Skip to Content
Volume Logo
| 2011 - 2012 | Volume, n. 1. A unit of written material assembled together and cataloged in a library. 2. A large amount; quantity. 3. Loudness. | VOLUMe
Foreword Image
Crescendo Image
Space Image
Access Image
Eureka Image
Press Image
World Class Image
Global Image
Future Image
Afterword Image
Message From the Provost

When I was asked to provide this foreword to VOLUMe, the Libraries' new publication, I was especially pleased since this first issue focuses on the Libraries' strategic plan for 2011-16 and how it advances the overaching University plan. VOLUMe provides the stories of people whose goals and actions demonstrate the central, critical role Libraries has in advancing learning and scholarship at Purdue.

Under the leadership of Dean Mullins, Libraries faculty and staff are positioned to be an exemplar in re-creating and redefining what a world-class, academic research library must, and will, be.

Libraries faculty members - as instructors and researchers - are leading in the development of a comprehensive information literacy program. Each year, they enhance and expand information literacy partnerships with colleagues in Purdue's colleges and schools.

Recognized nationally and internationally for its leadership in reserach and the application of library science to data management, Libraries is helping define the emerging area of data literacy - a knowledge necessary to manage the massive amounts of data generated from research. Currently, Libraries faculty are collaborating with the Office of the Vice President for Research and ITaP, in the stewardship of data sets in the creation of the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR).

Libraries' leadership role also extends to the development of special collections and archives in Purdue's signature areas.

In the following pages, you will hear the voices of several individuals who express how Libraries is advancing the University's strategic plan goals of launching tomorrow's leaders, fostering discovery with delivery and meeting global challenges. You will find that their stories speak volumes about all that is taking place.

Tim Sands
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
Info CRESCENDO

Purdue's initiatives in information literacy are in a crescendo, increasing in volume and intensity.

I came to Purdue Libraries in 2009, after a generous gift of $2.5 million endowed the first chair in information literacy in the nation. As the W. Wayne Booker Chair in Information Literacy, I am participating in efforts to ensure that Purdue is creating lifelong learners.

So how do we make sure students have information literacy competentcies? We make sure that their courses, the curricula, and the co-curricular learning opportunities include content about how to find, evaluate and use accurate information to solve problems. We want our students to become well-rounded citizens in a dynamic global society. Critical and creative thinkers. Active learners. Effective team members.

Mr. Booker, a former Ford Motor Co. executive and a 1956 Purdue graduate said, "An outstanding library is the backbone of any great university." I can say that Libraries are positioned extremely well to fulfill Mr. Booker's vision.

We are fully engaged in the University's strategic plan, leading in campus-wide programs and initiatives that offer many possibilities for integrating information literacy into other academic departments, programs, classrooms and laboratories. Through our involvement, the University's Core Curriculum Committee (CCC) is advocating an outcomes-based curriculum by 2013 that includes information literacy as a key element.

We continue to carve out a place as international leaders in our priority areas: Learning, scholarly communication and solutions to global challenges.

So yes, I love Chanticleer, Yo Yo Ma and the symphony. But I really love to hear our students' success stories thanks to the information literacy skills they are learning at Purdue.

Now, that's really music to my ears.

Sharon Weiner
W. Wayne Booker Chair in Information Literacy and Professor of Library Science
Sharon, an organist and a classical music lover, hits the right notes at Windsor Hall of Residence at the sitting room piano.
Smart SPACE

Technology changes the way students learn and the way teachers teach, which is why learning spaces are changing to meet new curricula and the ay today's students learn and want to learn.

It is of great importance to improve the students' ability to identify information needs, find quality information and then either present it or utilize it to make better, more informed decisions. Acquiring these skills strengthens other facets of their learning. This includes where students learn.

To be completed in 2012, the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management and Economics is the prototype for a 21st century state-of-the-art library, laboratory and learning commons. Within the Parrish library, the LearnLab creates more opportunities for expanded information literacy instructuion and partnerships. Now adventurous educators can connect with their students in a technologically integrated environment.

Purdue is a pioneer on the frontier of learning space implementation, research and scholarship, and the lessons learned from our success will shape the vision for the Boiler STEAM Commons. This new collaborative science, technology, engineering, agriculture and math library-learning center is on the horizon for a proposed student success corridor.

For me, education is exploration.

Our vision of the academic research library of the future is a dynamic technology-enriched learning environment where students come to accomplish a multitude of activities. It is no longer just a repository of information but a place where learning, exploration and knowledge creation takes place. What we teach our students can be integrated into their educational and professional lives. And lifelong learning is what information literacy is all about.

Hal Kirkwood
Associate Professor of Library Science
Hal sits at the computers, where he also teaches, in recently renovated Roland G. Parrish Library of Management & Economics, a state-of-the-art LearnLab
24/7 ACCESS

I think a strong education system is key to democracy, and libraries play a crucial role in educating people.

That's certainly true at Purdue. We help people find information that meets their needs. We're good at it, too! But in the future, and that could be as soon as tomorrow, we must increasingly be nimble and responsive to changing curricular and research needs.

My position involves oversight of Purdue's 12 libraries, archives and special collections, information literacy, scholarly communication, collection management, circulation and repository services. And it means paying close attention to a $11.5 million budget for library materials, including databases and other digital resources.

One of our major priorities is to provide access to more and more electronic resources, including books, journals, archives, data and other emerging forms of digital scholarship. More than 2.1 million U.S. adults are estimated to own e-book readers and we continue to add thousands of e-books to our library collection.

Another priority is promoting the HathiTrust as the amazing resource that it is. HathiTrust Digital Library is a digital preservation repository and access platform. The trust partners - including Purdue - provide long-term preservation and access services to more than 9 million total volumes digitized. More than 2.5 million of those are in the public domain and full text is accessible.

In the year ahead we'll work to see increased Purdue faculty participation in e-Pubs. Purdue e-Pubs digital repository and online publishing platform is an open access service, which increases the availability of Purdue scholarship worldwide - everything from article preprints, conference papers, presentations and technical reports to original e-journals supported by the Purdue University Press.

Repositories like e-Pubs are an important answer to the growing scholarly communication crisis of escalating costs of journal subscriptions and other traditional scholarly resources. We are excited by the possibilities for the Libraries to develop and promote new publishing models to meet our researchers' needs for publishing digital scholarship online.

Ultimately, we want Purdue students, faculty and researchers to have access to scholarly resources for their work, all hours of the day and night, from wherever they are, on campus or off.

It's a very exciting time for an academic research library! For Purdue Libraries, an even more exciting future beckons.

Beth McNeil
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Library Science
As the leader of Libraries Learning Council, Beth carries the Purdue flag to provide world-wide access to scholarly research. Beth is featured in front of the international flag hall at Purdue Memorial Union.
EUREKA Moment

I know the excitement of finding rare, valued, historicl treasures and sharing them with others. As the crossroads of the past and the futrure, the Purdue Libraries Archives and Special Collections are the University's essential partners in scholarly communication and primary-source instruction.

We collect, preserve and provide access to one-of-a-kind materials that reflect the University's identity and strengths, continuing to build our collections of distinction that reflect Purdue's areas of excellence in engineering, science, technology and agriculture.

We strive to reach our vision to provide scholars with that same thrill of discovery that we feel each day, as we work to be recognized as a leader in providing seamless access to distinctive unique collections such as Purdue's Barron Hilton Flight and Space Exploration Archives and the Susan Bulkeley Butler Women's Archives.

This year, we are seizing every opportunity to diversify our collections so that they accurately represent the wide variety of voices, backgrounds and experiences that have helped shape Purdue. We are collaborating with the Black Cultural Center to preserve and share our African-American students' and faculty members' contributions. We'll also partner with other departments to offer exhibits and programs that celebrate their milestones.

So, where does the past meet the present and the future? Increasingly, our primary source materials are in electronic format. We've established international interest in our collections, both onsite and online. And it is critical that we expose our unique holdings to scholars, many of whom work abroad and cannot travel to use our collections on site.

Sammie Morris
University Archivist and Head of the Division of Archives and Special Collections and Associate Professor of Library Science
As a lifelong gardener and nature lover, Sammie stands in front of the Purdue University Horticulture Gardens.
PRESS ON!

Purdue University Press just celebrated its 50th anniversary, but our primary focus is looking ahead. As the University's publishing unit, and an integral part of the Libraries, we are exploring new ways to provide services across the continuum of scholarly communication.

I am finding it fascinating to see a transition from the library being the home of "collections" of books and journals to becoming a provider of "services" for faculty, students and staff.

A top priority for us is vigorously aligning editorial projects, acquisitions and investments more closely with Purdue's core strengths. STEM disciplines. Aviation technology. Civil Engineering. We're also supporting niche and emerging fields in signature areas. We've just published our second book in building construction management.

Another priority is promoting collaborative digital publishing partnerships that are part of the emerging scholarly communication world. Collaboration is essential if knowledge is to be effectively communicated. That's truer than ever now.

Scholars want to communicate in new ways in a digital enviroment, but most publishers are still stuck in the paper age. Currently, the Press supports the publication of approximately 25 books a year and 15 journals - three subscription-based and 12 online, free, "open access" journals. We'll make sure print projects are available for different e-readers as well.

What I love about our digital partnership projects is seeing how our resources are used globally as well as locally. This allows Purdue research to transcend the institution and expand its global impact.

I'm looking forward to our works being easily available from every computer and mobile device in the world!

Charles Watkinson
Director, Purdue University Press
In front of Mackey Arena construction, Charles uses his e-reader to access "Disaster Recovery Project Management: Bringing Order from Chaos," the second building construction management book published by Purdue Press.
World Class IN SESSION

Knowledge. Science. Data. They all transcend boundaries. So do the great global challenges - and solutions- of our times. And so do Purdue Libraries.

I work at the intersection of the Libraries' three strategic plan priorities: learning, scholarly communications and global challenges.

My current work with Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) embeds information literacy training within a conceptual design process. This allows students to practice finding, evaluating, analyzing and reusing information within the context of their project. This makes it moe likely that the students will retain real-world skills they've practiced.

I am also currently collaborating with other Purdue librarians and other faculty members by investigating data information literacy needs and skills for science and engineering graduate students. We work to identify skill sets that are important across disciplines in order to develop a data information literacy curriculum.

Globally, I investigate communication about data management for international research partnerships. Success for these partnerships requires communication to be much more complete than for intra- or inter-institutional collaborations within the U.S. This is due to the lack of communication infrastructure in the developing world.

The Data Curation Profile and Data Management Plan Tool developed by Purdue Libraries data services specialist Jake Carlson helps me interview researchers about their data management expectations. It also raises awareness of issues unique to other cultures. Data Curation Profiles were invaluable when I interviewed Purdue researchers who are involved in partnerships at Uganda Martyrs University in Uganda and Moi University in Kenya.

By understanding what data output researchers are generating, we can start to approach solutions that will help them access research and also share the data they collect internationally.

Successful libraries, now and in the future, will work hard to connect patrons to the information taht they need, regardless of source. This will include connecting people to each other, as well as connecting people to data, journals and books. I also see librarians collaborating with content creators at the point of creation, instead of managing the end product.

At Purdue, we're not waiting to be neeeded. We're going to go find the point of need.

Megan Sapp Nelson
Associate Professor of Library Science
Megan, an avid cyclist, has ridden across the lower peninsula of Michigan twice, Wisconsin and Illinois, as well as Prince Edward Island in Canada.
GLOBAL LEADERSHIP, LOCAL IMPACT

History is made in many ways. Sometimes by dramatic events. Sometimes by gradual, but no less profound, changes.

I witnessed history being made firsthand in Egypt, where I was a Fulbright Scholar at the Biblioteca Alexandrina when the uprising against the regine of Hosni Mubarak began. The Internet, social media and new ways of sharing information that helped shape the Egyptian revolution are also changing scholarly communication.

At Purdue, we think globally to apply Libraries' tools and talent to some of our greatest global needs: knowledge creation and access.

I focus my research on the new roles for librarians in curating non-traditional, digital information and applying library science principles to e-science. I do this with colleagues in the Libraries' Distrubuted Data Curation Center (D2C2), which is one of the first research centers of its kind in the nation. At the D2C2, librarians collaborate with other disciplines on data-driven, interdisciplinary research.

As a co-founder of the International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology Special Interest Group on Data Citation, I was able to address the National Academy of Sciences on roles for librarians in promoting and establishing international best practices for data citation.

A project I am currently working on is Databib. Funded with a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, we are developing a tool to aid in discovering data repositories and creating a platform for linking researchers, students, librarians and funding agencies with research data.

We've had great success in addressing issues related to data curation on an international stage, to translate our research into tools and best practices. Together with leading libraries from 11 countries, Purdue Libraries co-founded DataCite, which is a global, nonprofit partnership to identify and register data sets. In the last two years, DataCite has registered over 1 million data sets with Digital Object Identifiers that facilitate the recognition and treatment of datasets as citable, scholarly resources.

Michael Witt
Interdisciplinary Research Librarian and Assistant Professor of Library Science
Michael stands in front of his research, "The Open Parks Grid," projected at the Purdue Envision Center.
Inventing THE FUTURE

Research in the 21st century is being conducted on a global scale, bringing together experts from multiple disciplines through the use of technology to solve grand challenges. Access to well-organized data sets that can be searched, understood and used by anyone will be an essential feature in research.

Librarians have always provided the information resources necessary to conduct research. Now we are expanding our role to address data. We have made data services a strategic priority and are recognized leaders in developing tools and strategies to address researcher's needs.

With my colleagues at Purdue, I have developed the Data Curation Profile and the Data Management Plan Guide. The profile is a tool libarians use to identify a researcher's needs in managing, sharing, curating or preserving their data. The Data Management Plan Guide is designed to help researchers consider how they will address requirements from the NSF and other funding agencies to make the data they generate publicly available. Since we introduced the Data Curation Profile tool, we've been delivering instructional workshops around the country to information professionals seeking to apply the tool themselves.

This is still new territory for libraries and for most research communities. The immediate future will find us continuing to develop collaborations to better understand the needs of researchers and to explore how applying library science could address them. We'll see librarians offering a suite of data services as a part of their day-to-day responsibilities.

I am proud to be in the vanguard of developing the ways in which Libraries will meet the challenges and opportunities of 21st century research.

Jacob Carlson
Data Services Specialist and Associate Professor of Library Science
Visiting Von's Comics, Jake has been a graphic novel enthusiast since the age of six and now has over 50 long boxes filled.
Message Fom the Dean

As I read the stories included in the first edition of VOLUMe, I was moved by the energy, creativity and commitment conveyed. Each story reflects the experiences of individuals who, by working collaboratively with colleagues, are advancing learning and scholarship at Purdue and in the the acedemic community. I am looking forward to future issues where we will hear additional stories that illustrate the strategic repositioning of the Libraries.

Our 2011-16 Strategic Plan is bold and visionary, yet basd upon activities and programs successfully launched as part of our previous strategic plan. As each year we fine-ture our programs, resources, and spaces, the vision will become clearer, allowing us to accommodate emerging elements in academia and in the world. We make this accommodation to assure that Libraries is a respected and vigorous partner at Purdue and within the national and international research library community.

As the volume of information and data explodes globally, our mission is to apply the principles of library science, translating the wealth of data into the treasure of knowledge. While technology is the driver of information and knowledge-delivery in the digital age, we believe high-tech tools are best complemented by high-touch personal involvement. Accordingly, we are redifining Libraries by roles and relationships - not just by technology or facilities alone. Our people make a difference so that scholars and students can do the same. That's what educators - and leaders - ultimately do.

We are proud of who we are and what we provide to the faculty and students of Purdue and to the field of academic research libraries.

To our donors and friends, whose generosities enable us to continue as a leader among academic research libraries, thank you.

James L. Mullins
Dean of Libraries and Professor of Library Science
Tim Sands
Sharon Weiner
Hal Kirkwood
Beth McNeil
Sammie Morris
Charles Watkinson
Megan Sapp Nelson
Michael Witt
Jacob Carlson
James L. Mullins
Foreword Learning Pillar Scholarly Communication Pillar Global Challenges Pillar Afterword