Minutes
Members Present:
Jason Battles, Leslie Boyd, Melinda Brown, David Carpenter, Sue Erikson, Teresa Gray, Janet Hirt, Amy Limpitlaw, Kitty Porter, Robert Rich, and Flo Wilson (chair).
Discussion of Committee Structure
Created the Instruction and Reference forums. Melinda Brown will serve as convenor of the Instruction Forum which will include staff members involved or interested in training and instruction. Sue Erickson will convene the Reference Forum for those involved or interested in reference issues. The Research Services Committee members will seek out participants from their library/department. Anyone wanting to participate in either forum is welcome. The convenors will form planning teams from the forum membership. The covenors will provide reports to the committee at large.
The Research Services Committee and the Instruction and Reference forums will spawn project teams when necessary to carry out the goals of these bodies.
Communication
We will establish email distribution lists for the Research Services Committee and each forum. The full minutes and agenda for the committee meeting will be distributed via email list and posted on the Library Committees wiki. Abbreviated news items will go out via the staff newsletter’s RSS feed. We will attempt to post the agenda ahead of meetings, so any additions or changes can be addressed. We left open the possibility of using an OAK course for committee communication and the posting of minutes.
Committee Goals
- Identify and address the needs of users by creating focus groups (graduate students, faculty, etc.) to find out what we must do better and what these users really need. Utilize coordinated surveys for evaluating faculty and student needs. This effort could include the creation of web pages for these groups.
- Address issue of balancing job responsibility, time, and new demands.
- Identify personal development, skills, building opportunities, staff development. Provide reference training for non-reference people.
- Provide orientation for staff to learn who knows what and who to go to for specific problems.
- Reference values and service expectations.
- Importance of a user friendly interface and library-wide web presence.
- Exploration of assessment methodologies.
- Technology training to help answer questions and perform triage for basic problems.
- Virtual reference – Building a knowledgebase to store common questions.
- Blackboard – Establish a test course with a student account to give us their view. Determine how we can measure the library’s integration/penetration in a course. Use Blackboard for sharing information on articles, discussions, etc. Possible usefulness in establishing a library-wide Blackboard course.