Faculty Senate

Agendas

The Chair will consult with the Dean of the Library regarding agenda items.  The Faculty Senate administrative associate will send a draft agenda to the chair to create each meeting agenda and sends it electronically to the members. Copies are also brought to the meeting.  The standard format is:

Call to Order
Approval of Minutes
Communications
Reports of Committees
Unfinished Business
New Business
Good and Welfare/Question and Answer

Acquisitions Budget Review

The FLC is provided with the acquisitions budget early in the fall semester.

Approval Plan

The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library has initiated, over the last three years, a flexible approval plan to facilitate the rapid and comprehensive acquisition of monographs/books. Approval plans are a common collections tool used by academic libraries of all sizes, across North America. An approval plan supplies publications that fit a department's collection profile based on specified criteria such as: subjects, authors, audience levels, formats, publishers, prices, languages, etc. Books arrive pre-processed with the ordering and cataloging transferred electronically between the vendor and the library catalog.

Benefits of implementing an approval plan include:

• Books arrive within weeks of their publication, providing rapid access to these resources.

• Paperwork is dramatically reduced; faculty no longer need to provide ordering information for each title requested.

• Interdisciplinary programs are better served by profiling the interests of multiple departments.

• The acquisition of a comprehensive collection within the profile parameters occurs promptly and efficiently.

• The approval plan fully integrates the advantages of the integrated library system by implementing online ordering and cataloging that occurs automatically as part of the process.

Your liaison librarian will gladly meet with your department to discuss the approval plan and will assist with the creation and subsequent fine-tuning of a departmental collection profile.  For more information see
http://www.lib.umt.edu/services/infoissues/archive/nov2006.htm

Business Calendar

The FLC chair meets with the Library dean at the beginning of the academic year.  A timeline for discussion items is planned at the first meeting.

Collection Development

The primary goal of collection development at The University of Montana Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library is to build a collection in support of the curricular and research needs of the students, faculty and staff of The University of Montana. The Collection Development Policy provides guidelines that assure quality and relevance in the acquisition and retention of materials in a collection designed to support the mission of The University of Montana.

Collection development and management is the responsibility of library faculty in consultation with departmental faculty, staff and students. The acquisitions budget balances the needs of diverse disciplines and users. Central to this balance is a core Approval Plan that serves all departments and programs by facilitating the rapid and comprehensive acquisition of newly published monographs/books. Following discussions with the Faculty Library Committee and notification to the Faculty Senate, the core Approval Plan was revised and expanded for FY2008 and a Supplemental Fund was established to ensure the acquisition of additional books/monographs and media in all formats. Faculty are welcome to submit individual orders using the library's online order forms.  For further guidelines and information about ordering through the Supplemental Fund see Policies & Procedures and FAQs.

Library faculty serve as liaisons to each department and program; and all departments and programs have library representatives who communicate departmental purchase interests and recommendations to library faculty. In collaboration, the liaison librarians and departmental library representatives build the collections based on curricular and research needs and have developed Approval Plan profiles. The Approval Plan is augmented by gifts and endowments, a source of many valuable additions to the collection, and Interlibrary Loan, and Course Reserves that provide access to a variety of resources not owned by the Mansfield Library.

While monograph/book/media acquisitions have increased from 9000 to over 16,000 cataloged items per year during the past 8 years, the Mansfield Library has greatly increased access to journal literature as well, from around 4,500 subscriptions to over 25,000 currently available journal titles. This has primarily been accomplished by the acquisition of large electronic journal packages and full text databases. The library will continue to maximize access to information resources (see Journal Access - Our Directions) that reflect diverse disciplines and users.

Finally, the Mansfield Library consistently seeks regular assessment of operations, collections and service quality from a variety of formal and informal sources of feedback including:

•  
  • Department Library Representatives; 
  • Faculty Library Committee of the Faculty Senate;
  • Surveys ;  and the
  • Electronic Suggestion Box.

Mansfield Library, Collection Development Group
Barry Brown, (barry.brown@umontana.edu), Head, Access and Collection Services

Committee Operating Rules and Procedures

1.      Faculty Senate standing committees shall establish a regular meeting time and place in conjunction with the Senate Office to facilitate administrative support. 

2.      The vice-chair assumes the role of chair at the last meeting of the year and a new vice-chair is elected.

3.      The committee chair will turn the meeting over to the vice-chair in matters pertaining to their departmental interest.

4.      The chair is encouraged to consult with ECOS and inform the Faculty Senate on matters of academic interest.

5.      Each committee shall file in the Faculty Senate Office a statement of operating procedures and guidelines adopted by the committee.   It is the responsibility of the committee chair, or designee to see that statements are filed and changes are noted whenever they are approved by the committee. At the first meeting of each academic year, the committee should examine its statement of procedures and guidelines.

6.      The Senate Office will post procedures of interest to the general faculty to the Senate website.

Faculty Senate Committees will provide the Faculty Senate with an oral and written summary of its activities during the year.   
                                   Adopted by the Faculty Senate 2/12/04.

Departmental Library Representatives

Faculty are chosen by their respective departments to be the Departmental Library Representative  (http://www.lib.umt.edu/services/dept_reps.htm).  The role of the Department Library Representative is to communicate department faculty issues to the library; communicate library issues to department faculty; coordinate department requests for monograph, media, journal, or database resources; consult and collaborate with the Liaison Librarian; bring information resource access issues to the attention of the Liaison Librarian; and collaborate with the Liaison Librarian on information literacy planning across the department curriculum.   In all of this the representative works closely with the Liaison Librarian for their discipline. 

ECOS Communication

The Chair is expected to inform ECOS of any information that will be presented at the Senate.  ECOS may be consulted regarding any committee business or procedures.  ECOS meets every Thursday at 3:10 in UH 221 (excluding Senate and BOR meeting dates).  Inform the Senate office if you would like to attend a meeting. 243-5553.

Evaluation of the Dean

Academic Affairs requests Faculty Library Committee members to complete performance evaluation questionnaires based on their experience on the committee.

FLC Meetings

During the regular academic year, the FLC meets 4:10-5pm on the second Monday in each month, except on the first Monday in December and May.  The chair of the FLC can call additional meetings as necessary.

Faculty Feedback

The Mansfield Library consistently seeks regular assessment of operations, collections and service quality from a variety of formal and informal sources of feedback including:  Department Library Representatives; Faculty Library Committee of the Faculty Senate; Surveys (http://www.lib.umt.edu/assess/libqual/summaryfall2007.htm); and the Electronic Suggestion Box (http://www.lib.umt.edu/contact.htm).

Liaisons Librarians

Each department and program has a member of the library faculty as a library liaison.  For a current list of liaisons, see the Mansfield Library website, http://www.lib.umt.edu/services/liaisonlibrarians.pdf.

Library Reps Meeting

The library re-instituted an annual meeting with the library representatives at the recommendation of the FLC.  The Library informs the FLC about agenda items.  The meeting is usually held in October.

Library Research Instruction

The central mission of library instruction is to create information literate students.  Information literate students know how to find, evaluate, and use information effectively and ethically (http://www.lib.umt.edu/informationliteracy/).

Basic and advanced instruction may be arranged at the request of teaching faculty.  Handouts and online guides for course-specific and discipline-specific information resources are also available.  Basic instruction is offered by liaison librarians (http://www.lib.umt.edu/about/policies/cii.htm) and tailored to class needs.  Instruction may include the following:

• Introduction to the Mansfield Library

• Introduction to the online library catalog

• Introduction to the electronic database network.

• Beginning and Advanced Internet information resources.

• Subject-specific resources.

• Design of assignments utilizing the library.

• Finding and evaluating information.

• Term paper research.

Library Services for Faculty and Students

There are a variety of library services for faculty (http://www.lib.umt.edu/services/faculty%20and%20staff/default.htm), graduate students (http://www.lib.umt.edu/services/grad_students/default.htm) and undergraduates (http://www.lib.umt.edu/services/undergrad/default.htm).

Meeting with the Library Faculty

According to the committee's charge the chair should meet with the library faculty once over the academic year as a means to facilitate open communications with the Library.

Minutes

The Faculty Senate secretary takes minutes at the meetings and forwards them to the chair for review and editing before sending to committee members.  The minutes are posted to the website after they are approved by the committee.   Contents of the minutes should include a complete listing of members and guests in attendance, major themes of discussions, and any action taken by the committee.                                                                            

Ordering Monographs and Media

Purchase requests can be submitted via paper, electronic approval slips, email, or online forms  (http://www.lib.umt.edu/services/instruction_purchasing.htm).  The status of purchase requests (e.g. on order, received, available) can be tracked by searching the library catalog (http://catalog.lib.umt.edu).  Holds can be placed on items after they are "received" and they will receive priority processing.  Rushes can be placed initially on purchase requests, and ordering and processing will be expedited (don't hesitate to ask for a rush if you have a time sensitive teaching or research need); however, please be aware that rush orders prevent/delay the normal processing of other queued orders.

Orientation for new faculty

The Library may consult with the FLC regarding the best way to orient new faculty to library services and what should be included in orientation.

Requesting Journals, Databases, etc.

Continuing resource requests can be discussed with liaison librarians.  In order to fund a new continuing resource with a yearly fee we typically need to either: Cancel an existing continuing resource of similar value or find new funds.

Senate updates

The Committee Chair should provide the Senate with an update of the committees' activities at least once a semester.  This should include a request for comments or concerns from senators be directed to the committee. 

Year-end report

According to the Senate Bylaws, an annual report shall be written by the chair, delivered to the Faculty Senate, and filed with the Chair of ECOS.  This report shall contain a summary of the committee's agenda items and actions.