Update from the Planning and Operations Council

BY NANCY HEWISON

PILLAR: Infrastructure

Structuring an organization is a way to achieve strategic goals. The Libraries’ structure has two parts: 1. our organizational chart (the reporting lines, including the dean and other top administrative positions, and the various divisions and units) and 2. the councils, committees, and other groups. Following the work of the Strategic Planning Group (SPG) in late 2010 and early 2011, the Planning and Operations Council (POC) and Dean’s Council (DC) met several times to discuss this. In considering how to best support strategic goals, POC and DC decided that no changes were needed to the org chart structure, but we needed a reworking of our group structure to help us better meet the 2011-2016 strategic goals of Learning, Scholarly Communication and Global Challenges.

Working with Libraries’ strategic planning consultant, Paul Meyer, POC and DC determined that some new groups would be created, some of our present groups would be reorganized, and others would be discontinued and their functions transferred to other groups. Implementation of these changes will be phased in over the coming months. The Dean will review the charges for the groups and determine their membership. If you don’t already, you may at some point work on a task force to help determine a solution to a specific problem, or on a working group to work through an issue that faces the Libraries. Definitions of task forces, work groups and advisory groups, along with a few current examples of each, are provided below. Further information about specific groups will be available from POC as this process unfolds. Continue to follow INSIDE for updates.

New group structure to support the 2011-1016 strategic plan

Councils
AdCom, Deans Council and Planning and Operations Council (POC) are administrative in nature. Digital Initiatives Council, Information Resources Council, Learning Council and Research Council all work to further strategic activities related to particular functional areas. These councils will report out regularly to POC on council work and will bring projects and issues to POC when resources and greater Libraries-wide participation are required.

AdCom – Dean of Libraries, Jim Mullins
Dean’s Council (DC) – Dean of Libraries, Jim Mullins
Planning and Operations Council (POC) – Chair rotates among associate deans
Digital Initiatives Council (DIC) – Associate Dean for Digital Programs & Information Access, Paul Bracke
Information Resources Council (IRC) – Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Beth McNeil
Learning Council (LC) – Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Beth McNeil
Research Council (RC) – Associate Dean for Research, Scott Brandt

For each of the following groups, a few examples are listed and immediately following the group name the parent group is indicated.

Committees
Examples:
Operations Coordinators Committee – POC
Resources Review Committee – IRC
Safety and Ergonomics Committee – POC

Task Forces
A task force will focus on a specific activity of narrower scope than that of a working group and of shorter duration.

Examples:
Digital Services Infrastructure Task Force – DIC
Discovery Layer Implementation Task Force –  Parent group to be determined by POC
e-Books Patron Driven Acquisitions Implementation Task Force – IRC
Publishing Services Task Force – DIC    
Virtual Reference Task Force – POC       

Working Groups
A working group will be an internal staff group assigned to a longer-term project or program. Working groups will not be considered “standing” as are councils and committees, but their scope will be broader than a shorter-term task force focused on a specific activity. 

Examples:
Data Education Working Group – RC
e-Resources Working Group – IRC
Google Project Working Group – IRC
Open Access Working Group – DIC
Orientation Working Group – LC

External working groups may also be assigned that include Libraries faculty and staff.
Example:
PURR Working Group – Reports to Purdue University Research Repository Steering Committee, made up of Vice President for Research, Vice President for IT and Chief Information Office, and Dean of Libraries

Advisory Groups
An advisory group will provide advice to an individual, project, task force, unit, etc. Advisory groups may include both Libraries staff and external (outside the Libraries) stakeholders. Justifications for the development of advisory groups will be brought to POC for approval; POC will also review proposed membership in order to avoid too much participant duplication.

Examples (with advisee indicated):
Communication and Marketing Advisory Group – Director of Advancement, Sandy Howarth
Dean’s Advisory Council – Dean of Libraries, Jim Mullins
D2C2 Advisory Board –  Associate Dean for Research, Scott Brandt
Graduate Student Libraries Advisory Council – Dean of Libraries, Jim Mullins
Libraries Administrative and Professional Staff Advisory Council – Dean of Libraries, Jim Mullins
Libraries Clerical and Service Staff Advisory Council – Dean of Libraries, Jim Mullins
Press Management Advisory Board – Press Director, Charles Watkinson
Press Management Advisory Board – Press Director, Charles Watkinson
Staff Development and Training Advisory Group – Human Resources Administrator, Julie Hillgrove
Undergraduate Student Libraries Advisory Council – Dean of Libraries, Jim Mullins

Fond farewell to Kristine Anderson

PILLAR: Infrastructure

Kristine J. Anderson is retiring after 23 years as a librarian for English, theatre, dance and women’s studies. She began her Purdue career on September 6, 1988, as assistant professor of library science, in the role of humanities bibliographer and reference librarian. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 1994 and Professor of Library Science in 2008.

During her tenure, Anderson has worked diligently to develop the library collections for her subject areas and provide information literacy sessions to students. She led the effort to establish the Tuesday Talks @Your Library, a series of workshops for faculty and teaching assistants, and the Humanities, Social Science and Education Library (HSSE) workshop series. She has also been an active member of the Literary Awards Committee in the Department of English which gives annual prizes for creative writing to high school, undergraduate and graduate students, as well as the planning of an annual lecture by a well-known author.

Anderson has served on many library and campus committees over the years, including the Libraries 2006 Strategic Planning Committee, the Metalib Committee, and the University Educational Policy Committee, to name just a few. She chaired the Electronic Access Support Team (EAST), and led them in choosing a vendor for link resolver and federated search products. She chaired the User Instruction Team’s Reach the Teacher sub-team and also served as chair of the Library Scholar’s Grant committee. Active in the Literatures in English Section of the Association for College and Research Libraries, she served as its chair from 2003-2004 and in 2005 organized and moderated its annual program, “Old Texts Made New.”

She has published numerous articles on librarianship and literature, most recently a bibliographic essay, "Translation Studies," in Choice Magazine (February, 2011). Anderson has made presentations in Indiana, nationally and internationally. She spent a sabbatical in 1996-97 as a visiting scholar at the Centre for Translation Studies and Lexicology at the University, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Some of her colleagues write:

• Even several years removed, I am amazed at Kristine’s intellectual range. She is a literary theorist, linguist, translator and bibliographer. In her daily tasks she has brought an international perspective that goes far beyond the formal preparation of most American librarians. She joins that growing host of librarians who attended a library school that has ceased to exist. She takes great pride in her work. Every day that she was my direct colleague, I respected and appreciated her contributions to Purdue students and faculty, the Libraries and the University.
  
  Formerly employed by the Modern Language Association of America and the New York Public Library, Kristine lived for several years in Manhattan. As a result, when we attended a conference, or even just around West Lafayette, she could walk faster than any human being I ever met. - Mark Tucker, professor emeritus of Library Science, Purdue University; served at Purdue, 1979-2003

• During the last eight or nine years I have come to know and appreciate Kristine as a colleague and librarian. Of course I have known and worked from a distance for 23 years, but during the last decade I began to appreciate how Kristine shines as a clear and practical thinker. Her colleagues are always interested in her thoughts and ready to support her. She has an unusual gift to lead—and the HSSE librarians, each with their own ideas and research agendas, are not the easiest group to coordinate (the original herding cats situation). However, Kristine's straight forward, "let's get this job done" attitude made working with her a productive pleasure. - Judy Nixon, professor of Library Science and liaison to College of Education

• Kristine Anderson has been a stable presence in the HSSE Library and is highly respected among departmental faculty. Through her coordination of HSSE faculty members, Kristine significantly contributed to the smooth transition within English 106. She serves as the library liaison for faculty members in English literature, women’s studies, theatre and dance. She is known for her willingness and ability to help students. Kristine is also knowledgeable in relatively obscure areas of the collection such as Swedish literature. Though Kristine generally has a professional, serious demeanor, her enthusiasm for books is obvious, and her sense of humor at times brightens her entire face and puts a twinkle in her eye. - Tomalee Doan, head, HSSEB Division and associate professor

• In my work alongside Kristine, I have found her to be a colleague with a keen sense of humor that approaches undetected and usually catches me off guard. In coordinating the teaching of HSSE librarians in various programs through the years, she has quietly gotten a lot of work out of us! She is also an unfailingly reliable co-teacher whose frankness makes her easy to work with. Kristine will certainly be missed. If she weren’t leaving, I would want her to be hired. - Larry Mykytiuk, associate professor

• Kristine is an excellent bibliographer and liaison. She is full of curiosity, reads a lot of books as well as reviews, and keeps up with the teaching and research interests of the English faculty. With readers in mind, she has always been conscientious in her collection development work. - Robert Freeman, associate professor

• Kristine has always been a valued colleague, a true and honest intellect, scholar and librarian. She will be missed…but, one hopes to continue enjoying her presence and spirit outside these campus halls - Jean-Pierre V.M. Hérubel, professor

A reception honoring Kristine will be held on Wednesday, June 29 in the HSSE Periodical Reading Room from 2-4 p.m. RSVP to libevent@purdue.edu by June 23 if you plan to attend.

PILLARS: Robust Research & Scholarship Program and New Relationships

The Purdue Libraries hosted a two-day workshop in late May on the topic of library-based publishing. It was the third of three Institute of Museum and Library Services –funded (IMLS) workshops resulting from the Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success collaborative planning grant awarded to Principal Investigator Jim Mullins last year. With grant colleagues from the University of Utah and Georgia Institute of Technology, the Libraries hosted 40 guests for two days. Workshop participants ranged from deans and assistant deans at neighboring libraries to digital publishing and scholarly communication librarians as well as colleagues from university presses. Also in attendance were representatives from IMLS and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL).

Over two days, the invited participants heard from 15 speakers from the US and Canada who were selected to present case studies of their home library publishing programs. The ensuing discussion among the participants covered five primary areas of investigation: technological infrastructure, business and sustainability models, organization and collaboration, skills and training, and policies and processes. Purdue grant staff members Charles Watkinson, director, Purdue University Press, and Mark Newton, Digital Collections Librarian, will be working with their partner colleagues in the following months to prepare the workshop outcomes for a white paper on Library Publishing Services, which will appear on the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) Campus-based Publishing Resource Center (http://www.arl.org/sparc/partnering/) later this year.

PILLAR: Robust Local Collections (Digital and Print)

At the end of May, we sent our first shipment of government documents to Google. The shipment consisted of 26,749 items in 400 boxes. Our Purdue Libraries Google project staff are hard at work pulling and preparing items for the next shipment.

Another major part of the project is getting underway. The Purdue Libraries have undertaken to send the U.S. Congressional Serial Set to Google for digitization. The Serial Set began in 1817 and is a collection of reports and documents from Congress that were not issued elsewhere.

What kind of reports are in the Serial Set? In a single volume from 1933 we find reports on liquor traffic; the use of foreign steel in the Hoover Dam; farm relief to rural areas; and free postage privileges for Mrs. Coolidge.

A huge challenge for us is that there are tens of thousands of individual titles in the Serial Set and, as its name suggests, it is currently cataloged under one serial title. Often a hundred or more separate documents are bound in a single volume. Some documents are only a page or two; others are lengthy reports. Not only does each individual document title need to be cataloged, but each one also needs to be barcoded.

Patty Glasson has developed a template for minimal cataloging of these documents. She is currently testing it. Staff in Resource Services and throughout the Libraries will start the project soon. We also anticipate hiring a few skilled student assistants to help as well. After a few months we will assess our progress. It is possible that other CIC libraries might later be able to help with the cataloging, following the procedures that we have developed. While they would not be barcoding or sending their Serial Set volumes to Google, by cataloging them, records would be created that we could use for preparing our volumes for shipment.

Besides making these historical documents easier to find in Google Books, the records will be in WorldCat as well, providing helpful bibliographic information for scholars.

A commercial vendor has also digitized a large portion of the Serial Set. We have access to these records through our purchase of the Digital United States Congressional Serial Set (see the databases list on the Libraries website).

For more information about the Serial Set, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congressional_Serial_Set

Successful staff transitions

PILLAR: Infrastructure

DOT LANZALOTTO
Library Assistant
Circulation and Repositories

My 35-year tenure began in Libraries, June 1, 1977, working for Teresa Zidar in Periodicals Checking. Six months later I moved to the Libraries Audio Visual Center (AVC), under the direction of David Moses and supervisor Carl Stafford. One of my jobs there involved retrieving and loading 16mm motion picture films onto projectors so patrons could view them in small viewing rooms. In addition, patrons from all campus departments would come to the AVC to check out audio visual equipment and media for use in their classroom instructions. Thus began my public service career.

In 1982, I was offered a position in the new John W. Hicks Undergraduate Library (HIKS) working for David Moses. I continued to serve our patrons in the Film Library and in addition began filling the shelves of Libraries Storage, now Hicks Repository (HKRP), with books and journals that were formerly stored in the North 9th Street Warehouse. Students, staff and faculty were excited! There was no longer a waiting period of 2-3 days for their requested items. Of course being able to provide them with immediate, on-site service made me very happy too! So now my motto was set: The happier I can make people with my good service, the blessing of my own happiness will follow.

Over the years, as the role of HIKS has evolved, so have many of my duties in HKRP. In addition to my regular HKRP duties, I now provide assistance to patrons with Circulation Services billing questions. I enjoy this role of helping patrons to understand our circulation policies and procedures and feel comfortable adding this responsibility to my other job duties as this was one of my responsibilities not so long ago. My desk is now directly located behind the HKRP service counter which also was the case MANY years ago.

In addition to working in HKRP and the repository located at Lynn Hall, I also travel to Life Sciences Library, Archives and Special Collections and Humanities, Social Science and Education Library and work at their service desks. It gives me an incredible feeling when I am thanked by my coworkers in these areas for doing my job and giving them a little more time to do theirs.

I think this opportunity of job sharing, learning and interacting helps to bring us all together in our decentralized system. It is my belief that these interactions not only provide us with the occasion to be more accepting of one another but also the time to learn more about our jobs and improve ourselves. And, again it is equally enjoyable for me to be able to continue to practice my motto and provide friendly and helpful service to faculty, staff and students. I have been lucky enough to receive compliments in the form of words and actions for giving them assistance. They really do appreciate the help of a positive staff member.

As you can tell, job duties and transitions have been an on-going part of my Libraries life. I see it as a very good thing! Change stimulates my brain and this in turn helps me function and make better choices at work and in my personal life. I encourage all staff members to consider extending their horizons and to volunteer for some of the opportunities that are offered to us as our roles and visions of our new Libraries Strategic Plan are unveiled.

Editor's Note: Over the next several months you will be reading about Libraries staff members who have made successful transitions into new jobs or those who have added new roles and responsibilities to their current job duties. If you'd like to share your experience, please contact Teresa Brown at tmabrown@purdue.edu.

PILLAR: New Relationships

Over the past few years, the efforts of the Susan Bulkeley Butler Women’s Archives have allowed Archives and Special Collections (ASC) to take in intriguing collections pertaining to female aviators at Purdue. Archives and Special Collections’ newest exhibit, “Soaring to New Heights, Women in Aviation at Purdue” highlights these aviators.  

As to be expected, the exhibit contains treasures from the George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart materials, including Earhart’s helmet, ice pick (for opening cans of tomato juice on which she sustained during long flights) and the “Questionnaire for Women Students,” in which Earhart raises provocative questions about men’s roles in the home during that period.

Alongside  Earhart, there are many women who share in Purdue’s aviation history, but few know of their accomplishments. These women include:

• Virginia Smith Peck, who’s photo has been on display in other exhibits because of her mountain-climbing abilities. As it turns out, she had a penchant for flying as well.
• Curtiss Wright Cadettes, a group of 83 young women employed by Curtiss Wright Corporation came to Purdue in 1943 to study aeronautical engineering at Purdue in order help fill the depleted ranks of engineers and draftspersons during World War Two.
• Janice Voss, NASA astronaut and Purdue alumna.
• Roberta Gleiter, who’s papers document her life and career. She was one of the few women to graduate from the School of Chemical Engineering in 1960, recipient of an Outstanding Chemical Engineer Award from Purdue and advocate for women in Engineering. After taking some time off to raise her family, she launched her career with the Aerospace Corporation.
• Purdue President France Cordova, former Chief Scientist at NASA.
• Annie Smith Peck, a Latin and elocution professor at Purdue from 1881 until 1883 who was widely known for her mountain climbing abilities, but also as an advocate and spokesperson for aviation in its early days.

Make sure to stop by ASC during this exhibit to explore our rich aviation history at Purdue.