January 22nd, 2007

Present: Judith Anderson (Chair), Tom Busey, Simon Brassell, Sandra Dolby, Hal Evans, Roger Levesque (Recorder), Rosemary Lloyd, and Patrick McNaughton

The meeting was convened at 3:58 pm.

We read, discussed, amended and approved the January 8th minutes.

We returned to our discussion of elections to replace several CPC members as of next year. We have learned that there most likely will be an opening in the sciences. If you have nominations or would like to nominate yourself, do contact Rosemary at rolloyd@indiana.edu.

Dean Bertenthal joined us at 4:34. He focused directly on budget issues. He noted that memos soon will be sent to department chairs regarding annual budget meetings with the Dean. He expects the College's requests for information to be similar to those of previous years.

We spent most of our time with him discussing the high number of funding requests he and others in the College and at OVPR receive to support different activities. It was noted that his concern was with the requests that typically are for quite small amounts but that are made frequently by various individuals and departments. He also noted that there currently are no clearly stated principles to guide the allocation of small funds. He expressed deep concern that the lack of principles runs the risk of fostering inequities and that such ad hoc systems simply result in a misuse of College resources. He further noted that such inefficient systems do faculty a disservice as faculty seeking assistance have little guidance in knowing where to apply for small funds needed on an ad hoc basis. He has initiated conversations with relevant College personnel to begin removing the mystery from the allocation of small funds and to develop a more streamlined process that will point faculty toward appropriate (but not guaranteed) sources of support. In addition, he expects to empower individual units and place more responsibility on them to develop reasonable estimates of their needs for discretionary funds. He left the meeting at 5:03.

At 5:03, we were joined by Patricia A. Steele, Ruth Lilly Interim Dean of University Libraries. She met with us to provide an update on the many changes and challenges involving our library.

She opened our discussion with a brief survey of what will be her two years of tenure as Interim Dean. We learned, not surprisingly, that the library is operating under a very limited budget and has embarked on creative ways to address challenges relating to changes in the use of space, library holdings, and personnel. We especially were interested to hear about the move toward digitization. We were pleased to learn that members of the Expert Study Group (with whom we had met last year) did underscore the importance of maintaining the collection of printed materials while the university moves toward digitization. It was noted that additions to the print collection are still very strong, over 100,000 a year. There is no expectation that it will decrease. This continued commitment to print holdings is quite remarkable given the push toward digitization. Our library holds one of largest collections and is well known for many of its special collections; overall, it ranks very highly among both public and private universities.

We were quite eager to hear about the changes in the use of space. The library is in the process of restructuring some rooms to make them more student- and faculty-friendly, a restructuring done in response to student and faculty input, including a study conducted by the BFC’s Library Committee. We also were very much interested in the use of "ALF". We were impressed to hear about the rapid book delivery service to all campus libraries and the electronic delivery of journal articles. We also were pleased to hear that the ALF does allow for the physical browsing of journals. We heard of efforts to accommodate the electronic browsing of books by, for example, digitizing title pages and tables of contents. These efforts to facilitate browsing are of significance to us given some CPC members’ views that browsing remains absolutely necessary to their scholarly development and productivity. We will have an opportunity to see these developments first hand as we will be touring the Wells library and the ALF on February 12th.

Dean Steele left our meeting at 5:59.

We briefly discussed next week’s agenda and the upcoming tour of the Wells library and the ALF.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:05.

Roger Levesque, Recorder

Questions or comments regarding the minutes and actions of the College Policy Committee may be addressed to its Chair, Judith Anderson (anders@indiana.edu – 855-3845). Past minutes and College Policy Statements can be found at the CPC web page: www.indiana.edu/~college/faculty/policy/policies.shtml .