Minutes for July 13, 2006
Present: Katherine Adams, Tom Bolze, Daniel Lovins (chair), Youn Noh, Britta Santamauro (recorder), Becky Slitt.
Meeting began at 2.00 p.m. in Joan’s office.
Discussion of Vision Statement
To facilitate a better transition to the list of strategic directions (under heading "Strategic Directions", second paragraph), it was suggested to just leave out the last sentence in the second paragraph. This way there is a direct connection point. The sense was also that the last sentence might be too general, and broad in this section of the paper.
Slightly revise Policies, Procedures and Best Practices no. "VI" [Daniel's addition], i.e., take the specifics out and move them into the Goal section. So:
Proposed Best Practice:
"Leverage local language, subject, and technical expertise through collaborative ventures with other departments and libraries."
Proposed related goal:
Contribute to University of Rochester's eXtensible Catalog project, in order to exploit more fully the faceted navigation potential of LCC, LCSH, and other controlled vocabularies. While Endeca, Siderean, et al., offer excellent tools for achieving these aims, commitment to open-source code, collaborative R&D, and library service principles mean more hands-on learning for library staff, better indexing, and lower licensing costs.
Suggested additional best practices:
VII. Integrate/distribute cataloging of electronic resources across the department, in order to get all staff involved in the new mission and vision.
VIII. Support ongoing, open communication and free flow of information. E.g., roundtables and briefings to keep all staff current on institutional priorities and developments. Rationale: even though the Library has a standing "Communications Committee" charged "to support and promote open and two-way communication across the entire Library system," we find that timely information on important library-wide initiatives is still in short supply. For example, news concerning DPIP, the Metadata Committee, MetaLib, and VITAL, all of which have potentially major implications for the catalog department, tends to appear infrequently and then only in a cursory form. In fact, our own task force is pretty secretive (e.g., password-protected Web site, closed meetings, closed membership list, infrequent public updates), and, though necessary given our charge, still runs the risk of alienating or insulting those not directly involved. Daniel suggested that a formalized reporting system might be useful, and Kathy suggested that we might want to open this or a successor task force to volunteers.
IX. Provide project-based metadata training opportunities, [as this has been shown to be the best way to learn new skills (Cf., for example, Ahronheim, J. R., & Marko, L. 2000; Flecker, D. 2000, in Annotated Bibliography).]
Additional suggested goals :
Compete with other departments for International Associates and SCOPA funding [the rationale here being that internships and research projects are a net gain, rather than burden, on the department's overall resources and capacity. Of course, this assumes we select our priorities and candidates with the greatest care).]
It was further discussed that more goals could be added, but that those goals would depend highly on collaboration with other departments, e.g. supporting development of an institutional repository (FEDORA/VITAL), helping integrate SAKAI, VITAL, Orbis, and YaleInfo Portal into Yale’s digital information landscape, and collaborating on (selected) DPIP projects.
We then discussed on how to go about implementing the ideas. We touched upon the nature and purpose of the library's current team management structure and wondered whether it might be helpful or necessary to form a transitional team/taskforce to help facilitate new initiatives. Questions were raised on how to select or invite staff without alienating some or conveying the sense of exclusiveness discussed above.
Meeting adjourned 3.10 p.m.