Underway

The LAUC assembly is now underway in Barrows Hall on the Berkeley campus. We are now in the introductory morning part of the assembly, with the president's report and a report from Janet Lockwood of UCOP.

Chuck Ekman gave the introduction to the assembly and talked about the importance of discussing professional governance in the library. After some official business, including thanking the local arrangements committee, Lucia Diamond gave her president's report, announcing the four travel awards that were given to attendees and thanking members.

Lucia said that the issues that LAUC is broadly discussing include finding technology that will allow us to communicate across the campuses; the UC Commission on the Future; and the loss of librarians in the system that may not be replaced (in addition, three UL positions are open now). Other major topics include the future of librarianship (to be discussed this afternoon) and the impact of budget cuts on all of us.

Lucia pointed out that this will be just the beginning of the discussion, and that other libraries who are facing the same issues might be interested in our results. Additionally, members of the CPG (who are leading the discussion this afternoon) will be meeting with members on campuses for discussion; and there will also be cross-campus discussion via communication tools, eg. a wiki and blog to be set up.

She also addressed the LAUC budget. LAUC was asked to only do one assembly per year. We also had to send in a LAUC budget; which was approved, but we have to cut the LAUC budget by nearly 1/3 for next year (that's the worst case scenario; might not happen).

Next up is Janet Lockwood's presentation.