Congratulations, Committees, Due Date

Congratulations Carol, Pat and Gary
Carol, Pat Auflick and Gary have coauthored a paper that was published in the January 2011 issue of the JMLA: Journal of the Medical Library Association. The article titled, “Upward evaluation at the Arizona Health Sciences Library” describes our supervisor evaluation process and relies on survey data that you supplied. The journal can be read online at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3016658/

Committee Appointments
We are still looking for volunteers rather than draftees for the “Transforming Services”, “Marketing and Promotion” and the “Emergency and Disaster Preparedness Plan” committees. Please let Joan, Sandy, Jeanette, Cindy or me know which committee you'd like to join.

Due Date for Supervisor Evaluations
The deadline for turning in your supervisor evaluations is Friday, March 11, 2011. Please turn yours in to your supervisor’s supervisor before that if you can. Thank you!

Supervisor Evaluations, Budget

Supervisor Evaluations
I have been working on evaluations and have read all of the supervisor evaluations that have come to me. I want to thank all of you for participating in this process. I’ve found your observations to be very thoughtful and helpful. It’s obvious that most of you gave a lot of thought to your comments and it shows in the insight that you have provided. Thank you for participating in this experiment, which, I believe, has been a great success!

Budget
We are being told to expect the legislature’s budget plan sometime in the next several weeks. In the meantime the Provost has asked all units to submit a plan for a 2% budget reduction in state funds for the current fiscal year that will become a permanent reduction next year. We have until April 11th to submit the plan along with a description of the effect such a reduction will have on the library. This is only a first step and the actual distribution of the budget cuts will be determined later. The budget cut for the current year will be covered primarily with salary savings from grants. For next year, the Phoenix collection budget has already been cut by 8%. We will try to cover much of the cut in Tucson with money from vacant positions. Cuts to the Tucson collection budget can be covered partially with Foundation funds from gifts and endowments, resulting in a slowing down of building and furniture maintenance. I do not see us cutting any positions as a result of these cuts.

2008!

Happy New Year and welcome back to our regular schedule. Soon the building will be full of returning students. Over the next couple of weeks everyone should be finishing up goals for the coming year. Next week I’ll be sending out evaluation forms and the “Employee Input Form” for evaluation of your supervisor. I’d like to have these turned in to your “supervisor’s supervisor” no later than February 15. If you have any questions about the form or the process, please feel free to ask in the office or any of the committee members (Amanda, Carol, Kathy, Nga, Pat or Vera.)

All Staff Meeting

At yesterday’s All Staff meeting Mary Riordan reminded everyone to let her know if you will be participating in the holiday party on Monday. She needs your $8 by the end of the day TODAY!

Stef explained the process that led to the new website which will go live on January 16. You can see the latest version at: webtest.ahsl.Arizona.edu

The Evaluation of Supervisors committee explained the four documents that were sent out describing the proposed procedures for staff to have input to the evaluation process. Several suggestions were made and questions asked. There was much discussion. I will send out a summary soon and the committee will get back to AHSL after discussing and meeting with HR.

Evaluation of Supervisors

We have formed a committee to explore evaluation of supervisors. The members, a mixture of faculty and staff, supervisors and non-supervisors are:

Amanda Escalante
Carol Howe
Gary Freiburger
Kathy Tower
Nga Nguyen
Pat Auflick
Vera Godinez

We will keep the library posted as to our progress by reporting regularly.