Staff Development Coordinating Committee
Members of the Committee are: Laura Power (Chair), Mary Beth Blalock, Gayle Grantham, Dale Manning, Debra Quarles, Suellen Stringer-Hye, and Gail Workman.
Laura welcomed Debra Quarles as our newest committee member. She replaces Brent Tenpenny who resigned his library position in August.
Information Alliance: Vanderbilt agreed to participate in the Information Alliance with UTK and UKY. Each participating institution appoints three staff members to a steering committee that plans development activities for the year. Paul requested that three members of the Staff Development Coordinating Committee serve on the Alliance Steering Committee. Laura (one year), Suellen (three years), and Mary Beth (one year) were selected to serve on the Steering Committee. Mary Beth agreed to be our co-chair. Issues relating to the fall and spring meetings of the Information Alliance's were discussed at length. Items discussed included the composition of the Executive Committee and the Alliance's web page as well as dates and agenda items for this year's meetings.
Resource Center Materials: Suellen contacted InfoSource, Inc., a subsidiary of Blackwell Publishers, for information regarding appropriate technology training resources. After reviewing the various options, the Committee decided to pursue the company's Seminar-On-A-Disk (interactive, disk-based tutorial software) programs. We previewed the Introduction to Excel 97 Seminar and were impressed with the quality of the product. Since we have other teaching resources for WORD, we decided to purchase a copy of the Intermediate EXCEL for the Resource Center. Each multimedia title costs $300. If use warrants, we will consider purchasing other titles in this "series".
Technology Training: The first meeting of the Divisional Training Coordinators was held on Friday, August 28. Three additional sessions-Introduction to Pegasus, Network Literacy, and a discussion of The Accidental Trainer by Elaine Weiss--will be held this semester to assist coordinators with divisional training responsibilities. The Technology training calendar for the fall semester will be posted by September 2. LT team members and system-wide trainers will teach a variety of classes. The calendar will be posted on the Staff Web page and the Committee's Opportunities page. All staff members will receive an e-mail message that includes the calendar. Evaluation forms will be distributed at the sessions. Data from the returned forms will be collected by the Staff Development Coordinating Committee; results (with names deleted) relating to specific sessions will be shared with the presenter.
Preservation Workshops: Sue Davis agreed to present three sessions of the Mold Preservation Workshop since a large meeting room was not available. Two sessions will be held in room 303 of the Education Library; a third session will be scheduled if needed. Sessions will be held on September 29 from 10:00 a.m. to noon and October 6 from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. An announcement about the sessions will be in the September 15 issue of the Staff Newsletter.
Soaring to Excellence Programs: Information on the next Soaring to Excellence and Dancing with Change series was discussed. We agreed to purchase the Soaring to Excellence video tapes but not the Dancing with Change series since it focused on public and school libraries. Debra agreed to assist with the Soaring to Excellence presentations.
Acorn Awards: The Acorn Award segment of the Recognition Proposal was discussed including criteria, guidelines, and implementation details. Because of several changes since the draft of the Innovative/Creativity Awards was written, this segment will need to be revised before being presented to the LMC.