Office of the University Librarian
Monthly Report--July 2007
Administration
and Staff
Paul Gherman reported on the state of the library at a staff meeting at
Buttrick Hall. A group of approximately 100 staff members attended the event.
Paul announced his plan to retire in July 2008 and Dennis Hall, Associate
Provost for Graduate Studies, discussed plans to begin the search for a new
university librarian. Minutes from the event were posted to the Staffnews.
Administrative Services
Public Relations/Communication
The Library again hosted the retirement learning program, now called Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. We again had a full class and the library staff offered a range of classes to help the students learn more about searching for information and using the web wisely. Kathy Smith and Henry Shipman gave members of the class a tour of Special Collections and a preview of the University Archives Image Database.
Staff Development
We held one brown bag on the Emerging Leaders program at ALA, conducted by Rachel Vacek.
Electronic
Resources and Collection Development
John and Bill met with Elsevier representatives as they wanted to wish John well in his retirement, and to meet the 'new guy'.
Roberta and Bill have been trying to wade through the mounds of spreadsheets and license files that John bequeathed to us. Many questions arose before John's departure on the 20th; no doubt many remain yet to be discovered.
Bill and Roberta met with Mary Beth Blalock, David Carpenter and Tracy Primich to talk about the impact of the $300,000 reduction in the A & S collections allotment for 2007-08. Given the need for faculty consultation about possible cancellations, we agreed to proceed with that process in the fall, but not attempt to make wholesale cancellations as the deadline for such notifications for this fiscal year would be in mid-August. Central and Science will be monitoring book funds closely this year, to attempt to manage to get through the year. An expected credit for overpayment from Elsevier, which should arrive this summer will help mitigate the shortfall in this one year.
Roberta and Bill spoke with an Ebrary representative and watched a web demonstration of their e-book viewer in conjunction with their offer of a number of free ebooks for us to see as a sample of their service. A number of collections are available at discount this summer, which will form one of several such offers on the agenda of the collections committee.
Tracy Primich, Roberta, Bill and Paul had a series of email discussions about the Public Library of Science, and open access journals. Information is being gathered to evaluate whether the Heard Library should consider institutional membership in PLoS.l
Discussion in Strategy and Planning about digital preservation and deacidification led to a broader conversation and agenda item for the collections committee this year, to work toward the formulation of an overall collection management policy.
Public Services
Sue Erickson was selected to be the director of system-wide public services.
Her official start date will be September 1, but she is beginning to focus
on several of the issues she'll be dealing with initially. ILL and the GIS
service will report to her, and she will be working with the Communications
Committee in addition to
her other committee assignments.
The Committee on Undergraduate Instruction met to discuss progress on plans for the Vanderbilt Visions sessions scheduled for September. Melinda Brown has been working closely with a group that is creating a video of observations by faculty and graduate students concerning research; this short video will be shown at the beginning of each session. Optional modules are being created as well, including one on intellectual property, prepared by Sara Beutter.
Copier and Printing Services
Yearly statistics for 2006/07 show a 14% decrease in printing this year
over last. 2,193,345 pages were printed through VUprint in the last fiscal
year. A chart of monthly useage shows the patterns http://staffweb.library.vanderbilt.edu/divinity/vuprint/vuprintchart.htm
(October 2006 was when VUprint charging was introduced. )
Photocopier volume decreased slightly from 05-06, down 3%. Having seen annual
decreases in copier volume on the order of 10% or more for the last 3 years,
this seems to indicate the transition from photocopying to printing on-line
reseources from the network appears to be leveling off.
Meetings,
Activities and Professional Development
We hosted the NALA meeting here. Jody did a presentation on Primo.