Report on Peer Review Committee Activities, 2000-2001
April 23, 2001

Members: Becky Cape (co-chair), Andrea Singer (co-chair), Lisa Browar, Jo Burgess

Contents

• Introduction
• Ratings
• Recommendations
• Addendum

Introduction

The committee read and evaluated the annual reports for the year 2000 submitted by 69 librarians, including three extra-system librarians. We used as our guidelines the procedures and criteria found in the Revised Peer Committee for Annual Merit Review (8/4/99). We kept in mind the general principle of focusing "on the librarian's position description in defining the arena for judging the accomplishment and the nature of the contribution." We did not have any information about last year's ratings for any librarians and kept in mind that we were making our judgments based on one year's work. We also did not have any supervisors' evaluations. We kept in mind the expected standards for each area and for rank. These standards, taken from the Peer Review guidelines, are

"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."

"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."

"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."

We want to thank the Libraries' Human Resources Department, especially Betty Davis and Suzann Westerfield, for their work in making copies of all the annual reviews, tracking down missing position descriptions and annual reviews, preparing the letters to the librarians, and other associated work. We also want to thank the members of the past two Peer Review Committees for sharing their experiences and advice with us.

Ratings

The Committee used the following terms for ratings: Level IV-exceptional, Level III-noteworthy, Level II-satisfactory, and Level I-not meeting expectations for rank. The Committee wrote short messages to accompany ratings, highlighting particular examples for exceptional and noteworthy ratings.

The results, by rank, were as follows:

Recommendations

Based upon our experiences this year, we recommend that BLFC consider the following:

2. The deadlines for submitting annual reviews and annual reports must be stated clearly and unambiguously. There was considerable confusion concerning the deadlines for submission of annual reports to immediate supervisors and annual review documents for the purpose of Peer Review. These are two separate procedures with two separate deadlines. 3. We recommend continuation of the workshops on preparing and writing of position descriptions and annual reviews/reports.

• We found position descriptions to vary enormously, especially in the area of level of detail. Some descriptions were very brief, with very general descriptions, while others listed a large number of responsibilities, many of which could be subsumed under a more general area of responsibility.
• The same discrepancies were found in the reviews/reports. It was also helpful when the librarian identified and explained particular achievements.
• The type and amount of documentation included was also often a problem. The vast majority of it provided little additional information and received only cursory examination.

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Addendum

After the Peer Review Committee’s work and report were finished we re-calculated the overall ratings for each librarian using the proposed new matrix. No difference was found for any librarian receiving Level I, III, and IV ratings with the current matrix. A total of 26 librarians (18 associate, 8 full) received a Level II overall rating with the current matrix. Of these, 7 (3 associate, 4 full) would have received a Level III rating with the proposed matrix.

Attached is a table showing the ratings for performance, professional development/research/creative activity, and service for each librarian, by rank, as well as the overall ratings using both the current and proposed matrices. The ratings that differ are starred. To ensure anonymity, the listing within each rank is not in any order.

Performance	Prof. Dev.	Service	Overall Current	Proposed * = Change
Assistant
3	3	4	III	III
3	3	4	III	III
3	2	3	III	III
3	3	4	III	III
3	3	3	III	III
4	4	4	IV	IV
3	2	3	III	III
Associates
3	3	3	III	III
2	2	3	II	II
3	1	1	I	I
4	2	3	III	III
3	3	3	III	III
2	3	3	II	III *
3	3	3	III	III
2	3	1	II	II
2	3	3	II	III *
2	2	2	II	II
2	3	2	II	II
2	3	2	II	II
3	3	3	III	III
2	1	1	I	I
1	3	3	I	I
2	2	3	II	II
3	3	3	III	III
4	3	3	III	III
3	1	2	II	II
2	3	2	II	II
3	3	3	III	III
2	4	4	II	III *
3	4	3	III	III
3	2	3	III	III
3	2	2	II	II
2	2	2	II	II
3	3	4	III	III
3	3	3	III	III
2	2	2	II	II
3	3	4	III	III
3	3	3	III	III
3	2	3	III	III
3	3	4	III	III
3	2	2	II	II
2	3	2	II	II
3	2	3	III	III
2	1	1	I	I
3	2	3	III	III
3	2	3	III	III
3	4	3	III	III
2	2	3	II	II
2	2	3	II	II
4	3	4	IV	IV
Full
3	3	3	III	III
2	3	4	II	III *
4	3	4	IV	IV
3	3	4	III	III
2	3	3	II	III *
2	2	2	II	II
2	3	1	II	II
4	3	3	III	III
4	3	3	III	III
2	4	4	II	III *
3	1	4	III	III
3	3	3	III	III
2	2	3	II	II
3	2	3	III	III
3	2	3	III	III
3	2	3	III	III
2	3	3	II	III *
3	2	2	II	II
4	2	4	III	III

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