Building upon our accomplishments

BY JIM MULLINS

PILLAR: Infrastructure

In academia we are privileged to have more than one start of a new year. Each August we are rejuvenated by having our students back on campus with their enthusiasm and anticipation of what life (and Purdue) has to offer them. Let us always remember that our work will help prepare them to reach their life’s goal.

We will have many activities that will advance and propel the Libraries forward during this year and for years to come that build upon the accomplishments of this last year, a few of which are: heightened awareness of Open Access through the resolution of the University Senate; renovation of Hicks B848 and Potter 141; participation of Libraries’ faculty in the IMPACT program; contributing materials to the HathiTrust through the Google book scanning project; further development of Purdue University Research Repository (PURR); inauguration of VOLUMe; completion and dedication of the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management and Economics; inauguration of the “Journal of Undergraduate Research” (JPUR); numerous grant awards and major gifts; and many, many other examples of Libraries-wide, departmental and individual accomplishments.

This year, along with the entire University, we look forward to our new president, Mitch Daniels. He has long been a supporter of Purdue and now he can champion the many exciting and innovative programs and initiatives that comprise Purdue. His guidance and support will be essential in moving forward the Classroom/Library Facility (aka Boiler STEAM Commons), a project that will enrich the learning environment of our students.

As announced, the Classroom/Library Facility was ranked as the number one capital project for the next ten years by the University administration and Board of Trustees. As such, this innovative and dynamic facility is at the top of the list for state funding and fundraising. At a recent strategy meeting of the senior administration, we chose the name Active Learning Center to evoke the intent of the building, active learning, rather than describing fairly traditional building images — classroom and library. Although once funding is achieved from the Legislature we could return to the name Boiler STEAM Commons. We, in Libraries, will take a leadership role in planning and designing this new facility in collaboration with our campus space planning colleagues as well as students and faculty throughout the University. If all goes to plan, taking each necessary step or hurdle one at a time, the Active Learning Center will be built and occupied by 2017/18.

There are many exciting projects that will come to fruition during this year including the Alma Project, Primo, PURR and our new website. Each of these initiatives has required a great deal of effort and commitment by many of you. When we look back at 2012/13 we will marvel at the steady progress made toward our goal of creating the 21st century research library that strengthens the educational experience of our students and contributes to advances in research.

PILLAR: Infrastructure

The end of the fiscal year on June 30 was also the completion of the first full year of the 2011-2016 strategic plan of the Libraries, Purdue University Press and Copyright Office. In August, the Planning and Operations Council (POC) met with Dean Jim Mullins to review the progress that units and councils have made toward our strategic goals and objectives. The discussion was based on a new document prepared by POC, "Strategic Plan Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Metrics: FY12 End of Year Report" located on the Libraries intranet at http://intranet.lib.purdue.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=25985054

The end of year report lists the strategies (action-related steps) that units and councils are undertaking. Progress on these strategies before June 30, 2012, keeps us on track to accomplish the objectives in the goal areas of Learning, Scholarly Communication and Global Challenges before the strategic plan ends in mid-2016. (See table below for a few examples.) The report also includes a section on strategies related to Infrastructure.

Noting that there is less to report in the area of Global Challenges than in the other two goal areas, Dean Mullins advised that Libraries look at our global-challenge-related efforts differently than departments across campus. While departments may report international collaborations and research teams working in other countries, we should reflect our role in the University and how we support the University’s work in the global arena. Examples include the September visit of librarians from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, which in 2010 was identified as Purdue’s first University-wide partner in addressing global challenges related to such areas as health, water, energy, earthquake mitigation and climate.

POC members and the dean talked about the purpose of POC’s twice-annual reports and agreed that the reports are a record of accomplishments toward the objectives of the strategic plan. The reports help POC take stock of how far we’ve come and what is still to be done. It was decided that the POC’s end of year report will remain a resource for the dean’s assistant in preparing the annual report, which goes to the provost. POC’s report will be enhanced by including a statement from each Dean’s Council member summarizing accomplishments in their respective areas. This will also permit incorporating significant actions which are closely tied to our core values, such as recruiting efforts which support a diverse and inclusive campus community. It was further agreed to include a summary of POC’s significant achievements as a council. Additionally, POC will consider integrating some of the Information Technology and Human Resources accomplishments (now reported in the Infrastructure section) into the three goal areas, as was done with Auxiliary Services’ contributions to the redesign of Libraries spaces, which are included under the goal area of Learning.

Global relationships

PILLAR: Global Challenges

On September 13 colleagues from the Tsinghua University Library visited Purdue University for several presentations and discussions about possible future partnerships between Tsinghua Library and Purdue Libraries. Professor Jingkang Deng, director of Tsinghua University Library, was joined by Ms. Airong Jiang, associate dean of Technology and Systems, Ms. Tianfang Dou, associate head of Systems Department and Chunmei Liu, associate head of Cataloging Department. Professor Deng is a physicist and has been director of the Tsinghua University Library since 2010.

The morning program began with Acting Provost Victor Lechtenberg and Dean of International Programs Michael Brzezinski welcoming our guests. Throughout the day Libraries faculty and staff made presentations and led discussions on topics such as data services (Scott Brandt and Michael Witt), digital collections and exhibits (Sammie Morris), electronic resources and licensing (Rebecca Richardson, Tao Zhang and Beth McNeil) and new roles for librarians (Marianne Bracke and Beth McNeil). The visitors enjoyed tours of Hicks Repository, Hicks Undergraduate Library and Parrish Library (Tomalee Doan and Nancy Hewison). The final program for the day concluded with a conversation with Dean Jim Mullins, via Skype, followed by a tour of campus led by Zhang.

Introducing the Libraries PURR Project Team

PILLAR: Scholarly Communication

There are many new, exciting developments related to the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR), which is a collaborative effort of the Libraries, ITaP and the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR). Using PURR, a Purdue researcher can invite collaborators to join an online project space, share data files and collaborate on research and publish and archive datasets in our institutional data repository. At the beginning of the year, funding was provided by the University through the OVPR to complete the first phase of development of PURR and perform outreach. Over the summer, the Libraries assembled a project team to help advance these goals.

In this issue, you'll meet our two new software developers, Brandon Beatty and Mark Fisher, as well as our new Digital Data Repository Specialist, Courtney Matthews. Matthews is the primary point-of-contact for PURR and he will be working with our librarians to raise awareness and help our researchers take advantage of PURR. Along with Matthews, Beatty and Fisher are working with Neal Harmeyer (Digital Archivist), Debbie Maron (Repository Specialist) and Amy Hatfield (Metadata Specialist), who are working part-time on PURR to improve digital preservation and metadata for datasets using best practices and their expertise. The team is supervised by Michael Witt in the Research and Data Services Department. Oversight for PURR is provided by the PURR Steering Committee, which is chaired by Scott Brandt and includes colleagues from ITaP, Sponsored Program Services, the OVPR and three faculty researchers from different colleges on campus.

PURR is creating new opportunities for librarians to engage, help and collaborate with our researchers and students on issues related to their data! You can learn more about these opportunities and how to use PURR by contacting Matthews or attending the hands-on workshop that he is leading on Thursday, Sept. 20, from 1-3 p.m. in Hicks G959.

Members of the PURR Project Team pose with their mascot and graduate research assistants. Seated left to right: Amy Hatfield, Mark Fisher, Sriram Valavala and Debbie Maron. Standing left to right: Brandon Beatty, Michael Witt, Neal Harmeyer, Ahmed Abdel-Gawad, Matthew Kroll and Courtney Matthews.

Libraries new staff

PILLAR: Infrastructure

Brandon M. Beatty
Digital Library Software Developer
Purdue University Research Repository

I joined Purdue Libraries as a software developer for the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR) Team on June 4. I have only been here for about three-and-a-half months but I have already met a lot of great people and I feel that I have comfortably transitioned into the Libraries’ atmosphere right from the start.

Before this gig, I was self-employed designing and developing websites for local and national businesses for the past two years, which I still do at night and sometimes on weekends. Prior to that, I was chief technology officer at a web design firm in downtown Lafayette and a multimedia specialist at Purdue’s Discovery Park.

Originally from Flint, Michigan (then high school in a little town called Hartland), I moved to West Lafayette in 2001 for a BS in Computer Graphics Technology at Purdue and after eleven years, I’m still here! After work, I enjoy pretty much every genre of movie, hosting massive barbeques, working on landscaping or house projects and doing as little as possible on Sunday afternoons.

If you’re ever on the ground floor of Stewart Center, stop by the PURR Cave (Room G50) and say hi! Please contact me at bbeatty@purdue.edu.

Mark Leighton Fisher
Digital Library Software Developer
Purdue University Research Repository

I was delighted to join my alma mater, Purdue University, as a software engineer for the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR). This is an exciting time in the development of PURR — I'm in on the ground floor of the next stage of research data access and preservation.

I originally came to Purdue thinking that I would end up as a designer of exotic radio receivers, not realizing that a world of making tools from pure thought stuff — programming — was in store for me. The first personal computers were just on the market (Apple II's and CP/M systems) and Linux was not even a gleam in Linus Torvald's eyes. It may have been my student programming of C on ECN's PDP-11/70 Unix Version 6 system that showed me how programming could not only bring wonderful brain-tools to life, but could also be fun in the bargain.

My career has spanned thirty-some years with experience in both the academic (Purdue as a student and at IUPUI's Regenstrief Institute on the Logical Observation Identifier Names and Codes (LOINC) project) and commercial (Wintek, Micro Data Base Systems and RCA/Thomson Consumer Electronics) worlds. Coming back to Purdue as a professional programmer is a real thrill for me and what a project to be working on! Especially with the advent of Big Data and the increased ability to derive useful results from data mining, it is more important than ever to preserve and make easily accessible a scientist's data as well as their articles, books, etc. PURR is helping lead the way in making scientific data useful for the long term.

With a wonderful wife of 24 years, a daughter in college, a son at Westfield Intermediate School and a menagerie including two horses, two dogs, two guinea pigs and various fish our home on the western edge of Hamilton County is a busy place. I can now say that we all go off to school together — my wife as a first grade teacher in the Indianapolis Public School system, our daughter is studying education at Indiana University at Kokomo, our son at W.I.S., and me now at the Purdue Libraries. Spare time includes riding (horses and bicycles), writing (children's books and a cartoon about teaching are in the planning stages) and just enjoying each other's company. You can reach 'markleightonfisher' on Skype and try Googling "Mark Leighton Fisher" to get some sense of what I've done professionally.

My office is in the PURR Cave (STEW G50) and I can be reached at fishe116@purdue.edu or 49-61921.

Courtney Earl Matthews
Digital Data Repository Specialist
Purdue University Research Repository

I am pleased to join the Purdue University Libraries team as the new Digital Data Repository Specialist (DDRS) for Purdue University Research Repository (PURR). In my role as the PURR DDRS I will have the opportunity to coordinate the daily operation of the PURR project, including campus outreach and advocacy, data management planning consultation and most crucially to collaborate with subject specialist librarians to meet the data stewardship needs of Purdue researchers.

I am a new librarian having graduated with my MLIS from theDalhousieUniversitySchoolofInformationManagement in Halifax, Nova Scotia in May of 2010. Since then I have worked in multiple capacities at the University of Prince Edward Island’s Robertson Library with a special focus on theIslandoraProject. Islandora is an open-source digital content management framework developed by the Robertson Library and used to collect, curate, preserve and present digital collections and research. In my most recent role as the Community Liaison Librarian at the Robertson Library I managed theTellingIslandStories project. Working with a team of developers we built a mobile (iPad) overlay for Islandora that is now available in the app store.

My wife Melanie and I are both natives of Prince Edward Island, Canada. Between us we’ve lived throughout Canada, Scotland, Ireland and South Korea, however, this is our first time living in the United States. We’re very excited to be here and to explore, Indiana, the Midwest and beyond. When I’m not at work I enjoy running and completed my first marathon in October of 2011. I’m entering the Purdue Boilermaker half marathon in October after a lengthy lay-off from running...fingers crossed!

My office is located in G50 of Stewart Center. You can reach me at 49-62270 or at courtneyearlmatthews@purdue.edu. I look forward to meeting you!

PILLAR: Learning

The National Library of Medicine exhibit, “Rewriting the Book of Nature: Charles Darwin and the Rise of Evolutionary Theory,” is on display at the Hicks Undergraduate Library through October 6. The four panel display explores Darwin’s sources of influence, the men who championed his theory and the influences those theories had on the world. Hicks Undergraduate Library is also partnering with the Department of Philosophy for two upcoming presentations.

• Tuesday, Sept. 25 Dr. Paul Draper will be presenting, “Religion and Theories of Evolution,” which focuses on Darwin’s views regarding religion and theories of evolution.
• Wednesday, Oct. 6 Dr. Michael Bergmann will explore the lines between evolutionary theory and religious faith in his presentation titled, “Could Darwinian Natural Selection be Divinely Guided?”

Both presentations will be at 7 p.m. in the Hicks Undergraduate Library, Room G980D and are free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

PILLAR: Infrastructure

I recently read an article on asthma causing home cleaners in a national magazine which made me think of the new cleaning initiatives in the Libraries. As some of you know due to the reduction in janitorial cleaning within the Libraries we now have a new core list of cleaning supplies available to assist our staff with the cleaning they must do. In choosing these items Brad Heiss and I have worked together to find cleaning supplies that will not only work effectively to clean the libraries areas, but be less allergen causing.

In reviewing the list of cleaners listed in the article we found that one of our cleaners, Formula 409, is on the Environmental Working Groups’ Cleaners Database Hall of Shame for asthma causing components. For the time being we will be keeping this item on the core list of cleaning supplies, however, Heiss will be investigating additional options for us to be greener and more allergen free.

Please send your suggestions to me at bkroll@purdue.edu.