Dean's Office | LSA

Scott Seaman was our guest and he answered questions. The first question concerned changes in Administrative Services since Scott's appointment. The offsite storage project is the biggest change. Selected volumes from the Periodicals Room are now being moved offsite. Some mistakes made while moving have been caught and corrected. This move has not been too disruptive even though 45,000 volumes are being moved. Student assistants from Circulation are changing the location codes on the item records for these items daily as they arrive offsite. The serials check-in records will take several weeks to correct. Science library items will be moved offsite next. MPH and BUS are both changing their item records now so they can be flipped once their items have been moved offsite. By Fall, we hope these four locations will have been moved. After that, Norlin stacks, Music and Media libraries will be moved.

A question was asked concerning Scott's view about all the changes in our library such as the offsite storage project and the future pay for performance plan. Scott said the last five years have brought a lot of changes. For example the move to the III/CHINOOK system changed every process, large and small. He has not perceived an outpouring of major concern except for the desire to have a central source of information available.

Scott was asked to speak about the human resource aspect of his job. He replied that he is not a psychiatrist or counselor. There are good resources for this type of help on campus. Scott has experience managing large groups and big projects from his work at Ohio State University.

What is happening with Scott's previous position, the Head of Circulation? Scott does not know and he is not in charge of this position. Susan Anthes is in charge of this position and she is in the process of determining how to proceed with regards to this vacancy.

What direction is the OCI committee taking and how does the OCI interrelate with the library? Scott has been a member of OCI from almost its beginning. He cautioned that his answer was his opinion and he could not speak for the whole committee. OCI has begun to delegate many of its continuing functions. Staff development and staff information gathering are the OCI functions now. At some point the entire staff will probably take the OCI test again. Someone mentioned that nothing seems to come from OCI anymore. Scott said communication was not happening well and morale was low in the past and this was why OCI was formed. It is difficult to concretely address the 5-6 things identified as morale concerns. OCI has not solved all the problems, but realistically cannot do so.

The staff lounge is one morale issue that was brought to OCI. OCI appointed Scott and Nancy Carter to resolve the staff lounge issue. They asked LAB what the problems were. The answer was: 1. The staff lounge smells badly from food odors. 2. It is a closed off cave with no outside light. 3. It is too small. The Dean put a condition on the creation of a new staff lounge that it be handicap accessible. Scott and Nancy spent six months looking for possibilities. The old student lounge would need to be renovated at a cost of $80,000 - too much. The current lounge renovation would cost $35,000-40,000 - still too much and still has no outside light. OCI is aware there is no closure to this and no solution has been found. This problem is typical of OCI issues - problems sound simple but solutions are not simple.

Faculty/Staff development and training is taking over systems and computer training. The Net Etiquette program is an example of this. Also, interactive tutorials for on-line training in Windows and Microsoft Word will become available. Ruth Leahy has the Microsoft Word interactive training program already. She offered help now to anyone who would like to use this. CHINOOK training is handled through COG and each individual department.

A question was asked about money available to send staff to conferences and workshops. Your department head can ask Administrative Services for funds. Each request is considered on a case by case basis. This is the same process used for faculty requests.

There is a policy for flex-time and flex-place. Some people are using these options, for instance two people in Circulation are using them. Our experience has been positive the few times these options have been used. One issue is the availability of computer hardware and software. Our practice has been *not* to buy hardware for people because there is no money available for this. In some instances, however, software can be used at home. When a staff member is on flex-time/flex-place, several of our licensing agreements allow us to install second copies on their home machines. Questions concerning when this is appropriate and what software this may be done with should be directed to Administrative Services.

We seem to be moving ahead at mind boggling speed with our computer technology. Scott says he has heard there are typically huge growth spurts in technology which eventually level out, perhaps in ten years or so. An analogy can be made with the telephone or the automobile technology. For instance, the automobile technology experienced much innovation from 1910-1920. Since 1930 there have been no more major advances in the technology for automobiles.

We need to migrate many of our computer operations to the web. III is already doing this. Our e-mail software needs upgrading. The Pine mail program is outdated. We need to become self learners and depend on one another for help.

It was announced that Scott was granted tenure.

Helene spoke to us about the University Fellows program she is participating in this year. She told us the three vice-chancellors got together and selected ten individuals for this program who work on campus. Their task is to learn more about the University and how it functions. They must also choose an assignment to do research on and make a recommendation resulting from this research. The assignment they chose was to devise a plan for a student residence. The residence should be a safe place where the students could receive some of their education. The place should be multicultural but each ethnic group should be about equal so there is no minority. Counseling services and financial aid services should be readily available. Social activities should also be a part of the plan for this residence. Helene explained how she and the other participants went through the research process for this assignment. Their deadline is April 16, 1998.

This page last modified on 11 December 1998. Send comments to the Libraries Webmaster.

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