Office of the University Librarian
Monthly Report--October 2006
Library
Outreach and Campus Interaction
Paul Gherman met with a new ITS Advisory board to inform them about issues relating to academic needs on campus.
Library storage options were discussed with the Vice Chancellor and the Associate Provost. The availability of low cost accessible rental property may be a better alternative to building a second Annex.
Metro Nashville Archives staff came to view the Annex's compact electronic shelving during October. Currently they are faced with two separate storage facilities; with the possibility of needing a third facility, in their near future.
Administration
and Staff
Public Relations/Communication
Celia Walker and Beth Boord made plans for the May 2, 2007 James McPherson lecture in Ingram Hall. The lecture is funded by the Riley Civil War Heritage Endowment, a fund established to support research and acquisitions.
Celia and Kathy Smith picked up more papers from art critic Clara Hieronymus.
Staff Development
The 2006 Staff Service Awards were held in the main dining room of the University Club on October 11. A crowd of approximately 100 staff members, retirees, family, and friends attended the Staff Service Awards reception on Wednesday, October 11, 2006. Twenty-four staff members were honored on an anniversary of their service to the library. Melinda Brown, Lara Beth Lehman, and Yuh-Fen Benda received the Innovation and Creativity Award.
Electronic
Resources and Collection Development
Collection Development
John Haar, Tracy Primich, and Deborah Broadwater met with Elsevier representatives to discuss our ScienceDirect subscription and Scopus, Elsevier's citation database.
Collaboration
John Haar and the collection development officers at UK and UT compiled a list of electronic journal backfiles purchased by multiple Information Alliance libraries. The group will consider adding print sets of some of these backfiles to the IA Serials Archive. Doing so would establish one archival print backfile of each title for the Alliance, held at one Alliance library. The other two libraries could withdraw their print backfiles.
Public Services
LMC met with Frank Wcislo, the newly designated Dean of the Freshman Commons. He reviewed the plans for developing the commons over the next year and a half in order to be ready for the first entering group in fall of 2008. A faculty advisory committee will be formed this year. The Library might participate in the development and support of a Freshman Commons portal.
Jacob Thornton accepted the position of GIS Coordinator and began work on October 31.
The newly formed (and self-named) Committee on Undergraduate Information Literacy met to develop an agenda for the coming year. In addition to library staff, representatives from the Center for Teaching, the Writing Studio, the College of Arts and Science, and others discussed next steps. Plans were made for Patricia Armstrong, Melinda Brown and Flo Wilson to meet with Lucius Outlaw, Assoc. Provost for Undergraduate Education, and with Frank Wcislo.
Flo and Janice Adlington met to review the plans for concluding the LibQUAL survey. An expanded Powerpoint has been completed, an announcement is ready for naming the prize winners, and a brown bag will be held toward the end of the semester to bring library staff up-to-date on the survey results.
Annex
565 photocopies for Inter-Library Loan patrons were produced. Only 43 faxed copies were sent to local Vanderbilt patrons. We find that our fax service really varies from month to month.
Interlibrary Loan Service
Jimmy Webb accepted the new Document Delivery Coordinator (LAIV) position, effective November 20th.
We completed testing and configuration of the new scanners in the Peabody and Science libraries, and began routinely to scan (rather than photocopy) articles directly for ILL lending. This change should speed processing, improve image quality, and save substantially on paper usage.
As usual, the volume of both lending and borrowing requests increased in October, to roughly the same levels of the same period last year.
Copyright Clearing Service
Primary focus during October was
on clearances for electronic reserves, and Jim Webb also worked on revising
GLB signage. We will be recruiting soon to fill the Copyright position that
Jim will be vacating as he transfers to the new Document Delivery position.
Meetings,
Activities and Professional Development
Celia attended a meeting of Volunteer Voices at the Nashville Public Library, where she saw an exhibit of books by John Updike on loan from Vanderbilt's Special Collections. She also attended the Southeastern College Art Conference, held at Vanderbilt.