Mission Statement and Charter for the Library Services Committee

Mission

The primary mission of the Library Services Committee is to help the Daniel Library fulfill its academic support to The Citadel. The committee shall facilitate communication between the user community and the library. The committee should support the library in its mission.

Charter

I. Membership

A. Representation

The Committee on Committees selects nine members from different academic departments to serve on the committee with equal representation from each of the following groups: 1) Business Administration; Education; Health, Exercise and Sports Science; Psychology; 2) English, History, Library, Modern Languages, Political Science; and 3) Biology, Chemistry, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Math and Computer Sciences, Physics. One ROTC faculty shall also serve on the committee. Academic faculty membership is restricted to tenured/tenure track faculty who have been employed at The Citadel for at least one semester at the time they begin committee service. The Provost selects one student member. The Library Director is the designated Ex officio liaison.

B. Tenure

Faculty members are selected for three year terms, and may request a second consecutive term; no faculty member may serve on the committee for more than six years consecutively. Student members are selected for one year terms. If a faculty member cannot complete a term, the Committee on Committees will select another member to fill the unexpired term. Time spent filling the term of another faculty member will not count toward the "six-year rule" outlined above.

II. Structure

A. Chair

The committee shall have a chair selected by committee vote at an organizational meeting held before September 30 of each year. The term of the chair lasts until the next election. A member may not serve as committee chair for more than three years consecutively. The chair is responsible for scheduling and presiding over committee meetings, representing the committee before outside bodies, and producing an annual report of committee activities.

B. Subcommittees

The committee may form subcommittees either to divide a committee task into parts or to perform a specific task.

C. Meetings

The committee must meet at least twice during the academic year [once in the Fall and once in the Spring]. The chair must hold a meeting if requested in writing by at least one-third of the voting members. A quorum consists of one-half of the voting membership.

III. Activities

III.1 General Activities of Standing Committees

A. Information

The Library Services Committee may help the library gather, analyze, and disseminate information relevant to the library's academic support to The Citadel. It is authorized to gather information by means of

1. direct request to a college administrative department or activity; an academic department; another standing committee; or any group or association of Citadel faculty, staff or students
2. the development and use of questionnaires and surveys
3. the use of previously published information

The committee analyzes information through statistical summaries, compilation of written material, or other established methods. The analysis may provide the college with information pertinent to a particular issue, or it may substantiate a recommendation for administrative action. The library committee also helps prepare for the SACS self-study.

The committee disseminates information by means of

1. a response (report) to a department or committee based upon a request for information
2. reports generated from within the committee
3. periodic status reports to the college as specified in its charter

B. Annual report

The Library Services Committee will prepare an annual report summarizing its activities over the previous academic year. The report must include all decisions of the committee. Copies of this report, both in hard copy and in electronic form, will be made accessible to all Citadel faculty, staff and students.

C. Other reports

The committee is responsible for the timely dissemination of all reports to the Citadel community i.e. Faculty Council. Committee reports shall be made available through the Library and through college-wide computer system access. Reports may contain recommendations or proposals. For the purposes of gathering information (see above), all reports are to be considered published information.

D. Tasks

The work of the Library Services Committee consists of a series of tasks -- units of work which involve assisting the library in the gathering, analysis, and dissemination of information; supporting the library in its mission; and serving as a conduit between the library and the college community. The committee assumes tasks through one of the following means:

1. Completion of tasks as articulated in the "Specific Activities" section of this charter.
2. Completion of a report which includes information requested by an administrative department or activity, an academic department, another committee, the Faculty Council, or the Academic Board. Requests of individual faculty members must be made through the Faculty Council. Students or other individuals may not assign a task to the Library Services Committee except through one of the above-mentioned bodies.
3. Tasks can be generated from within the committee. Any committee member may request that the committee study a topic or issue within its sphere of interest. The committee may also develop its own long-range projects or studies as part of its ongoing mission.

III.2 Specific Activities of the Library Services Committee

1. The committee advises the Library Director in matters of long term planning in regards to:
   1. collection management
   2. departmental allocation formulas
   3. strategic planning and assessment
   4. user services
   5. information dissemination
   6. problem resolution
2. The committee evaluates the fulfillment of the library's mission primarily in:
   1. user services
   2. collection resources
3. The committee assesses the library's mission statement and recommends revisions as appropriate.

IV. Autonomy

To ensure the efficiency and quality of committee work, the committee is granted a degree of autonomy over its own operations. Upon receiving a request from another college body, the committee will vote to accept or reject the request. A request for information can be rejected for the following reasons:

1. The request is unclear; the committee chair will ask the requesting body to clarify any ambiguities and resubmit the request.
2. The committee's workload is currently too great to perform the task in the requested time frame; the chair will return the request and suggest a date for re-submittal.
3. The task falls outside the scope or sphere of interest of the committee; the chair will ask the requesting body to either submit the request to another committee or (if the task falls within the scope of more than one committee) divide the task between the committees.
4. The committee does not have the resources or the authority to complete the task; the chair will explain which parts of the task cannot be completed, and the requesting body may resubmit a modified request.

V. Amending the Charter

The Library Services Committee may modify its charter in consultation with the Committee on Committees. Proposals for changes in the committee charter come to the Committee on Committees, which negotiates the changes with the standing committee and with any affected administrative departments. Consensus requests are forwarded to the Faculty Council for approval. In case of a lack of consensus, competing proposals may be sent to the Faculty Council for consideration.

Revised May 2008