Area 51 notes, Dec. 13, 2013

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

Mike provided a summary of his CLIR-CIO meeting in Washington DC.  Some of the topics discussed were:

  • MISO survey
  • Digital scholarship
  • On-line education
  • Classroom design
  • Quiet zones in the library
  • Security
  • Organizational structure
  • Collection development issues

The Dec. 20th optional all-LIS staff meeting has been canceled.  Happy holidays

Chris led a discussion about next steps regarding our policy review (aka, Policy Summit). We looked at some of Gartner’s recommendations for policy management. After reviewing notes from the Policy Summit meeting and survey results, the following topics stood out:

  • Data ownership, privacy, classification
  • Education and awareness
  • Technology enablers (ie. tools)
  • Governance and enforcement

A consolidated list of next steps was generated:

  • Inventory all LIS policies and policies that affect LIS
    • What do we have? What’s missing? What’s no longer needed? – Chris has contacted Donna McDurfee, who sends out yearly update notifications on handbook policies, to request a spreadsheet containing an inventory of the current policies as a starting point.
    • Where are the policies? When were they last updated? Who is responsible for each policy?
    • Does the policy work? Would it work if it was enforced? How to deal with exceptions?
    • Is it an LIS policy or a College policy (or other, such as a guideline, practice, or procedure)?
  • Determine institutional temperature of policy creation
    • Who should be leading this effort? Who should be involved?
    • Relationship to the data classification taskforce work?
    • What should the priorities be (i.e., currency, legal)?
    • What is the institutional philosophy around policies (e.g., comprehensive, prescribed? simple, broadly worded?

Chris reported that the latest draft of the Data Classification Policy (created by the Data Classification Taskforce) has been completed. A review of this draft will be added to next week’s AD agenda for further discussion.

Our discussion touched the issue of which policies (versus, for example, guidelines or procedures) to prioritize/focus.  There was at least some sentiment to focus on policies with an element of enforcement to them (as opposed to, for example, something like the library gift policy that mainly provides guidance to staff as well as donors).

A second round of Policy Summit discussions will continue during the January optional all-staff meeting on January 17th.

The ADs discussed whether the LIS Strategic Directions need to be updated (please… hold your applause).  It has been several years since the last revision.  Sentiment varied as to whether we have the time, and whether it is worth the effort, to engage in this now.  We will continue to poke at this.

Thanks for reading,
Terry & Doreen