1. General Principles
2. Peer Committee for Annual Salary Review
3. Peer Committee procedures and Merit Ranking
4. Communicating the results of the Peer Review Process
5. Calendar
6. Final formalities

• Appendix 1

I. General Principles

A. Purpose

Purpose of the Peer Committee for Annual Merit Review: to make recommendations to the University Dean of University Libraries on the merit portion of the annual salary distribution to individual librarians.

B. Scope

1. All tenured and tenure-track librarians on the regular IUB Libraries' budget are included in this peer review process with the following exceptions. Librarians who are library administrators with line authority and library-wide responsibility are not included. (For 1999 these administrators are the Dean and the Associate Deans.) Librarians who are not tenure-track ( i.e. part-time continuing, visiting, grant-funded positions), librarians who are tenure-track but have been in their positions for less than six months, and librarians for whom a salary recommendation is irrelevant (i.e. they are resigning or retiring) are not included.
2. Extra-system librarians in the categories included above can voluntarily participate in the review process. An extra-system librarian who wishes to participate must notify the BLFC secretary by the first of July each year in order to be included in the selection process.
3. Librarians not included in this review according to section B. 1. are eligible for merit increases. The recommendation for this increase will be made to the Dean by their supervisors.

C. Documentation

All librarians within the scope of the review must turn in their annual review/reports (without supervisors' comments or answers written in response to a supervisor's comments) and copies of their position descriptions to the peer committee. Librarians have the option to submit additional documentation. The peer committee may also request additional documentation.

D. Criteria for review

The merit evaluation will focus on the traditional areas of librarians' responsibility (performance, professional development/research/creativity, and service), as well as standards of professional conduct appropriate to the librarian, including the f undamental responsibilities set out in the Code of Academic Ethics.

The peer committee will focus on the librarian's position description in defining the arena for judging the accomplishment and the nature of the contribution. The judgment will be on the quality of the accomplishment.

The criteria are based on the Criteria for Librarian Promotions (Library Faculty Handbook, p. 24-27), but differ because the merit evaluation covers one year only. As stated in these expectations, performance is the primary criterion and will be given mos t weight in the peer committee evaluations. (See section III.C for weighting.) The merit criteria recognize different expectations for assistant and associate/full librarians.

Performance
The peer committee will consider the following in assessing the librarian's performance:

1. the contribution to the work of the position (e.g. the volume of work, the quality of work, innovation, evidence of managerial competence)
2. the contribution to the department's goals and to library wide goals

In order to achieve a Level II rating in performance the following standard must be met.

• Assistant librarians: good, meets the requirements of operational standards
• Associate/Full librarians: excellent, exceeding the requirements of operational standards

Professional Development/Research/Creativity
The peer committee will consider the following in assessing the librarian's professional development:

1. the quality of the contribution
2. its effect on the development of the individual foremost as a librarian, but also as a member of the university community

In order to achieve a Level II rating in professional development the following standard must be met.

• Assistant librarians: promising beginning
• Associate/Full librarians: satisfactory, demonstrating responsiveness to the demands of the profession

Service
The peer committee will consider the following in assessing the librarian's service:

1. the quality of the contribution and the effectiveness with which the service is performed
2. its relation to the general welfare of the University
3. its effect on the development of the individual foremost as a librarian, but also as a member of the university community

In order to achieve a Level II rating in service the following standard must be met.

• Assistant librarians: promising beginning
• Associate/Full librarians: satisfactory, reflecting favorably on the University and the Libraries

II. Peer Committee for Annual Salary Review

1. A peer committee appointed by the BLFC will review the documentation presented by the librarians. Once a librarian serves on the peer committee that librarian may not serve again for five years.
2. Composition of the peer committee: The Peer Committee for Annual Salary Review will be composed of 4 voting members, all of whom must be present for any decisions, except when a member of the peer committee is being discussed. Librarians included in the review process, including those extra-system librarians who have notified the BLFC secretary by the first of July each year that they wish to participate, are eligible to be appointed to the peer committee.
3. Selection of the peer committee
   1. Selection of the peer committee will be by lottery.
   2. The BLFC secretary will randomly select the names of 4 librarians from the names of those eligible for membership on the peer committee at the first BLFC meeting of the year. Those agreeing to serve will be appointed by BLFC for a one year term.

III. Peer Committee procedures and Merit Ranking

1. The BLFC secretary will call the first meeting of the peer committee and will preside over the meeting until such time as a chair is selected by the peer committee.
2. The peer committee will evaluate the librarians in all three areas of the annual review/report using the following scale.

3. A merit score for each librarian will be assigned on the basis of the following formula which recognizes performance as the primary element of a librarian's merit.

4. The peer committee will assign each librarian a merit category based on the merit score according to the matrix in Appendix I where the categories are represented by the roman numerals IV, III, II, I.

5. The peer committee will prepare a brief statement about each librarian reviewed and forward these statements to the Dean who will place the statements in the librarian's personnel file.
6. The peer committee members treat as confidential all information acquired during consideration of an individual's merit category.

IV. Communicating the results of the Peer Review Process

1. The Libraries Human Resources Department will send each librarian the rating and comments of the Peer Review Committee as soon as they are completed.
2. Librarians who wish to disagree with or add their response to the Peer Review Committee's evaluation are to address their response to the Dean within two weeks of these ratings being sent out.
3. In accordance with the BFC Annual Merit Evaluation Policy, no. 4, the merit category assigned to each librarian by the Peer Review Committee will be included in the librarian's annual salary letter from the Dean.
4. For extra-system librarians who have chosen to participate in the peer review process the Dean will communicate the results of the peer review to the appropriate administrators and/or supervisors.

V. Calendar

VI. Final formalities

1. Report from the Dean: The Peer Committee will request from the Dean a report concerning the actual distribution of salary increases vis-a-vis the peer committee's recommendations: e.g., How many recommendations were followed? How many were rejected? How many librarians were ranked differently for salary increases than as recommended by the peer committee? A general statement concerning the reasons for the differences.
2. The Peer Committee will report to the library faculty on its work.
3. An evaluative report on the first-time experience of the peer committee will be presented to the BLFC.
4. The peer committee's files will be kept in the Library Human Resources Office.

APPENDIX I

This matrix is based on the merit score of 6a + 2(b + c) where a represents the score for performance, b the score for professional development/research/creativity, and c the score for service.