March marks two years since the reorganization of Texas A&M’s library staff drew opposition from the faculty senate.
A second update in as many years was presented by university librarian Julie Mosbo Ballestro during February’s faculty senate meeting.
Ballestro said “I think that we are seeing a raise in morale”, and later thanked the university for its support.
Last October, president Mark Welsh announced university libraries was given $900,000 dollars for salary adjustments and $2.4 million was restored to the library system’s overall budget.
As for staffing, Ballestro told faculty senate members about hirings in several library departments. She told WTAW News that as of February 13 there were 45 openings.
She told the faculty senate that hirings were taking place in four phases. In part that was not to overwhelm A&M’s human resources department and library employees serving on search committees.
Ballestro’s presentation to the faculty senate included the creation of an open education resources committee that is charged with reducing the student cost of course materials and what is happening with academic engagement programs, which involves student engagement and outreach, online learning, and acquisitions and collection strategies. She also provided an update on the library system’s association with research at A&M, the library system’s special collections and archives, and access to digital collections.
She also talked about an internal space study. The week after Ballestro’s comments about space utilization, A&M’s president released the recommendations of a university wide space allocation study. Among those recommendations, were allocating ten thousand square feet in Evans Library to support an academic success center and student success initiatives within academic affairs, add to the university’s capital plan renovations of the medical sciences library, begin the process to rename west campus library spaces to convey service to the west campus community, and add a west campus testing center on the first floor of the business library collaboration commons.
Click below to hear some of the comments from Julie Mosbo Ballestro from the February 12, 2024 Texas A&M faculty senate meeting.
