Committee Chair reports.

CAPA Chair  (Costa):  The new CAPA has received their training. At their first meeting, yesterday, they created ground rules, set up logistics, and arranged the Sharepoint site.

Research & Professional Development (Alexander and Lynch): The committee discussed having a brown bag session, but decided to have 2 1-hour drop-in coffee-and-tea sessions during the second week in December, with a presentation of documentation from last year’s brown bag, and have last year’s brown bag speakers attend.  They have not yet met as a committee. Grant applicationss are due Jan. 9.

Plans and Policies: no report.
Professional Governance: no report.

Costa suggested that, since we are an advisory group and budget problems are coming, we might have some brown bag sessions sponsored by Library Plans and Policies to solicit issues for us to discuss, for example, the issues discussed in Gary Strong’s blog.

Calendar: Executive Board meetings will be the 4th Tuesday of each month; there will be no meeting December 23. Next meeting will be January 20.

10. Adjournment. The meeting was adjourned at 3:42 pm.