Greetings

BY SHARON WEINER, EdD
Professor and W. Wayne Booker Endowed Chair in Information Literacy

Greetings to all of the staff of the Purdue University Libraries! I am looking forward to working with you and getting to know you. I am honored to be the first person selected for the new endowed chair position. I have worked as a library Dean at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, a Library Director at Vanderbilt University, and a department head and member of the library faculty at the University at Buffalo Health Sciences Library. In 2007, I received a doctorate in higher education leadership from Vanderbilt. I believe that my background has prepared me well for the diverse aspects of this important position.

In my professional life, I am passionate about information literacy, the role of academic libraries in higher education, and academic library leadership. At home, I love classical music, gardening, and crafts. My husband John and I have a Sheltie named Cos. I have two sons who both live in Philadelphia. I look forward to becoming a member of your community!

Sharon's office is located in the Undergraduate Library, Room G941.  She may be reached at 496-3128 or at sweiner@purdue.edu.

About the Booker Chair
Funding for this position comes from the endowment established by Dr. W. Wayne Booker (BS Economics '56), former Chief Financial Officer of Ford Motor Company, and Purdue alumnus. Dr. Booker established this endowment to ensure that Purdue would always have an advocate for information literacy. Receiving the first endowed chair in information literacy at any university, Purdue has been recognized as an international leader in the field. Dr. Booker passed away in October 2007 at the age of 73.

Starting June 15, Libraries staff can help ITRS and the Web Environments Steering Committee (WESC) evaluate a new catalog interface, VuFind. VuFind is an open-source catalog interface that allows for easier, more familiar searching on the user-end, while maintaining all of our current structure and functionality on the back-end.

The catalog interface debuted during One Book Higher, and ITRS staff members have been working for several months to sort out any kinks with the system. On June 15, a private beta period will begin where Libraries staff can test the catalog and report bugs to ITRS. We encourage you to really test the catalog — search for difficult-to-find items or those that you search for often, and make sure that the results coming back are the correct ones. The test link will be sent via Liball on June 15, along with a link to Trac, a system for submitting tickets and displaying updates on bugs, enhancements, and new features for the catalog.

Following a few weeks of private beta with Libraries staff, depending on how many bugs are discovered, a public beta for the campus community will also be available this summer. WESC will be conducting user testing of the catalog parallel to the beta testing process. Our goal is to have the new catalog interface in place for the start of classes in August.

VuFind is currently being used and further developed by Villanova University, Georgia Tech, and is being tested in beta form at Yale, Stanford, University of Michigan, and many other universities.

Overall, this new interface will provide a better searching experience for our users, giving them more options to narrow their searches, understand the results they receive, and locate the materials they need. Stay tuned for the test link on June 15!

As reported previously in INSIDE, our work is changing for several reasons, including new directions relating to the campus and Libraries’ strategic plans. Two areas needing continuing assistance beginning almost immediately are the HKRP barcoding project and Interlibrary Loan.

Barcoding Work in HKRP
More than 75,000 items in HKRP have been barcoded since last fall. We want to move forward on the barcoding project, so we will have better access to our collections and also so that we will be prepared to move in the future to an off-site storage facility. Barcoding requires detail orientation and an interest in problem solving. Work includes pulling materials from the HKRP shelves, loading them onto book carts, and wheeling the carts to workstations for processing.   

Formal training is being scheduled for early- to mid-July for all barcoders, new and returning. Two open houses have been scheduled for those seeking more information about the HKRP barcode project: Wednesday, June 17th, 10:00 a.m. – noon and 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 pm, in HKRP.

At the open house, staff will have an opportunity to take a tour of HKRP and the barcoding facilities, observe demos of the barcoding process, have an opportunity to barcode items if they are interested, and partake in refreshments.

If you are interested in working on barcoding as part of your regular duties, talk with your supervisor and then contact Rebecca Richardson.

ILL
As you may know, three libraries (PNHS, MATH, and ENGR) volunteered this spring semester to assist with ILL activity as part of a pilot project. During recent discussions on allocations to the FY10 student wage budgets, division heads committed to expanding the pilot to include staff in each library assisting with ILL operations. 

During June, Amy Winks and/or Paul Bracke will be in touch with division heads to coordinate ILL activities throughout Purdue Libraries.  An information session is scheduled for June 17, 10:00 a.m. in the Math Library Lounge.

If you have questions regarding how staff can assist with ILL/ Document Delivery please try to attend the information session or contact Amy Winks.

Desktop Liaison Program
A new role in the planning stages is a desktop support liaison program. Supervisors are working with Lisa Purvis to identify staff to take on this new role in the various units and libraries. Desktop Support Liaisons will be trained to provide a basic level of technical support to staff and patrons and to facilitate communication between IT Staff and Libraries/Units.

Next Steps
Next steps in determining new roles for staff include discussions on priorities for these roles at Planning and Operations Council with supervisors and LCSSAC. Coming soon in a future issue of INSIDE will be information about digitization projects and Oral History Program transcription work. 

And, finally, for anyone looking for additional activities right now, don’t forget about the annual and semi-annual circulation-related searching projects, which can be accomplished without leaving your library. Searching for in-transit books and claims returned, and our routines relating to missing and purged items, all continue to be important collection management projects for Purdue Libraries. If you need assistance with any of these reports, please contact Laurie Sadler.

Engineering Library Recognizes Purdue's 140th Birthday

Sandy Galloway created this Engineering Library's display in recognition of Purdue's 140th Birthday.

APSAC Awards Spring Grants

Jake Carlson and Maureen Sharp have each been awarded APSAC professional development grants.

Jake will be using the APSAC grant towards the costs of enrolling in a course on the principles of project management offered by Gatlin Education Services through Ivy Tech. “Among other things, this course will help me to identify and reduce risks and other potential problems in completing projects, facilitate communication between different groups, and to be better able to deliver project results on time and within budget. Completing this course will also count towards the requirements for obtaining formal certification as a ‘project management professional’ by the Project Management Institute, the leading membership association of project managers. I believe that obtaining formal training in project management and my eventual certification will be an asset to the Libraries in applying for grants or other sources of funding to support our research projects.  I am grateful to APSAC for awarding me this grant as I would not have been able to pay for all of the enrollment costs on my own."

Maureen will be attending the Guild of Book Workers Annual Conference, the “Standards of Excellence” Seminar, in San Francisco this coming October. "The conference is a wonderful opportunity to connect with my peers, learn the latest techniques, and see and handle new materials for bookbinding and conservation. Having attended in the past, it is a real pleasure to have this opportunity to attend again, as the workshops are always interesting and informative. I am very grateful to APSAC for giving me the grant, and look forward to October," said Maureen.

Grants up to $750 are awarded twice a year. APSAC awarded a total of $12,645 for its spring 2009 grants. APSAC's Professional Development Subcommittee chose the winners from 45 applicants.

The next application period will be Sept. 1 through Oct. 1. Information about the process is at www.purdue.edu/apsac/Subcommittees/grantgeneral.htm

May 15, 2009 marked the final day for members of the campus community to respond to the list of journals and databases proposed for cancellation. Because librarians had been working with faculty during the past few months to decide on which titles, much of the negotiation had already taken place long before the deadline. However, there were some last minute changes and substitutions and immediately following the May 15th deadline, librarians submitted them and the list was finalized as of June 1, 2009. 

The final list of titles is now available from the Libraries Web site, through the Materials Budget FY10 link under Initiatives. A more detailed final list, for our needs within the Libraries, is accessible from Pedro and from the Information Resources Council intranet page. Diana Grove and staff from Resource Operations have begun to work from the cancellation list to prepare for our August renewal with EBSCO. 

I met with the University Library Committee several times throughout the process, and made a final report to them at their May 28 meeting. ULC members were keenly interested in the process we undertook, and in some cases led the materials review effort in their departments.

Thank you to all who helped make this huge project go as smoothly as it has. While I hope we don’t have to do it again anytime soon I am confident that if we do, we will be ready.    

Resources Operations staff will work this summer to be ready for the August EBSCO renewal, consulting with librarians and the Information Resources Council as needed. Bill Corya will begin to cancel targeted databases as renewals arrive.

Summer Library Tours

Once again LCSSAC will be sponsoring summer tours of the Purdue Libraries and Units. Each of the following locations has agreed to host a tour of their area for any interested staff.  Even if you have participated in the past we encourage everyone to take advantage of this fun and informational activity. It’s also a great opportunity to see what changes have been made and what projects may be in the works.

Watch for an announcement for on-line registration for each tour. We sincerely hope that you are able to join LCSSAC and our tour guides for this unique look at our Libraries.

July 1 — Chemistry Library, 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
July 2 — Aviation Technology Library, 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
July 7 — Earth & Atmospheric Sciences Library, 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
July 8 — Veterinary Medical Library, 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
July 9 — Engineering Library, 1:30p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
July 13 — Pharmacy, Nursing and Health Sciences Library, 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
July 14 — Life Sciences Library, 9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. 
July 15 — Administrative Offices, 9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.  or 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
July 16 — Mathematical Sciences Library, 1:30 pm. – 3:00 p.m.
July 21 — Physics Library, 9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
July 23 — Archives and Special Collections, 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
July 27 — Humanities, Social Sciences and Education Library, 9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
July 28 — Management & Economics Library, 9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
July 29 — Undergraduate Library, 9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
August 3 — ITRS & ROP, 9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
August 4 — Circulation Services, 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Marilyn Rogers conducts a tour of the VETM library in 2007.

As reported in the May 6 INSIDE, the reconfigured OC, or Planning and Operations Council (POC), has begun to focus on next steps with strategic planning, which include unit and council planning. An important first step for POC was to develop a timeline or calendar for POC discussions and updates on unit and council plans throughout the year. In addition to creating a Libraries-wide planning framework, these regular discussions will provide valuable information for the Dean as he presents information to the provost during the year.

This month units and councils are drafting goals for the upcoming year. POC members will bring these goals for discussion at the June 11 and June 25 POC meetings. POC’s discussion of goals will allow for overall awareness of activities and initiatives in the Libraries, consideration of resource allocation and re-allocation, and prioritization as needed. In future years we will begin the unit/council planning cycle in the spring.

Next steps this year: 

• June — develop unit and council plans
• July — unit/council plans for FY10 go into effect
• October — first unit/councils report to POC and the dean

In subsequent years the planning cycle will be:

• October — updates on unit/council accomplishments for the current FY presented to POC and the dean
• February — updates on unit/council accomplishments for the current FY and drafts of unit plans for the upcoming FY presented to and discussed with POC and the dean in late February  
• March — unit/council plan drafts refined as needed based on POC/dean discussions
• June — final report of unit/council accomplishments for FY presented to and discussed with POC and the dean

During these planning-intensive months, POC may need to extend regular meetings or schedule additional meetings to cover both operational issues and planning. POC meeting minutes will be posted to the intranet. Additionally, POC members will be bringing issues, both operational and planning, to everyone in the Libraries for broader discussion.  We look forward to everyone’s contributions to planning.