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Meeting Minutes October 14, 2003

2 p.m. in the Haddad Room

A G E N D A

• Model Programs
• Review of Goal 1 and Objectives
• Other

Model Programs

Mark opened the meeting by stating that during the last meeting John Eber, followed up by Graham Peck, questioned whether there were model programs we could emulate. Mark recommended that we should identify award-winning programs, find out what the libraries did to get the award, use them as models, and then go for the award.

Mark identified a few specific awards from ACRL (Association of College & Research Libraries): Excellence in Academic Libraries Award, Academic or Research Librarian of the Year Award, and the Marta Lange/CQ Award. However, there are many more distinguished service awards that we can try for.

Dave said that regarding the Award in Excellence there are three recipients: one college, one university, and one community college, and he said some of these institutions are not necessarily “rolling in money.”

Bob thought it would be helpful if we looked at the award winners, download any information about them, and then use what is applicable to us. Maybe we should even contact them.

Mark replied that the U.S. government has an award for public service. The application is online. We can then see what others have done.

Bob then asked, “What is the next step?” Mark said we have to identify the awards we are interested in. First we need to track down those that have a potential interest, and then narrow the list. The award is a framework for finding what we want.

Bob would like to see a summary, since he is not a library person. Mark thought we could have something by the start of spring semester. Bob thinks this is too late. We should have a generic framework of issues, problems, etc. Specifics come from this framework.

RuthAnn wanted to know what specific problems we have, and we should be looking to see how other institutions solved similar problems. Mark replied we have both long-term and short-term problems that need to be solved over the next five years.

Bob pointed out that one of the problems is that student use of the library is decreasing. How have other institutions attacked this problem, and how did they solve it? Mark replied that the question of student use depends on whether “library” is defined physically or electronically.

Review of Goal 1 and Objectives

Mark led the review of Goal 1, which 1 is largely resources and some services. Resources will increase faster than we can provide them. There is an increased demand for distant-learning resources. We will take a look at the ACRL Standards and budgets of like institutions.

Mark pointed out that 88 percent of the nursing collection is more than five years old. Yet nursing faculty require their students to use only materials no older than five years.

RuthAnn asked, “Is it because we don’t have the budget or don’t weed the collection?” Mark replied, “Both. We are dead last as far as budget compared with peer institutions.”

Bob wanted to know how collection development is handled. Mark replied that each librarian has a section, i.e., Dave has nursing, Ursula has education, and so forth. We are not dedicated subject bibliographers. A lot of libraries use approval plans and not liaisons. This method is a hit-or-miss situation. John feels that these plans are notoriously bad.

Mark went on to say we should look at ACRL as a benchmark and adapt what we need to our standards. Bob wanted to know where we fall short with the benchmarks. Mark referred the committee to the website www.ala.org/acrl to look at ACRL’s Standards and Guidelines. Everyone should look carefully at the standards and see what will work for us.

RuthAnn concurred that everyone should look at these Standards. Bob said those members of the committee that are not library personnel need to be educated.

Bob wanted to know what main objectives the committee should be aware of in Goal 1. Mark replied (1) we should benchmark against the ACRL Standards and (2) hopefully the library will get a budget that we can do something with.  Bob asked, “How much more money is needed?” Mark replied that the materials budget needs a minimum of $115,000 more. Regarding the personnel budget Mark is going to request one more librarian and one person for Technical Services for the next fiscal year.

Mark commented that electronic usage is going up rapidly. It is very important that we teach patrons how to use our resources, and we need more people to do this.

Other

For our next meeting we will look at the ACRL Standards, find more awards, and work more on Goal #1.

The next meeting is on November 11, 2003, at 2 p.m. in the Haddad Room.

The meeting adjourned at 3 p.m.

Minutes submitted by: Virginia Preuss

Library Coordinator