CRSA Annual Report 2021-2022

Library Governance Committee Final Report

Fiscal Year: 2021-2022

Committee Name: Committee on Research & Scholarly Activity (CRSA)

Committee Chair: Carmen Orth-Alfie 

Members (with terms*): Samantha Bishop Simmons* (2021-2023), Elspeth Healey* (2021-2023), Carmen Orth-Alfie* (2020-2022), Sara Outhier* (2020-2022) and Michael Peper *(2020-2022),   

* a minimum of three who have a requirement to engage in research and scholarly activities as part of their professional assignment

Standing Charges:

ARTICLE IV. LIBRARY FACULTY AND STAFF ASSEMBLY SECTION III. LFSA STANDING AND AD HOC COMMITTEES   

4 August 2020   

(Lines 562-571)   

Committee Membership. The LFSA Executive Committee meets following the elections of LFA and LSA officers to organize and make standing committee appointments. Committee appointments are made early enough to ensure that committee members are able to assume their duties on August 1st. For all Standing Committees with elected membership, the Nominating and Ballot Committee provides a slate of candidates and conducts the elections.   

Structure. Each standing or ad hoc committee designates a Chair and Secretary. The LFSA Executive Committee may designate the Chair of an ad hoc committee at the time the ad hoc committee is appointed.   

Terms of Office. Members may serve up to two successive terms on the same committee except where otherwise specified.   

(Lines 645-662)   

Committee on Research and Scholarly Activities   

Membership. The Committee on Research and Scholarly Activities is appointed by the LFSA Executive Committee and is composed of five members, a minimum of three who have a requirement to engage in research and scholarly activities as part of their professional assignment. A reasonable effort is made to appoint members who represent staff, various ranks of faculty, and units of the Libraries.   

Terms of Office. Committee members serve two-year overlapping terms.   

Standing Charges. The Committee on Research and Scholarly Activities, in keeping with the Libraries’ mission, encourages, promotes, and supports research and scholarly activities of the members of the LFSA.   

Library Research Fund (LRF). The Committee on Research and Scholarly Activities establishes and reviews, on an annual basis, guidelines for the disbursal of research funds provided by the Dean of Libraries. The Committee on Research and Scholarly Activities allocates these funds based on those guidelines.   

General Research Fund (GRF). The Committee on Research and Scholarly Activities also administers the University’s General Research Fund designated to KU Libraries based on the GRF Guidelines.  

Standing Charges Progress/Accomplishment Summary: 

Library Research Fund (LRF) 

KU Libraries budgeted $6000.00 for the Library Research Fund (LRF) for distribution and expenditure during FY 22. CRSA received and approved two LRF awards for a total of  

$455.00.  

General Research Fund (GRF)   

In November 2021 KU Office of Research notified CRSA chair that KU Libraries was allocated up to $13,105.80 for the General Research Fund (GRF) to be awarded in FY22 for expenditure during FY23.  The allocation reflects an across the board 10% reduction from the previous award year. Formal email announcement and call for applications was posted via KULIB-L on December 10, 2021, with applications due February 28, 2022 (and later extended to March 22, 2022). To promote the GRF and answer questions, CRSA hosted an information program via Zoom on February 9, 2022, moderated by Elspeth Healey with a panel of recent GRF recipients. CRSA received and approved one GRF application and the chair forwarded the decision to KU Office of Research by the April 8, 2022 deadline. Awardees were notified of acceptance and provided requirement details via email from KU Office of Research late April. The entire allocation of $13,105.80 was awarded.  

Special Charges:

None

Special Charges Progress Summary:

N/A.

Other Activities or Accomplishments:  

• FY22 Actions based on recommendations noted in CRSA FY21 Annual Report:  

• GRF – Although the previous Committee recommended starting early to promote the General Research Fund, CRSA did not convene until October, 2021 to begin planning for the FY22 activities.   

• LRF – The Committee made recommendations for possible options to provide continuity of leadership and ensure requests for funding made before the new Committee convened could be addressed.  To this end, the chair from FY21 continued as chair for FY22.    

• Faculty Senate Research Committee Report on Three Year Review of the General Research Fund Fiscal Years 2019, 2020 and 2021 – CRSA chair received an email from the Faculty Senate Research Committee (January 25, 2022) requesting information for the Three-Year Review of the General Research Fund Fiscal Years 2019, 2020 and 2021.  The spreadsheet questionnaire/report was completed by the chair with assistance from Mike Broadwell and Shannon Royer. The initial report was submitted February 14.  Additional information in a revised report was submitted March 4 as per FSRCR request February 28.   

Potential Charges for Future Committees/Recommendations: 

• Demand for research funds such as LRF and GRF continues to be low.  Only a small portion of the LRF was awarded this FY, down from previous years.  The GRF, which is intended to be a competitive source of research funding, has been awarded once again to all who applied. Anecdotally, CRSA finds that people have limited understanding for how funding can be used to support research. 

• CRSA recommends programming aimed at expanding ideas and opportunities by exploring what research could be done if we had the funding to make it possible.  

• CRSA has used the documentation and forms provided by KU Research for administering the GRF award process. Questions have come up this year and in the past due to the fact that the documents are written for the academic department audience.   

• CRSA recommends a special charge for the CRSA to review past documentation to consider drafting a Libraries' specific GRF application that makes minimal changes to address confusing wording found in the application form provided KU Office of Research. The draft would be need to be submitted for approval from the KU Libraries Dean and KU Office of Research in Fall 2022 to be part of KU Office of Research announcement of GRF allocations and call for applications. 

• The request from University Faculty Senate Research Committee brought attention to issues related to data collection for reporting.  CRSA recommend the following actions to improve this process for future committee work. 

• CRSA recommends a special charge to analyze the questions that have appeared in the Three Year Review of the General Research Fund and the stated guidelines for LRF and GRF funds for the purpose of creating a system for regularly collecting relevant information in anticipation of these reviews and other needs of the committee. 

• CRSA recommends that LFSA regularly requests a roster of library employees by rank and status that can be made part of the LFSA archived documents so as to improve the ease with which governance committees conduct their work.   

Please review the Committee’s portion of the Library Governance website and the Code.  Does it need updating/correcting? 

Prepared By: Carmen Orth-Alfie, Chair FY 2021-2022