Office of the University Librarian
Monthly Report--May 2008
Library
Outreach and Campus Interaction
Sue, Leslie Foutch, Debra Stephens and Amy Stewart-Mailhiot met with staff at the McGugin Center to plan summer orientation sessions for student athletes.
Library-wide
Efforts and Events
Library staff attended the annual Spring Staff Picnic on May 16. The picnic was held on Peabody Lawn and catered by Whitt’s Barbeque and Calypso Cafe. Thanks to all who helped with the event: Celia Walker, Robyn Harris, Karen Swoopes, Ann Ercelawn, Judy Johnson, Daisy Whitten, Chris Waldrop, Laura Norris, Peter Brush, Paula Covington, Rahn Huber, Steve Dunning, Joell Smith-Borne, James McCullough, and our dessert judges Sue Davis, Barry Bennett, and MAT Trotter.
Rachel Adams, Robyn Harris and Sue Erickson assisted with the distribution of recycling bins in the General Library Building.
Administrative Activities
The Search Committee for the University Librarian completed its work and passed its recommendation on to Dennis Hall. One candidate was invited to return for additional meetings with deans and administrators not previously met; library administrators had the opportunity to meet with her again as well.
Annual evaluations were completed. Lisa Shipman worked on monitoring the year end budget status, salary increases for 2008/2009, and working on the inputting of the budget for 2008/2009.
Communications
Fifty-four articles were published on the Staffnews in May.
Public Services
GIS/Data Services
Jacob Thornton installed an exhibit of GIS maps, guides, and other information in the display cases on the 4th floor of the Central Library.
Jacob handled 7 reference questions and conducted one consultation.
Jacob and Sue Erickson continued work on the Vanderbilt Visions modules for this year. Jacob is working with Steve Dunning (Peabody Library) on the “Race Across Campus” module, which will use multiple geographic resources (GPS, printed maps, etc.) to engage students in a race across the Vanderbilt campus. Sue chairs the planning group.
Sue and Jacob attended fire extinguisher training.
ILL/CCC/Faculty Delivery
Vanderbilt users received over 1,163 items through ILL in May (down from last month, as expected, but considerably increased from May last year). Lending to other libraries dropped sharply to 798 requests filled.
We worked with the Peabody Library to allow ILLiad to help with tracking deliveries and returns of ILL and Vanderbilt materials to distance students.
Delivery requests fell at the beginning of May, but demand picked up in the later weeks. The unit delivered 313 Vanderbilt items (156 loans and 158 articles), plus another 156 interlibrary loan items, to campus users.
We scanned a faculty member's book to create a full-text searchable PDF copy, as a pilot to see how well we could meet specifications for possible inclusion in the VU e-Archive.
A small number of ClassPak permissions were processed for May and summer courses; Spring Semester electronic reserves clearances were completed; and the final billings of the fiscal year were prepared.
Sue set up an online demo of the new EBSCO interface in the e-classroom.
Meetings,
Activities and Professional Development
Paul gave a talk at Notre Dame on collecting cultural materials that are at risk.
Paul attended the ARL meeting in Coral Gables, Florida and also attended meetings on the planning and remodeling process for the Archives Annex.
Several staff attended a staff appreciation party hosted by emeriti faculty who hold carrels in the Central Library.