Hoover/SUL Realignment

Transition Steering Committee

Meeting of April 12, 2001

9:00-10:15, Assunta Pisani’s office

Present: Tony Angiletta (SUL), Linh Chang (Hoover), Joseph Dwyer (Hoover), Assunta Pisani (SUL, chair), Karen Rondestvedt (staff), Paul Thomas (Hoover), Catherine Tierney (SUL)

I. The minutes from the meeting of March 23 were approved with changes.

II. Reports from Hoover

Paul reported on a meeting of Hoover curators with Charles. Charles asked curators to formulate new collection development policies by May 15. The policies will be submitted to Charles, who will send them to the Steering Committee by June 1.

A Hoover committee was set up on April 11, to be called something like Hoover Transition Working Group. Committee members are Cathy Aster (Head, Preservation), Elena Danielson (Archivist), Joe Dwyer (Deputy Curator, Russian and Commonwealth of Independent States Collection), Charles Palm, Maciej Siekierski (Curator, European Collection) and Paul Thomas (Head Librarian). It was suggested that it might be useful to have a SUL liaison on this committee.

III. Reports from SUL/AIR

Cath had no report but said that Technical Services had held a welcoming party for Hoover Technical Services staff members who will move to SUL.

Assunta reported on prospective staff transfers and noted, inter alia, that Karen Fung (Deputy Curator, Africana Collection, Hoover) will become Africana Curator at SUL.

Mark Tam (Deputy Curator, East Asian Collection, Hoover) will stay at Hoover to build East Asian archives, but will serve as Acting Curator for the East Asian Library at SUL for a year. During that year SUL will conduct an international search for a head of the East Asian Library. SUL will begin fund-raising for the East Asian Library. In order to build this collection, SUL has begun talking to faculty, and Assunta has met with John Haeger, who has been asked to organize a collection evaluation plan for both the Chinese and Japanese collections. Faculty will also be consulted in the process of drawing up a collection development policy during the summer. Assunta requested existing written documents related to the collection.

IV. Staff list - people and/or FTEs to be transferred

Assunta went over the staff list and indicated the billets slated for transfer to SUL in September, 2001. The issue of Public Services staff staying at the Hoover over the next two years, while the collections are transferred, is one that needs to be revisited and Assunta will speak with Charles about this.

The committee discussed several issues concerning the form of reference and information services at Hoover during the transition and, specifically, what form such services would take on September 1, 2001. For example, the Hoover reference model is different from SUL’s. Some training or transition should begin September 1, e.g., one person could begin spending some time in the Green Information Center. Who will perform advanced reference consultations, Green or Hoover curators? Who will handle Africana reference consultations, given that the collection will still be in the Hoover Tower on September 1? What about directional/informational and ready reference questions? The Hoover staff know the collection; Green staff do not. Hoover reference librarians do much more than just basic reference. What will the new Hoover reference model be? To some extent, the reference model will depend on how much stays in the Tower.

V. Next steps regarding curator-level discussions

For now there will not be an all-curators meeting to discuss an overall philosophy for the transfer. But curatorial groups responsible for individual areas (see March 23 minutes) should begin to meet, with the goal of producing recommendations that will make the transition work. Hoover curators, in addition to formulating prospective collection development policies for continuing Hoover archival collections, will devise collection retention and collection transfer recommendations for materials presently housed in the Hoover Library.

VI. Other matters

Cath emphasized the need for the OPAC (Socrates) to have the correct locations as material is transferred.

For the next meeting, committee members should prepare for some questions that need to be asked. Some examples:

What will happen to duplicates (material that falls into transfer guidelines, but that Green already has)? Keep them in the Tower? Keep them in the Tower only if they fit the profile of material to stay there? De-accession them?

When will back files of Hoover serials be transferred if Green will be acquiring the current issues?

Technical Services needs a concrete list as soon as possible of individual serial titles whose subscriptions will be transferred. The Serials Department must update all the records in order to be ready to receive issues on September 1, as well as to make OPAC locations correct. For the next meeting, Paul will seek to bring a Unicorn report representing as complete a listing of Hoover open serial subscriptions as possible.

VII. The next meeting will take place Thursday, May 3 at 10:00 in Assunta’s office.

Respectfully submitted,

Karen Rondestvedt

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