Attending:  Lee Cartmill, Joanne Davenport, Elaine Engst, Claire Germain, Anne Kenney, Susan Markowitz, Ellen Marsh, John Saylor, Ed Weissman, Scott Wicks.
Guest:  Linda Bryan, Xin Li

1)  ARL Organizational Climate and Diversity Assessment (OCDA) Project
        The University of Maryland Libraries, University of Maryland Industrial and Organizational Psychology Program, and Association of Research Libraries (ARL) have been working together over the past year on a collaborative project to create a capability to measure organizational climate and diversity based on work undertaken at the University of Maryland since 1999. The Organizational Climate and Diversity Assessment (OCDA) project included five partner institutions in 2007 (Phase I), Arizona, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, and Texas A&M. The partner libraries surveyed their staff and deployment of the results is underway. An expanded pilot (Phase II) is being planned for 2008 and ARL libraries have been invited to express interest in phase II participation.
        Xin Li, Director, Service Innovations and Resource Planning, provided information about the project.  The goal is to provide the Library with regular feedback from the staff on how its human resources policies and practices are perceived.  This includes several areas: diversity, continuous learning and innovation, justice/fairness, team climate, job satisfaction and more (see concept at http://www.lib.umd.edu/ocda/ocdaconcepts.html).  Staff fill out an online survey (taking approximately 1 hour to complete) and the Library receives back a report compiled by  the University of Maryland Industrial and Organizational Psychology Program with summary results.  Confidentiality is strictly maintained.  From the report, the Library will not be able to link responses to individual respondents.  Xin talked with the directors at two ARL libraries that participated in the phase I pilot.  Both found that the results allowed them to target intervention more effectively and plan to repeat the survey at a three to four year interval.  It also allowed them to benchmark against the other participating libraries.  Cornell University has been talking about doing a university-wide organizational climate assessment survey but Linda Bryan, Staff Development Specialist in Library Human Resources, said that she has not heard any news recently about this effort.  Linda also said that one of the recommendations made in the  Innovation Without Burnout report < http://www.library.cornell.edu/staffweb/PriorityObjectives/docs/innovation_without_burnout_report.doc > is "Benchmark employee morale: select and implement an annual survey to measure worker satisfaction and engagement ..." and that this survey would respond to this recommendation.
        If we do participate in this phase II pilot the survey will likely be administered this spring.  If we don't, the next window for participation will probably be in 2009.  ARL intends to turn this into a program similar to LibQUAL which measures users' opinions of service quality. 
        Members of LMT were supportive of participation.  Anne will make a final decision shortly.

2) University Strategic Plan
        Anne reported on a retreat of the college deans and university vice presidents on October 16. President Skorton proposed the development of a short five-year strategic planning document for the university.  The group spent their time considering a position piece, which is still in draft form and not available for distribution. Each college and unit has been asked to present a one-page summary of its mission and goals in the context of the university's evolving plan.  Anne welcomed this initiative as it will allow the Library to understand better what the colleges and other academic units are striving for and will allow us to better support their efforts.  LMT then reviewed a first draft of Library's goals that Anne and Scott derived from the summary of major objectives for 2007-2008 through 2009-2010 in Anne's annual report to the Provost < http://www.library.cornell.edu/staffweb/CULAnnualReport2006-07.pdf > (p.8-10).  The Library's mission and goals summary is due to Carolyn Ainslie by November 15.  The entire plan including the college and unit summaries will be sent back to the units for review on November 29.  The intent is to complete the final university planning document by December 20. 

3) Conflicting library events
        On September 25, there were three significant overlapping library events:  Richard Strassberg's retirement reception, the Lafayette Exhibition opening reception, and a Mann Library Chat in the Stacks.  Anne asked Ellen to work with Michelle Eastman, Eveline Ferretti and others to recommend a process to minimize these kinds of overlaps and to report back to LMT in December.

4) December 24
        Lee reported that the University and Library are both open on December 24th, which falls on a Monday this year.  Staff who wish to take that day off must use vacation leave, personal leave or leave without pay.  While some library units will be closed, any staff in those units who wish to work on Dec. 24th will be accommodated in other units that will be open.
        

Edward Weissman