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Indiana University
IULFC Secretary Manual Contents

Welcome to your new duties as Secretary of the IULFC. This manual, with its General Hints and Checklist sections, is an explanation of the responsibilities of the Secretary as listed in the IULFC Operational Guidelines. It is intended to help you get through your term as painlessly as possible. Please help future Secretaries by updating the information as necessary and forwarding the manual and corresponding disk to the next Secretary.

This manual was last updated:
May 2003 by Scott Opasik (IUSB)
June 18, 1999 by Chris Long (IU School of Law-Indianapolis)

GENERAL HINTS

Contacts:

A list of people with whom the Secretary will need to be in contact throughout the year is listed below. These are the people who should receive copies of the IULFC agenda:

  • IULFC Members
  • The Dean
  • The Dean's Assistant/Secretary
  • Council of Head Librarians Members
  • IULFC Committee Chairs
  • Human Resource Officer (Bloomington Campus)

Since the names may change from time to time, check with the former IULFC Secretary, the Dean's Secretary, and the Libraries' Human Resource Officer to verify the names on the list and to supply missing names.

Early in the term, call the Dean's Assistant and introduce yourself. She of he will need to contact you about meeting dates and you will both be contacting each other for all sorts of information throughout the year. Remember that he or she has other work to do, and make sure you allow enough lead time for making necessary arrangements.

NOTE: As of May 2003, the Dean's Assistant is Shawny Taysom (staysom@indiana.edu) 812-855-6611.

Helpful Hint: Always carbon copy the Dean's Assistant on any correspondence to the Dean.

E-mail postings:

Over the past few years, almost all of the IULFC correspondence has been done by e-mail. The exception to this has been election voting. E-mail messages can be sent via the library's various majordomo distribution lists. Contact the Dean's Assistant on how to post these lists, or have the Assistant post them for you. If you want the Assistant to handle the e-mail postings, make sure you let them know who should receive the e-mail (i.e. Bloomington Librarians, Bloomington Extra-system Librarians, Regional Librarians, IUPUI Librarians, or any combination of these groups.)

Helpful Hint: Although it is quicker, and offers more control, to post messages to the majordomo lists yourself, Library Administration prefers that you have them post the messages for you.

Records:

Remember to retain copies of all agenda, minutes, correspondence and lists for the files. Also be sure that each document is dated. It is helpful to keep current files, filing records in the permanent files at the end of you term. Some secretaries have preferred to keep a file for each meeting with agenda, minutes and supporting documents, as well as separate files for correspondence and elections. Others have kept only one file for current records and a separate "archive" file including lists of upcoming agenda items, memos requiring a response, lists of things to do, etc. You should organize this is a way that makes sense to you.

Make a copy of any documentation that will assist your successor, and forward it to them with the revised manual. Also, save copies of your work for your personal records. Hold on to the originals for a few months after your term expires, in case you need to review them to help the new Secretary, and then forward the files to the IUPUI Archives. (Do not put paper clips on records in the files, as the clips will eventually rust. Remove any clips you find in older files.)

Do not neglect to put together IULFC, Faculty Review Board, Promotion & Tenure Committee and Sabbatical Leave Committee membership lists during your year. This is important, because it can be extremely difficult to piece together lists of these committees after the fact. Without complete committee lists, conducting the elections is much more difficult and serious errors may be made. Do not leave your successor in the lurch.

Helpful Hint: Organize and then forward the year's paperwork to the new Secretary, so they can consult your work when deciding how to proceed with their work.

Meetings:

In recent years, IULFC meetings have been scheduled to coincide with Council of Head Librarian (CHL) meetings. This means that IULFC meets four times a year. Contact the Dean's Assistant to confirm future dates for CHL meetings.

Recently IULFC has met exclusively by video conferencing. To set up a video conference contact your campus' vicops representative, call 317/278-2020, or send e-mail to vicops@indiana.edu.

You will need to provide the following information:
  1. Name of the event.
  2. The date you are submitting the request.
  3. Date of the event.
  4. Start and ending times of the event.
  5. Campus(es) that must be involved.
  6. Your contact information (name, phone number, and e-mail address).

Vicops will send a confirmation of the meeting. It has been my experience that the confirmation may take two weeks to a month before arriving. Once you receive the confirmation, you will notify the Dean, Dean's assistant, and the Council.

Helpful Hint: On each agenda for meetings make a space for discussing the time of the next IULFC meeting. In recent years the Council has preferred to meet shortly after the CHL meeting so that the Dean could report on the CHL meeting

For all meetings, take the following steps:

A. Preparing for the meeting
  1. Contact the Dean's Assistant to determine some dates and times when the Dean will be able to attend.
  2. Schedule the video conference.
  3. As soon as the video conference is confirmed, send notices of date, time and room location to all IULFC members. Include in the notice a request for agenda items. Set a deadline of two weeks before the meeting for a response. This will give you time to ensure that a quorum plans to attend, and to add agenda items to your list. Ask members to notify you of the names of their substitutes if they are not able to attend the meeting. IUPUI and RCL have elected alternates; any BLFC member may stand in for a Bloomington representative. It is the member's responsibility to arrange for the alternate to attend.
  4. At the same time, have notice of the meeting published in the IUL News.
  5. As soon as the deadline for agenda items has passed, prepare the agenda and send it to the Dean for approval.
  6. Once the agenda is approved, copies should be sent to IULFC members. When preparing the agenda, remember that items which are not self-explanatory should have some sort of supporting document - a memo from you or someone else, for instance - explaining the problem or issue under discussion. The agenda, the minutes of the previous meeting, and other supporting documents should be sent To IULFC members. Attach a message that the agenda is for their information only.

B. Conducting the Meeting
  1. As Chair of IULFC, the Dean has charge of the meeting. You should be prepared to explain and discuss any item that the Dean did not add to the agenda. Often, an item will be introduced by the person who asked you to put it on the agenda, but you should be familiar with the issues in case that person cannot attend the meeting. You will be expected to introduce the items that you contribute. It is a good idea to bring the IULFC Handbook (which contains the Operational Guidelines), the IULFC membership list and committee roster, and the most recent minute file to the meeting in case you need to consult them.
  2. You will take minutes at the meetings. If you wish to tape the meeting, ask if anyone objects before the meeting begins. As part of the minutes, you must list names of those present, including all guests.
C. Meeting Follow-Up
  1. Prepare minutes of the meeting. Send a draft to the Dean for approval.
  2. After the Dean has approved the minutes, have a copy of the minutes e-mailed to all IUL Librarians. NOTE: This means that the minutes will be published before they are officially approved at the next IULFC meeting.
  3. Send a copy of the minutes to IULFC Web Master.

Elections:

It is crucial that all distribution requirements are met in nominating for the IULFC and its committees. Read the Operational Guidelines for the requirements, check current committee lists for continuing members' campus, rank and tenure status; then outline what is needed. Ask those who are giving you committee nominations to recommend more than one name for each position. Double-check nominees for appropriate academic rank and tenure status.

In recent years, the Secretary-elect has taken over many of the responsibilities for conducting elections, however it is important that the Secretary work closely with the Secretary-elect to insure that everything is completed as needed. The two RC representatives on IULFC constitute the RCL Nominating Committee. They should have a slate to submit for balloting by April.

The Secretary is responsible for conducting any formal surveys or special votes of the library faculty requested by the IULFC. If the situation calls for an information opinion poll, however, ask the IULFC representatives to handle it for their own constituencies.