Coordinating Committees

User Services Coordinating Committee USCC
Annual Report to CUWL – July 2010

August 2009 – July 2010
Submitted by Jill Markgraf, USCC Chair

Members of CUWL USCC:

  • Steve Frye, UW-Madison
  • Chris Prucha, UW-La Crosse
  • Kris Midthun, UW- Milwaukee
  • Colleen McFarland, UW-Eau Claire
  • Ella Cross, UW-Superior
  • David Dettman, UW-Colleges
  • Barbara Bren, UW-Whitewater
  • Kimberly Bartosz, UW-Parkside
  • Valerie Malzacher, CUWL--ex-officio
  • Lisa Jewell, UWSA
  • Jill Markgraf, CHAIR, UW-Eau Claire

The User Services Coordinating Committee met once a month via teleconference with this year’s major accomplishments including collaboration with other CUWL committees and task forces in forwarding the resource discovery initiative, making shared resources decisions, and trialing new services; and continuing the popular webinar series to enable inter-campus discussion on topics of interest to library staff in user services and beyond.

Monthly webinar/phone conference forum
USCC continued its popular webinar/phone conference forum, through which it invited individuals throughout the UW System library community to meet via teleconference and discuss issues relating to user services. This year’s five events, and the CUWL Strategic Directions they address, were:

  • Pandemic Planning for User Services, Oct. 15, facilitated by Nancy McClements (UW-Madison, Vanaja Menon (UW-Parkside) and Myrna McCallister (UW-Whitewater)
    • Strat. Dir. 1, Obj. 3;  Strat.Dir. 3, Objs. 4 & 5

  • Resource Discovery and UW System Libraries, Nov. 19, facilitated by Valerie Malzachar (UW-River Falls)
    • Strat. Dir. 1, Objs.1 & 3;  Strat.Dir. 3, Objs. 4 & 5

  • Next generation resource delivery: creating a shared vision of the UB, ILL, user-initiated borrowing and resource sharing landscape of tomorrow, Feb. 18, facilitated by Michele Strange (UW-LaCrosse)
    • Strat. Dir. 1, Objs.1 & 3;  Strat.Dir. 3, Objs. 3, 4 & 5

  • What we have in Commons: the Library Learning Commons, Mar. 18, facilitated by Jim Lowrey, Molly Mathias, Kim Silbersack and Lisa Weikel (UW-Milwaukee)
    • Strat.Dir. 3, Objs.  4 & 5

  • Library collaborations with student services, Apr. 15, facilitated by Carrie Kruse (UW-Madison)
    • Strat.Dir.2, Obj. 1; Strat.Dir. 3, Objs. 3, 4 & 5

Resource Discovery (Strat.Dir. 1)
USCC has collaborated with other committees and task forces in moving toward a resource discovery RFI. With the USCC chair a regular and active member of the Resource Discovery Experimentation Task Force (RDETF), and the chair of the RDETF Task Force a regular and active member of USCC, communication on resource discovery options, trials and testing, Forward development and RFI progress has been constant. CUWL directors determined that RDETF, formerly a task force reporting to USCC, should report directly to CUWL due to the growing scope of its responsibilities.

USCC developed and submitted to RDETF a list of questions and an environmental scan document to be used in the RFI. The USCC questions were ultimately used as the basis of a document distributed to UW libraries in resource discovery product trials.

USCC worked with other CUWL committees and task forces in developing a list of core resources that should be discoverable by whatever resource discovery product we choose.

CUWL Annual Conference (Strat. Dir. 3, Obj. 4)
USCC sponsored six sessions at the CUWL Summer conference:

  • Home Brewed Assessment, presented by Cris Prucha, John Jax  and Michael Current (UW-La Crosse) -- (Strat.Dir. 3, Obj. 1)
  • Chat, texting, IM, SMS, presented by  Steve Frye, UW-Madison
  • Mobile Computing in Libraries and Universities, presented by Ian Benton, UW-Madison
  • Programming on a shoestring, presented by Kelly Keclik, UW-Madison, and Eric Jennings, UW-Eau Claire
  • Circulation Supervisors, presented by Emily Rogers, UW-Green Bay
  • CUWL Distance Library Services, presented by Jill Markgraf, UW-Eau Claire

Work group collaborations (Strat.Dir. 1, Obj. 1 & 2; Strat. Dir. 2, Obj. 5; Strat. Dir. 3, Obj., 2)
Members of USCC served on joint work groups with members of other coordinating committees to address issues including:

  • American Chemical Society subscription (Hans Kishel, UW-Eau Claire, on behalf of USCC)
  • Emerald subscription (USCC representative Ella Cross, UW-Superior)
  • UB renewals and patron information retention work group (chaired by USCC representative  Barbara Bren, UW-Whitewater)
  • bX Recommender trial, survey and recommendation (USCC representative  Jill Markgraf, UW-Eau Claire)
  • Resource Delivery work group (USCC representative Cris Prucha, UW-LaCrosse)

Distance Library Services Standing Committee (Strat, Dir. 1, Obj. 3)
The standing committee, co-chaired by Jill Markgraf (UW-Eau Claire) and Renee Sikma Wallin (UW-Colleges), met bimonthly via teleconference, and in-person at the CUWL conference, to discuss issues related to providing service to distance education students. The committee collated distance library service information from all UW System libraries on the CUWL wiki covering issues such as  contact information, services available, forms of ID accepted, computers and logins used, and test proctoring services available. Incoming chairs of the standing committee are Anne Kasuboski (UW-Green Bay) and Stefan Smith (or a newly hired librarian from UW-LaCrosse).

Plans for Upcoming Year
In reviewing the CUWL Strategic Directions 2009-2013, there are several objectives that fall under the purview – at least in part – of User Services that have not been the focus of the Committee’s efforts during the past year. The Committee will consider and begin addressing these objectives in the upcoming year:

  • Incorporate information literacy skills/learning outcomes into campus core competencies (Strat.Dir. 2, Obj. 3)
  • Enhance alliances and communication with senior campus administrators, faculty, students, public policy makers and the K-12 community (Strat.Dir. 2, Obj. 1)
  • Develop culture of assessment to better align collections, services and spaces with user needs (Strat.Dir. 3, Obj. 1)
  • Research models for changing work flows to achieve efficiencies and cost savings (Strat.Dir. 3, Obj. 3)