Gary Lawrence

Gary Lawrence's remarks -- rough transcription

I would like to think of these as my valedictory remarks;
I had to admit when i heard we were meeting at the Bren Center I was hoping we would all be issued anteater pennants we could wave. I see LAUC is still a serious organization though...

There are changes at the Office of the President -- some will affect LAUC and the Libraries. Not trying to keep any of it secret.

Going into the new fiscal year, you will be seeing a smaller and eventually more nimble UCOP. Next fiscal year, UCOP's budget will be 20 % smaller and staff will be 23% smaller. Planning has been going on for new units that will support across UCOP departments to reduce redundancy. For instance, 1 focused on R&D; 1 focussed on business services; 1 focussed on budget; 1 focussed on legistlative analysis and tracking; 1 focussed on basic communication services such as PR & web services; and IT desktop support services.

at this point these changes have been driven largely by the expressed interest of the regents, which persists

There are some additional restructuring initiatives that will go on in 08-09:
* HR still under restructuring;
* RFP has been issued for the full range of benefits service
* academic affairs has undergone a review
* continuing education will likely move to a host campus
* continuing scrutiny of the systemwide role of IT
* review of external affairs and how we staff those
* capital projects
and an ongoing review of how we staff systemwide functions that are seen as being extreemly important to UC but not directly related to UCOP
* CDL
* UC Press
* procurement
these things are of high value but not intimately connected with the presiden'ts role

There are other drivers besides the budget; for instance, Mark Yudof arrives June 16; and has specifically requested continuation of restructuing and downsizing efforts.

May revise comes out May 14; implications of this for UCOP not yet known; likely to be unpleasant for all of us.

What all of this change means for the UC Libraries may turn out to be not much for the following reasons:
* the CDL has turned out to be reasonably well protected; filled a variety of staff vacancies over the last year
* in many discussions the CDL is actually help up as a model of a valuable systemwide service and for the way it drives the libraries throughout the system to collaborate and plan on a systemwide basis


As Bob mentioned, the position of the CDL president still under negotiation. The role of the CDL as a convener for the UC library system will continue; There is a systemwide library planning function for the CDL that is widely acknowledged and that will continue

With regard to LAUC, it seems that LAUC will continue to work with UCOP -- academic personnel issues are significant; there are also matters of system wide library planning that is of interest to LAUC. UCOP allocates LAUC's budget; and finally there are occasionally collective bargaining issues where LAUC gets involved with UCOP.

Message I want to leave with you is that until our restructuring is completed (sometime in the fall) it's not going to be perfectly clear who has responsibility for what; but that's not to say that normal buisness can't be conducted. Things like the R&D committee proposal is in some ways exemplary for LAUC working with UCOP; involves budgetary interests, academic personnel, and in some ways academic programs

So while it's complicated and not totally clear it is happening, not totally in disarray at the moment :) the process will have a few bumps though.

Also, wanted to mention that the SLASIAC has decided to sponsor a series of town hall meetings in the fall with faculty, focussed on the role of faculty as authors; will likely include discussion of the NIH and Harvard agreements etc.

With that -- the problems of reorganization and LAUC will soon no longer be my problem :) it was a pleasure to serve you and see old friends at the assemblies, and make new ones.