State of the Library
Jennifer A. Younger
Edward H. Arnold Director of University Libraries
January 15, 2002Thank you, Steve. Thank you also to ELF and the Staff Steering Committee for sponsoring this second annual State of the Library address.
The state of the library is excellent. Giving a state of the library address is a humbling experience. Many ordinary and extraordinary achievements have taken place last year. Some I have read about in annual reports. The Cataloging Department reported on the successful cataloging of Arabic language materials last year - 608 titles (more than 800 volumes) were cataloged last year. That, over forty databases have been networked via the metaframe server, and the Training & Development Committee sponsored a wide range of programs, including sessions on the "Care & Handling of Library Materials" and on new searching possibilities in the library catalog. One last example comes from Byzantine Studies in the Special Collections Department, where significant efforts put content on the Byzantine Studies website (www.byzantine.nd.edu), including basic resources and the first draft of a translation of the introductory chapters from Karl Krumbacher's monumental Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (München : Beck, 1897).
Sometimes I learn from talking with you informally during visits or open houses in your libraries or departments. I learned, e.g., that even the very usual activities involved in helping students get information takes on a new significance when the computers are down as they were recently in the Engineering Library. I also learn from doing my own research in the library. I recently sent a query to Ask a Librarian to find out what book title had the quote I needed. I knew the author, but not the book, and had only a paraphrase of the quote, but the reference librarians found the title I needed. And I know from others on campus who take time to let me know how well the library is doing - via e-mail, phone calls or before meetings. At the Arts & Letters Christmas party, I heard again how valuable the document delivery services are to those faculty.
For all that you do, thank you. You have translated loosely worded phrases such as "being patron focused" or "striving for excellence" into endless acts of knowledgeable, creative, consistent, and caring service, and in so doing, you are taking us closer to our vision of becoming a great destination for learning and research. Do those words sound familiar? There is a lot of attention here at ND on honesty, as there should be, so let me mention that Jo Bessler wrote that last sentence in her 17th and last annual report as head of the User Services Division.
This was a year of action, reflection and anticipation, a year in which we continued to carry out our usual activities but also engaged to a significant degree in describing and understanding these same activities. Today I have chosen to focus my remarks on three areas. They are:
1) The Self Study: what we have learned, what can we learn from it,
2) Strategic thinking and planning in the next year, what should we bring to it,
3) The stresses and strains of working in a large organization and what we can do to help ourselves.SELF STUDY
Starting then with the Self Study. On a regular cycle, the University asks all departments and academic units to conduct their own review of their work, focusing specifically on what students gain from their education at Notre Dame. We described our library services and programs, and our goals for student and faculty learning, teaching and research. Faculty are clearly an important constituency, and we naturally expanded the scope of our study to include them as well. The full report (excepting only a couple of the appendices) is posted on our web site. as is the Report of University Libraries Self-Study Review Committee at http://www.nd.edu/~adminoff/2001selfstudy/selfstudy2001.htm .
What did we learn? First, that in less than a decade, the financial resources we have to work with have almost doubled. Between 1994-95 and 2000-01, our annual expenditures rose from $7.9 million to $14.5 million. Accordingly, the University Libraries and the Kresge Law Library rose from 55th to 48th in the ARL rankings, which are a primary measure of the University's investment in the libraries. Within the total expenditures, we have increased the funding for library staff, faculty, books, journals, electronic resources, preservation, and information technology. This doesn't of course mean we have no financial woes. Indeed, despite recent years in which we seemed to make strides in lowering the double digit inflation in serials prices, we are and will be struggling to keep up with the skyrocketing costs of serials subscriptions, in the sciences especially. We will continue to seek additional funding through a variety of means, but it is quite extraordinary to realize how much our funding has improved in less than a decade.
Second, we learned that we have made great progress on many fronts. With these additional financial resources, we have created about 27 new positions. We have used these positions to great advantage in acquiring and processing new library materials, in providing services to users, in educating student and faculty library users on how to find, use and evaluate information resources, and in bringing about changes in library services using new technologies. There were 14 recommendations from the Ad Hoc Committee on Libraries; we have improved collections, started document delivery, set up the Mahaffey Business Information Center (BIC), implemented a new online system and are in the midst of renovating the Hesburgh Library basement. We have made significant progress on all of these recommendations, and it is gratifying to see this in print.
Third, we have good descriptions of our current major programs: collections and collection services; user services; and information systems and digital access services. With twenty seven new positions, including two still relatively new associate directors and one to come this year, it is very helpful to have descriptions of our major library programs. Most importantly, we have begun to look at our work in the context of setting goals for student and faculty learning, teaching and research. This is not an easy job, and just as we often concluded that we aren't prepared to document the outcomes on student and faculty activities, neither have any of our library peers done this yet. We are taking this opportunity to participate in national efforts led by ARL in developing learning and research outcomes. Joni Kanzler serves on that task force.
Fourth, in addition to garnering praise for our current efforts, we received some assistance from the Review Committee in charting our course in the future. At the division party for Jo last month, I was talking with one department head about the Review Committee's report, who said "Well, we could have written that report ourselves." Sue was right, we could indeed have written it, and to some degree we did just that in our conversations with the Review Committee during the two days they were here. However, it is useful and rewarding to have three distinguished library leaders together with one of our own well respected faculty members make recommendations that affirm our thoughts and plans. There were 54 recommendations in ten categories. A comparison of the ten categories with the eleven issues we identified (Section I.D) reveals direct overlap for seven of the ten categories. The committee members provide a valuable service in bringing their knowledge to bear on our situation: asking questions, evaluating answers and recommending specific, yet illustrative, actions.
A second observation about the Committee's (and our) recommendations is that some recommendations suggest what we need to do to become a better library while others expand the scope of library activities. On the first front - what we need to do to be even better library - there are seven categories: 1) collaborate more extensively than we do now with other libraries, 2) become a major resource on campus, 3) formulate strategies for advancement, 5) affirm and strengthen the role of the library as a place, 6) organize a more systematic outreach and marketing strategy to the campus community, 8) address organizational issues, and 9) maintain an appropriate campus and library technical infrastructure.
On the second front - expanding the scope of library activities - there were three categories: 4) become a center for pedagogy, serve as a repository for instructional material, collaborate with faculty and the Kaneb Center in creating new instructional materials, and expand our teaching to university classes; 7) exploit new digital media to the advantage of teaching and research, e.g., e-dissertations; and 10) expand our role beyond traditional library boundaries, developing an experimental program with faculty in the area of scholarly communication.
It is my sense that as we begin our strategic thinking and planning, we will do so from the foundation so well laid by our own work in understanding issues, library services and programs, and the library organization, as well as from the Committee's exposition of the role of a research library. Just as the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Libraries (1994) served the campus well in assessing library needs, describing required steps and setting priorities for the next phase of development, this Committee's Report will shape the thinking of the University administration, faculty and students about what they can and should expect from the library. This is an extremely positive development for the campus. A great Catholic university must include a great library, one focused on today and tomorrow's scholarly needs and we are immensely grateful to the Committee for raising our sights and broadening the collective thinking within the University about the role of a research library. The Committee has clearly stated areas in which the library should excel and its firm belief that "Notre Dame's library can certainly be a driving force in the University's future success." We are heartened by their commendation and we will accept their challenge.
I am in the process now of writing and coordinating our response. To assist us in understanding and implementing specific actions, I propose we list current accomplishments, goals and statements of agreement (or disagreement) into an appendix organized in the order of the Committee's recommendations. I should mention here that we are doing this because, for reasons of the approach used, these activities and accomplishments were neither obvious to readers nor always included. The appendix will enable us to view our current work and goals in
the context of the Committee's recommendations.
Having talked about the Committee's comments on what we have done right, I also want to thank the Committee for its help in setting the stage on that familiar topic of paper versus digital. Discussions of books or journals in paper or digital formats are too often cast in a framework suggesting that the digital format will make paper unnecessary. The committee readily disposed of that either/or framework in its statement that the future will include both paper and digital storage mediums, and for that we can say a special word of thanks.
STRATEGIC THINKING AND PLANNING
Let me turn now to the next topic of strategic thinking and planning. As a body of individuals, we have many ideas swirling through the libraries. To quote what I wrote in the welcome to the self study, "There is a profusion of creative ideas and innovative approaches to new and old problems, creating occasionally both amazement and dismay." The challenge facing us is to determine where we are going, what to do and how to do it.
Last winter, a library task force last year explored the terrain and value of strategic planning. That task force, named the Task Force on Communicating the Directions and Goals of the University Libraries, concluded that we did not have an overall framework or strategic plan to guide effectively the work of library departments and branch libraries, and most importantly, that we would benefit from having a strategic plan. The Task Force identified four options for improving strategic planning in the library, with each option successively requiring more effort to create. At the time the TF presented its recommendation, we already knew the University would initiate a university-wide strategic planning effort this year, and so we determined to hold our thinking and planning until that process started.
Fr. Malloy is looking ahead to the next major fund raising campaign, which he believes should be based on a thoughtful and well articulated set of priorities and goals for the University. To achieve that, he has put into place a strategic planning process. He is chairing the Steering Committee, which is intended to in his words "shape the contour of the conversations." What does this mean? He has established four subcommittees - on the future of higher education, on research, on curriculum, and on financial opportunities. The work of these committees will identify trends in higher education that are likely to have an impact on Notre Dame, speak to the importance of research and curriculum in the university, and frame aggressive yet realistic directions for fund raising.
Our part will start very shortly. We will receive guidelines from Provost Nathan Hatch on what he considers important to our planning. For example, there will likely be some emphasis on interdisciplinary activities and collaboration between and/or among academic units. I don't have the guidelines yet, so can't speak in any more detail.
In talking about strategic planning, I have coupled it with the term strategic thinking because our work will involve both. The widely read and quoted professor of management, Henry Mintzberg, distinguishes between strategic thinking and planning. In his view, he believes strategic thinking is about synthesis. It involves intuition and creativity, the outcome of which is an integrated perspective, a not too precisely articulated vision of direction that must be free to appear at any time and at any place in the organization. Building on this synthesis of organizational vision and directions, strategic planning is about analysis - about breaking a goal into steps, formalizing those steps and articulating the expected consequences. Further, Parker Ladwig, who chaired the previously mentioned Task Force on Communicating the Directions and Goals of the University Libraries, pointed to the difference between planning and strategic planning. Strategic planning differs from other forms of planning in that it deliberately attempts to concentrate resources in those areas that can make a substantial difference in future performance and capability. This is an important distinction because future growth of services and programs in the library must be both mission and strategically-driven, which is to say we will have to be set priorities and make choices about what is most important for us to accomplish.
We are ready for strategic thinking and planning. The Self Study set the stage as well in its review of library issues, programs, and activities. Last week, though I was unable to attend the LAM meeting, I announced that like the University, we too will start with a "Steering Committee," which I will chair. The associate directors will serve as will Parker. I will also appoint 2 or 3 additional members.
I anticipate that much of the real work on developing a strategic plan will be done in smaller groups . The purpose of our Steering Committee will be to articulate - though not too precisely - vision and directions.
THE CONTEXT AROUND STRATEGIC THINKING
Having talked about the process of strategic thinking and planning, I want for a moment to provide surrounding context. We are all acutely aware of national, international and university trends, issues and events, and secondly, we know they should be brought into play when in our thinking about where we are going, what we want to do and how we want to get there.
I can't in a short time speak to everything of importance to us, but there are a couple of ideas I want to share now. I have for a long time thought the word "share" was in great danger of being overused, but a recent announcement gave new life to the word "share" in my mind. One of our national intelligence agencies, which shall remain nameless, is changing its organizational culture from one that distributes information on a "need to know" basis to a culture that distributes information on a "need to share" basis. Imagine the difference to their collective effectiveness when individuals and departments share what they know with others.
As I read and talk with others, including you, about where we are going, it is clear the landscape is changing, not necessarily daily, but the landscape is steadily evolving. For example, the related topics of archiving digital data and management of print collections have both received attention in the last month. Kevin Guthrie, executive director of JSTOR, wrote a lengthy article that appeared in EDUCAUSE Review pointing to the cost effectiveness of centralized digital archiving. This is reassuring to all of us, as in an odd way, it is reassuring that he is looking ahead to the next questions to be addressed, e.g., whether institutions will be prepared to contribute to the costs of central archiving when the purpose is preservation of content over and above "access." The University of California has announcement a pilot project that will address a series of challenges associated with managing print collections in this age of digital access to information. The Collection Management Initiative will explore user behaviors that affect the acceptance of digital as a substitute for print journal publications; develop institutional strategies for acquiring, storing and archiving journals in a mixed print/digital environment, and initiate planning for changes in demand and use of digital and print journals when print copies are located in storage.
There is a conference next month on the library as a place that will engage participants in discussions on how space is and could be used in libraries. We know the importance of space in support of learning, teaching, and research, and have incorporated many thoughts on space into the recently completed Master Planfor the Theodore M. Hesburgh Library and the Math Library renovation. Nevertheless, there will be new information and I look forward to what Marsha Stevenson will bring back from this conference. Letters to the editors about the earlier article in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the topic of the deserted library roundly rebutted the notion that library use can be measured only in physical counts (Haden, 2001). What about the notion that we are "bringing the stacks to the students?" the title of another recent article in BusinessWeek (Wildstrom 2001). Advertisements in the Chronicle (November 16, 2001, p. A15) admittedly by our own Association of College & Research Libraries, spread the word about libraries and space in a similar perspective: the ads say "Who makes it all happen? Your librarians - the ultimate search engine @ your library."
But there is much more to know about the landscape and even more importantly perhaps, there new streams of information about libraries, about scholarly communication, about preservation, about intellectual property, to name only a few examples, going directly to the public and our campus constituencies. Who can forget the startlingly publication from Nicholson Baker and the resulting surge of interest in what happens to newspapers? (And a good thing too as his book raised excellent questions about the global vision of libraries in regard to the preservation of newspapers.) It used to be only research libraries talking with other research libraries about the staggering increases in serial prices. As research libraries redefined the problem to go beyond being a "library problem," university administrators, foundations and other organizations got interested. The Pew Higher Education Roundtable and the Association of American Universities joined forces five years ago to discuss "the challenge of maintaining access to significant research and scholarship at a time when both the volume and price of information have increased nearly three fold in the last decade alone" p. 1) This special issue was aptly titled "To Publish and Perish."
The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) has begun a new publication designed to offer quick insight into information-investment issues for presidents, CAOs (chief academic officers), and other campus leaders. These one or two page newsletters are sent directly to campus leaders, including of course library deans and directors. The Chronicle of Higher Education crosses many desks as does the EDUCAUSE Review; both publications write on library issues, and on issues such as inquiry-based education that may well have an effect on library services. The report on Teaching Learning and Technology at the University of Notre Dame in the 21st Century by the campus TLTR is another example of relevant information going to our colleagues and constituencies, and, in this case, also to us as part of the campus.
My point here is that we not only have to keep up with discussions among our library colleagues, but also we have to understand the knowledge and information being sent directly to our colleagues and constituencies beyond the library. We must know and incorporate into our strategic thinking the views of our academic colleagues not only on their plans and issues, but also their views on library issues.
STRESSES AND STRAINS
Last, I want to talk about stresses and strains on the library. It isn't easy to work in a large organization nor do we necessarily learn in our various studies how we might go about carrying out our responsibilities in a large organization.
We have identified communication and decision-making as two areas where we feel we aren't at the top. We certainly do communicate and make decisions, but we don't feel we are doing these things as well as we should be. Communication comes up frequently in many forums in the form of this question: how do we know what others in the library are doing? A workshop on decision making three years ago led to a greater awareness about decision making, but it didn't answer all of our questions or lead to a shared understanding of the process of decision making.
There is one other aspect to our culture that I hope we will address in the future, and that is our ability to take prudent risks in our work. Marc Truitt, who with Lorry Zeugner and Tom Hanstra, recently visited Boston College Library to explore how BC manages their Aleph software. They learned much on that topic, and in regard to how BC manages and implements the software, Marc observed that BC Library has fostered a library culture that supports risk-taking. BC , for example, is able to implement the continually received changes in software with minimal or no investment in testing prior to implementation, and if problems occur, resolve them after the fact. Marc is not advocating we blindly follow BC's example, but I am grateful to him for bringing this to my attention. We certainly do not avoid all risks though we are to some extent risk-averse. Within the Libraries we have varying comfort levels with taking risks and it is also fair to say that throughout the Libraries, risk taking is supported to greater or lesser degrees. We need to explore how a greater tolerance for and taking of risks can increase our ability to move forward effectively and rapidly, and how do we create a climate that supports useful risk taking.
Jo Bessler doesn't want to be the center of attention, but I want to mention her new role. She will have responsibilities for organizational development. She will work with me, the Training and Development Committee and others in the library and on campus, to help us work most effectively in our organizational setting. She will be develop a program to address these issues, not in the next year, but over the next several years.
As always, you are a wonderful group and I thank you for your attention. The floor is open for questions and discussions.
References
Baker, Nicholson. Double fold : Libraries and the assault on paper. 1st ed.
New York : Random House, 2001.CLIRinghouse: Quick insight into information-investment issues for presidents, CAOs, and other campus leaders from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). Irregular. Available at http://www.clir.org/pubs/
Fosbender, Laura. University of California Collection Management Initiative. E-mail message. January 8, 2002.
Guthrie, Kevin. "Archiving in the Digital Age: There's a Will, but is There a Way?" EDUCAUSE Review: 36: 56 - 65 (November/December 2001).
Haden, William R. "To the Editor." Chronicle of Higher Education: XLVIII, December 21, 2001, p. B4.
Malloy, Rev. Edward A. President's Address to the Faculty. October 2, 2001, pp. 13-15.
Mintzberg, Henry. "The Fall and Rise of Strategic-Planning." Harvard Business Review 72: 107-114 (January-February 1994).
Task Force on Communicating the Directions and Goals of the University Libraries. Report at http://www.nd.edu/~adminoff/taskforce/directionstf.htm.Teaching, Learning and Technology at Notre Dame in the 21st Century. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 2001. Also available at http://www.nd.edu/~tltr/.
To Publish and Perish. Co-sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries, the Association of American Universities, and the Pew Higher Education Roundtable. Special Issue: Policy Perspectives: v. 7, no. 4, March 1998.
Also accessible at http://www.irhe.upenn.edu/.
Wildstrom, Stephen H. "Bringing the stacks to the students." Business Week. December 10, 2001, p. 23.