Office of the University Librarian

Monthly Report--July 2006

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Library Outreach and Campus Interaction

Library staff participated in Retirement Learning again this year. As in past years, we had an enthusiastic, capacity crowd. Attendees to the July 10-14 event learned about Web resources, Web safety and ways to avoid computer injuries. The response to the classes was extremely positive.

Library-wide Efforts and Events

Library administration discussed proposed wording for performance evaluations at a Coke and Popcorn meeting on July 12. Minutes were posted to the Staff News Feed.

Flo Wilson met with Janice Adlington and Jodie Gambill to review the work of the LibQUAL+ project team to date and to plan for a discussion of the results at an upcoming LMC retreat.

Administration and Staff

In Paul Gherman's absence, Flo met with Associate Provost Dennis Hall, a representative from HR, and several other staff from departments reporting to Dennis to discuss the rollout of the results of the Vanderbilt Community Survey from this last spring. Flo shared the results with Lisa Shipman and Paul, and plans are underway to share these results with the library staff.

Paul and Flo met with Dennis Hall to review the way the library's budget allocation to the Medical Center is calculated.

Public Relations/Communication

Guides to Libraries were printed and distributed.

Fifty-four articles were posted to the Staffweb: 62 % were general news items; 17% were committee minutes and agendas; 13% were monthly reports and the balance were startegic planning updates and staff news.

Staff Development

Flo met with Pam Brown from Human Resources to discuss training options for Myers-Briggs and also ended up discussing meeting and project management.

Electronic Resources and Collection Development

The Strategy and Planning Council approved the gifts policy and procedure developed by the Committee on Collections.

Collection Development

Central, Law, and Divinity have agreed to share the cost of a campus-wide subscription to Campus (formerly Westlaw Campus). We will acquire the law segment of the database, which the participating libraries deemed a highly useful source of legal information for non-law students, but not the news, business, and company information segment. Central will pay 75%, Law 20%, and Divinity 5% of the $13,788 annual cost.

Public Services

Flo met with Melinda Brown to learn more about Project Sails, a program partly supported by ARL, to conduct online assessments of information literacy. The Research Services Committee and the Instruction Forum will be considering this program in more detail as we move forward with the Library's instruction goal.

The Research Services Committee agreed to a slightly revised policy for the use of the electronic classroom. A proposal for a cart with 20 laptops has been made which, if funded, would relieve some of the pressure on the e-classroom and allow for hands-on classes in a variety of locations.

The Library Directors discussed the changing nature of desk staffing across the library system. Fewer reference questions and increased demands for instruction have resulted in rethinking current patterns of service.

Work proceeded on changing the GIS/CIC responsibilities from a Peabody Library service to a system-wide one. Brian Christens provided an afternoon of GIS training for Sue Erickson, Amy Stewart-Mailhiot, Rick Stringer-Hye, and Flo Wilson.

Meetings, Activities and Professional Development

Paul participated in the 2006 Summer Institute for Academic Library Leadership
July 9-13 at Peabody Library.

Many of us attended the wonderful July 14 Bastille Day celebration held in the Bandy Center.

6 August 2006