Media Studies Department Meeting
Nov. 26, 2013
PRESENT: Wes Goldsberry, Rebecca Leonhard, Jan Lowman
1. The meeting convened not long after 3:15. Wes brought baked goods--thank you very much.
2. We discussed December exam library hours and agree that it is important to keep the library open as much as possible for students during exam time. To that end, Jan and Kirran in BEC and Rebecca and Alex in Savoy are splitting up the hours so that students have the option to use the libraries during exam time. (Note: we discovered later that the Rovers, who usually cover the BE library on Saturday and Sunday, will be used elsewhere, so Jan and Kirran are doing long, long days on the 14th and 15th of December.)
3. In response to questions about staffing, Jan put forward her considered opinion (after four months on the job) that there is a need for full-time trained librarian at Belle Époque. As a career English teacher (who was very grateful to be offered a faculty job for this school year though it was out of her area of expertise), she knows that there are aspects of the job that would be best handled by someone with an MLS or at least significant professional experience in libraries. In addition, given the number of books we catalogue every week, a full-time cataloguer would be a sound and reasonable idea.
4. The previous discussion led to Rebecca’s agreement to report on the statistics regarding our cataloguing of the ACS collection. Both librarians and our two coops could work continually on nothing else, and the task would still take years. (See statistics below.) We all agree that the library’s primary purpose is to serve and educate students, so we make them and their requests and questions our primary concern.
5. Rebecca shared the data she had collected regarding the ACS project. She agreed to write up an Action Plan. (See below.)
American College of Switzerland Book Project Action Plan
Figures & Staff as of Nov. 29, 2013
Staff:
1.5 librarians employed during academic year
2 coop student workers during academic year
1 volunteer (5-6 hours per week)
Total number of Schneider boxes as of November 29, 2013:
600 boxes (estimate)
Given the current number of staff who are charged with managing and running two libraries while continuing to perform regular library duties in addition to overseeing and working on several other large projects as requested by Residential Life, Marc Ott, and other administration, it has been determined that a target of three boxes of ACS books might be processed and catalogued each week between both campuses. With a 32-week school year, this would put the completion date of the project in the 2020-2021 academic year.
6. To conclude, we discussed library hours generally. We all agree that the library should be available as much as possible for student use, but we hope that the community understands that the library needs to be staffed and supervised when it is open.
