Library Travel Policy & Procedures

Professional Development Travel   |    Library Business Travel

Professional Development Travel:

A. Criteria: Travel that promotes the professional growth, professional knowledge and/or permits the individual to contribute to the profession. Professional travel is open to in-unit and visiting librarians.

B. Criteria examples:

1. Employee delivers a paper, participates on a panel, or is contributing to a program.

2. Employee serves as an officer of the association or presides at the meeting.

3. Employee is a member of a committee that will be meeting at the conference.

4. Employee is attending the conference to increase personal and professional knowledge.

C. Procedure

1. The Dean of Libraries allocates the budget for Professional Development travel.

2. All in-unit librarians elect the members of the Travel Committee.

3. Recommendations for individual travel allocations, i.e. in state/out of state, presenter/non-presenter, are made by the Travel Committee.

4.The Travel Committee polls the staff for requested travel during the fiscal year.

5. Discrepancies between the total budget allocation and the total travel request are to be reconciled by the Travel Committee.

6. Processing of all travel requests must follow the Library Travel Procedures Booklet (07/98).

Library Business Travel:

A. Criteria: Travel that is necessary for the completion of the assigned tasks of the employee based on the employee’s, department’s or university’s mission. Library Business Travel is open to in-unit and visiting librarians.

B. Criteria examples:

1. The Library designates a staff member as an official representative to present an institutional point of view or to negotiate agreements (e.g. the Library requests a staff member to represent the University at a SUS Library Director’s meeting).

2. A staff member is requested to attend a meeting to fulfill a specific need or to gain knowledge necessary for the performance of the job (e.g. a staff member is requested by the Library to attend a training session to learn to use a form of technology that the Library has just purchased).

3. A staff member is requested to attend a meeting for the purpose of acquiring information to share with the staff in a formal way upon return to the Library (e.g. a staff member is requested by the Library Administration to attend an FCLA meeting so that upon his/her return the staff member can make a report t the rest of the library on new developments).

C. Procedure/Justification

1. Travel for library business purposes will be reimbursed from the operating budgets of each library. Normally it will be funded at the maximum level ( transportation, lodging, per diem and registration if required.). The designated staff member will notify the appropriate supervisors when the assignment is made.

2. Employee requests which have been approved by the employee’s department head, and the appropriate associate or assistant director will require documentation of the event to be attended as well as an explanation of the benefits to the library. The Dean must approve all such requests.

3. Processing of all travel requests must follow the Library Travel Procedures Booklet (07/98).