End of Fall 2006 Semester Update

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...New Cypress Library
1. We are moving in to the new Cypress library beginning on Dec. 18th. Will we be open for the first of the semester? Probably not. New shelving will be in and integrated with the old and the books will placed back on the shelves. Office furniture will be set up, but public service furniture will not be in and we will have folding tables with some chairs. BUT...there won't be a circ desk or any new "wood" or library furniture. In addition, I don't think new computers will be in and we may be using existing computers. I am hopeful that the new furniture will come in sometime the third or fourth week of January. Clearly we are disappointed all of our resources/items weren't ordered in time to open for the spring. We may be able to offer some services. We'll see what we can do and email all libraries so all LS staff will have the same information and it will be clear to all students who may travel among campuses. In addition, we will have a timeline posted to the "What's new?" section of the LS homepage.

2. Cypress hours will remain 4.5 days a week until fall of 2007. At that time the older building will be renovated and open and the number of Cypress students will greatly increase. At that time we will increase to at least 6 days a week and probably some Sunday hours as well.

3. Our new staff for Cypress include:

Head Librarian - I am very pleased to announce that Pam Spooner has joined us as HL out at Cypress. She has excellent knowledge of community colleges (and is a graduate of one,) has extensive reference experience and excellent experience and continuing education in information literacy. She has managed a number of library functionsand staff in an academic setting, has experience in renovation of a library and has jumped right in to move our Cypress library.

Reference Librarian - Ellie Collier - a current adjunct of LS at South Austin this last summer- is the new reference librarian for Cypress as of this afternoon. She is a great teacher and is very tech-skilled...a new word, I think! Ellie will start 1/8.

Reference Librarian - Linda Clement has chosen to step back into the Cypress library faculty as of now and we thank her very much for managing Cypress for these last years! She has really connected with the Cypress college community and the community surrounding the Cypress campus.

Senior Library Assistant - Nancy Garrett - a long time ACC LS employee, will continue as our Senior Library Assistant. Nancy has worked in a small space with great humor and grace for many years and we thank her for her talents and her leadership of the Cypress circ desk functions and positive attitude!

Library Assistant - Tara Fleming - one of our hourly circ desk workers at South Austin since its opening last summer - has been hired as our new full time LA for Cypress. Welcome Tara! She has many years of extensive customer service experience (around books and people) from years of being an Assistant Manager at Barnes and Noble.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our hourly circ desk workers and our hourly adjunct librarians for Cypress library services. We've had a great group of hourly staff this past ten years, who have provided great service to the Cypress community. Since we now have new fulltime staff, our hourly support will greatly decrease for the spring and summer of '07. When our new hours begin this next fall, we will add some hourly support back in. We literally can't open our sites without our hourly and we appreciate the expertise and loyalty these past years.

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...EVC
4. Reference Librarian - As you may remember from earlier emails from me, based on extensive data, we also got the opportunity to hire a new librarian for an existing site. For this year, therefore, besides our two Cypress staff, our third position - based on a LLT staffing plan was for Eastview. SO....also as of today, Lola Cowling - an adjunct for LS and a local law librarian - has accepted the position of Eastview reference librarian. We are very pleased to be able to build out the EVC staff and with someone who has been a great adjunct for us these past years.

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... Weekend College
5. Weekend College - The NRG campus will expand its Weekend College hours back up to original numbers beginning this spring - so NRG will again have Friday evening hours. In addition, RVS will now also have weekend college curriculum and will have comparable weekend hours to NRG hours. We will post an information page on the LS website to announce these new hours.


6. ACC Strategic Planning - The college employed facilities consultants to assess the community at large/conduct environment scans to determine future directions. The link below provides the consultant final report which recommends next steps for ACC facilities. Interesting stuff. Go look at Sasaki content. http://www.austincc.edu/faoadmin/project_mgmt/ProjectStatus_mainpage.htm


7. LS Teams - In the early Fall/email/Blog posting, I announced our usual Teams and our '07 teams. We have added an Assessment group, a group to look at Distance Learning models/our ACC approach to supporting DL, and a content management group. In our last LLT meeting we reviewed team goals and we had a few revisions. When the goals have been finalized we will send out a link to this year's goals for general staff information.

8. All LS Meeting - We will have our all LS meeting on January 11th. You will be getting an agenda shortly. We will spend some time introducing our new South Austin, Cypress and EVC staff. These are exciting times and I know you will enjoy meeting our new team members.

9. Duplication - The college has signed a new copier contract. Thanks to Cary Sowell and Jon Sprecher who were members of the College committee that assisted with the creation of the RFP and the vendor responses. After much careful deliberation, the college with with IKON. You will return to libraries in the Spring and see new copies. Training will soon follow. We're pleased to offer new machines and the potential of new services in the coming years including swipe cards, etc. connected to our new I.D.'s. More later.

10. New IRT staff - New IRT staff were hired for our expanded locations. Watch for an email from Herb Coleman outlining new staff.

Have a good holiday...and gear up for the spring. I'll be at Cypress during the break as Santa comes down the chimney to deliver shelving and furniture. Like I said...Ho, Ho, Ho. Be safe.