Academic Assembly Meeting Minutes
Thursday December 4, 2003
Clark Hall Auditorium 700

Announcements
University Librarian Sarah Thomas announced the December 15th CUL Holiday Party, which will be held in Clark 700 from 2-4pm.  She also made an announcement that there would be no Academic Assembly Meeting held for the month January.  Additionally, a retirement party for Ved Kayastha, Librarian/Curator for the Kroch South Asia Collections, will be held today (December 4th) in Kroch 2B48 from 3-4:30pm.


Program: Outreach and Advocacy
Sarah Thomas provided introductions for guest speakers Lisabeth Chabot, College Librarian at Ithaca College and A. Ben Wagner, Science Librarian at the University of Buffalo Science Library.  Both speakers discussed aspects of library outreach and advocacy to patrons. 

Lis Chabot, who began her position at Ithaca College this past summer, gave a talk entitled "The Collaborative Advantage: Outreach in the Campus Community and Beyond."  Her presentation, which focused on her experiences as a new director at Ithaca College, described her efforts at outreach and collaboration on the campus.  Chabot discussed a variety of the benefits to campus outreach, which included raising the profile of the library.  During her talk, she expressed that enhancing teaching and learning should be the primary mission for the library and shared her vision for promoting information resources as a central part of the greater institutional mission.  Additionally, she explained her approach to management which values input from employees as a key asset.  As part of this discussion she addressed issues of working with new staff and methods for getting to know people both within an outside of the library.  As director she manages a staff of 36 employees.

A. Ben Wagner gave a presentation on the subject of his experiences providing on-site reference services to the Physics department at the University of Buffalo.  During his presentation, entitled "Reference Beyond Library Walls: Setting up Shop Where Our Patrons Live," Wagner described his work as a Librarian holding office hours within the Physics department at Buffalo.  As part of his discussion, he gave advice on outreach techniques that he has found to be successful and provided pointers for those interested in conducting such a program.  Among his recommendations were finding a good high traffic location, patience and marketing.  Additionally, Wagner discussed a variety of benefits and "lessons learned" from his efforts.  He expressed that the interest demonstrated by holding departmental office hours goes along way in developing better library-department relationships.  At present, a number of other University of Buffalo librarians are also beginning to provide on-site references in academic departments. 

After his presentation, Ben Wagner met with a small group of Cornell Librarians in Clark room 701 where, in addition to answering questions on his presentation, he spoke on the topic of journal publisher policies and e-journal access.

Lee LaFleur, Secretary for the Academic Assembly Steering Committee
Zoe Stewart-Marshall, Chair
David Banush
Xin Li
Linda Miller