Strategic
Goals from the Libraries’ Departments
The following document identifies strategic goals submitted by the
Libraries’ various departments. The
departments are arranged alphabetically within their respective divisions. There are also about twenty committees
within the library. They were not asked
to formulate strategic goals for this planning process due only to the short
time frame. However, each of these
committees submits an annual report, some of which include stated goals. In future years, all committees will be
asked to develop goals for reporting to their liaison with the Libraries’
administration. (Compiled by Parker
Ladwig.)
LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION
Financial and
Administrative Services (Kelly Koski)
The strategic goals and
objectives of the Financial and Administrative Services Department are:
1. To continue to
develop the “Statement of Income and Expenditures,” which consolidates
information relating to restricted and unrestricted Library funding, in order
to enhance its usefulness as a budget planning and spending tool.
2. To bring together
Library goal setting and budget allocating, currently on two different
timelines, into an integrated process, so that our budget allocations directly
support the goals and objectives of the library departments.
3. As the University
migrates to new operating systems through the Renovare project, to take
advantage of the opportunities the new financial, human resources and
student/faculty information systems offer to improve existing administrative
processes and work flows.
4. To work with University Building Services to
develop a solution to the on-going housekeeping issues at the University
Libraries.
Library Advancement (Kathy Blackstead)
1. The establishment of a high profile mechanism (e.g., check-off
option on pledge card, telethon option, etc.) for an annual fund for the
University Libraries, linked to University fundraising initiatives and within
the University’s infrastructure.
2. The automatic embedding of a clearly defined (e.g., a percentage)
library component in every expendable gift or endowment funded University
programmatic initiative requiring a library presence, including such entities
as chairs, programs, centers, and services.
INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND DIGITAL ACCESS DIVISION
Business Information Center (Steve Hayes)
1) Enable self-charge and self-tracking of ILL, etc. (i.e.,
self-empowerment)
2) Create table of contents (monographs and serials ) with links to
document delivery and ILL
3) Create MyLibrary with my information profile to be delivered
4) Move more from collect and store to acquire and deliver
5) Increase data acquisition and access
6) Use Marketing Dept. to coordinate and develop campaigns for
library staff
7) Create companion to SFX to other collections
8) Create a library liaison for each dormitory on campus
Desktop Computing and Network Services (Andy Boze)
1) Find funding to ensure the renovation, sooner rather than later.
2) Create a broad IT plan for the Libraries, including, for example,
the possibility of the Libraries taking over the computer cluster in Hesburgh
Library to use as the first step in creating an information commons.
Documents Access and Database Management (Laura Bayard)
Things that the Libraries can do to improve library services in the
next X years:
1) implement telnet
2) provide access to content in microform sets
3) provide self-checkout at a service point that also provides an
individual who provides some information, check-out of stacks and reserve
materials located there and of a-v materials located nearby
4) provide convenient space for library users to store coats, boots,
umbrellas, etc. while in the library
Digital Access and Information Architecture Dept. (Eric Morgan)
Two things the Libraries can do to improve library services in the
next X years:
1) Implement and maintain a database driven website with an optional
customizable front-end
A database driven website with an optional customizable front-end is
a list of information resources maintained in a relational database. Each
resource would be described with basic bibliographic information such as title,
URL, scope note, and one or more controlled vocabulary terms from one or more
sets of controlled vocabularies. A database driven site would be able to
generate lists of information resources dynamically based on the preferences of
users. Given this information an educated guess could be made about the sorts
of information resources patrons desire/require. These sets of prescribed
sources and resources could be retained for future reference and customized to
suite specialized needs.
2) Implement and maintain a current awareness service
A current awareness services is a three-step process. The first step
entails systematically recording the recent acquisitions to the Libraries'
collection. The second step is a process allowing users to create one or more
profiles for themselves matching their particular interests. The final step in
the process is regularly intersecting the list of new acquisitions with the
profiles of the users'. The resulting lists would then be emailed to each user
and describe how the user can go about physically acquiring or accessing
particular items of interest. If the Libraries were to commit the necessary
resources for physical and/or electronic document delivery, then this plan
could easily be extended to facilitate the tracking and reporting of such
requests by recording not only email addresses but postal address as well.
Electronic Resources Dept. (Carole Richter)
Strategic things the Libraries can do:
1) Outreach, publicity, outreach! Much more outreach to faculty and
students, especially about new electronic resources and services and how they
can be brought into personal work habits and research. This might include more
emphasis on personal outreach to faculty (e.g., Iowa 'Twisted Pairs' concept),
especially in departments not served by branch libraries. It could involve 'research paper workshops
or sign-up sessions for undergrads, regular electronic newsletters for faculty
(sign up as for listserv), other information outreach and publicity. It seems
to me that we need additional person-hours to really make more impact in this
area.
2) Provide comfortable inviting libraries, especially Hesburgh. We
need to find a way to make the libraries a welcome place to come for a little
face-to-face research help, study and hang out, get a 'good' cup of coffee and
bowl of soup, meet your little study group, etc. Obviously this requires a lot of University financial support,
which is somewhat out of our hands.
Proximity needs of staff units should be given priority in space
planning, in order to streamline working capabilities and strengths.
3) Collaboration with Kaneb Center for a 'information commons' area
to develop course-related projects that include library resources. Would
undoubtedly involve at least a new position. This would support #1, outreach.
(Breaking news...Andy's revelation that the computer clusters may be up for
grabs might make it possible to pursue something like this in Hesburgh, but
still in collaboration with Kaneb. This might be a great opportunity).
Library Systems Dept. (Marc Truitt)
1) Clearly articulate and then pursue a mission and set of goals
that reflect the overall mission and goals of the University. Actively help
staff members at all levels of the library understand the mission, the goals
and how individual job responsibilities relate to the mission and goals. Explicitly identify not only new initiatives
that we will take on, but existing activities that we will review and either
revise or eliminate, since significant new staff resources are unlikely to be
available to support the new initiatives. Proactively work to ensure that all
staff understand how they and their colleagues 'fit-in'.
2) Articulate and implement programs and initiatives that will have
as their goal 'bringing patrons back' into the physical library. Seek to
identify and build upon those unique attributes of the *place* that cannot be
duplicated by delivery of information to patrons' desktops alone. These
attributes may be comprised of various things : improved physical space,
proximity to skilled library staff, creation of an scholarly and intellectual
environment centered on the library, etc.
Acquisitions Dept. (Lorry Zeugner)
The Steering Committee wants to share the priorities/strategic
directions of all departments at some near point in the process, throughout the
Libraries. So I'm reminding each of you
about my request for strategic planning:
1) Give me at least two major actions that the libraries could take,
as a system, to improve our services for the university over the next two-three
years.
A. The Libraries should get the University to advance the timetable
for the renovation project. The goal
should be to complete the project by 2005.
At the very least, the HVAC system should be replaced as soon as
possible for the preservation of the collections and the well being of the
people who work in the building.
B. The Libraries should request that the Development Office be
directed to seek at least five donors willing to give a million dollars in
unrestricted endowment to enhance the materials budget.
C. The material budget from the unrestricted monies should be pulled
out of the operating budget and made a separate line item. This was in fact the
case several years ago, and it seemed to work very well.
2) Give me at least two major strategies for your department to
improve service to your primary clientele over the next two to three years.
A. We would like to begin
ordering form our major vendors via EDI.
Once patch 4 is installed in Aleph we should begin to examine and
utilize this functionality.
B. We
need to expand our proficiency in the use of the Internet to acquire material in
a variety of formats.
I hope that you will find these satisfactory.
Cataloging Dept. (Mary McKeown)
Strategic issues for the Libraries:
1) The next phase of renovation needs to focus on the needs of
library faculty and staff, i.e. the creation of work environments that are
conducive to ongoing learning, training and collaboration and which are healthy
and comfortable (dealing with noise; air temperature, quality and circulation;
providing functional work space and furniture; providing dedicated meeting and
staff development space, not shared with B.I. or the rest of the University
community). If done successfully, this would lead to greater productivity
throughout the Libraries, and would aid in the recruitment process, especially
for new faculty.
2) Build a science and technology library. Bring all the human and
material resources together in one state-of-the-art facility. What T&R
faculty would lose in the convenience of a branch library in their departmental
building, would be compensated for by better service and more comprehensive
collections. It would end the ridiculous and constant shifting of collections
between the branches and Hesburgh, and the associated record maintenance which
is labor intensive for staff and confusing at best for patrons.
3) Create a long range hiring plan. In anticipation of several
faculty and key staff retirements over the next ten years, the Libraries should
be identifying and prioritizing new personnel needs now. Every opening needs to
be viewed as an opportunity for change, a chance to bring new, needed skills to
the organization and to reassess priorities. The library faculty should
reassess the sometimes restrictive effect of the current M.L.S. requirement for
admission to the library faculty.
4) Develop the Libraries' pedagogical role, both externally and
internally. Teach the Notre Dame community to seek, identify and evaluate
information in order to meet their teaching and research needs. Develop library
faculty and senior staff as teachers/trainers in order to help all the
Libraries' personnel keep up with the ever increasing changes in technology and
the profession. Incorporate an ongoing learning element into every position.
Create a fulltime position to coordinate this effort.
Strategic issues for Cataloging:
1) Develop and implement comprehensive training and ongoing
assessment mechanisms for a set of core competencies for all department staff,
including both cataloging skills and computer literacy. The primary goal of
this effort would be to increase flexibility in deploying staff to various
projects and teams, as priority areas develop and change over time. Such a
program would serve to clarify expectations and offer "target" areas
for staff development.
2) Work with the Acquisitions Department to build on the already
successful incorporation of some of their staff members into Cataloging
workflows. As patron initiated services are developed, I think it is safe to
anticipate that requests for on order or in process items will increase.
Providing the fastest service possible to patrons will be dependent on having
expanded cataloging expertise in Acquisitions.
3) Streamline the book labeling process by identifying a
"preservation friendly" alternative to ironed on labels. By
eliminating this labor intensive step in the process, materials will get to the
patron sooner and student workers can be redirected to cataloging processes.
Rework the recently designed label alternatives for Special Collections
materials in order to produce scannable labels from the ILS for media (CDs,
videos, etc.).
4) Work with other departments and units, but particularly with
Collection Development, to develop a more comprehensive approach to providing
access to collections, with clearly laid out priorities, treatment decisions
and staffing requirements. When funds spent in one collection area grow from
130,000 to a quarter of a million dollars in a couple of years, there needs to
be a plan of how such an influx of material is going to be dealt with (who's
going to do it, whether it all needs to be done now, how to recognize priority
items, etc.).
5) Implement an "item record for everything" policy. This
will facilitate counts, various reports and the ability to record in-house use
statistics. Develop a strategy for addressing collections retrospectively that
traditionally have not had item records (e.g. audio materials).
Collection Development Dept. (see Gay Dannelly)
Preservation Dept. (Liz Dube)
Strategic initiatives for
the University Libraries for the next 10 years:
1) Develop better environmental conditions for collection storage.
This is the most cost effective way to provide a base line of preservation
treatment for our collections:
B.
Segregate collection storage areas from public service and user
spaces.
B.
Insure that the HVAC system operates at all times and is not shut
down over weekends/evenings as is currently the case.
C.
Improve the HVAC system mechanicals, particularly for the special
collections and medium rare collections, and especially in relation to humidification
control. In particular, obtain a dedicated water chiller for Hesburgh Library,
similar to that provided for the Snite Museum.
D.
Segregate medium rare and premiere collecting area holdings from any
general collections that are not destined for long-term retention.
E.
Provide cool off-site storage for lesser used and/or medium rare
collections. Perhaps enter into a consortial arrangement for off-site storage
if a suitable, stable long-term arrangement can be made.
F.
Enforce responsible eating and drinking limitations/prohibitions
within the University Libraries.
2) Develop coordinated and focused expertise in the creation,
delivery, and preservation of digital content. I believe that
additional faculty/staff will be required in order to more strategically and
comprehensively address the many complex issues involved in developing,
disseminating and maintaining digital materials. This is an area which requires
coordination among various departments and divisions in order to be approached
in a rational and appropriate manner, and should draw from and develop from
existing expertise and workflows.
3) Develop practical methods and consortial arrangements for
identifying (perhaps on both a collection level and an item level) which items
each library will preserve in perpetuity in their original print format and how
to communicate that information with other institutions. We will need to find
ways to insure that duplicate last copies will be preserved of print materials
being discarded, such as print serials being cancelled in favor of electronic
journals. While we have developed processes and standards, as a field, to
create complete preservation-quality copies on microfilm, and have been able to
communicate that microfilm information via cataloging standards, we do not have
standards for describing what consitutes a complete original print copy and
effectively communicating the preservation of materials in their original
format to other institutions.
4) Improve exhibition space, particularly that of special collections,
to the benefit of:
C.
Provide leaner and more aesthetically appealing exhibits
D.
Provide for more preservation-friendly exhibits (minimizing light,
dust, physical strain on materials, etc.)
E.
Enable more permanent and/or semi-permanent displays of non-collection
materials (such as posters, facsimilies, etc) which promote our special
collections in an appealing way, while minimizing exposure/damage to our
special collections.
5) Implement revised emergency response and preparedness plan and,
based on collection strengths, develop targets for collection-based priorities
to better inform emergency response efforts.
6) Articulate the University Libraries goals for preservation.
Evaluate programmatic progress toward the goals and the resources available to
meet these goals. Readjust preservation programmatic activities and/or
resources as appropriate to better meet the library-wide goals for preservation
of our collections. Investigate the possible need for additional position(s),
such as a Digital/Reformatting Preservation Librarian and/or a Conservation
Librarian, in order to better meet preservation goals/needs.
Strategic Initiatives for
the Preservation Department for the next 10 years:
1) Develop dedicated expertise to address digital conversion and
digital preservation issues. Utilize the expertise which currently exists
within the department in the area of analog reformatting (paper to film, paper
to paper) as a launching pad for expanding into the area of creating digital
content of book collections. This expertise could expand upon our analog
reformatting operation to develop more strategic approaches to reformatting,
utilizing hybrid approaches, outsource options, and expanding in-house
capabilities as appropriate. This expertise would ensure that our digital
content and digital storage processes proceed with a proper focus upon quality
standards and a view toward their long-term maintenance. This expertise would
work closely with Special Collections, DAIAD, cataloging, etc.
2) Explore targeted projects/programs for the preservation of our
premiere and special collections. For example, pursue possibility of a grant
for the preservation microfilming of the Roman Catholic theology collection.
Pursue increasing targeted preservation activity for other premiere collections
such as Irish Studies, Latin American collection, etc.
3) Work with other departments (such as acquisitions, serials,
cataloging, collection development, and special collections) in order to
continually refine and standardize methods of selection for preservation. In
particular, focus on refining techniques for selection at the point of
acquisition. Explore two-tiered model for acquisitions selection –perhaps
applying one criteria for general collections, and a second, more extensive, criteria
for premiere collections, with the goal of ensuring a very deliberate and well
defined group of criteria for identifying which items should be bound, etc,
upon entering the collection. Explore feasibility of shifting to a more
paperback preferred acquisitions model.
Special Collections Dept. (Lou Jordan)
The steering committee is asking of at least two strategies to
improve service to our patrons over the next two to three years. One caveatwith
this is that we are in the midst of a major renovation that will be the primary
focus of the work performed in Special Collections over the next year. This
will entail combining most of our 30 book collections and distributing them by
size, creating bar codes and new labels for each item, planning and finally
actually moving all our items into a new space. We shall also be classifying
our manuscripts into collections, housing them and relocating them as well.
Obviously this also requires preservation work. These tasks will require us to
greatly reduce our regular projects. Further, Sara Weber, our reading room
supervisor and scanning coordinator, will be out this fall on maternity leave
and there are no plans for a replacement. This will leave us short handed and
will certainly adversely impact patron services. What I am including are some
highly desirable goals that would greatly improve service for our on site users
but they may take more than two or three years to implement as they are
dependent on funding.
1) The single most critical need is a classroom. We currently give
about 50 classes per year in our open reading room. This is far from ideal as
anyone entering the area or using reference books disturbs the class. We have
also had several requests from faculty who would like to regularly use our
materials in their classes and would like to schedule the entire semester in
the department. This would entail having a walled classroom with a blackboard,
computer and projector and seating for students. Currently a Medieval Institute
summer seminar on numismatics regularly meets in the department. They made due
with equipment borrowed from the Medieval Institute. A classroom would allow us
to offer more structured presentations of our holdings and would allow faculty
to regularly make use of our items in their teaching. Classes such as
paleography and Dante would be able to hold entire semester classes; others
such as graphic design, colonial and civil war history classes, Irish studies
and Latin American literature could hold several individual classes each semester
in the department in order to make use of our materials.
2) A group study room. One difficulty with class projects is that we
have no area for group study. A small group study room would allow 3-4 students
to work together on a project without disturbing other readers. Currently we
only have a space for individual quite study.
3) Should we be successful in obtaining these two areas I believe
student use of the collection would greatly increase and may necessitate
extended hours, possibly even some weekend hours. This would require additional
staffing.
4) If we had a digital camera we could provide digital reproduction
services for both our on site and off site users. These images could be used
for our online projects that would allow desktop access and images could also
be produced demand for patrons (both those on site and those who call up from
other locations and request reproductions for their use).
5) For our visitors a renovated and reduced exhibit space would
allow us to produce more inviting and smaller displays if we had some small
movable cases and new conservation friendly flat cases, as well as renovated
wall cases. This would allow us to be more responsive to requests for exhibits
related to conferences and other events. Currently an exhibit requires about
50-75 items that can fit in wall and upright cases. Just the preservation work
on the cradles takes some two months.
As to the two major actions that the libraries could take, as a
system, to improve service for the university I would suggest:
1) Improved interlibrary loan and document delivery service.
2) Some very quiet spaces for student study. There are numerous
areas on campus and in the library for group study and socializing but very few
areas for quite study, especially for undergraduates.
I believe most of our faculty patrons would want increased
information resources, especially books, but I notice the question [sic]
Serials
Acquisitions Dept. (Pat Loghry)
The Steering Committee wants to share the priorities/strategic
directions of all departments at some near point in the process, throughout the
Libraries. So I'm reminding each of you about my request for strategic
planning:
1) Give me at least two major actions that the libraries could take, as
a system, to improve our services for the university over the next two-three
years.
A. In addition to
collections of distinction, define and make core collections more accessible to
users.
B. Develop secure funding to
protect all materials needed for research and teaching.
C. Develop co-operative
programs to preserve core collections.
2) Give me at least two major strategies for your
department to improve service to your primary clientele over the next two to
three years
A. Define core collections
for each discipline and re-define our services to protect that core.
B.
Re-define primary clientele and establish more electronic methods of
submitting information to or requesting help from Serials Acquisitions.
C. Develop EDI with vendors
for as many serials functions as possible.
Access Services Dept. (Sue Dietl)
Because our list is long, it is difficult to choose only two
department goals for the next one to ten years. So saying ---
1. Begin the digitization of the microform and audio-video
collections. Doing this will produce many positive results, i.e., expand and
improve access by enabling patrons to get to both collections from their
offices, rooms, or homes; make possible the delivery of sound via the network;
and free shelf and floor space in the library. These outcomes are listed in the
strategies for meeting Jennifer's three library challenges.
2. Implement self-charge and bring up patron empowerment in Aleph.
For self-charge to happen, equipment must be purchased, installed, and
integrated with Aleph. Decisions by the MALC library directors and Systems'
time are necessary for implementation of patron empowerment. Patrons have long
wondered why they can't renew books, request holds/recalls, and check loan and
hold lists from rooms and offices when many other libraries provide this
ability. Self-charge is eagerly awaited as patrons don't want to wait in lines
at the circulation desk or to fill out paper slips at the exit desk when
circulation is closed.
Architecture Library (Jane Devine)
Debby and I have defined 3 broad goals:
1. Improve the library's response to students' research and service
needs through closer consultation and collaboration with the architecture
students' association (AIAS)
Most of our users are undergraduates in the 5-year professional B
Arch program. We want to understand their needs and service preferences better
in order to serve them more effectively. We are also looking for new ways to
serve our small but diverse graduate student group.
2. Expand the range of visual collections and services to meet
faculty and student demand for visual documentation better.
The last accreditation review and the recent external review noted
the inadequacies of the slide library and the visual collections in the
Architecture Library. We envision expanding collections and services in the
next 10 years to include more videos, digital maps, aerial photographs and site
plans, digital slides, high-quality printing and photocopying of regular and
large format material, self-service scanning, better bibliographic access to
our microform collections and special projects such as digitizing the
Architecture lantern slides.
3. Collaborate with the Rome Program faculty to improve library
services and collections at the Rome campus and to develop bibliographic access
to the Rome library through Aleph.
This may involve consulting on space planning, security, staffing,
cataloguing and collection development, as well as remote reference and perhaps
electronic document delivery.
Chemistry/Physics Library and Radiation Laboratory (Thurston Miller)
Here are two goals for Chemistry-Physics:
1. Larger acquisitions budget to acquire more resources via web.
2. Redesign the existing space to have collaborative study areas,
more computer workstations, patron reading areas which are quiet, etc.
Here are two goals for Rad Lab:
1. Implement online circulation for Rad Lab collection.
2. Larger acquisitions budget to acquire more resources via web.
Engineering Library (Carol Szambelan)
My plans to improve engineering library's responsiveness to clients
in the next 1-10 years are:
1. to work with new and emerging "centers" with
multi-disciplinary foci to obtain grant money (by writing a component of the
centers' original grant application) for "library resources" defined
very broadly, that is, materials whether print or digital, owned or accessed,
and services whether traditional or non-traditional. There will continue to be
a need for the gathering of resources which will support centers, that is
research that has been done elsewhere; typically these are articles and theses,
research reports, etc., and to obtain reference materials that the Libraries
are lacking for new areas of research. Reference materials should be digital
whenever possible so that access is available at all hours and from the
desktop.
One example of a non-traditional service might be to set up specific
doc del accounts that are "owned" by grant holders for specific
projects where patrons can initiate and get instantaneous access to research
articles they need on their own.
Another example of a non-traditional service the library might
investigate would be to archive the product of the centers' research in some
evolving way, by collecting, digitizing it (if necessary), meta-tagging it and
providing front-end searchable access to the body of data and literature that
is created.
I hope to investigate these issues further and develop a prototype
of a plan for getting more funding for new areas of research for the Libraries
and for investigating the value of cooperating with at least one of the new
centers to develop a digitized "collection" of their product. (Please
edit for wordiness and better clarity; and this would have to be an effort that
the sci/tech librarians would work together on. I am thinking of targeting the
Bioinformatics Center to begin with, which we have been working on to some
extent already).
2. to work with the data librarian to bring geospatial data and the
means to use it to the Civil Engineering and Geoscience Dept.
3. to work with engineering library staff, and the ILL and document
delivery departments to make the requesting and filling of information needs
for the College of Engineering as speedy as possible, by enabling direct patron
request and fulfillment whenever possible, for things we own and do not own
(very similar to Sherri's).
Life Sciences Library (Sherri Edwards)
Here are the three most strategic things that we could do to improve
the Life Science's Library's responsiveness to our users.
1. Create a new identity for the Life Sciences Library by expanding
and/or renovating the facility to allow for more collaborative study areas,
more computer workstations, scanning equipment, a reading area, etc.
2. Expand the document delivery service for faculty to include
scanning of articles so that the material can be sent directly to the user’s
desktop.
3. Implement a “Book on demand” program where books requested
through ILL that meet certain criteria are purchased through acquisitions and
treated as a rush request.
Mathematics Library (Parker Ladwig)
In order to correspond with the mission of the University, Karen
Lanser and I asked three questions with regards to the Mathematics Library:
1. How can the Mathematics
Library best support the University's mission of being a leading academic
institution in the Catholic tradition?
2. In what ways can the
Mathematics Library make the most difference in the teaching, learning, and
research of the Mathematics Dept.?
3. How do our strategic
choices fit into the Mathematics Library's existing activities?
As a result, Karen Lanser and I arrived at the following two broad
goals for the next ten years:
1. Make the Mathematics
Library a place that is both fun, exciting, relaxed, friendly, etc., and
efficient, focused, priority-driven, well-organized, etc. for the library staff
and students workers. We want to be a
place where people want to work, and we want to be good at the work we do. We'll keep track of this satisfaction level
by regular, informal surveys (at least twice a year) of our staff and students.
We'll keep track of our efficiency level by formally surveying the library's
dept. heads once every two years.
2. Focus our work on the
library collections and services that are most important to our primary
patrons, the faculty and graduate students of the Mathematics Dept. We want them to think we are the best
mathematics library they know of. We'll
measure this not by comparing the size or depth of our collection or the range
of our services to other libraries (although these measures are important), but
rather by frequent contact with the faculty and graduate students to assess
their level of satisfaction.
Unfortunately, formal surveys won't work--the best way seems to be one-on-one
office visits. The Mathematics
Librarian will visit with two faculty per month (i.e., the entire faculty every
two years) and one graduate student per month.
In sum, then, our focus will be on people and their work needs,
rather than on more-easily measured goals like increasing the number of
computers, providing more shelf space, buying more journals, etc.
Reference Dept. (Marsha Stevenson)
1. Develop a comprehensive customer service plan for Reference,
including activities designed to help us understand patrons' needs, make
adjustments to present service offerings, find better ways to measure our
activities, and heighten the visibility of department's services via effective
marketing.
2. Expand instructional activities by exploring the addition of a
required instructional component within undergraduate majors. Any significant expansion of this program
will require augmented personnel to conduct and coordinate sessions.
Resource Delivery Dept. (Sherri Edwards)
Here are the goals for the Resource Delivery Department.-Sherri
In light of the criticism directed at the ILL service in the recent
LibQual+ Survey, we feel that we should focus our efforts toward addressing
some of the issues that our users have indicated are problems.
1. One of the problems noted was lack of feedback from the ILL
department and the difficulty the patron had in knowing exactly what was
happening with their ILL requests once they are submitted. Therefore, our first
goal will be to implement ClioWeb as soon as possible. ClioWeb is a working
website that allows the library’s patrons to log in and see the status of their
own ILL requests. Earlier this year we purchased the software for ClioWeb, and
with the help of the technical support people, we will implement it as soon as
possible.
2. Another frequently heard complaint is that the service is too
slow. Requests are submitted, but the books or photocopies take forever in
arriving. In order to improve in this area, our second goal is to utilize more
fully commercial document delivery services and other commercial sources that
provide prompt delivery. We currently use Ingenta and British Library Inside,
but we use them as a last resort; we should reverse our procedure here. We
should investigate other document suppliers, especially suppliers of
hard-to-find foreign materials like Subito (Berlin, Germany). Unpublished
dissertations are frequently requested by grad students and faculty, and are
often difficult to obtain via traditional ILL. Consequently, we should
investigate the use of Dissertation Express for purchasing dissertations. We
should use our pro cards more readily, perhaps even for book purchases from
suppliers like Amazon.com -- new books, e.g., are notoriously slow through ILL
because libraries are still processing the volumes or have policies against
pulling books from new book shelves to send out on ILL.