The following outline identifies broad themes that were extracted from brainstorming sessions conducted by the Strategic Planning Steering Committee in late June/early July. For ease of reading, they are organized by the theme with the fewest comments to the theme with the most comments. (Compiled by Parker Ladwig.)
A. Improve communication with the University
and within the Libraries
1.
Improve communication between departments
2.
Better communication between Hesburgh and
branches and units
3.
Need better interdepartmental communication
4.
Need better interlibrary communication
5.
Need better communication with students and
public and faculty--more imaginative--Web, newsletters, etc.
6.
Better communication out to the University
faculty, rest of the University
7.
More communication among depts. about
changes--often find out after
8.
Do not know about procedures that have
changed
9.
Ensure that all library areas receive the
same communications/information
10. Find more ways to have direct communication rather than
all-electronic communication
11. Figure out ways to increase communication channels between library
and our primary clientele
12. Make staff more aware of internal communication by the Director
and ADs, e.g., library-wide information session--staff provide personal goals
but are not aware of other depts./units goals
13. Responses from LibQual, focus groups, etc. show that many
misperceptions exist among faculty regarding ease of access, availability of
electronic resources, ILL services, etc. Feedback from Faculty Workshops
conducted this summer was generally positive and indicated a need to continue
this strategy.
14. Better communication, especially from the top down, to foster
trust
15. Explore communication with users
B.
Enhance the collections
1.
Do not neglect books!
2.
Seek cooperative collection sharing with
other universities based on their strengths and our strengths--virtual or
regional
3.
Maintain and continue to build our print
collections
4.
Improve communication with the professors of
departments across campus to bring in collections that more meet the needs of
the students
5.
Develop a balanced, comprehensive plan that
includes collecting, acquiring, cataloging, and preserving for premiere
programs in partnership with the corresponding
department/institute/college/unit
6.
Collections need to keep up with the
changing research
7.
ND should contribute more than Special
Collections to online collection--digitize--free on the Web
8.
Take more advantage of physical historical
or rare books--maybe an actual credit course; have available for future
generations
9.
Look at gifts program--"books"
10. More attention to streamlining print vs. digital
11. Stacks need to be weeded, very old books
12. Thorough review and weeding of the collection; for example, in
areas like technology where it looks like much was moved from Engineering to
HESB GEN in the past without collection development or bibliographic review
13. Provision of a formal and funded collection of unabridged audio
books (books on tape, CD) in a wide range of subjects and literatures,
including foreign language fiction and non-fiction. These are not just for
entertainment or leisure use, they are an important way to acquire information
conveniently
14. Focus collections in collaboration with other campus units that
demonstrate the use and need for the library
15. Provide top resources on "supporting the Catholic
mission": manuscripts, antiquarian
books, Catholic resources, social justice, education, etc.
16. Think about quality of collections rather than quantity--spend
money wisely; focus on collections we do have
17. Identify core collections and preserve them
18. Stop buying useless books
19. Develop plan to add electronic resources
20. Develop methods and consortial arrangements with which to cut,
preserve, make good decisions regarding serials
1.
Major, major endowment for renovation
2.
Framework allowing budget to be used as
planning tool
3.
Do not cut the budget
4.
Seek endowment funding for new library
positions
5.
Increase budget for books, serials, and databases
6.
Need more funding for electronic resources
7.
Be able to purchase more serials materials,
staff, serials training for staff
8.
Committee that ACTIVELY pursues fund raising
for just library
9.
See us get several million dollars of
unrestricted endowments
10. Library should encourage College of Arts and Letters to capitalize
its faculty in same way Engineering and Science colleges do--administration
puts up funding for laboratories for new hires--administration should do this
across the board--part of hiring package should include capital for library
11. Better budgeting process (proactive vs. reactive, e.g., building
renovation)
12. Make priorities with funding
13. Balance acquisitions funding with space needs--tell faculty they
can't buy more books unless we have the space
14. More funding, but how will it be raised?
15. Increase collections budgets equitably based on dept. size, for
example
16. Increase funding so that requests can be accommodated, e.g., for
carpeting
17. Provide clearer financial picture of libraries, what was budgeted,
what was spent
18. Make plan to spend money for depts.
19. Move funds to opportunities
20. Substantially increase funding for preservation of paper materials
21. Increase funding for re-formatting--such as photoduplication
22. More projects driven by donations--is this a good idea?
23. Funding for core materials, i.e., book, Catholic baseline
University budgets
D.
Provide more bibliographic instruction/information literacy programs
1.
Educate undergraduates about library
resources and services
2.
Educate foreign students
3.
Require faculty to make library assignments
4.
Instruction for graduate students (e.g.,
EndNote), dissertation support
5.
Basic instruction for graduate students on
how to use catalog, maybe small groups
6.
Offer instruction on digital resources and
tools for staff and faculty in cooperation with OIT, e.g., the CEP program
7.
Develop our pedagogical role both external
and internal to the library
8.
Bibliographic instruction for large research
areas
9.
More formal credit courses on finding
information anywhere
10. Offer more specialized/reference collection development,
instruction focused on academic departments, classroom teaching, help work on
projects
11. Become leaders in teaching information literacy
1.
High school students should be encouraged to
come to the library for research--with some instruction
12. Teaching and learning center library; students learn to make Web
pages and use multimedia in projects
13. Do more with multimedia, e.g., video, Photoshop, to be used in
class/teaching
14. Use library materials in multimedia environment and get
Art/Marketing Depts. involved
15. Add more instructional support staff
16. Coordinator of instruction to be dept. head level position; create
an Instruction Dept.
17. Provide "who to contact" information at branches
18. More instruction librarians
19. Provide more instructional sessions to staff about how to use our
resources
20. Add library research component to majors
21. Increase resources available to continue expansion of Library
Instruction Program
22. Tremendous growth in Freshman Instruction sessions needs to be
sustained to maintain credibility with First Year Composition Department.
23. There is need to focus on other levels; e.g.,first year graduate
students, sophomore CORE students, subject specialties, but current classroom
and instructor availability limit growth.
24. More resources (physical, human) dedicated to library instruction
25. Compulsory bibliographic instruction
E.
Ask the University to do more for the Libraries
1.
Need campus copyright expert, including for
faculty
2.
Gain control of whole Hesburgh Library building
3.
Take stand on parking lot or provide shuttle
4.
Seek cooperative funding between University
centers and the library to provide for new areas of research
5.
Form a student advisory committee for
libraries
6.
More classroom support at all levels, not
just freshman
7.
Inform library staff of University's vision
of the library's future
8.
Ask University what the plans are for the
libraries
9.
Improved parking--IN FRONT
10. Library should be main focus of University vs. sports
11. Library should be center of any learning institution
12. See University Libraries be able to better communicate with
administration that the library is a capital investment rather than a capital
expense
13. University faculty should know us, and we should know them
14. Working more closely with Kaneb or OIT about Hesburgh computer
cluster
15. Get University administration to know library employees
16. Library is most important for students, but constantly underfunded
(does not attract students); should be the center of the University because of
its knowledge, resources, etc.
17. Centralized person to handle copyright problems
18. Hire paralegal to help with copyright issues
19. Copyright consultant for the campus, not just the library
20. Encourage faculty not to put things off to the last minute for
reserves
21. Better communication with registrar's office to open rooms
22. More public campus phones
23. University should build relationship with outside community, high
school students
24. University Libraries reclaim 14th Floor
25. Allow students to visit 14th Floor
26. ND Security should let library security know of situations like
looking for someone in the building, etc.
27. Would like University administration to rank library higher in
priority
28. On game days, stagger bus drop-off in front of the library
29. More collaboration with Kaneb, OIT, Office of Institutional
Research
30. Integrate Law Library catalog with University Libraries
31. Coordinate with campus tour groups so that accurate information is
conveyed to tourists
32. Raise our ranking among research libraries
33. Budgetary relationship with University administration--assure
maintenance of existing serials collection
34. Better management of road construction on Juniper
35. More recognition of library renovation by University
administration
36. Reserve parking for staff and faculty
37. Improve parking on football Saturdays
F.
Improve efforts to market the Libraries’ services and collections
1.
Convey importance of library to Notre Dame
community
2.
Libraries more integrated into campus life,
less of a warehouse
3.
Attract campus visitors to library
4.
Increase awareness of Special Collections
5.
Let public and users know who and what we
are, what we offer, advertise on football weekends, sell name plates, alumni
weekends, some kind of advertising package
6.
Subliminal messages "use the
library," "the library is good"
7.