Guests: Vanessa Kam and Lea Starr

Reporting Structure

Is this the right way for a committee to work? How effective is the reporting structure? RIC currently reports to Public Services
Committee (PSC) and co-chairs currently meet monthly with Lea Starr. RIC doesn’t have authority to enact recommendations or make
decisions, so what does it accomplish as a committee? A committee reporting to a committee presents a problem in terms of work flow and
representation. Vanessa, as PSC Head, doesn’t find the current reporting structure enables her to represent fully RIC’s work and
recommendations to PSC.

Membership

Membership is another issue. As all units are represented, it’s a difficult structure to maintain for small branches or service units.
Larger units have term members, while smaller units have no one else to represent their area. Consequently, some divisions have
rotating members, while others have representatives who have been on RIC since its inception.

Reference work is also done by Library Assistants, and Graduate Academic Assistants. They are not represented on RIC. There is no
formal inclusion of other members of the campus community who could act in an advisory capacity, such as a representative of TAG. There
are currently no administrative heads on RIC. This absence means an absence of administrative perspective on various issues.

Focus

Does it make sense for the Reference and Instruction to be combined in a single committee? Over time RIC has focused less attention on
reference activities and instructional best practices. There is often attention paid if there is a technical aspect to teaching (e.g.
Wimba), but not to non-technical instructional strategies. RIC has also been involved in projects and working groups, which generate
their own reports and follow-ups and take up meeting time.

Do we want to focus on the Teaching & Learning aspect, as we have a Teaching & Learning Librarian to whom a redesigned
committee might report?

Reference activities have their own instructional and coaching aspects, which might fit into a larger instruction model. Encounters
with patrons at the Reference Desk often reveal issues related to website design and navigation and remote and onsite access to
materials. Reference interviews provide insight into how users interact with our system, how they research, how effective they find our
collection development strategies, and what they want in terms of services.

Benefits

Despite existing problems with RIC, committee members also discussed benefits. RIC provides both a venue and an opportunity for the
interests of reference and teaching librarians to be shared and heard. If the composition changes, how do we ensure that reference and
teaching librarians still get together and share necessary information? How do we ensure that there is a mechanism for other committees
to get feedback on how their services, projects, and initiatives impact on the reference and instructional services of the Library?

Potential models

Members spent a lot of time discussing possible models for a revitalized committee.

Members preferred a two-tiered committee model, which would have two functions-Advisory (Decision and Direction) and Best Practices.

Trish sits on PSC and, as the Teaching & Learning Librarian, is a good fit to be the person to whom this new model reports. Trish
also reports to Lea.

The advisory group tier, headed by Trish, would have fewer members than the current incarnation of RIC. It would include reference and
instructional librarians, two administrative heads who are involved in teaching, and other campus stakeholders (e.g. TAG, faculty
member(s)).

Having administrative heads as part of the team will help in terms of executive power, as well as offering library wide perspective on
various issues. The budgets for reference and instructional activities are resourced at the branch level. Branch Heads have to be
convinced to re-allocate staff time to spend on activities and projects.

Both Heads and external stakeholders can be a challenge to recruit, as they are often over-committed to other responsibilities. Perhaps
the advisory committee could meet less frequently (quarterly or bi-monthly)

The best practices tier, also coordinated by Trish could meet monthly, bimonthly or quarterly, and would include forums for sharing
teaching and reference best practices. The forums could include invitations to the wider UBC library community in order to engage
others who provide reference and instruction, but who do not sit on RIC.

Working groups would also have their place in this new structure, coming out of priorities determined at the Advisory Group level.
Project charters and reporting structures will shape the individual working groups.

Trish and Lea will draft a new committee structure.

Trish will develop a one-page summary of the background and discussion of the proposed changes to RIC, which will be sent to RIC
members for feedback and then brought to

PSC.

There will be no new meetings of RIC until the new structure is decided and finalized.

They are now pulling together an environmental scan and wanted some feedback from RIC members.

External factors of the environmental scan are
:

1. technology
   , (vista and library instruction web site, social web)
2. curriculum change
3. research
   (evidence based research, how do we do research that furthers our work, how do we use assessment tools)
4. student enrollments and demographics
   (large commuter population, international, graduates, 78% are taking online courses)
5. liaison roles
   (changing and expanding-more support needed with more education and training, e-science, copyright), reference desk, community
   outreach (UBC library +IKBLC))
6. learning and information commons
   (peer learning model working with existing librarian lead instruction, how does library extend with commons activities across the
   system, but outside the library)

Feedback from RIC

These new models of distributed Learning Commons are much like the faculty reading rooms. Paula is working with Planning reading room.
Shirin stated that the Asian Studies reading room also serves as a TA space.

Community is a strategic priority for the University. This includes people who live at UBC, members of the Learning Exchange, and
community members who are based outside of UBC. Is there a way to connect with IKBLC to identify the stakeholders in order to ensure
consultation?

Interdisciplinary research and students taking courses outside of their declared majors are other important elements to consider for
our user demographics.

Many institute faculty appointments currently have no specific liaison librarians because they aren’t appointed to a department (e.g.
the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies and the Liu Institute). The same applies for Centres for research, however Asian Library
librarians take on a liaison role to scholars whose research requires language and area-specific support. This includes individuals who
fall under the umbrella of the Institute for Asian Research.

Curriculum change should also reflect the need to understand the cognitive and pedagogical underpinnings and implications of the work
of faculty members like Carl Wieman.

RIC members would also like some mention of core competencies expected of students when they graduate

In terms of student demographics, concern was raised about only considering non-Canadian International students within these figures.
Other types of internationalization such as multi-culturalism and globalization, as well as other types of diversity within the student
body should be addressed.

Our liaison role should also include support for provided for assisting faculty in their research.