Fondren Library Staff News | Archives | 2015

Executive Committee Meeting Summaries (February 5, 12 & 19, 2015)

Posted on February 27, 2015 by reagor 0

February 5, 2015

RiceWorks upgrade: Jana Callan visited to share plans for upgrading RiceWorks, the university’s hiring management system. The new version should improve reporting and user interface. Job descriptions will be separate from job postings. Training for Fondren supervisors will take place late February or early March.

FY16 Budget preparation: The group discussed each member’s assigned contributions to the budget narrative Sara Lowman must turn in to the university Budget Office, including budget economies taken this year and both projected economies and needs for FY16.

CMACS activities: A plan was shared for posting in each area answers to the question: What are we working on? A CMACS representative will work with each area. The idea is to balance continued emphasis on existing customer service standards with transparency about current projects.

Concur: The group discussed implementation to date of the university’s new expense management system.

February 12, 2015

Dean’s Council: Sara Lowman reported on the Dean’s Council discussion of a proposed program to bring in more research post-doctoral fellows, with the aim of further enhancing Rice’s research profile. Possible roles for the library in supporting such a program were floated.

President Leebron will be asking the university community to help identify Rice’s next Quality Enhancement Program (QEP). QEPs are connected with the university’s periodic accreditation reviews. Ten years ago, the Center for Civic Engagement (now Center for Civic Leadership) came out of the review process. Two years ago, the Center for Written, Oral and Visual Communication (CWVOC) resulted from a mid-term review, and a new QEP could well continue a focus on communication, with possible collaboration between the library and CWVOC.

New manuscript/archival collection : Fondren is working on acquiring an important archive of manuscripts and letters pertaining to French composer Francis Poulenc.

February 19, 2015

No meeting.

Ithaka S+R survey slated for March and April

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Debra Kolah 0

Rice University’s Fondren Library has partnered with Ithaka S+R to administer an online survey this Spring to inform and improve library services. Faculty will be surveyed on three topics, including: Digital Research Activities, Data Preservation & Management, and Discovery. Undergraduates and graduate students will be invited to participate in a 10-minute national survey on library services that has been administered at many other universities, including UNC Chapel Hill, the University of Chicago, and Swarthmore. The faculty survey has been done at Harvard, Tulane, Baylor, and Princeton. The online survey will be offered Tuesday, March 17th to Wednesday, April 8th. Fondren Library will use the results of the survey to inform an upcoming website redesign in July and to generate ideas for service enhancements.

Research staff from Ithaka S+R will visit campus in early May to present the findings to Fondren Library and work with the Rice community to understand the results. The Faculty Survey and the Student Survey will provide a heightened awareness of campus needs and help library leaders to manage changes in the research process.

More information about the survey can be found at the Ithaka S+R website, http://sr.ithaka.org/content/surveys.

For questions or comments about the Survey, please contact: Debra Kolah (dkolah@rice.edu) or Sandi Edwards (edwards@rice.edu).

Executive Committee Meeting Summaries, January 15, 22 and 29

Posted on February 6, 2015 by lspiro 0

January 15, 2015

1) A new version of RiceWorks will be rolled out this spring. Starting on February 3, most users will be unable to create new actions until the new system is up and running.
2) Fondren will begin a review of library systems this spring. Input will be sought from throughout the library. More details TBA.

3) New members of the Horizon Group were selected:

New Members: Scott Carlson, Jet Prendeville, Monica Rivero, and Rebecca Russell (two year term, 2015-2016)
Continuing Members: Jean Aroom, Mary Brower, Lauren Mueller, and Nyssa Juneau (two year term, 2014-2015)

4) Given recent experiences with a problem patron, all staff should be vigilant and report any suspicious activity to RUPD. The police will need an eyewitness report.

To facilitate sharing information about potential patron-related problems in Fondren, Diane Butler set up a new library-only listserv, fonalerts@rice.edu. Libstaff should continue to be used for all other correspondence.

5) A plan for salary increases was discussed and will be shared with all Fondren supervisors.
January 22, 2015

1) Rice is discussing the possibility of offering an enriched spring break educational experience in the future. Executive Committee members discussed potential ways that the library could participate in this program, should it come to fruition.
2) The Executive Committee explored potential topics for future Library Committee meetings.

January 29, 2015

Angela Lipari visited to share information about Human Resources activities.