November 2002
Ad Hoc Communications Task Force Annual Report

The joint ad hoc task force on communication includes the AULs, Pat Hawthorne, Director Library Human Resources, and the following LAUC-LA members.

Bob Bellanti
Keri Botello
Jan Goldsmith
Esther Grassian
Maureen Russell

The charge from Gloria Werner, University Librarian: Examine the Library's current means of internal communication with
librarians and staff. Assess ways to improve written, verbal, and electronic communication. Make recommendations designed to improve communications and propose a model that will best serve the communication needs of the UCLA Library community.

The complete task force had two meetings: March 13 and April 2, 2002

After discussion, it was decided to best serve the needs of the library staff as a whole, we needed to ask the library staff what their communications needs are.

Pat Hawthorne informed us that she and her staff would work on inputting a communication needs survey created by the task force. The survey is based on samples provided by Pat. Esther Grassian wrote the working draft.

The intent was to have every library staff member employed half time or more have an opportunity to respond to the survey, the results to be posted on a library web site. The Task Force would then begin discussions addressing the concerns raised in the survey.

Over the past months, various Task Force members have tried to follow up on the survey by asking about its status. Very recently, we were told that Pat Hawthorne's office has been unable to mount the survey due to the many other demands on their time.

LAUC-LA can mount the survey (and Esther Grassian has graciously offered to do so), but we need to know if this is what the LAUC-LA membership-at-large wants. So we ask... Do you still want a survey asking about communication needs? If so, should we do it now or should we wait until the arrival of the new University Librarian?

We look forward to a lively discussion at the November 14th Fall Membership meeting.

Respectfully submitted,
Maureen Russell