THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
Evaluation of Librarianship Committees
The following principles will be adopted by the Library Faculty for the purpose of
evaluation of librarianship for faculty reviews:
1. Review committees, each made up of three faculty (either tenured or in the third year
of their faculty appointment and above), drawn from the University Library faculty roster,
shall evaluate librarianship for the library faculty under review.
2. There shall be as many review committees as there are faculty to be reviewed, and
each committee shall evaluate the librarianship of one member of the faculty.
3. The candidate may suggest exclusions of library faculty from the librarianship review
committee to the University Librarian.
4. Each review committee shall solicit, where appropriate, an evaluation of the
candidate's librarianship from her/his immediate supervisor. The University Librarian
does not submit evaluations of faculty reporting directly to him or her, will not serve on
the committees, and is not interviewed.
5. The Executive Committee shall determine the membership of each review committee
and shall appoint chairs. Liaisons, appointed by the Promotion and Tenure (P& T)
Committee to assist candidates in paper preparation, shall have no connection with the
review committees.
6. Each review committee shall report, in writing, the results of its evaluation to the
Chair of the Library Promotion and Tenure Committee. This report shall include a
statement that the candidate meets (or does not meet) the criteria for excellence in
librarianship necessary for retention. The report shall be due according to a calendar
established at the beginning of each academic year by P & T.
7. The University Librarian shall communicate the vote on retention or non-retention as
well as other P & T actions and pertinent discussions to the candidate.
Adopted and amended at Library Faculty Meeting of April 24, 1995
Amended April 8, 2002.
Adopted at Library Faculty Meeting of May 9, 2002.
Appendix: Implementation Guidelines
This list includes action to be taken and additional points to be considered during the
review process. These arose in discussions of the process in workshops and meetings of
the faculty, the Promotion & Tenure (P & T) Committee, and the Executive Committee
(EC).
1. Following the August organizational meeting of the P & T Committee, its Chair shall:
(a.) Determine whether there are 5Y, 3Y, or clinical library faculty for whom review
committees are needed.
(b.) If review committees are needed, consult with the library faculty Secretary to
determine the date of the EC's September meeting, request that the appointment of review
committees be added to the agenda, and provide the Secretary with a list of the 5Y, 3Y,
and clinical cohorts along with the due dates of the respective reports.
(c.) The chair of P & T shall prepare a separate list of each cohort of candidates and
submit each list to the library faculty Secretary prior to the EC's September meeting.
2. The EC shall apply the following guidelines when selecting the review committees:
(a.) The EC shall ask the University Librarian to solicit the names of library faculty to be
excluded from review committees from all library faculty under review.
(b.) EC members who are being evaluated shall not participate in the selection of their
committees or those of other members of their cohort. They will, however, take part in
the deliberations for the other cohorts.
(c.) Use the sealed name process (i.e., select members for each review committee prior to
opening the envelope with that candidate's exclusions) in determining the evaluation
committee members for each candidate.
(d.) For the evaluation of department heads, members of the appropriate administrative
units may be members of the committee.
(e.) A candidate's department head may serve on a committee but may not chair it.
(f.) Candidates may not serve on review committees of librarians within their own cohort
but may serve on committees evaluating librarians in other cohorts.
(g.) Unless absolutely necessary, no faculty member shall be asked to serve on more than
two committees ; chairs shall not serve on other review committees.
(h.) For librarians for whom teaching is a significant component of librarianship, one
member of the committee will be drawn from the pool of potential peer reviewers. This
person will carry out the official peer review mandated as part of the evaluation.
3. After the EC completes its selection process:
(a.) The library faculty Secretary will send a list of the review committees and their chairs
to the Chair, P&T Committee.
(b.) The University Librarian will send letters of appointment to the members of the
review committees.
4. The review committees shall apply the following guidelines:
(a.)
In general, the interviews will be restricted to UIC library faculty. In some cases,
particularly department heads, it may be advisable to contact colleagues at other
libraries, ALA, etc. who have served on librarianship-related committees with the
candidate (CIC, CCMCC, etc) for an evaluation.
(b.)
The librarianship review committees will interview the candidates.
(c.)
Since this is a faculty review, support staff should be interviewed only under
extraordinary circumstances with the assent of P & T.
(d.)
Excellence in librarianship is required. If the review committee does not reach a
unanimous decision, the dissenting member shall also submit a written report
explaining the grounds for disagreement.
(e.)
The review committee will meet with the candidate to discuss its report and
recommendation, but will not give the report to the candidate. The chair of the
review committee will submit its report in writing to the University Librarian with
a copy to the Chair of P & T.
(f.)
The report to the Chair of P & T will include a list of the questions asked and a
list of the names of those who were interviewed. The chair of P & T shall
maintain the questions submitted for future use.
5.
After receiving the reports and the questions the Chair of P&T is responsible for:
(a.)
Making the reports available to members of the P&T Committee;
(b.)
Maintaining the lists of past questions (with the names and the position titles
removed) and making them available to current review committees.
(c.)
Placing the reports in the P&T Committee archives, not the personnel files, and
destroying them after the candidate’s next personnel action.