Author Archives: Doreen Bernier

The 150s now First Come, First Served for Students

For the spring semester, the library study rooms on the lower level (the 150 rooms) will be now available for students on a first come, first served basis. If the room is empty, feel free to just start using it. These are for group study, though, so an individual using the room may be asked to leave if a group needs the room.

These spaces are often used for meetings and interviews by various departments from across campus. Reservations can still be made for these events.  To do so, please contact Doreen Bernier (dbernier@middlebury.edu or x5595).  Schedules will be posted on the door to each room.

LIS All-Staff Meeting Notes, July 17, 2013

1. Updates/introduce new staff

  •  Heather Stafford – Multimedia Curricular Technologist
  • Stacy Reardon – Librarian, Research and Instruction

  • Brett Wells – Computing Specialist II

  • Susan Simmons – Business Systems Analyst/Administration

  • David Wright – Media Services Specialist II

Arabella announced that Patrick Norton would be giving a presentation on the college finances on July 24th and 25th.  She will send around and email announcement with times.

2. Report/Recommendation from the Internal Communications Task force

Terry presented the task force recommendations to staff.  It was suggested that an LIS staff only, private, blog be created to post agendas and notes for various LIS meetings.  Possible meetings to be posted here would be:

  • Area Directors

  • Manager’s

  • All Staff

  • Liaison

  • FLAC-Faculty LIS Advisory Committee

  • SLAC-Student LIS Advisory Committee

  • Teams

  • Web Prioritization

  • Banner Leads

  • Divisional Faculty Advisory Committees

The task force also recommends that someone be assigned to post agendas and take notes for each meeting, and a moderator be assigned to ensure these are posted to the blog according to their recommendations.

The task force would like to revisit this every 6 months.

The current blog will be used for announcements and content of interest to the general public.

Staff comments:

  • This blog could be a good place to post conference reports

  • Agenda topics should be posted in such a way that asks for feedback

  • How do we encourage open two-way discussion?

Mike asked for a vote to accept the task force recommendations.  The staff unanimously voted to accept these recommendations.

3. Discuss time for professional development proposal

Mike presented a proposal to create a pilot project to build in time for learning

In order to keep up with the myriad changes in technology and library services that impact how we do our work, we propose that as an organization we collectively  block out some substantial chunk of time on a regular basis to provide us time to learn new things.

Questions about this idea:

  1. Do you think this is a good idea? Why or why not?

  2. How often do you think we should block out time for this sort of professional development? Once a week? Once every other week? Once every three weeks? Once a month? Some other increment of time?

  3. How much time should we block out? 1 hour? 2 hours? 3 hours? 4 hours?

  4. Should our entire organization commit to the same block of time, or should each individual pick his/her own? Alternatively, should workgroups schedule together, or areas?

  5. What strategies might we use to not disrupt our ability to deliver timely services to our users?

  6. Would you prefer to pursue this professional development on your own, or as part of a small group of people learning something together?

  7. If you had a block of time on a regular basis that you could dedicate to your own professional development, what would you do with that time? Please be specific about what you might pursue.

  8. What resources would you require in order to pursue this? Books? Webinars? New software?

  9. Other comments/questions concerns?

Mike will send around a survey to collect opinions to move this project forward. Results to be discussed at the next manager’s meeting.

4. Goals Highlights/Next Steps

We had a brief discussion about the goal setting process.

  • Mike encouraged everyone to review the goals that we have submitted (https://sites.google.com/a/middlebury.edu/lis-strategic-planning/directiongoals/goals-2014 )

  • We will choose those goals that we want to include in the overall College plan (and stakeholders that need to be informed/consulted)

  • We need to create linkage to overall college goals/direction (two-way: how does what we propose support the overall direction, and given what we know of the direction, what should we be doing?)

  • We will hear from stakeholders who require help from us in our goal setting process

Next year’s goals

How can we build in considerations of next year’s (fy14-15) goals into the upcoming budget process this Fall?

LIS R&R Crew Awards for April and May

The LIS Recognition & Recreation Crew is pleased to announce the April and May winners of the Employees and Crew of the Month Awards.

April 

Crew of the Month – Interlibrary Loan – Rachel Manning, Kate Schmitt and Sigrid Howlett

Employee of the Month – Janine McDonald, Library Circulation

Student Employee of the Month – Olena Ostasheva

May

Crew of the Month – This month the Area Directors decided to present this award to the R&R Crew for their work in support of the LIS In-service day in March

Employee of the Month – Danielle Rougeau, Special Collections and Archives

Student Employee of the Month – Kaveh Waddell

Congratulations to all!

The R&R Crew needs award nominations! Nominate LIS students, staff, & crews at go/nominate! Please be sure to include details about why the nominee deserves recognition.

 

 

LIS R&R Crew Awards for February

The LIS Recognition & Recreation Crew is pleased to announce February’s recipients of the Employees and Crew of the Month Awards.

Crew of the Month – Research and Instruction Workgroup – Carrie Macfarlane, Hans Raum, Steve Bertolino, Brenda Ellis, Richard Jenkins, Joy Pile, Wendy Shook and Kristina Simmons

Employee of the Month – Jim Stuart

Student Employee of the Month – Meade Atkeson

Congratulations to all!

The R&R Crew needs award nominations! Nominate LIS students, staff, & crews at go/nominate! Please be sure to include details about why the nominee deserves recognition.

LIS R&R Crew Recognition Awards from September – January

The LIS Recognition & Recreation Crew is pleased to announce the recipients of the Employees and Crew of the Months of September, October, November and January 2013,  Awards were not given in December.

January:

Crew of the Month – MIDDCORE Project Team.  Team members are Ian McBride, Travis Stafford, Mike Schuster, Mike Lynch, Kara Gennarelli, David Ludwig, Joe Antonioli, Pij Slater, Alisa Cutter, LeRoy Graham and Kathy Weiss

Employee of the Month – Joe Durante

Student Employee of the Month – Jaweed Ahmadi

November 2012

Crew of the Month – Media Services.  Members are Petar Mitrevski, Charlie Conway, Stewart Lane, Scott Witt and Danielle Madison

Employee of the Month – Danielle Madison

October 2012

Crew of the Month – Liaisons Group.  Members are Rebekah Irwin, Joy Pile, Wendy Shook, Kellam Ayres, Hans Raum, Carrie Macfarlane, Steve Bertolino, Brenda Ellis, Richard Jenkins, Bryan Carson, Shel Sax, Terry Simpkins

Employee of the Month – Joseph Watson

September 2012

Crew of the Month –Collection Management.  Members are Sue Driscoll, Marlena Evans, Arabella Holzpfel, Michele McHugh, Michael Warner, Rebekah Irwin and Lisa McLaughlin

Employee of the Month – Brian Foley

Student Employee of the Month – : Leandro Giglioli (Leo)

Congratulations to all!

The R&R Crew needs award nominations! Nominate LIS students, staff, & crews at go/nominate! Please be sure to include details about why the nominee deserves recognition.

 

All Staff Meeting Notes for December and November

LIS All Staff Meeting Notes

December 19, 2012

Mike noted that the R&R did not have awards for this month since nominations were light and reminded everyone to participate in the nomination process. For a link to the nomination form:  http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/technology/lis/about/recrec/nomination

Mike announced that all the open replacement positions have been approved by the SRC.

Carol announced that Joe Antonioli will be assuming a newly created position as the Senior Curricular Innovation Specialist. In addition to serving as the head of LIS’ curricular technology program, Joe will work closely with Shel Sax, Director of Educational Technology, and will co-lead the liaison program with Carrie Macfarlane

Carrie Macfarlane introduced Kristina Simmons who will be working on a part-time basis for Research and Instruction.

Mike then introduced Tim Spears and James Davis who came to discuss the “cost and relevance” of what it means to be a liberal arts college in the 21st century.  Tim and James have been talking to faculty and will extend discussion to staff and students in the spring.

November 28. 2012

Mike presented the Media Services Group with this month’s Crew of the Month Award.  Congratulations to Petar Mitrevski, Scott Witt, Stewart Lane, Charlie Conway and Danielle Madison.

Petar Mitrevski presented the Employee of the Month award to Danielle Madison.

Mike presented the draft staffing plan:  https://docs.google.com/a/middlebury.edu/presentation/d/1BnTJxjtXJdHQdWm8vLUSlfTAM7M1OFYFM40nSpthQ2w/edit#slide=id.p

Aline Germain-Rutherford joined the group and gave a detailed presentation on Middlebury Interactive Languages (MIL), which provides online languages courses to pre-college students.  Click here for more information on MIL:  http://www.middlebury.edu/mil

Area Director Notes from May 10th and May 24th

24 May 2012 – AD Meeting

Present:  Mike Roy, Mary Backus, Carol Peddie, Chris Norris and Doreen Bernier

The meeting began with some general discussion on the following topics.

Attendance expectations for All LIS Staff meetings – the last meeting yielded low numbers in attendance.  ADs will remind staff that their attendance is expected at these meetings.

Website has been updated to include the AD Team charge.

Summer schedule – vacation and holiday schedules were discussed.  Mike will contact Michael Geisler to discuss closing the library at 5 pm on July 4th.

Optional All LIS Staff Meetings – we talked about the timing of these meetings and it was decided to hold optional informational meetings to once a month and to not hold them during the summer.

The first year for the R&R crew comes to a close on June 30th with new membership starting in July.  Membership will be recruited from past Employee of the Month Award Winners.  It was also decided to only give awards out only during the academic year.  You will hear more from the R&R Crew about an upcoming all-staff potluck in August.

Mike distributed the charge for the “Communications” group to the ADs for discussion.  The charge was approved with slight modifications.  The deadline to identify and define milestones will be June 30th.  Mike will distribute to group members.

Proposal for Penalty Point System proposal has been approved by the ADs for students and staff.  A blog post will be prepared and submitted.

Chris led the ADs through a review and discussion about the Network Monitoring & Incident Response Policy, which will be added to the handbook, after receiving approval from President’s Staff.

 

Area 51 notes, May 10, 2012

Present:  Mike Roy, Mark Backus, Shel Sax, Chris Norris, Carol Peddie Terry Simpkins and Doreen Bernier

The ADs discussed the timing of conducting the Google/MS Live evaluation.  In order to take into consideration staff workloads, Mike asked the ADs to estimate project timelines/completion dates for major current projects to see when it would be feasible to complete this evaluation.

In anticipation of an upcoming discussion with the Web Team, Terry asked the ADs for input on elements of a new charge for Web Team mark III.  The ADs suggested a number of topics, which Terry will bring to the team for discussion.  On a related note, Chris presented a draft of a team charge for the Security Team to the ADs for approval.  Rather than a list of specific tasks, this charge serves as a sort of “statement of purpose,” which the Team can use on a continuing basis to set goals each year.  This approach might also benefit other teams as well.  After some discussion, the ADs approved the charge and are happy to meet with Team members for follow-up, if desired.

Mary Backus presented a proposal for printer consolidation to review and discuss prior to presenting it to President’s Staff.  ADs were interested in learning more about the money saved and time gained from supporting fewer printers, as well as the criteria for deciding which printers to remove (e.g., distance or easy access to printers, no. of pages printed, etc.)  Mary will provide more information on this.

Chris Norris gave a system level monitoring & availability update, sharing the data compiled in the last 3 months on how College systems are performing.  Over this period of time, systems were performing at 99.81% and not the preferred 99.9%, due to downtimes on systems for a variety of reasons (migration, Middfiles affects, scheduled upgrades, and other planned outages). Some systems of concern are iGreentree, Frontrush, Segue and the MIIS Drupal site. Systems working at 100% were Google, Rave, Cybersource and Blackberry.


Thanks for reading,

Terry & Doreen