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November 17, 1999
Attending: Katie Margolis, Carmen Blankinship, Rebecca Davidson, Ross Atkinson, David Block,. Don Schnedeker, Susan Markowitz, Lee Cartmill, Boodie McGinnis, Christian Boissonnas, Jean Poland, Elaine Engst, Oya Rieger, John Dean, Steve Rockey, Linda Westlake, Allen Riedy, Pat Court, Ann Gray, Paul Constantine, Sarah Thomas, Tom Hickerson, Oliver B. Habicht, Ed Weissman, Lenore Coral (secretary pro temp)
There was a brief discussion of the announcement in the morning Cornell Sun about the budget for the Statutory Units. Sarah Thomas believes that most of the library shortfall for this year will be made up through each College. But this is still a matter for concern. Particularly as the State portion of the Cornell budget is a very small percentage of the total operating budget. Cornell is reexamining this issue and its relationship to SUNY.
Oliver Habicht, the new head of the department now called Desk Top Services talked about Who that department is and What it does.
He illustrated the numbers of computers (ca 500 in the endowed units) versus support staff in the endowed units (ca 8 fte) versus staff in Desk Top Services (4.5 fte plus some student help) giving a ratio of computers to supporters of 90:1 using consumable objects.
Desk Top Services is responsible for supporting:
They are getting Endeavor training in Access, VB and SQL some of which will need to be shared with Network coordinators.
At the same time they are trying to train the Network coordinators in how to fix things that happen in their units so that they can reduce redundancy. Many of the Network coordinators do not come from a particularly technical background and feel the need of more training to administer these assignments.
They are also responsible for new equipment required for:
They are trying to answer the question “what is the minimal level equipment necessary for IMT?”
Ross asked how they would answer the query “Can we provide support” versus “Should we provide support.” There is apparently no absolute answer to this just a recognition that there is limited staff and more things to do than anyone can do.
The remainder of the time was taken up with a discussion of what the library’s plan for a Digital Initiative should be. Our discussion had been preceded by a mini-retreat and a follow up meeting of the LMT on this subject. Sarah Thomas had put up wall charts reflecting ideas generated at those meetings. We were asked to react and add to those proposals.
A number of ideas were bandied about but the discussion time ran out with Sarah proposing that we hold an additional non-mandatory meeting in December to continue the discussion. This is to provide an idea document for a full day meeting of academic and professional staff scheduled for January 10, 2000. SAVE THAT DATE!
Ed Weissman agreed to summarize the ideas so far hence my abbreviated report of that discussion.
Respectfully submitted,
Lenore Coral
Music Llibrary
Cornell University
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rev. 11/4/00 jwg