Library Staff Support Committee Meeting Minutes—Thursday, July 23, 2015
In Attendance:
Skye Arseneau (Administrative Services)
Julie Bumpus (Technical Services)
Becky Burner (Physical Sciences & Engineering)
Jim Cotter (Special Collections)
Lisa Renee Kemplin (Area Studies)
Lucy Moynihan (Life Sciences)
Debora Pfeiffer (Technical Services)
Dani Postula (Central Access Services)
Laura Poulosky (Residence Hall Libraries)
Shoshana Vegh-Gaynor (Arts & Humanities)
Sandy Wolf (Social Sciences)
New LSSC Chair: Dani Postula is now serving as the chair of LSSC. Thanks very much for
accepting this position, Dani!
LSSC Elections: Because several two-year LSSC terms came to an end in July, in June we opened
these positions up to any interested staff for nominations. We have not received any selfnominations to serve on LSSC, but if you are indeed interested, please let us know as soon as
possible by emailing lssc@library.illinois.edu One liaison position is up for election in each of
the following five Divisions: Administrative Services, Area Studies Division, Physical Sciences &
Engineering Division, Special Collections Division, and Technical Services Division.
ClimateQUAL survey follow-up: The ClimateQUAL survey committee continues to meet to
discuss the survey results and has added a few new members. Their next meeting will be on
Aug. 24th. LSSC plans to invite representatives from the ClimQUAL committee to come discuss
ideas of how to implement plans to address results from the survey. If any staff members have
ideas of changes or improvements you’d like to suggest, please let us know! You can email the
committee at lssc@library.illinois.edu, put a written comment (anonymous or not) in our
comment box outside of the Library Human Resources Office, or submit an online comment
(also either anonymous or not) using the following link: https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/120002
Information from Human Resources about JOYCE: Skye Arseneau from the Library Human
Resources Office encourages any supervisors who will be hiring new or returning hourly
employees for the fall to go ahead and start adding or updating those employees’ information,
including fall start dates, to JOYCE, if you have not already done so. Skye and her colleague
Aneitre Johnson are looking into setting up a group New Hire session, during which employees
could come bring in any necessary paperwork (such as I-9s, I-20s and I-94s for international
students). This paperwork must be approved before the employees’ start dates. Aneitre is
working on processing information for new graduate employees.
Please use JOYCE to register the end dates of hourly appointments for any of your employees
who have left or are leaving, in order to keep the database clean.
Any Federal Work-Study employees must accept their awards before they can be entered or reentered in JOYCE.
Please don’t start any employees working until after you’ve received the automated email from
HR saying that their start dates have been approved. This is very important, in order to avoid
the $2,000 fine that is charged if an employee begins work before the approved start date!
In the comments box on JOYCE, it is helpful if you give basic information such as “Reappointing” or “Hiring” + the employee’s name + the employee’s start date + your initials.
If you have any questions about using JOYCE or paperwork for new or returning employees,
please contact Skye at yoskye@illinois.edu or Aneitre at atjohnsn@illinois.edu .
FMLA Revisions: An email went out to all U of I employees on July 20th about revisions to the
FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act). The revisions include more gender-neutral language about
spouses and also open FMLA benefits to more types of family situations—for example, a spouse
may take leave to care for his or her spouse’s child, even if the employee taking leave is not a
legal parent of that child. The new guidelines specify that same-sex couples will need to be
legally married or in a common-law marriage in order to apply for FMLA benefits. The Library
Human Resources Office has packets of paperwork to complete for medical certification of an
employee’s or employee’s family member’s qualifying condition. FMLA allows employees to
take up to 12 weeks of family medical leave in a calendar year. Employees may use any sick
time, holidays, floating holidays, or vacation time they have accrued in order to be paid for that
part of their leave.
Performance Evaluations for Civil Service: Performance evaluations for civil service employees
will be due in mid-August. Training for supervisors on how to write performance evaluations
will be offered soon—look for a LIB-news announcement about this from Library Human
Resources. If you ever receive a performance evaluation with which you disagree, please
discuss it with your supervisor and provide your own written comments for Human Resources
on the evaluation form. Performance evaluation forms are linked from the Library Human
Resources “Employee Forms” page here:
http://www.library.illinois.edu/administration/human/forms/index.html
If it’s been more than two years since your job description was last updated, it would be a good
idea to update it and have it signed by your supervisor. Then your performance evaluation will
be more accurate and you will be ready to apply for any promotions that may become open.
Meeting reports:
Central Public Services: Dani reported that CPS discussed the upcoming upgrade to RefWorks
and whether or not the Library wants to pay to keep it or cancel it and use free citation
management services instead. A working group is investigating the options and their pros and
cons.
The new version of LibGuides has just gone live (as of July 24th), so please make sure you are
making any changes to your guides using that version.
The hours of the Main Library are being cut a bit for the fall semester. Fall hours will be Mon.Thurs. 8:30 am to 10:00 pm, Fri. 8:30 am to 6:00 pm, Sat. 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm, and Sun. 1:00 pm
to 10:00 pm.
Visual Resources Librarian Sarah Christiansen is looking for Library staff who are willing to be
featured on digital signs in the Main Library, in a “Meet the Staff” format.
Most computer stations at the Undergraduate Library will soon require that users log in with
their net ID and Active Directory password in order to use these computers. This will allow the
Library to give users access to subscription databases, following our licensing agreements.
Graduate Assistant training will be held the week of July 17th. G.A.’s will need to be on payroll
prior to this training in order to be paid for this time.
Special Collections: Jim reported that Special Collections Division faculty and staff took a field
trip to Magic Motors, a personal museum/collection of antique cars and hats in northeast
Urbana. Scott Schwartz arranged this field trip and mentioned the possibility that the Division
plan future collaborations with the owners of Magic Motors.
Area Studies: Lisa Renee reported that the Area Studies Division focused primarily on the
budget and what ramifications budget cuts could have for the division and for the Library as a
whole.
Technical Services: Debora and Julie reported that cataloging has a newly reorganized
supervisory structure. Tom Teper sent an email to LIB-news on July 22nd that details this
structure.
Residence Hall Libraries: The Ikenberry Library continues to be open throughout the summer
Mon. through Fri. from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. The six Urbana Residence Hall Libraries are closed
until Thurs., Aug. 20th, when they will be open from 6-9 pm. Regular Residence Hall Library
hours will resume for the fall semester on Mon., Aug. 24th. Remember that anyone with an ICard can request materials from any of the Residence Hall Libraries over the summer, and we
will retrieve them to be put on hold either at the Ikenberry Library or at any open U of I Library
location. Patrons can also return Residence Hall Library materials to any U of I Library or IShare Library and they will get back to us.
The Physical Sciences & Engineering, Life Sciences, Arts & Humanities, and Social Sciences did
not meet during the past month.
Upcoming LSSC Meetings: Our meetings are now scheduled for the fourth Thursday of the
month from 11:00 a.m. to noon in Room 225B of the Main Library, so our next meeting will be
on August 27th at that time and place.