GSU Library Annual Report: Student Advocacy & Tech Advancements, 2003-2004, Papers of Education Planning And Management

Download GSU Library Annual Report: Student Advocacy & Tech Advancements, 2003-2004 and more Papers Education Planning And Management in PDF only on Docsity! 1 Georgia State University Library Annual Report July 1, 2003 – June 30, 2004 Executive Summary The academic year 2003-2004 has been a continuation of the transition of the University Library to an academic library for the 21st century – one that recognizes that it can no longer rely on people coming to the library for paper volumes, and that its patrons want to be enabled to find the information they need on their own at any time. As we plan for the physical transformation of the library to provide the spaces needed for a 21st century library we have been making the internal changes that will support our new vision. Much of those changes have pushed us out of the library, both physically and virtually. This year we received ample evidence of the importance of working outside of the library, with three developments of great significance to the future of the library occurring because of events outside of the library: • The Student Government Association and related student groups voted to support a fee to fund the transformation of the library. That vote was subsequently supported by the Fiscal Advisory Committee to the President, the Mandatory Fee Committee, the President, and the Board of Regents. This accomplishment was very dependent on the partnership and support of the Vice President for Student Services and her staff, and the support of faculty and staff participants throughout the university organization who served on a Steering Committee. The students held a formal hearing at which they eloquently stated their case for the proposal and followed a careful process for voting (Library Strategic Plan IV.4, University Strategic Plan II.A.a.2, II.B.e, University System of Georgia Strategic Plan 2). "The Student Government Association of Georgia State University is in absolute support of a student fee per semester...to ensure that the University and the Library have the support they need to become one of the top urban research universities." • The Fiscal Advisory Committee to the President voted to support the library’s request for an increase in the materials budget that would enable us to match one year’s rate of inflation for journals, adjusting for a major shift to electronic-only subscriptions which the library had already undertaken. They also funded a request for an increase in the monographs budget, following library initiatives to convert from hardback to paperback volumes where possible in order to support purchase of additional titles. These increases were the first in several years in the base budget for materials, and were made possible through the support of the members of the Senate Library Advisory Committee, concerned faculty, and the Provost (Library Strategic Plan I, University Strategic Plan II.A.a.3). 2 Monographs Budget Serials Budget Total Materials Budget FY2002 $1,030,454 $2,521,543 $3,551,997 FY2003 $892,718 $2,675,937 $3,568,655 FY2004 $732,000 $3,376,132 $4,108,132 FY2005 $942,000 $3,416,998 $4,358,998 Note: Budget figures include base budget plus contingency funds only. • The University-wide process for identifying Areas of Focus to receive special funding called for inclusion in the proposals of information regarding library needs if these proposals were to be funded. All of the three proposals that received funding requested library resources, which will allow the library to purchase titles and databases long desired by faculty in those departments. In addition, the Urban Health proposal provided money for monographs and for starting an open-access journal, greatly enriching the recently initiated institutional archives (Library Strategic Plan I.2, I.3, University Strategic Plan II.A.b.2). FY05 FY06 FY07 FY08 Brains & Behaviors $ 21,500 $ 33,000 $ 44,500 $ 56,000 Molecular Basis of Disease $ 50,000 $ 50,000 $ 50,000 $ 50,000 Urban Health $ 25,000 $ 160,000 $ 160,000 $ 160,000 Although our fundraising in FY2004 focused on the campaign for the student fee, we saw a significant increase in our external funding, and have laid the groundwork for a new campaign to increase library funding and received approval to recruit for a full-time Development Director, to be shared with Central Development (Library Strategic Plan IV.5.g). The coming fiscal year, with the launching of the transformation project and the arrival of the new Development Director, should be a significant year for library fundraising (Library Strategic Plan I.1.E). We have received considerable support from the Development Office in becoming more visible as an area for giving, and significant support from President Carl and Mrs. Gretchen Patton, who made our first naming gift to support the Children’s Book Collection area (Library Mission Statement, University Strategic Plan II.A.a.3, University 2003 Action Plan). FY03 FY04 Donors 345 460 Contributions $179,712 $253,335 This has also been a year during which our partnerships with others made a significant difference in what we were able to accomplish. In addition to our long-standing partnerships with GALILEO, GIL, and the GETSM group of major research universities in Georgia, we expanded our cooperative activity with ASERL, launching a cooperative virtual reference project that enables us to provide virtual online chat reference 84 hours 5 Library Instruction to Groups Individual Consultations FY03 FY04 FY03 FY04 Undergrad 241 218 Undergrad 189 265 Grad 60 77 Grad 284 333 Mix 15 21 Fac/staff 96 127 Walk-ins 3 18 Non-GSU 64 94 Other 10 10 Unknown 189 36 Total 329 344 Total 822 855 The University Library’s Special Collections and Archives department reorganized last year to create a central processing unit, which has led to significant increases in the amount of materials processed and in the acquisition of new collections (Library Strategic Plan II.1.a). The department received pledges of and payments on pledges for a number of important projects, and has just learned it is the recipient of a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to process nursing collections, including some owned by Auburn Avenue Research Library (Library Strategic Plan I.7.B). This year the archivists focused on playing a more active role in becoming the “preferred source” for Johnny Mercer music and information; expanding its collections and bringing up the Johnny Mercer Song Database on a revised web page (Library Strategic Plan I.7.C and D). In the Labor collections area the department became the home of six new collections, including the complete records of the National Federation of Federal Employees. Through the support of the English department the library also received a valuable collection of books, “The Eudora Welty Collection.” This collaborative effort was also evident in several other accomplishments of the department this year, including work with the Labor Studies Program of the W.J. Usery Center, the International Association of Machinists and Cornell and New York Universities, the Women’s Studies Institute, the Johnny Mercer Foundation, and the GSU History Department. Monetary Gifts and Fees Pledges Johnny Mercer Foundation $80,000 Jack Tarver Foundation $20,000 Organized Labor Awards Banquet $2,750 International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers $25,000 $125,000 Photocopying and Photo duplication Fees $8,652 Last year we participated in a scientific survey of our patrons conducted through a process developed by and analyzed by the Association of Research Libraries – LibQual+. 6 Our results showed that our patrons generally rated our services high and our collections not much lower than is common throughout research libraries. Our overwhelmingly poorest score was in the quality of our physical facility, which was not a surprise to us and was something we were already working to improve. The other area where we were faulted was in “Personal Control,” and here the responses revealed what many national surveys have been telling us: people want to be able find their information on their own anytime and anywhere. Although we have substantial information online, and almost all of it available outside of the library, our patrons were not sufficiently aware of what was available and didn’t feel we made it easy enough to find and use. This past year we have devoted considerable effort to making changes in that area, and have been closely monitoring developments in the library profession as a whole; where the necessity to be as easy to use as Google has resulted in major initiatives to make libraries more user friendly. One of the weaknesses we were aware of was a division between what was available on GALILEO and what was available through University Library resources. A major challenge for us was to get patrons accustomed to only using GALILEO (which is available in school and public libraries) to look beyond that collection of general databases and see the great wealth of research-oriented databases we purchase. This year we implemented SFX and MARCit! services, which identify our physical and electronic holdings regardless of source, allowing a patron to go from an identified article to instant information about where it can be found. This was, like most of our projects, a collaborative effort, with the four research libraries of Georgia, GALILEO, and four departments within the library: Acquisitions, Cataloging, and Reference, and Web Librarian (Library Strategic Plan II, University Strategic Plan II.A.3, II.B.f). There were numerous other efforts to give our patrons better tools for accessing information and using the library, requiring less effort from them and allowing much of the basic library staff assistance to be given indirectly, including: • Virtual Reference • E-Reserves • Content Management System for timely updating of web pages • Extensive development and use of blogs for sharing information online • ILLIAD interlibrary loan software • GIL Express (Library Strategic Plan II.6.B) • Marketing the self checkout units In addition, we have moved services out of the library buildings, providing library services in the School of Music Media Center and the College of Education Instructional Technology Center, as well as at the Aderhold Classroom Building. It may seem somewhat ironic that the library is making is easier for patrons to not come to the library (Library Strategic Plan I.5.B) at the same time that we’re putting forth a massive effort to make the library more attractive. In actuality this is consistent with the efforts of leading research libraries through the world, which have recognized that people go to libraries for very different reasons than they used to, and have very different expectations of service when they get there. Ultimately we will have patrons who do not 7 have to come to the library if all they want is some fairly common information, freeing us to serve the many patrons who need what the physical library and its expert staff can provide: • expert consultation services • teaching of research tools and information literacy in classroom and small group settings • providing high-end high-speed computers for accessing networked information • books and journals not available in digital format • assistance with all aspects of the work of completing a research project, and • inviting space in which to study quietly or work in a group. Studies have shown that libraries configured to meet these demands experience exponential growth in use, and become important contributors to the sense of community on campus. That is our goal, and the staff of the library has been doing outstanding work in moving us closer to that goal during the past year.