03/16/1998

MTAS Retreat - As you have heard, Pat Hardy is serving as recreation chairman for the retreat. If you haven't already done it, please look in the staff discussion database under Retreat 1998 - recreational opportunities for the list. And please sign up so we can have an estimate of the number who are going where. You also can see who has signed up.

The first of many, many surveys - As you know we have chartered three design teams to help plan the future of MTAS. We spent Wednesday and Thursday last week getting started. It is likely that each design team will be contacting the rest of the MTAS staff to get information to help them in their planning. And one way to do that is with surveys. I expect we will have several surveys over the next two months. The first one will help the management team in its effort to design a merit and bonus pay plan. AnnO is working on the survey design and will send you an Email explaining the survey Tuesday. We appreciate your help in the planning process by completing the surveys.

Welcome to Christa Owen - Christa began work as the Library Specialist on March 9, 1998. She will work with the library serials database (magazine check in and routing), library acquisitions and budget management processes, the GML2 database, publication distribution, and supervision of two student assistants, among other things. Christa comes to MTAS from UT Parking Services. She has worked part-time at Hodges Library and plans to get her graduate degree in Information Science from UTK. Her list of activities is long and varied for one so young. She has traveled Europe extensively, created and still maintains a website that serves as a pet lost and found center, started her own business with a partner selling unique handmade gifts in local stores, and has done volunteer work for the Recording for the Blind organization, the March of Dimes, and battered women and children shelters. She's even a published poet!

Another new library staff member - Natasha Perry has taken over the Scope Clearinghouse Coordinator position. This is a part-time position in the library. The clearinghouse will serve law enforcement personnel from the seven state region served by the overall SCOPE program, which is predominantly a training program. Natasha is working on her degree in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Marketing. She plans to go into Market Research in graduate school. She's worked in sales, the hospitality industry, and most recently at TVA. After she was hired, it was discovered that her mother had served on the Community Shares board with Carol a few years back.

New library software in the offing - Beth is spending serious amounts of time finalizing plans for MTAS to acquire new library software. This new software will provide a whole new system for the on-line catalog, as well as other library functions and services. The new on-line catalog will be more user friendly than our current system and easily accessible to all MTAS staff. We plan to provide access to city officials through the Internet in the future.

Assessment - Our planning process started with the organizational assessment early in February. Here is a copy of all the comments.