More information about university planning

[Alice Prochaska <alice.prochaska@yale.edu>]

Dear Colleagues,

This message follows up my note of February 6, about the meeting of Deans, 
Directors and University Officers hosted by President Levin the previous 
day.  The slides used at that meeting are now being made publicly 
available, and you can see them at 
http://www.yale.edu/about/Feb5Slides2.pdf .  They contain quite a lot of 
factual information about the financial position of the university and the 
ways it is being addressed.  President Levin has also made available the 
full list of Task Forces, Working Groups and Initiatives that come under 
the umbrella of ASSET, the Administrative Services and Support Enhancement 
Team: at: http://www.yale.edu/about/task_force_members.pdf;

In a message to deans, directors and other financial leaders today, 
President Levin asks us to encourage all staff to contact ASSET team 
members or forward ideas to the team email address, asset@yale.edu .  From 
next Monday, February 23, you can also call 43A-SSET (432-7738).  And 
please also remember the web-based community discussion site, 
www.whynot.NET/yale  .

I have been collecting messages from Library staff, and I'd like to thank 
all of you who have taken the time to send me your comments.  I've now 
begun passing them on, without attribution to individuals, and I have 
already received some thanks and comments from members of the working 
groups, which I've passed back to the people who offered the 
comments.  This process will continue, and meanwhile we'll be mounting 
comments on the library staff web site, www.library.yale.edu/~fdstaff   If 
you wish your comments to me to be in confidence, please let me know, and 
I'll keep them private.

The President and officers of the university are encouraging as much 
communication as possible about the process that is now under way.  As you 
know, John Pepper, the Vice President for Finance and Administration, 
visited the Library on Monday together with Rob Schwartz, Associate VP for 
human Resources and Janet Lindner, Associate VP for Administration.  They 
met with Library managers and an invited cross-section of staff (invited, 
because we needed to fit into the SML Lecture Hall).  John's  response to 
that meeting was: " It was truly my pleasure. I came away with a MUCH 
deeper understanding of the enormous scope of the library's activities. I 
continued to learn what are the issues on people's minds. Thank you for 
making this possible. I will look forward to coming to know you better--and 
the library too. "  For our part, it was a GREAT pleasure to see John and 
his colleagues, and we were really glad to have the opportunity to help him 
get to know the Library.

Please keep the good ideas flowing.

Alice

PS  The next staff tea will be next Thursday, February 26, from 10:30 to 
9:30 in the Sterling Spoon: always a good opportunity to exchange ideas 
with other members of Library staff, and I shall be there, to hear any 
comments you may wish to make.