Season's Greetings

BY JIM MULLINS

This holiday season we stand at the close of a decade that will be analyzed by historians, economists, political scientists and others for many years to come. It was a decade of change as we welcomed two new Presidents to the White House, and it was a decade filled with hard issues as we witnessed monumental events, devastating economic issues and war.

For Purdue, it was a decade that witnessed the close to a tremendous development campaign, we said goodbye to Martin Jischke and we welcomed France Córdova. We have a new university-wide vision that guides our work in serving our students and faculty.

For the Libraries, this decade has seen tremendous growth and progress on many fronts. And, it is for the involvement of each and every one of you that I want to express my most sincere appreciation this holiday season. Change can be frustrating and frightening; however, you all have embraced the opportunities and today we are a strong core for all of the campus initiatives. Please accept my most sincere thanks and appreciation – I look forward to the second decade of the 21st century being rich with opportunities for the Libraries to serve the University and to advance our profession nationally and internationally.

Kathy and I extend to you and your family our most warm and heartfelt wishes for a time filled with warmth and memories and a new year rich with opportunities.

Listed below are some of the projects and programs submitted by associate deans, directors, and division heads, that the Libraries successfully completed, implemented or participated in during the 2009 fall semester. Congratulations and thank you to everyone for a job well done.

Collections

• We completed the behind-the-scenes aspects of the major materials review project (cancellations for 2010)!
• Over the fall semester 2009, Purdue e-Pubs experienced increased usage over the same period from 2008. Between August and December, full-text downloads of all content in Purdue e-Pubs increased to 128,483 from 102,287 the prior year.
• Added one new e-book vendor to our YBP plan; in negotiations to add a second new one
• Arranged for new Purdue University Press books to be added to the circulating collections as they are published
• Purdue serial holdings were loaded into OCLC
• Nearly eliminated all serial binding
• Successful start of HKRP monograph withdrawal project
• Retrospective cataloging and barcoding of Purdue theses and dissertations began
• Books from Undergraduate Library moved into other libraries collections and merged the UGRL book approval plan into other approval plans
• Coordinated triennial update of lost book replacement costs
• The Purdue Pharmacist (alumni magazine) was digitized by Carl Snow’s group to help celebrate the school’s 125th anniversary this year.
• Acquisition of the papers of astronauts Eugene Cernan, Janice Voss, and Roy Bridges for the Flight Archives
• Acquisition of the papers of Dr. Cornell Bell, diversity advocate and director of Purdue’s Business Opportunity Program

Services

• Archives and Special Collections contributed content to the “Black Purdue” film produced by Derek and Jamar Productions on the history of African Americans at Purdue University
• Staff assisted with the Oral History transcription program, and now many transcripts are available online (www.lib.purdue.edu/spcol/oralhistory)
• Four libraries extended their hours for the last two weeks of the semester, with Engineering and Hicks staying open 24/7, and MEL and HSSE extending hours to 2:00 a.m.
• Staff in Digital Programs and Information Access successfully launched a public beta of a new catalog interface, VUFind

Information Literacy/Instruction

• Tutorials for biology students searching the scientific literature publicly available Spring semester 2009  (created by Maribeth Slebodnik and Laurie Iten (professor of biology) http://www.lib.purdue.edu/rguides/biotutorials/
• Marianne Stowell Bracke served as “embedded” librarian for AGRY 101 (introductory course for all agriculture majors)
• Established Information Literacy Council
• Held first Information Literacy Forum
• Worked with National Forum on Information Literacy to coordinate 20th anniversary celebration of NFIL in Washington, DC
• Worked with National Forum on Information Literacy to obtain proclamation by President Obama of October as National Information Literacy Month

Faculty & Staff

• Scott Brandt completed his one year half time Provost Fellowship in the Office of the Vice President for Research working with Peter Dunn on research retention issues
• New operations coordinators were appointed/hired for the ENGR, HSSE, MEL, and UGRL
• Met University mandated 2% reduction in operations and salaries and wages without any layoffs
• Jane Taylor, Bill Corya, and Vicki Moelhman retired
• W. Wayne Booker Endowed Chair for Information Literacy Sharon Weiner was appointed
• Charles Watkinson was appointed Director of the Purdue University Press
• All clerical/service and administrative/professional staff, and their supervisors, participated in small-group orientation sessions about the new Libraries/ Press/ Copyright Office performance management system which will begin in 2010
• Created a single process for annual faculty report and promotion process

Research

• Purdue was represented in December at the 5th International Digital Curation Conference (London) and U.K. All-Hands Meeting (Oxford) to discuss data curation and e-Science by Michael Witt
• Hosted first Celebrating Research event to discuss faculty research interests
• Hosted third annual GIS Day in November
• IMLS funded work to investigate research data behaviors at Purdue, with Jake Carlson as project manager, has resulted in a tool called the Data Curation Profiles which can be used to explore faculty issues related to describing, disseminating and archiving data collections.

Facilities

• Began repurposing HSSE-R space for ASC materials
• Filming in Archives by the Big 10 Network of interview with Dr. Andrew Feustel, Purdue alumni astronaut, during Archives and Special Collections’ “Purdue’s Place in Space” exhibit
• The MEL Learn Lab and Corporate Study Rooms opened and planning for Phase II of the transformation of MEL into a Business Information Center has begun
• Auxiliary Services helped 60+ people move their offices
• Ergonomics and Safety Awareness Training was presented to Libraries, Press, and Copyright Office by REM, in collaboration with the Libraries Safety and Ergonomics Committee
• The Press moved from South Campus Courts to 3rd floor, locating it centrally on campus and in close proximity to Libraries units, like the Business Office, with which Press staff frequently interact
• With funding from REM and coordination by Auxiliary Services, a safety inspection was conducted of the moveable shelving in HKRP and improvements to the equipment were made
• Reconfiguration of UGRL included iDesk, movable display monitors, and other equipment provided by ITaP

Campus, Community, and International Engagement

• Mark Newton was invited by Marianne Stowell Bracke to present information and field questions on the Purdue e-Pubs digital collection service at several faculty meetings in the college of Agriculture (i.e., the departments of Biochemistry, Botany & Plant Pathology, Horticulture & Landscape Architecture, Entomology, and Agronomy)
• The Scholarly Communication Committee hosted the international event, Open Access Week, Oct. 19th-23rd, with presentations and displays
• Gretchen Stephens was a member of the history committee for the Vet Med school’s 50th anniversary; book published by Purdue Press (Celebrating a continuum of excellence : Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine, 1959-2009)
• Gave presentations to Purdue Associate Deans for Learning; College of Technology Associate Deans and department heads about information literacy
• Successful collaborative exhibit with the College of Agriculture, highlighting the J.C. Allen archives 
• Launch of the “Purdue’s Place in Space” physical and online archives exhibits, celebrating Purdue’s rich history with space and aviation, with funding from Lockheed Martin
• Significant publicity surrounding the Amelia movie and the George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers in Archives and Special Collections
• MEL partnered with the Krannert School of Management to host the Entrepreneurship Boot Camp for Veterans in the newly renovated Learn Lab
• ENGR hosted the IEEE’s 125th anniversary celebration
• Hosted a librarian from South Africa as an intern for Carnegie Endowment

Purdue Libraries help launch DataCite

Michael Witt represented the Purdue University Libraries in London in early December, where Purdue became one of ten founding library and research institutions to launch DataCite (www.datacite.org). DataCite’s goal is to improve access to research data on the Internet. See the Liball message from Jim Mullins on 12/15 for more information.

Jim Mullins and Judy Schumaker joined the Planning and Operations Council (POC) at its October meeting for an update session, in which POC members reported on progress towards the goals for the present fiscal year, FY09-10, that were set forth last summer in unit and council action plans, and in the Libraries’ strategic pillar initiatives.   

Examples of progress highlighted in the reports include furthering the strategic pillar initiative of campuswide information literacy through the creation of a one-credit information literacy course required of all first-year Hospitality and Tourism Management students, and the presentation of information literacy classes and lab sessions in Purdue Promise, a new University program to support student access, transition, and success.  

The number of new relationships to and with disciplinary faculty increased as more librarians were embedded in courses across campus.  Many librarians also moved away from operational duties in order to increase their ability to explore disciplinary and interdisciplinary relationships.  

The fall Celebrating Research event, with 16 presentations involving a total of 40 participants, illustrated progress on the Libraries’ robust research and scholarship program. Guidelines were put in place for International Travel Grants.  Progress was also made in developing an eScience program. An e-Data Task Force Retreat was held to address services and roles associated with moving forward in the area of addressing research data outputs.  The  IMLS-funded Data Curation Profiles project wrapped up, resulting in a template which liaison/subject librarians will be able to use to guide data collection management services and activities.  Continued embedded activity as librarians explore new roles resulted in both funded and unfunded research-related activities, including a CLIR proposal to organize an herbarium collection, two RCHE seed grants to explore HUB dissemination, and continued nanoHUB development.

In support of robust local collections (digital and print), records for Purdue Libraries serial holdings were loaded into WorldCat, increasing the representation of our collections in this discovery tool and enhancing the ability of users from outside Purdue to access our collections.  An upgrade to the Digital Commons platform for e-Pubs enabled batch uploading of data via Excel spreadsheets, as demonstrated by a successful test with a batch of Physics department research articles.

Phase 1 of the transformation of MEL into the Business Information Center was completed with the opening of the Learn Lab, an innovative space for active learning, and the Corporate Study Room.  In another example of reconfigured, relevant, strategic space, the Press moved from South Campus Courts to the third floor of Stewart Center, locating it centrally on campus as well as putting it in close proximity to Libraries units, such as the Business Office, with which Press staff frequently interact.

The above accomplishments are only a brief sampling of what’s included in the October progress reports.  These reports, as well as the original action plans developed in June 2009, may be found
under “Plans – FY10” on the POC Intranet page at http://intranet.lib.purdue.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=25985054

In February, unit heads, in discussion with their units, will prepare drafts of unit plans for the coming fiscal year, FY10-11.  They will then review these drafts at a meeting of the Planning and Operations Council (POC) with Jim Mullins and Judy Schumaker, and finalize their unit plans.  

February is also when clerical/service and administrative/professional employees will be preparing the Performance Planning & Update Worksheet (Form A) and meeting with their supervisors to discuss goals, priorities, and intended results for their performance in calendar year 2010. 

This timing means that an employee and supervisor will be able to develop the employee’s performance plan for January – December 2010 with knowledge of the goals of their unit for the for the same time period.   Because unit plans cover a fiscal year, from July through the following  June, each unit’s FY09-10 plan (which is already in place) includes January-June of 2010, and the draft FY10-11 plans which units will be discussing will include July-December of 2010.

Information Resources Council recently approved changes to the SFX interface that will help users connect to the publisher’s web site quickly when accessed from the citation record in a database. The systems administration software allows setting rules for display of the aggregators or publishers (eg., If there is full-text in Journals@Ovid, then don’t show JSTOR.) The A-to-Z list would still show all aggregators; it is only when the user follows the full-text link from the citation level that the display rule would be activated. The display rule is also controlled by the holdings information, so if an aggregator has earlier access than a publisher, both would be displayed.

Another change will be the elimination of the “go” button.  The action that the user wants will become the link (eg., clicking on the words “link to full-text” initiates the link.)

Both changes will be implemented January 4th.

On December 16th I helped at the Undergraduate Library for the 2 a.m. - 7 a. m. shift. What an interesting experience!

What did I enjoy the most? I enjoyed working with Tonya Wichterman. She taught me how to charge and discharge books (and had to explain at least 3 times!) She’s a very patient person. I also really enjoyed walking around ‘on the hour’ to count students in the library. The 3 a.m. count was 313 students! It was great to see so many students using our facilities to study. Plus, the walk was energizing and helped keep me awake.

What did I learn? Purdue students are mostly a pretty nice and polite bunch of kids. They waited patiently for the coffee to perk and were full of thanks when we brought out the coffeepot. A cup of coffee can really make a tired student happy at 3 a.m. I also learned that 2 hours of sleep just isn’t enough for me for a fifteen-hour workday; Wednesday was a very long day.

When I took on my new role last April, I was excited about the opportunity to learn more about other areas of Purdue Libraries. My experience at Undergrad this past week was fun and enlightening. I’m grateful for the opportunity to help out at UGRL last week, and I look forward to volunteering for a shift at the Engineering Library during spring semester extended hours.

MEL Library participates in event for local school children

Tomalee Doan and Linda Rose read stories to children at the Krannert School's holiday event for local school children.