Agenda

1. Announcements
2. Follow-up on the provost’s remarks
   • Implications for library planning in general and LC retreat on Aug. 14 in particular
3. Qualitative narrative for ARL reporting

Minutes

(Regrets: Connie, Sue, Martin)

1. Announcements:

• Council was reminded of the new meeting time which begins next week: Thursdays at 1:30 pm.
• Dean Dowell is currently in Washington, D.C. participating in IMLS panel for grant reviews. Council is encouraged to consider these types of grant for future possibilities. While in D.C. she also has appointments at the Freedom Forum’s Newseum to explore future collaborations and opportunities, set up with the help of John Seigenthaler.
• New copiers have been delivered to some areas; work on configuring settings for these is in process.
• Council should forward any donor contacts directly to Beth Boord, as Celia’s name has been removed as a donor contact.
• Please remind your staff that any non-emergency LITS issues are best reported through the Inform system.
• The 08/09 budget has closed. The surplus will be added to the library reserve funds; allocation of these funds to various reserves will be determined in the near future by Dean Dowell.
• The move to 21 North is 95% complete, with the remaining items to be moved within the next couple of weeks. Two open house sessions are being scheduled in mid-August, with specific dates and details to be announced at the end of July.

2. Development Report: Beth, Holling and Marshall will soon have the preliminary application for a Mellon grant for the Global Music Archives ready for submission.

• Beth will travel to D.C. where she and Dean Dowell will meet with alums.
• Progress is being made identifying donors at the various alumni chapter events.
• Julian Goodman, retired CEO of NBC, has committed his papers to the library.
• The next issue of the Acorn Chronicle is currently in the works.
• Dean Dowell continues to schedule lunch meetings with Friends of the Library, as well as potential Friends.
• Chris Toft has left Vanderbilt; Beth will meet personally with library directors to discuss potential donor contacts and ideas directors have for development.

3. Non-disclosure agreements: In light of the recent ARL recommendation encouraging members to refrain from signing non-disclosure or confidentiality clauses, Council discussed whether we should adopt a policy for the Vanderbilt library system to not sign such agreements in the future. Bill will follow up with Purchasing and University Council to see what policies already exist regarding the signing of non-disclosure agreements, and Council will revisit the topic in the future.

4. ARL Qualitative Descriptions: A group of ARL members has been accumulating data to identify what qualifies as a research library, looking at qualitative issues as well as quantitative measures. Flo asked Council to send her a brief description of their library (especially in the areas of special collections and collection strength, unique programs the library is involved in, and others things they would like to highlight) for inclusion in the report she is preparing for this analysis. Please have this information to Flo by August 1st. In their effort to find better ways to describe the member libraries, ARL will also ask for the number of titles as well as volumes when gathering this year’s statistics.

5. Recap from All-Staff Meeting with the Provost: Council shared feedback received from their staff on the recent talk by the Provost. Overall, staff enjoyed the opportunity to have the Provost talk to the library and found him to be both supportive of the library’s future and open in the information he shared. Some staff expressed an interest in learning the results from the Graduate Education report he mentioned. Also of note were his comments on the Every Tub on its Own Bottom (ETOB) concept, and the university’s departure from functioning under that philosophy to a more centralized arrangement across the university. Council will discuss some topics from the meeting in further detail in the future, possibly at the Retreat on August 14.

6. New Faculty Orientation: Dean Dowell will participate in a day-long orientation for new faculty on August 24th, sponsored by the Provost’s office. She will speak to faculty for a half hour about the library, directly after the Provost speaks about his vision for the university. Council was asked to provide feedback on the kind of information that would be useful for inclusion in her talk and to send this information to Flo for consideration. Where libraries have checklists of information that they cover in their meetings with new faculty in their disciplines, those would be helpful in identifying information that may not be covered.