Present: Sue Crockford-Peters, Mark Gentry, Carol Jones, Fred Martz, Danelle Moon-Geraci, Danuta Nitecki, Sandy Peterson, Alan Solomon (Chair), David Stern, Joan Swanekamp, Jae Williams

Guests: Nicole Bouche, Sue Lorimer

Absent: Holly Grossetta Nardini , Kimberly Parker, Kate Reynolds, Paul Stuehrenberg

1. Announcements:

1. Alan Solomon noted that the deadline for nominating persons for the Service Quality Awards is September 21 and urged Council members to submit applications and remind others to do the same. The chair of the Awards Committee, Kevin Pacelli, has worked with this year’s group to respond to suggestions made after last year’s ceremony and has sent numerous personal reminders to continue interest in the awards. Impressions were that last year’s inaugural efforts were very well received by staff.
2. Alan also congratulated all the chairs of the SQI-C’s subgroups for their hard work to move their program agendas. He has visited each committee and was very impressed by the thoughtfulness given by each group.

2. Reports of Subgroups: Alan noted that he will invite chairs to periodically report to the SQIC and during this meeting, two chairs joined the Council for this purpose.

1. Bibliographic Access Group. Nicole Bouche reported that after resolving preliminary scheduling logistics, this group began its work by reviewing the purpose and evolution of the group. Its first primary focus has been to address the possibility of decreasing the number of subfield K locations [appearing above call numbers on cataloged books] in preparation for migration to Orbis 2. The group also plans to address the drafted document on how lost books will be represented in the online catalog. The rest of the group’s efforts thus far have been focused on addressing a mix between specific problems referred to it and raising philosophical principles about what the online catalog should present. Nicole also acknowledged that the group expects to work with the OPAC Implementation Committee, and over time with this Orbis 2 migration committee’s chair, Ellen Cordes, will clarify the relationship of the two. One distinction between the two groups is that this Bibliographic Access Group is expected to be a long standing forum for helping to shape ways to identify library resources, while the OPAC Implementation Committee exists for the migration to the new library management system and will not continue beyond that.
2. Reference Group. Sue Lorimer joined the Council to report the initial work of this reconstituted group. She shared two handouts, a drafted charge/goals statement and a first attempt at forming a "service contract" for the library’s reference services. She welcomes comments on both. In writing its goals for the coming year, the group proposes to focus on establishing effective referral processes, exploring digital services, and raising awareness of reference services among staff. The service contract is very much in a draft stage, not having been written yet from the readers’ perspective. Danuta complimented the group for tackling a drafting of such a contract to clarify expectations for the library’s reference services and warned that early investment of time to understand the purpose of the service is important before setting out goals to accomplish such hoped-for outcomes. Sue Crockford-Peters asked if a mechanism would be developed to judge if service standards are met and Sue Lorimer confirmed that she expects periodical monitoring of service activities will be part of a design for judging the service success.

2. New Business:

1. Measuring Service Quality in Libraries. The Association of Research Libraries [ARL] offers an online course on this topic as part of its Online Lyceum professional development series. Working with a colleague at York University, Toni Olshen, and staff at ARL and Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Library, Danuta designed this 6-week interactive course. Alan took the course the last time it was offered and praised its value in introducing him to many service quality concepts and methods for quality assessment. The course will next be offered between October 9 and November 16. As part of the agreement for ARL to use the course content, Danuta may register one person at no charge each time the course is offered; she invites any staff member interested in taking it to let her know.
2. Mini course. Alan and Danuta floated an idea of repackaging some of the course content into small modules for training YUL staff. Council members welcomed the idea and recommended that delivery should be made in half to full day blocks to allow for concentrated focus on the topics.
3. Reader survey. The gap between people’s expectations for excellence in ideal services and their perception of delivered services is the underlying concept measured by a reader survey on service quality conducted a few years ago at YUL. Danuta reviewed the concept, the instrument and the results from the earlier 1998 study and invited discussion of what factors might be added to a similar survey she is planning to conduct again this fall. The Council identified several areas of possible importance to our readers. Among these were the following: consistency of circulation loan periods, selection procedures, wireless network access, space for small group study, food in the library, speed of acquisition of materials, availability of staff for assistance, computer printing, and the emerging standards for document delivery. Danuta and Holly will draft a new instrument, review it with LMC, and conduct the survey. An added inquiry in this study will be the effect of modes of communicating a questionnaire [mail vs web] on response rate.

Adjourned 4:30 p.m.