Present:  Julie Bobay for Erika Dowell, Nancy Boerner, Becky Cape, Marion Frank-Wilson, Jian Liu, Jo McClamroch, Mary Popp, Andrea Singer, Mary Strow, Gary Wiggins; Suzanne Thorin, presiding.

Absent: Bob Noel

1.  Dean's Report

Vacancies and Positions: Angela Courtney has accepted the position of Bibliographer for English and American Literature, Philosophy, and Film Studies.  She will join the Libraries on April 1, 2003.

The Libraries have received money from the Chancellor's Fund and Biology to hire a public service librarian (in a spousal position).  Yolanda Cooper conducted the negotiations and obtained agreement that the Libraries will gradually assume funding of the position over a period of several years.

Applications are being received for the position of Preservation Librarian.

To replace Harry Shaffer, a PA position, of Facilities and Renovation Officer, will be created.

Recently posted was a six-month position for an archivist to process the Lee Hamilton papers in the Lilly library.  A search committee consisting of Lilly staff has been formed.  Funding for the position was received from the Chancellor's office.

Douglas McKinney will serve as coordinator of statistics and data.  He will work mostly with Harriette Hemmasi, but will still report to Dean Thorin.  The position of Assistant to the Dean, vacated by Doug, will be posted.

No bi-weekly positions are currently posted -- several positions are still vacant.

Common Virtual Library Environment:  Dean Thorin distributed copies of a proposal for a Common Virtual Library Environment that was presented on February 28, 2003, to the Committee on Academic Excellence of the IU Board of Trustees.  After visiting all the campuses to get feedback from their chancellors, academic officers, head librarians, and others, Dean Thorin has concluded that different ways of organizing funding at some of the other campuses make it difficult for them to contribute to this common effort from their current funds, and she may ask the Board of Trustees for money off the top to support the project.  She has requested three months of additional planning time to gather more data, obtain faculty input, and prepare options for implementation.

Commitment to Excellence Proposals:  At least five proposals for Commitment to Excellence funding, based on the strategic priorities identified by the IUB Strategic Planning Committee, will contain library elements: a HPER proposal regarding public health incorporates a librarian position; two other HPER proposals -- on aging and on academic diving -- will include a library resources component; a statistics center proposal, now based in RUGS because there are so many participating departments, will include a GIMSS component; a "Two-Thirds World" proposal, involving several new majors and an international living-learning center, may include a full-time Middle East Librarian position and a .5 FTE Central Eurasian Librarian position.  Proposals are due to the evaluation committee on March 7, 2003.  In addition to the committee's ranking, input will also be sought by the Chancellor from the Deans' Council and the Budgetary Affairs Committee of the Bloomington Faculty Council.

Task forces:  Two new task forces are being formed, one on "Organizing," chaired by Mary Strow, and one on "Access," co-chaired by Kris Brancolini and Phyllis Davidson.  The latter are still seeking volunteers, and are formulating a more detailed charge.  In response to a question from Andrea Singer, Dean Thorin agreed that the Organizing Committee might very well develop a proposal for a new organizational structure.  She noted that the committee will analyze how effectively we are working together, e.g., how easy is it to cross lines and cross-communicate, how easy is it to test technology or ideas and make sure sufficiently broad input has been obtained?  A third task force, charged with investigating the feasibility of an IU Institutional Repository, is seeking volunteers to provide it with feedback.  Any member of the committee may be contacted: Suzanne Thorin, Kristine Brancolini and David Lewis of the IU Libraries; Kumble Subbaswamy of COAS; Herman Saatkamp, School of Liberal Arts; Chris Peebles, Gerry Bernbom, and Garland Elmore of UITS.

Holds implementation: Dean Thorin reported that "Holds are on hold:" they cannot be implemented in Unicorn yet because much is still not known about the ramifications of this function.  There are some issues that are of more interest to Bloomington than to other campuses.

 LIT system services: Members of LIT are monitoring their time to determine how much they spend on system work and how much only on work for Bloomington.  Discussions are underway at the Council of Head Librarians about the possibility of providing more funding from the other campuses for work LIT does for the system.

Upcoming events:  Dean Thorin reiterated that all library employees are invited to the three monthly conversations being held on ways in which the research library is changing in response to the increasing use of information technology in research, teaching, and learning.  The next one will be held on March 11, and the third one on April 8, 2003, both from 3:30-5:00 p.m. in IUL E174.  Librarians Day will be held on April 25, 2003, at IUPUI.

2.  Update on Promotion and Tenure Review Committee

Dean Thorin reported on conversations she has held with the committee co-chairs, Linda Fisher (South Bend) and B.J. Irvine (IUB), and with Moya Andrews, Dean of the Faculties at IUB, about changes that might be made to make the P&T system at Bloomington more supportive of IUB librarians.  Currently, although the libraries at other campuses have their own P&T procedures, which are responsive to their specific environments and are used in addition to the system-wide process, Bloomington uses only the system structure.  Dean Thorin has suggested to the committee that it might explore the possibility of proposing the establishment of a Bloomington-specific P&T process for librarians.

3.  Faculty Standards Committee (FSC) draft revision of the Annual Merit Review document (please see BLFC minutes of February 5, 2003, for background information about the revision)

Proposals from the Faculty Standards Committee for revisions to the Annual Merit Review document were discussed, and emendations were suggested. There was agreement that the lottery system for appointing Peer Review Committee members works and is preferable to an election.  There was also a consensus that only three levels of merit will be proposed, instead of the current four, although it was recognized that an argument can be made for four.  Committee chair Julie Bobay will incorporate all suggestions into a further draft and circulate it to the BLFC by early in the week of March 10.  The final draft will be sent to library faculty by March 19, 2003.

4.  Bloomington Library Faculty Meeting on March 26

A meeting of the Bloomington Library Faculty has been set for March 26, 2003, to discuss and vote on the Faculty Standard Committee’s proposal for the peer review of librarians for merit salary distribution. 

5.  BFC Report

Mary Popp reported on two Bloomington Faculty Council meetings and one University Faculty Council meeting that took place since the February BLFC meeting:

In general, there has been much discussion about the changes the new PeopleSoft program will have on the way that grades and wait lists and other things related to classroom instruction are handled.

Interim President Bepko’s priorities include those laid out by former President Brand, focusing on teamwork and collegiality, student learning, a Bloomington planning process, and making a good case for I.U to the General Assembly. 

There are several hundred possible candidates for the position of president of I.U.  Ninety of them are sitting presidents or chancellors at other places.

An EEOC ruling last year will require the university to drop its mandatory retirement policy for administrators.  The Trustees have asked the faculty to create new review procedures for the President, Vice Presidents, Chancellors, Vice Chancellors, and Deans within the next several years.  The UFC agenda committee has started with a review policy draft for Chancellors.  Possibilities for inclusion in the review procedures are surveys (like the Bloomington survey), peer reviewers, and consultants.

A new policy on the use of mass e-mail by administrative or academic units was passed for the Bloomington campus on Feb. 18.  It requires such e-mails to be approved by the President, Chancellor, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Dean of Students, or Director of the campus Human Relations office, depending on the intended audience.  The BLFC will need to look at this circular carefully at:  B18-2003, accessible at  http://www.indiana.edu/~bfc/BFC/circulars/02-03/B18-2003.htm.

A review committee is now in place to evaluate the Commitment to Excellence proposals from the schools.  It will be chaired by Fred Cate.

On March 11 at 4:00 in Woodburn 100, the Chancellor will give a State of Diversity address.  The full text will also be available on the web.

The BFC has passed a document describing non-reappointment procedures for untenured faculty and librarians after the third probationary year.  Annual reviews leading to non-reappointment after the third probationary year require that the librarian be notified and given sufficient time and guidance to prepare a dossier that will be reviewed by the unit promotion and tenure committee.  The document is available in circular B24-2003, accessible at http://www.indiana.edu/~bfc/BFC/circulars/02-03/B24-2003.htm.

Mary noted that this will require further discussion, and asked that it be put on the agenda for an upcoming BLFC meeting and that Julie Bobay, as chair of the Faculty Standards Committee, be invited to attend.  Suzanne noted that this development will also feed into the deliberations of the Libraries' Promotion and Tenure Review Committee. 

UITS has purchased an anti-spam program and will pilot test it in late March or early April.  A decision needs to be made about how far to allow the software to control e-mail.  More information will be available in April.

The meeting adjourned at 4:57 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Nancy Boerner

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