New Library Management System to Transform Library Services

BY PAUL BRACKE

PILLAR: Infrastructure

Purdue Libraries is working with Ex Libris to develop Alma, a next-generation of library services framework. Alma was previously known as URM. Replacing Voyager, our current library management system, Alma will support library operations such as: selection, acquisition, metadata management and fulfillment for the full spectrum of library materials. It is specifically being designed to support these functions in electronic and digital formats, in addition to print. We are on track to go live with the new system in July 2012.

How did we get to this point?
For the past 13 years, Libraries has been utilizing Voyager. Voyager, like all Library Management Systems currently available, was designed to manage predominantly print collections. Over the past 13 years, however, our collections have become largely electronic and advances in digital publishing and mass digitization will further diminish the importance of our print collection. Recognizing the limitations of Voyager in supporting the strategic directions of the Libraries, we began working with Ex Libris in September 2009, in the first of two phases to implement Alma.

During the design phase, Purdue Libraries staff worked with colleagues from Ex Libris and three other development partners: Boston College, Princeton and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium). Ex Libris took this initial phase to look at how to meet our needs in order to consolidate, optimize and extend the range of library services we can offer. Design took place in several tracks:

• Metadata, including both MARC and non-MARC cataloging
• Acquisitions and selection, looking at the process of acquiring resources from selection to activation
• Fulfillment, including circulation and reserves
• Digital, covering the management digitized information (Laurie Sadler, involving input from the Circulation Steering Committee)

We are currently in the second phase, which is testing. The testing phase allows us to identify issues for Ex Libris, and also provides us insight into how we will be able to best take advantage of the capabilities of the new system. As we progress through the testing and get closer to going live with the new system, we will be involving more individuals in testing and providing training.

Paul Bracke will be publishing a second article about Alma in August which will explain how the new system will affect Libraries staff. If you have any questions in the meantime, contact Paul at pbracke@purdue.edu.

Thank you Katherine "Katie" Markee for 43 years of dedicated service

PILLAR: Infrastructure

Katherine “Katie” Markee joined Purdue Libraries on July 1, 1968, as a Reference Librarian in the General Library (now Humanities, Social Science and Education Library). She received a BA from Trinity College in Washington, D.C., a MA from Columbia University and a MSLS from Case Western Reserve University School of Library Science. At the time she came to Purdue, the General Library had a reference desk on each floor and the main card catalog was on the second floor. Markee covered the early morning shift, beginning at 7:30 a.m., and John Moriarty was the Director of Libraries. Because she had experience in the corporate world and had built up relationships with university faculty members, she was asked in 1971 to serve as the Personnel Librarian.

In 1975, Markee was appointed to serve as the Databases Librarian for the recently initiated Computer Based Information Service (CBIS). She held this position for 22 years. “It all began with a collaborated effort between the Libraries Director, Joseph Dagnese, and the Deans of the School of Veterinary Medicine and School of Pharmacy. From there, the service continued to grow, providing access to databases available through 12 U.S. and European vendors. It was a well-used coordinated service, with a great deal of input and helping hands from Libraries staff and campus departments,” said Markee. She gave many presentations to students and faculty about the database service and performed many Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) searches for users. She was a long time member of the Library Instruction Committee and co-taught GS 175 for several years. She also spent time helping in Technical Information Services (TIS).

In 1996, when Helen Schroyer, Special Collections Librarian retired, Markee was asked to serve as Interim Head of the Archives and Special Collections Unit, a position she held until 2006, when she was appointed to her current position as Oral History Librarian. Since then, she has interviewed hundreds of Purdue leaders — alumni, students, faculty, retirees, administrators, President Emeriti and members of the Board of Trustees, capturing the growth, changes and history associated with Purdue University.

During her 43-year career, she has published many articles and gave presentations at conferences and annual meetings, as well as winning several awards and honors. Two of her most memorable include the Research Support Award, the first granted by the Purdue Chapter of Sigma Xi, the scientific research honorary society, for her support of research by Purdue faculty and the John H. Moriarty Award for Excellence in Library Service. “It’s very humbling to be recognized for your work and efforts. That’s why I am so pleased to see Dean Mullins establish the Libraries Teaching Award,” said Markee.

She has also served as a faculty fellow at Tarkington and Meredith Halls, as Treasurer for Purdue’s AAUP chapter and enjoyed each and every event while serving as chair of the Libraries Special Events Committee for more than 30 years.

“There have been many wonderful times and many memories of my years in the Libraries. I’ll continue to attend Purdue Football games and hosting tailgating activities (I don’t think I’ve missed more than two or three games since I’ve been here.) and enjoy many community and University events. To everyone, thank you. Boiler Up!"

A reception honoring Katie will be held on Thursday, June 30 from 3-5:00 p.m. in the Purdue Memorial Union’s West Faculty Lounge.

Some of her coworkers and colleagues write:

• I hate to see Katie retire, even though I would like to retire. She is a wealth of information about Purdue and the Libraries. I will miss her greatly! - Dale L. White, Auxiliary Services
• I have fond memories at the beginning of my career at Purdue of driving with Katie (and others), back in the days of Computer Based Information Service, down to Indy or up to Chicago for Derwent or DIALOG training. There would often be donuts and coffee for the trip... those were the days. – Scott Brandt, associate dean for Research
• Upon arriving at Purdue, I quickly learned from medical librarians within the state that Katherine Markee was one of the first three librarians in Indiana to be trained by National Library of Medicine staff to search the MEDLINE database. She was the first Databases Librarian at Purdue and also served as coordinator for the Libraries’ Computer Based Information Service once the second generation of bibliographic searchers started arriving on the scene. She has been a great mentor and colleague! - Gretchen Stephens, associate professor
• Katie Markee is one of those people whose professional identity is inseparable from the identity of the University. That Katie received a credit in Irena McCammon Scott’s book, Uncle: My Journey with John Purdue (2008), testifies to her devotion to understanding things uniquely Purdue and to her skill at providing research assistance. Katie pioneered for the Purdue Libraries as the first person to consistently perform online searches. Katie was the soul of professional patience and was appointed Database Librarian. She also trained other library faculty members to do mediated online searching. Katie lived through several stages of technology innovation, becoming a legend in her own time. - Mark Tucker, professor emeritus of Library Science, Purdue University; served at Purdue, 1979-2003
• I have known Katie 27 years now. She always does thoughtful things that make a person's day — cards, little notes, shares stories and even took me to Triple XXX when she found out I had never been before. She is and has been an inspiration and I can only hope I can move as fast as she does as I get older. Katie will be missed but I hope she enjoys her retirement — she deserves some down time! – Mary Sego, Archives and Special Collections
• I always enjoyed Katie’s “Boiler Up” morning greeting, especially on football Fridays when she was very exuberant. I will also miss her as a resource for Purdue questions. A true Boilermaker, she is able to relate countless stories and facts about the people and history of Purdue. – Susan Calvert, Archives and Special Collections
• I remember on my first day of work at Purdue in 2003, Katie walked me around and introduced me to everyone and brought me a cup of coffee. She has been a tremendous resource for us in Archives and Special Collections on the history of Purdue, helping so many faculty, students and researchers over the years with their many questions. Several years ago when Dean Mullins asked us to start an Oral History project, Katie was selected for the role as the Oral History Librarian due to her warm, inviting personality, her many Purdue connections and her extensive knowledge of University history. She has made an astounding contribution to the University through the hundreds of oral history interviews she has conducted and collected for the archives. Her kindness, her strong Purdue spirit and her sense of humor will be very much missed when she is no longer working with us in the Libraries. But I’m sure we will still see her around campus routing for the Boilermakers! – Sammie Morris, head, Division of Archives and Special Collections and associate professor
• I have enjoyed knowing Katie during my time here in the Libraries. Her knowledge of Purdue and its history is unparalleled. She has so many experiences and knows so many current and past Boilers, it’s hard to remain unimpressed. To say she is a Purdue fan is an understatement; she lives and breathes Old Gold and Black! Enjoy your retirement Katie and “Boiler up!” - Rebecca Richardson, electronic resources librarian
• One of the things I appreciate about Katie is that her pride in Purdue and Libraries always shines through. She’s been a booster and a supporter of Libraries, cheering on colleagues’ accomplishments and creating and maintaining positive relationships with the Libraries’ friends in the Purdue community. She is also one of the most gracious people I know. For many years, she’s taken the lead in creating events for colleagues who are leaving to start the next chapter in their lives. It hardly seems possible that we’re about to celebrate her own transition! - Nancy S. Hewison, associate dean for Planning and Administration
• It is true; Katie Markee is probably the most well-known librarian at Purdue. She knows everyone and everyone knows her because of the critical roles she has held in the Libraries. I met her in the mid 1980’s as the Database Librarian. In the days before CD-Rom, Yahoo and Google, she used a “dumb” terminal to do online database searches for faculty and students. Katie was the key person doing the searches, and later, after librarians got PCs, Katie taught the rest of us how to do them. Then came the days of databases on CD-Rom and patrons started doing their own searches. However someone had to teach them how; Katie was right onboard. Patron searching brought a huge change to libraries and Katie’s job changed with the times. She moved to Archives and Special Collections and then the oral history project. Her colleague friendship with so many researchers from the online search days on campus led naturally to the oral history project. Since she knew so many retired faculty members, she was the perfect librarian to interview them and capture their histories of Purdue. Katie certainly could tell a long oral history story about Purdue Libraries. Thanks, Katie, for all you have done, for all the trips to Indy for database training, for all the teaching, for all the oral histories and for being such a great Boilermaker. – Judy Nixon, professor of Library Science and liaison to College of Education
• Dear Katie, I hear you are retiring after many wonderful years at Purdue. I want to congratulate you on 43 years of commitment and great service to Purdue. I also want to thank you for being such a devoted and avid Boilermaker. I hear you have only missed a handful of games. We are so appreciative of fans like you; those that bleed Gold and Black. You enjoy your retirement and we’ll plan to see you in Ross Ade soon! Boiler Up! - Coach Danny Hope, Purdue Football

PILLARS: Infrastructure

During the past year, I have been working on a campus-wide Business Services project team to build out the OnePurdue HR Organization Structure as the foundation for future electronic workflows and automation of business processes. We are in the process of updating data in OnePurdue to make sure supervisors are properly assigned for all regular staff and faculty. This task will be completed during the first week of July and is a crucial element for successful implementation of a new business process.

Starting on August 1, we will be implementing the online leave process for exempt (monthly) staff only (excluding graduate students). The following leaves will be included in the online process: vacation, sick (employee and family, non-FMLA), personal business days, bereavement and jury duty. The new process will require exempt faculty and staff to login to OnePurdue to submit their leave requests rather than submitting a paper form 33. Then, supervisors will login to OnePurdue to review/approve the request. Libraries exempt staff will be contacted around July 14 about instructor-led training sessions that will be held by the University’s Business Services Training and Communications Team later that month.

Please note: there is no change to how non-exempt (bi-weekly) staff will handle their leaves at this time.

Libraries award Open Access recognition

PILLAR: Robust Research and Scholarship Program

Purdue University Libraries has awarded Ian Bell, PhD, with Purdue’s Open Access Award for his outstanding contributions to broadening the reach of the Purdue’s Herrick Laboratories’ conference series. His significant investment of time, resources, energy and forethought in the preparation of papers and descriptive, metadata information and deposit within Purdue e-Pubs, and his service to Herrick Labs, the School of Mechanical Engineering, the College of Engineering, Purdue University and scholars around the world, will greatly enhance the transfer of knowledge from our university by building bridges to scholarship made available through the Libraries.  

The Scholarly Communication Committee, along with Libraries Dean, Jim Mullins; Tim Sands, Purdue provost; Anil Bajaj, head of Mechanical Engineering; Patricia Davies, director of Herrick Laboratories; and James Braun, Ian Bell’s advisor and Herrick professor of mechanical engineering, were in attendance for the award presentation, which was given prior to this year’s Open Access Week as Bell will be out of the country during this year’s week-long celebration.

Libraries awards a person or group on campus that has made an exceptional contribution to extending the reach of scholarship affiliated with Purdue through collaboration with Purdue initiatives and by embracing the challenging of expanding the global reach and impact of our collected works. The award is given in appreciation for the real-world application of forward-thinking principles and actions.

The 2011 Open Access Week will take place October 24-30. For the future, Open Access Week is set to be the last full week in October. Make sure to follow INSIDE for details.

Successful staff transitions

PILLAR: Infrastructure

LINDA ROSE
An Excellent Adventure: My Life in HSSEB

The changes in my position over the six years I’ve worked in the Libraries reflect the changes in the Libraries itself. My experience has been both challenging and gratifying. I thrive on the energizing feeling that comes from the efficiencies we’ve gained and the many ways we’ve adapted to patron needs.

When I began working at John W. Hicks Undergraduate Library (Hicks) as operations coordinator, two staff members were scheduled at the circulation desk and two, usually faculty members, at the reference desk for most of the hours of the day. At times, we did have lines of patrons, but at the reference desk, business clearly waned. The reasons why? You probably know these as well as I. Resources are being increasingly digitized, and, as much as I love the physical presence of books, I can’t help but acknowledge the convenience for patrons. Students are also coming to college increasingly prepared; more of them mention the databases they’ve used in high school and of course, they Google. Adding to student preparedness, our faculty members are doing their job. Students often now say something like, “This guy from the library came to our class and told us about . . .” As for the Hicks collection, I noticed how impatient users were when they discovered they had to go all the way over to the Humanities, Social Science and Education Library (HSSE) to find enough books on their topic. When I ran the circulation reports in advance of moving the collection over to HSSE, the number of titles with 0 circulations was substantial and the out datedness of many of them apparent. Several of the books about writing research papers even had typewriters pictured on the cover. It’s understandable that Hicks staff misses having the books, but our users clearly benefit from the consolidated, more relevant collection.

While I was at Hicks, the Libraries began to move towards thinking divisionally rather than in terms of individual, autonomous units. Tomalee Doan became head of the HSSEB division, and I became operations coordinator for the division and for the Management and Economics Library (MEL). At MEL, I witnessed firsthand the direction the Libraries were moving. The collection had been pared down to just a few rows of highly circulated, current volumes; an efficient repository retrieval system was in place and an IM system for MEL patrons in use. While I worked at MEL, Phase 2 of the renovation took place and Phase 1 had just been completed. The result of all the pounding and the plastic sheets was a fresh, new space with areas for students to work collaboratively and an innovative classroom, which quickly became a popular spot for both students and instructors.

Today, I am operations coordinator for the HSSEB division and of the HSSE Library. Working at HSSE, I witness the growing demand for our electronic collections as we strive to best assist patrons with all of the new eBooks and databases, but I also see, as I counted twenty-seven full carts waiting to be shelved during the aftermath of spring semester, the continued value of our print collection and the need for it to be as accessible as possible.

More meaningful to me than the many physical changes I’ve witnessed, has been the opportunity to have worked with each and every staff member across the division and learn firsthand about all of the many jobs they do and ways they contribute to the organization. Yes, I have heard some whining about the changes over the years, but far more frequently than this, I’ve been impressed by the can do attitude I’ve seen in my coworkers as we move forward together. There are admittedly some things regrettable about the changes I’ve seen. Summers were once at a more leisurely pace, but I really didn’t need to reread Gone with the Wind yet again as I did my first summer in the Libraries; Rhett still leaves in the end.

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.

Purdue Libraries receives recognition

PILLAR: Robust Local Collections (Digital and Print)

The Biomedical and Life Sciences Division of the Special Libraries Association (SLA) in conjunction with the Academic Division of SLA and the College and University Business Libraries Section of the Business and Finance Division of SLA is pleased to announce that an analysis by Tony Stankus, FSLA and Amy Hardin, a member of SLA has confirmed that in terms of the number of substantive published papers of research and professional practice in the leading journals for subject specialist librarians from 2000-2010, Purdue University was ranked fifth nationally.

A certificate was presented to Hal Kirkwood on June 13 at the 102nd Annual Conference of the Special Libraries Association in Philadelphia at an event sponsored by Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.

The Top 5
5. Purdue University and University of Minnesota tied
4. Penn State
3. UCLA
2. Rutgers
1. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

PILLAR: Infrastructure

The Safety and Ergonomic Committee’s (SEC) June meeting featured a presentation on fire prevention and training by Lieutenant John Guerra of the Purdue Fire Department. Committee members received instruction on the proper use of a fire extinguisher and then were given the opportunity to use one to put out a small fire.

SEC members keep up with safety issues in their library locations and are trained in ergonomics to assess co-workers at their work stations to help reduce the risk of injury.

Do you know who your SEC representative is? Visit the SEC page on the Libraries Intranet: http://intranet.lib.purdue.edu/display/safety/SEC+Home to find out and learn more about SEC.