Personnel Administration Minutes - 9/23/14

Present: Karen Brodsky, Adele Puccio, Dale Spindel, Pat Tumulty, Judy Mansbach, Selwa Shamy

Meetings will be the third Friday of the month. The next meeting will be October 17 @ 10:00 a.m. at the Springfield Public Library.

Karen will email Pat the calendar change.

Michael- NJLA is in the middle of the strategic planning process, 3 year plan from the time of adoption. Ideas must be tested by the broader membership & get input from them before implementation.

Waiting for the consultants to provide the results. A deadline has not been set.

Pat discussed the meeting with the executive board and consultant.

• Does NJLA represent libraries or librarians. It seems that libraries will be the focus, based on the vote of the members.

• Discussed Committee & Section structure.

• Financial models for NJLA were discussed. Right now the model is membership dues. Should the focus become institutional dues? This will have a big impact on library budgets. This would provide membership benefits to all staff of an institution.

• Is a two day conference a viable model, and will it be in 5 years? For example, Alaska Library Assoc. is practically bankrupt.

• NJLA Membership level is sustainable, which is not the norm in many associations.

• Should NJLA join with other associations? Academic, library assistant, etc.

Pat was asked what the committee should focus on this year.

• Personnel Manual has already been done by the League of Municipalities in 2012. Oct 23 from 9:00 a.m. -12:30 p.m. there will be a primer on using the League manual in Holmdel. Karen will attend. The manual will be reviewed and possibly adapted for library best practices. Pat pointed out there are two standards -- the law and best practices. Karen, Dale, Michael, Judy, Adele will all work on this. November meeting.

• Minimum Salary Recommendations has not been updated in 4-5 years. NJLA Recommendation is 2% annual salary increase but that needs to be reviewed. We will look at the BCCLS Salary Survey next meeting. Adele has a hard copy. Karen will reach out to Cape May for salary guidelines. Michael will also share some information. October meeting.

• Non-MLS jobs are not listed on the NJLA  job site. This will be reviewed at the November meeting.

• Trustee Training needs to be addressed in December.

• Core competencies. The ones developed by NJLA are out of date. We will review the Web Junction core competencies before the next meeting and discuss in October.

• NJLA Conference will be earlier this year and proposals are due in November. Adele said the performance evaluation program was very popular last year. Resume reveiw was very popular and could be done again.NJLA has to have 400 rooms booked for the conference. Create an incentive for people to stay -- offer resume speed dating on Monday night with cocktails where directors will do the reviews and discuss career options. Karen suggested having reps from outside the library field also do reviews. Dale will be the point person for the conference. Discussion for October meeting.

Discussion of the underemployment of MLS holders: The role of librarians and library assistants have been blurred in some cases.  NJLA has sample librarian job descriptions but . Pat talked about how to make the librarian indispensable in the community. Taking those skills outside the library serving roles that require a higher level of experience and education. Trustee education needs to be a priority to advocate for funding. Trustee Academy online was successful with the Springfiled Library board.  What percentage of a library's budget is personnel? It used to be 60-65% and now can be as high as 80%.

Michael discussed access to the The Google Group page for PAC. Send him an email if you did not get an invite or are having trouble with access.

If we want to post something to the NJLA main Facebook page go through Pat.

Membership Committee Liason: Michael will do it.

NJLA is moving to a Google groups for committees. Sections will stay the same for now.