University Library Advisory Committee
(ULAC)
April 14, 2006
SL 510, 9:30 a.m.
- Present:
- Arne Almquist, Lois Schultz, Barbara Hedges, KC Russell, Matt Shank, Lane Clark
- Absent:
- Yasue Kuwahara, Katherine Kurk, Tom Heard
Introductions
Membership, Operational Details
Members are appointed in three year rotating terms. Two people will be rotating off this year. Meetings are held twice a year in November and April. This committee provides opportunity to communicate with the faculty on campus. We will be working this summer to ensure we have slots filled and meetings scheduled.
In the past, we formed a sub-committee to put together the allocation formula. The formula will need to be reviewed/revised, so we will put together another subcommittee this fall to look at the issue.
State of the Library
Things are going very well. We have a long term project that we have been working on for five years: upgrading our Archives and Special Collections. This project originally started in the 2001 campus campaign. Over the past two years, we have raised the funding to complete the new Archives reading room. $200,000 will be spent on the reading room and its furnishings. We are still in the process of raising funds to buy all the furniture. There will be better security with a digital camera system to watch over the reading room. The construction for the reading room will start on May 9th. The work will last for 60 days. We hope to have a grand opening sometime in late September/early October. The next phase will be the reconstruction of the stacks area of the Archives. The room will be completely gutted with compact shelving, environmental enhancements and additional security added. We have received a gift commitment to pay for part of this and are raising the additional funds.
In other Archives/Special Collections news, we are building our collection of political papers. Processing is almost complete on the Callahan papers.
We received an NEH grant this year. This is the first step for future grants from them. With this grant, a consultant will be coming in this summer to go through the Archives area and identify preservation needs.
Construction on the third floor is supposed to start within the next couple of months. A new smart classroom will be built where the old ILL office was. A glass office will be built next to that and another room will be constructed for the production materials. The current classroom will be torn down to create more space for studying. Thirty to forty people will be able to fit into the new classroom. The current room was very poorly configured.
In the meantime, we are collaborating with IT to bring the Help Desk into the library. Sixty new PC's will be brought with them. Small clusters will be dispersed throughout the building. We will look at replacing some with laptops over time. Circulating laptops are very popular. They only circulate in the library, they do not leave.
Another project will be to build a compact shelving area on the first floor. It will allow us to move lesser used materials and make room for more used materials.
Two library faculty members, in partnership with faculty from Criminal Justice and the Kenton County Jailor, won a University/Community Partnership Grant for Kenton County Jail Outreach Program. The grant monies are being used to build a library in the jail, select materials, and purchase equipment. Jennifer Smith, Library faculty member, has been very successful with grants. She has brought in a number of children's authors for workshops. She has recently been awarded a grant from the American Library Association to fund an author visit to a rural school in South Central Kentucky.
We are moving quickly on electronic filing of theses. We will be retrospectively digitizing the ones we already hold as well. NKU is the third institution in Kentucky to do this. The outsourcing will be going to Proquest. They will handle the digitization. Lois Schultz is working on contacting the authors of the theses that we already hold asking their permission to digitize them.
The Library Loggia continues to improve. We have purchased new barstools and bar tables. We've also created a lounge area which seems to be very popular.
The Library is creating a staff certification program based on Kentucky's public library certification. It is a state law for public library staff members to be certified. Our certification will be voluntary, but there will be a financial incentive to become certified. Threasa Wesley taught the first class in the program. The program is being created in partnership with Bluegrass Community College.
We are also working with BCC on a 2+2 bachelor's completer program. The courses are completely online. We hope to have it in place in within the next twelve months.
Budget requests for 2006/2007
Arne prepared a PowerPoint slide show describing the Library's budget requests for FY2007 and walked through parts of it. It explains trends in the library world that are affecting us. Addressed were collections/materials, collection growth space and technology initiatives. The issues with collections are serials and document delivery. With serials inflation there has been significant progress made. While the projected rate has been 9 percent for a number of years, we were able to cut our expected rate to 7-8 percent for 2007 through the move to a new model for developing the serials collection. In the budget request was $65,000 to cover serials inflation. We did receive that. We are continuing to move to electronic resources including a rapidly expanding collection of electronic books. A question came up as to how long do we keep an electronic book and are there recurring fees? The library is guaranteed five years at no additional cost. After that, there may be a small maintenance fee. We also requested $83,000 for collection enhancement. $35,000 appears in the budget but will only be paid if NKU meets its enrollment goal (14,200).
Arne pointed out that libraries are typically built with growth space. Being on a space poor campus, Steely Library has engaged in selective partnerships which have provided advantages to both the Library and the campus. They have taken some collection growth space. To provide that growth space while using the building to best advantage, we are planning to use compact shelving. The estimated cost for the shelving needed is $247,000. We asked for $50,000 to start implementation, but we may not get it this year [we didn't—AA]. Compact shelving should provide about a 50 percent space savings.
The library is also proposing to implement an RFID (radio frequency identification) system. RFID will help us to better manage the physical collections while providing new opportunities for circulation and improvements in security. In a large collection, books are constantly being mis-shelved, and basically lost until someone physically “reads” the shelf. This is very time consuming and currently takes over a year to accomplish. With RFID, you simply wave an electronic wand in front of a shelf of books, the system compares the books on the shelf with a copy of the catalog, and you quickly know what is lost or our of place. We could do multiple inventories per year.
Materials budget
Lois Schultz prepared a PowerPoint presentation examining the past year's materials budget. Journals have been increasing 9-10 percent per year. Why are serials increasing so fast? Costs for postage and paper are among the reasons.
Three years ago a sub committee of the ULAC created the allocation formula which determines how we divide the monographs budget among the departments on campus. It was revised two years ago. With the smaller amounts available after paying for serials subscriptions under our fairly static budgets, allocations for some departments were reduced to zero. Some solutions were to change to electronic format, purchase package deals and make selective cuts. In addition, we have been receiving more money than in the past. We wanted everyone in the formula and were able to do that in FY05/06. As an example, Management and Marketing went from $0 to $8145.
Strategic Planning Process
The library had a retreat June 2, 2005 and came up with major areas to address. Curriculum and marketing are the top issues right now. Arne went through a PowerPoint presentation explaining a little about how the library is planning to address some of the areas of concern in the library. For example, we are in the process of hiring a librarian who will be assigned for part of their time to the POD as one strategy in the area of Curriculum. In the area of collections, we are looking at the best ways of making the most effective use of our budget. In the area of public engagement, we are looking at ways to increase the number of project proposals created by Steely faculty members, and so forth.
Arne also mentioned to the committee that the Library is currently administering the LibQual + survey. The survey helps the library get feedback from students, faculty, and staff about the quality of our collections, services and facility.
There was a brief question and answer session.
The Library will be contacting the Deans during summer to fill vacant slots and the next meeting of the full group should be in November, 2006.
Respectfully submitted by,
Julie Matthews
updated: Wednesday, 03-May-2006 21:05:12 EDT