Volume 2, Issue 4

The FY10 Open Enrollment has been rescheduled for May 14 - May 28, 2009
The State of Colorado has delayed their open enrollment because of delays in setting premium rates for their plans. Due to this fact, University Open Enrollment will be from May 14 - May 28, 2009 rather than April 27 - May 22, 2009. Premiums are still unknown at this time, but will be shared prior to Open Enrollment.

The current Open Enrollment calendar is posted in the employee lounge and is also available electronically at: https://www.cu.edu/pbs/openenrollment/downloads/OE-Calendar.pdf Note that only the enrollment dates have changed, all other information on informational sessions and carrier fairs is accurate.

Dependent Social Security Numbers (SSN) Now Required
A federal mandate administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services now requires SSNs for employees and their covered dependents for coordination of benefits. To comply with this mandate, you must provide an SSN for each of your covered dependents in this year's open enrollment. The university and PBS will continue to be diligent in the protection of your personal data.

Auraria Library Annual Award Winners
Congratulations to this year's deserving 2008 faculty award winners!

Excellence in Librarianship - Cynthia Hashert

Researcher/Creative Artist of the Year - Meg Brown-Sica

Service Person of the Year - Gayle Bradbeer


Ergonomic Evaluation Update
First, a sincere thank you to Ellen Nedzel for agreeing to complete the remaining ergonomic evaluations. Evaluations have been completed for everyone who has expressed the desire to have one or is scheduled in the immediate future. If you were waiting to get an evaluation due to moving or changing equipment I ask that you schedule an appointment with Ellen no later than May 1st as any equipment you might need will should be ordered within the next two weeks to meet fiscal year deadlines.

Speaking of the end of the fiscal year, everyone who is in need of a new chair needs to submit that request to Becky Robinson no later Friday, May 1st. If you would like to view available chair models, please follow this link: http://www.coloradoci.com/ then click "seating", "view catalog" and "task". All chairs will be ordered in Companion Navy fabric. If none of the available chairs will work for you due to a special requirement, please contact Becky as soon as possible to discuss alternate options.

Please, contact Marical Farner if you have had an evaluation, but still do not feel that all of your ergonomic needs have been met or if initial work space solutions are not standing the test of time and need to be reconsidered.

Update from the Technology Department:
Last week Niraj was in Microsoft Server training and Doug took some vacation so we had some Bugzilla tickets pile up. Hopefully we will get things under control early this week. Projects we are working on: continuing to set up computers and improve our procedures for doing so, ordering Camtasia for those who need it, installing software for ILL (a big job), working out switch/jack issues in the Special Projects area, and working on a research plan for the Learning Commons, among other things. Niraj will talk to ITS about changing some network set ups, based on knowledge he gained from his class. We are gathering information about all of the applications on our servers so that we can begin the move to virtual servers at ITS. This set up will provide better backup, more up to date hardware and be more economic for the library.

Help! We are having trouble determining what has been purchased and when it was received. We document purchases in the department but we need some cooperation. When anything technology related arrives please sent it to 256 first so that we can document receiving it and make sure we get the licensing information, informational materials, etc. We also need to see if anything is missing. I have put a procedure in writing on the on the wiki here. Please feel free to comment, give us suggestions, etc.

Volume 2, issue 3

Voluntary Separation Incentives
I have received more official information regarding Voluntary Furloughs and Voluntary Separation Incentives and have distributed to all Classified Staff and their supervisors a letter which provides some detail. You can view the letter at: http://intranet.auraria.edu/wiki/images/a/a9/VSIP-retirement_letter_3-18-09.doc

For further information you can contact Marical Farner or Cindy Melvin in UCD Human Resources at 303-315-2706.



Technical Services Announcement
Starting Monday April 6th the interior backdoor of Room 118 will be closed and unlocked during business hours (8-5). All library staff and faculty will still be able to enter without a key during business hours. However, signs are posted on the exterior and interior back doors, instructing visitors to knock for admittance.
Let me know if you have questions or see Shared Leadership Team meeting minutes for further information http://intranet.auraria.edu/wiki/index.php/SLT_Meeting_Minutes_4-2-09.

Room 245 Fundraising Progress
With gifts from Bill Jackson ($55,000), Friends Group ($25,000), Luff Family Foundation ($25,000), and misc. ($6,000), a total of $111,000 has been raised toward a $150,000 goal to remodel Room 245. These generous gifts will enable us to duplicate the success in the Jackson Enhanced Learning Center in the second floor instruction room 245.

Call for Entertainment Committee Members
The Library is in need of an entertainment committee whose basic charge will be planning and facilitating retirement parties, potlucks and annual recognition events. The committee may choose to expand its charge to include birthdays or other employee related entertainment events and recognition. If interested, please contact Marical Farner by Tuesday, April 14th. If you are interested in acting as a volunteer when you are available, but do not want to serve as a committee member, please contact Marical as well.



Update from the Technology Department:
Now that our staffing has stabilized, we are slowly getting things in order. This week we worked on the following projects:

· Doug is working on organizing old equipment for recycling-though we have gotten the word
that we can’t get anything picked up for a while.
· All of us have been working on getting our purchasing in order. Niraj has started a new system for keeping track of purchases. We are determining what we have and who it is for. We didn’t have staff to open and set up computers in the last few months, so we are working through waiting equipment right now. Niraj and I are working to figure out how much money is left in our budget so we can finish our spending.
· Niraj has been doing a lot of work/research in order to upgrade our ILL technology and get
it set up in a new area. This will be a time consuming project.
· Doug has been working his way through Bugzilla tickets, catching up on the backlog.
· We will deploy 11 new laptops in ELC. We are working on the image.
· Doug and I researched some options for projection in the Friends Conference Room.
· Nina, Niraj and I worked on Disaster Recovery information for the Continuation of Operations Committee.
· I arranged for John Culshaw from the Norlin library at the University of Boulder to speak to the Learning Commons Planning Committee this past Tuesday about the project at Norlin.
· I contacted ITS to see when we could start the joint project which will evaluate all of our server applications and move those that are viable over to virtual servers at ITS. At the same time we hope to clean up any troublesome network setups. I also asked them to help us with some input on the local computer permissions. We want to keep the extra work that will be required for maintenance to a minimum, while also giving people more freedom. In addition I am asking them to train some of us on technology roll-outs and project lifecycles.
· We have been working on departmental goals and individual plans. Here is a list of some of our departmental goals for the next year:

v ITS Networking Project
v Permissions Investigations Project
v Learning Commons Planning Committee (Meg)
v Improved communication between the department and the library
v Tech Strategy Committee start up---this committee will be writing a technology plan, make a
list of assignments for the Emerging Technology Subcommittee, etc.
v Emerging Technology Committee start up
v Toy library-project of the Emerging Technology Committee
v Single Sign on/Library Applications—trying to make using things like Bugzilla and Basecamp easier
v Doug-apple training
v Bugzilla-Working to make this easier to use
v Off hours support plan
v Departmental training
v Taking over the maintenance in the Library Commons from MSCD
v Working to transfer the Pay for Print operation to Clicks
v Analyze Bugzilla Data and use it to improve workflow/education/etc.


A few more notes: Rick will be devoting himself entirely to III issues and no longer helping out in our department. We thank Rick for all of his tireless help in the past. Thanks to the people who applied to be on the Emerging Technology Committee. This committee has been delayed until the Technology Strategy Committee gets started. Niraj and Doug will be in touch.

-Meg