Report on Peer Review Committee Activities, 2001-2002
April 4, 2002

Members: Lois Sewell (co-chair), Saundra Taylor (co-chair), Diane Dallis, Liana Zhou

Contents

• Introduction
• Ratings
• Recommendations

Introduction

This year, the committee was instructed to use the new matrix in order to determine the overall ranking of librarians. Because of the new matrix, our final numbers for two of the categories, II and IV, are quite different from those resulting from last year’s peer review process. However, higher scores may also reflect the fact that librarians have become more skilled in describing and documenting their achievements.

The Committee read and evaluated the annual reports for the year 2001 submitted by 66 librarians, including three extra-system librarians. After we completed the review process, we learned that three more reviews had been received in Libraries Human Resources, but they were considered too late for the committee to review since the committee’s ratings already had been turned in to LHR. One librarian decided not to participate in the Peer Review Process. We used as our guidelines the procedures and criteria found in the Revised Peer Committee for Annual Merit Review (8/4/99; matrix amended by vote of BLF 7/01). We kept in mind the general principle of focusing “on the Librarian’s position description in defining the arena for judging the accomplishment and nature of the composition.” 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 supervisor’s 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 Sheila Hoff and Betty Davis, for their work in making copies of all the annual reviews, tracking down missing position descriptions and annual reviews, preparing letters to the librarians, and other associated work. We also want to thank the members of last year’s Peer Review Committee for sharing their experiences and advice with us.

Ratings

The Committee used the following terms for ratings: Level IV—outstanding/exceptional; Level III—noteworthy; Level II—satisfactory/excellent, 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:

IV (Exceptional) = 16 (3 Assistant Librarians, 6 Associate Librarians, 7 Librarians)
III (Noteworthy) = 36 (3 Assistant Librarians, 22 Associate Librarians, 11 Librarians)
II (Satisfactory) = 12 (1 Assistant Librarian, 10 Associate Librarians, 1 Librarian)
I (Did not meet expectations for rank) = 2 (Associate Librarians)

Rank	Level I	Level II	Level III	Level IV
Assistant	0	1	3	3
Associate	2	10	22	6
Full	0	1	11	7

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Recommendations

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

1. The deadlines for submitting annual reviews and annual reports must be enforced. The March 1 deadline shouldn’t be fluid. We received several reviews during the time when we were reviewing them, and we learned of others that came to LHR after we had completed the process. There are two separate procedures with two separate deadlines, but supervisors should emphasize to the librarians that they supervise the difference between the two procedures and the two deadlines. Supervisors should also stress to librarians that it is the responsibility of the individual librarian, not the supervisor, to send his or her own review to LHR for the use of the Peer Review Committee. The established guidelines clearly state this fact, but some librarians did not follow the guidelines.

2. We recommend continuation of the workshops on preparing and writing of position descriptions and annual reviews/reports.

a. We found that the position descriptions varied greatly, especially in the level of detail. Some people had one paragraph with a very general description, while other position descriptions were many pages long and listed a large number of responsibilities, many of which could have been subsumed under a more general area of responsibility.

b. The same discrepancies were found in the reviews. It was helpful when the librarian identified and explained particular achievements, e.g., the librarian’s actual role in a committee.

c. Some librarians’ reviews looked more like departmental annual reports than the review of an individual librarian. In such cases, it was often difficult for the committee to determine what the actual accomplishments of the individual librarian were.

d. The performance narrative should address the duties outlined in the job description. Some reviews discussed work not included in the review, and others did not address primary responsibilities listed in the job description. This made it difficult for the committee to evaluate how well the librarian fulfilled his or her job responsibilities.

e. The type and amount of documentation included was also often a problem. Additional documentation should be included only when the narrative can’t adequately explain the accomplishment. Much of the documentation provided little useful additional information, and it received only cursory examination, if that.

3. This year’s Peer Review Committee does not recommend a change in the calendar. While one month is a limited amount of time, the committee was able to finish its work in the allotted time and does not see a benefit in setting an even earlier deadline for submission of the annual reviews.

4. In section III.E of the document Peer Committee for Annual Merit Review, it states: “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.” Section V. also states that the Peer Committee submits its recommendations to the Dean. However, we were told to send the recommendations to Sheila Hoff and Yolanda Cooper-Birdine rather than to the Dean. The Committee would like to request a change in the documentation to reflect actual routing practice, or it would like to have the routing procedure changed to reflect the existing documentation.

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