Strategic planning for 2011-2016:

"MARCH-ing" onward!

BY NANCY HEWISON
 

PILLAR: Infrastructure

Strategic planning session March 21, 2011 clerical service staff session.March has been a busy month for strategic planning in the Libraries, Press and Copyright Office — and we’re not done yet! Here’s an overview of what’s been going on and what’s next.

Mar.  7 and 11 — Objectives
The Planning and Operations Council (POC) and Dean’s Council (DC) finalized the objectives for the next five years, based on the objectives that had been developed by the Strategic Planning Group (SPG). At the end of the day on Mar. 11, the goals and objectives were shared via a Liball message giving everyone their first look at the 3-4 objectives under each goal. This same email provided the revised versions of two of the three goal statements. Since the goals appeared in the Feb. 16 issue of INSIDE, POC and DC broadened the first goal to include not only information literacy, but also learning spaces, and added statements on the role of the Libraries faculty to the Learning and Scholarly Communication goals. The Global Challenges goal statement remained unchanged from the version shared in Feb.

Mar. 14, 15 and 21 — Actions in support of goals and objectives
On each of these three days, one of our employee groups (faculty, administrative/professional and clerical/service) met with members of the SPG to explore where and how we see ourselves and our units involved in making the plan real. Our brainstorming involved not only the parts of our work that can be easily and directly linked to the strategic goals and objectives of the plan, but also our responsibilities and efforts that are operational in nature and provide support for our strategic direction. Each of the three groups generated dozens and dozens of ideas of actions and ongoing responsibilities. Watch for lists of these ideas, arranged by employee group and also by goals and objectives.  

Mar. 22 — Organizational structure
By the time you read this, POC and DC will have met to look at the question of whether we have the right organizational structure (e.g., reporting lines, councils, committees) and related process (e.g., accountability, decision making, communication) in place to implement the 2011-2016 plan.  
 
Coming up
At the All-Staff Meetings in April, we’ll follow up on the ideas raised by the employee groups and also present a graphic representation of the major elements of the new plan. The ideas generated by the employee groups will be used by POC and DC to map out how the goal-related objectives will be accomplished. 

The President and Provost intended to visit us in May and we had planned to use this opportunity to make presentations related to the plan, before it goes to them formally for their approval. Because their visit has been rescheduled to later in the year, information about how we’ll convey the plan to the President and Provost will be available later this spring. 

Please contact Nancy Hewison nhewison@purdue.edu if you have questions.

 

Greetings

BY SANDY HOWARTH

PILLAR: New Relationships

Sandy HowarthGreetings! I am more than pleased to become a member of the Libraries team! You have all been so gracious that I feel completely “welcomed” by the faculty and staff. Thank you. I know without a doubt that I made a wonderful career decision to come to the Libraries

As some of you may know, prior to coming to the Libraries I was the Director of Development for the Departments of Biological Sciences, Statistics and the Actuarial Science Program. That experience provided me with a wealth of knowledge and the “Purdue” development foundation I needed to feel confident in making the decision to accept this position as the Director of Advancement. And, while I will most certainly miss all the faculty and staff from the College of Science I am looking forward to getting to know each of you as we work together in promoting the Libraries, Press and Copyright Office. 

I have lived in Indiana most of my life (except for 5 years in Colorado) and moved to Lafayette three years ago when my husband, Joe, accepted a position as the Community Bank President of Salin Bank. My Purdue connections are strong as my father-in-law, Bill Howarth, was a 1935 graduate (Engineering) and was a member of the Marching 100. My daughter, Haleigh, graduated in 2009 with a BS in Physical Recreation Education, majoring in Health Promotions (Wellness) with a minor in Psychology.  

Besides my career, my personal passions are hiking (Rocky Mountains are the best) reading, painting and listening to music. Thanks, again, for the very warm welcome and feel free to stop by and introduce yourself.

My office is located up by the Libraries Administrative Offices, Stewart Center, Room 267A and my phone number is 494-2806. Or email me at showarth@purdue.edu.

 

Libraries explore discovery layer products

BY SUE WARD

PILLAR: Robust Local Collections

Discovery layer products let users enter terms into a single search box. Results come not only from the catalog, but also from most of the library’s databases, as well as from e-Pubs and e-Archives. The enormous advantage in DLP is that the user doesn’t have to run the same search in multiple library resources, or even know much about which library resources would be the right ones for the topic. The overall experience is similar to searching in Google, but focused on library resources. The difference between a discovery layer and Megasearch is that the discovery layer searches most library resources, whereas Megasearch checks only a few. Users can limit search results by many factors, such as by language, publication date range, or format (such as electronic resources only). Advanced searching options are also available.

The Planning and Operations Council (POC) charged the Discovery Layer Task Force with identifying vendors that have developed this product; coordinating on-campus vendor visits; evaluating the different products; and, finally, recommending one for implementation.

Three vendors responded to the request for proposal (RFP). Over the next few weeks, each one will be invited to campus to demonstrate their products.

All demonstrations will take place in HIKS B848. They are:

  • Serials Solutions (Summon), Tues., Mar. 29, 1-2:30 p.m.
  • Ebsco (Ebsco Discovery Service), Mon., Apr. 4, 10:30 a.m.-noon
  • Ex Libris (Primo), Tues., Apr. 5, 10:30 a.m.-noon       

Vendor visits will include a product demonstration for library staff (selected teaching faculty from academic departments will also be invited). Each session will allow time for Q & A. Staff and users attending the sessions will be asked to complete feedback forms. The task force will also involve some students in the review process. All Libraries employees are invited to attend.

The task force will review comments from all constituents; will explore members’ opinions of the products; will contact some of the vendors’ current customers; and will test the products to be sure they adequately meet the most important evaluation criteria. 

The final outcome will be a report submitted to the POC with a summary of how well each product met the evaluation criteria and a specific recommendation that the product that best met these criteria be purchased and implemented for the Libraries. The selected product should be in place by the summer.

Accept the Liball meeting requests to the demo sessions to learn about how a discovery layer improves the user’s search experience and to provide feedback on which products would meet our users’ needs for fast and seamless searching and discovery of library resources.

Discovery Layer Task Force members include: Marianne Stowell Bracke, Tomalee Doan, Wendy Kelly, Dean Lingley, Matt Riehle, Jane Yatcilla and Sue Ward, chair.

 

Libraries Distinguished Lecture Series presents T.C. Boyle

PILLAR: Campuswide Information Literacy

T.C. BoylePurdue Libraries will present the eighth speaker in the Distinguished Lecture Series, T.C. Boyle, on Tues., Mar. 29, at 7 p.m. in Fowler Hall, Stewart Center. The event is free and open to the public, with a book sale, by Barnes and Noble, and signing to follow.

T. Coraghessan Boyle is the author of twenty-two books of fiction, including The Women (2009), Wild Child (2010) and most recently, When the Killing's Done (2011).

During the lecture, he will perform from his work, including one short story from Wild Child, which he promises to be highly entertaining.

Boyle received a PhD in Nineteenth Century British Literature from the University of Iowa in 1977, his MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1974, and his BA in English and History from SUNY Potsdam in 1968. He has been a member of the English Department at the University of Southern California since 1978.

His work has been translated into more than two dozen foreign languages, and his stories have appeared in most of the major American magazines, including The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, GQ, and McSweeney's. He has been the recipient of a number of literary awards.

Click here to see a video of T.C. Boyle discussing The Women during "A Conversation with T.C. Boyle," an interview with the editor of The New York Times Book Review.

All Libraries staff are invited to attend a reception beginning at 5 p.m. in the Periodical Reading Room, HSSE Library. RSVP by Mar. 24 at libevent@purdue.edu or 49-42849.

 

Libraries starts government documents Google digitization project

BY SUE WARD

PILLAR: Robust Local Collections

I’m excited to announce that the Purdue University Libraries have started work on a government documents digitization project as one of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) libraries partnering with Google.

Several years ago, the CIC libraries signed a partnership agreement to participate in Google’s project to scan the world’s books for its Google Books site. Our first active role in this agreement is to send selected U.S. government documents to Google for digitization. Dean Lingley compiled an extract from our catalog listing all our barcoded government documents, and then removed the Indiana Light Archives titles that Purdue is committed to holding in print. Titles in non-print formats were also removed. Then Bert Chapman reviewed the list to mark additional titles which we should keep. The final list went to Google to be analyzed and determine their needs, resulting in providing us with a pick list..

There are about 50,000 titles on the pick list, although some of the titles consist of multiple volumes. The majority of the titles on the pick list are in the Humanities, Social Science, and Education Library (HSSE) government documents collection. The second largest concentration is in the Hicks Repository (HKRP). Additional titles are scattered among the campus libraries.

A team is being assembled to work on the project. I serve as the Google project manager, and several supervisors have generously assigned significant portions of staff time to work on the Google government documents project.

Many thanks to Tomalee Doan for assigning Wendy Kelly; to Brad Heiss for assigning Dan Yeoman and Candy Scott; and to Diana Grove for assigning Lori Bryant and Libby Wahl. Other staff will work on various parts of the project. An example would be pulling titles from the shelves in the campus libraries and boxing them to send back to the main project processing area, the HSSE Bib Unit office. The HKRP staff will handle the titles in HKRP. Pallets of boxed government documents will leave in several shipments over the next four to five months.

One big project challenge is that Google prefers all items to have individual bibliographic records. This means that many titles that we have cataloged as series, will need to be re-cataloged as individual titles before we send them. The largest example is one title consisting of approximately 20,000 pieces that is currently cataloged as a serial on a single bibliographic record.

The Google government documents project is being handled at a center that practices sheet-fed scanning. This means that each document will be disassembled prior to the scanning process, so we will not receive the pieces back in print. However, these titles will later appear in our catalog as electronic documents after Google has scanned them.

The Libraries are pleased to join with our CIC colleagues in this mammoth initiative to digitize the world’s printed works and make them available to scholars everywhere.

 

Celebrating the future of digital reference

BY KAY SCHURR

PILLAR: Campuswide Information Literacy

Ask A Librarian link.March 23 marks the eighth year of Purdue University Libraries’ digital reference service, Ask a Librarian. The service was born in 2003, and in its infancy, was only available Sun-Thurs, 6-10 p.m.  It is now, accessible Sun-Fri, a total of over 50 hours/week.

The Digital Reference Implementation Team (DRIT) began their research in 2002. The team was chaired by Jen Venable (Management and Economics Library), and included Scott Brandt (Information Technology Department, now Instruction and Digital Programs Services), Christine King (Humanities, Social Science and Education Library), Scott Mandernack (Hicks Undergraduate Library), Michael Sissom/Lisa Purvis (Information Technology Department) and Jane Yatcilla (Mathematical Science Library). Their mission was to research, propose and implement a digital reference service for the first time at Libraries.

The group encountered many obstacles along the way, such as how to quickly implement a service to a 14-library system and train over 50 staff. Research revealed that academic institutions already providing digital services generally had only one main library, and the service was usually staffed by specific staff members.

It was not all work, though, “In the early days of Ask a Librarian (Question Point software) there was an option for patrons to choose live chat with video and voice components; all participating staff computers were outfitted with a small camera and microphone. Few if any patrons ever selected this option, but we had fun testing the video and voice features behind the scenes,” said Jane Yatcilla, associate professor of Library Science.

Usage of Libraries’ digital reference service, Ask a Librarian, continues to increase every year.  Usage statistics from academic years, 08/09 to 09/10, show that numbers doubled. The present academic year statistics prove once again that patrons value the service as a means of getting their questions answered quickly. 

The future of Libraries’ digital reference will see many changes in the next few years. We have already implemented an Ask a Librarian Facebook application, and beginning in the fall, there will be a marketing push that includes implementing the Question Point (QP) knowledge base (FAQ’s) on our webpage, providing the patrons’ ability to access our web links using quick response (QR) codes; and potentially the ability to TEXT library staff for simple questions. We are also working with ITaP to be included in Mixable — a social software used to build online study groups for students. The QP Qwidget is currently being linked to the LibGuides.

"I think as long as libraries depend on increasing amounts of digital content to satisfy users’ needs, digital reference will continue to be an important service that lets us help users at the point and time of need,” said Yatcilla. “In other words, digital reference is here to stay.”

 

Copyright in the News

BY DONNA FERULLO

PILLAR: Campuswide Information Literacy

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear a case, Golan v. Holder, about whether or not works that are in the public domain can have their copyright restored. The conflict arises due to a 1994 amendment to the Copyright Act that allows foreign works that had been in the public domain to be removed and once again claim copyright protection. The amendment, the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) was enacted so that the U.S. could comply with international intellectual property treaties. One of the basic principles of copyright is that works are protected for a certain period of time and then enter the public domain for all to freely use. This amendment contradicts 200 years of established precedent.

 

 

 

CONTENTS
  • Greetings from Sandy Howarth
  • Libraries explore discovery layer products
  • Libraries Distinguished Lectures Series presents T.C. Boyle
  • Libraries starts government documents Google digitization project
  • Celebrating the future of digital reference
  • Copyright in the News
  • Off the Shelf
  • Announcements
  • Libraries in the News
  • Staff Publications and Presentations
  • Libraries Staff A-Z
  • Connect with Libraries
  • What's Cooking?

 

OFF THE SHELF

Continuing Vacancies

To view all Purdue job postings visit the Purdue employment page. If you have additional questions, contact Michelle Conwell, 494-2899.

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Libraries Distinguished
Lecture Series

featuring T. C. Boyle
Tues., Mar. 29
7 p.m.
Fowler Hall
STEW

Reception
5 p.m.
Periodical Reading Room
HSSE
RSVP libevent@purdue.edu

All-Staff Meetings
Thurs., Apr. 7
1:30-3 p.m.
HIKS B848
or
Fri., Apr. 8
9-10:30 a.m.
HIKS B848

Libraries Spring Seminar
Liaison Librarians and the Future: Where Are We Headed and How Do We Get There?
featuring
Janice Jaguszewski
Thurs., Apr. 14
2 p.m.
HIKS B848

One Book Higher
Apr. 25
10 a.m.-12 p.m.
PMU North Ballroom

Annual Staff Recognition Luncheon
Apr. 25
11:45 a.m.
PMU North Ballroom

From Master Mix to Farming Tips:
100 Years of Agricultural Extension
Exhibit
Archives and Special Collections
Mar. 3-May 31
HSSE 4th floor
STEW

 

LIBRARIES IN THE NEWS

Purdue Alumnus, March/April, 2011
Purdue Ink, Press Books: Triple Jeopardy; Practical System Reliability; Divided Paths, Common Ground; The Extraordinary Spirit of Green Chimneys, pg. 63
1975-1984 Facts (Purdue history), Hicks Undergraduate Library was completed, pg. 33

Purdue Today, Mar. 11
Campus services adjusting hours for spring break

Chemical Information Bulletin, Spring 2011
What Do Libraries Have to Do with e-Science? An Interview with James L. Mullins, Dean of Purdue University Libraries; Jeremy Garritano photo

The New York Times, Mar. 14
Forget the Treadmill. Get a Dog; book published by Purdue University Press, pg. D6
Also appeared:

UNS Press Release, Mar. 17
Purdue Libraries to celebrate 100-year anniversary of the Clore Act
Also appeared:

Westfair Online (White Plains, NY), Mar. 18
Green Chimneys spawns a memoir; book published by Purdue University Press

AAEA Blog, Mar. 21
AgEcon Search Receives Innovation Award; Marianne Stowell Bracke, award co-chair

 

STAFF PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS

Donna Ferullo was a guest lecturer for a graduate course in Ethical Issues in Biomedical Research led by Alan Beck and Ronnie Wilbur on 3/21/11.  Her presentation was titled, “Copyright Issues in Research.”

Jeremy Garritano presented a course on the ins and outs of using EndNote on Feb. 21. Download the speaker’s Power Point slides here.

Jake Carlson and Ruth Kneal. “Embedded librarianship in the research context: Navigating new waters,” College & Research Libraries News, March 2011, vol. 72 no. 3 pp.167-170. http://crln.acrl.org/content/72/3/167.full.

Jim Mullins interview, “What Do Libraries Have to Do with e-Science?” American Chemical Society, Chemical Information Bulletin, Spring, 2011, v. 63, No. 1. http://acscinf.org/publications/bulletin
/63-1/index.php

 

LIBRARIES STAFF A-Z

Sue LongSUE LONG
Resource Services
Data Coordinator

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job and why?
A. Variety. I get bored easily by repetitive tasks and fortunately that happens rarely for me.

Q. How long have you worked in the Libraries and at Purdue?
A. 25 years, all in the Libraries.

Q. What is one unforgettable experience that has happened to you or your coworkers while working in the library?
A. Bats … they seem to like our high ceilings … last one that visited us, Patty (Glasson) covered with a box until Purdue’s “Batman” came to get him. As we waited, we kept hearing scratching noises.

Q. What’s your favorite book, Web site, movie or database?
A. Book – anything mystery/crime solving; web – Facebook;  movies – Harry Potter series

Q. Coffee, tea, water or soft drink?
A. I have found application for all of the above

Q. What do you like to do for fun?
A. Help my partner, Kathi, with her pottery projects, spend time with friends, play guitar.

Q. Feel free to include any information about yourself that you would like to share with the staff?
A. Ask me about Bev’s granddaughter!

 

CONNECT WITH LIBRARIES

 

WHAT'S COOKING?

Master Mix Recipes from Purdue's Home Extension -- Biscuits
Visit the Libraries Intranet site for this recipe.

Send recipes to Teresa Brown.

 

COPY DEADLINE

Copy for the Apr. 6 issue is due by Apr. 4. Send to Teresa Brown.