Office of the University Librarian
Monthly Report--September 2007
Library
Outreach and Campus Interaction
Paul Gherman met with Joanne Patterson concerning moving 1400 boxes of legal files to the new Archive Annex when it opens.
Paul and Jody Combs met with Mona Frederick at the Warren Center about acquisition of the Warren tapes.
Jody met with Jay Clayton, chair of the English department, to discuss various digital library initiatives.
Library-wide
Efforts and Events
Many of our staff participated in Vanderbilt Visions.
Administrative Services
The Peabody Library Director Search Committee reviewed applications, selected several for follow-up on references and decided on a couple of candidates to invite for interviews in October and November.
Public Relations/Communication
Celia Walker and Kathy Smith picked up more papers from former theater critic, Clara Hieronymus.
The Wild Bunch Book Fund purchased 24 new titles and one electronic journal for undergraduate studies.
Staff Development
We held three brown bags in September: SirsiDynix Webcast: How to Understand your Library (September 4), a brown bag by Flo Wilson on her trip to Ghana (September 18) and a Library Marketing Plan brown bag by Suellen Stringer-Hye, Henry Shipman, Sue Erickson and Celia Walker (September 25).
Electronic
Resources and Collection Development
The collections committee is reviewing a number of proposals, including a comprehensive package for Sage E-journals, E-book packages from Springer and Ebrary.
Jody met with Holling Smith-Borne and others for a progress report on the Global Music Archive project which is due to be released for evaluation in October.
Jody is developing an RSS parser for the Lectionary RSS feed.
Public Services
Jacob Thornton began teaching a weekly GIS training course for a group of Teaching & Learning students and faculty. The course will touch on various methods and uses of GIS and will include the integration of Census Information and will run through October.
The GIS service made a GPS unit available for circulation. The unit circulates for 5 days and has already gone out twice!
Sue Erickson and Jacob presented their services (GIS and Data services) to new HOD graduate students at the HOD Library Research Clinic which was put on by the Peabody Library.
During the week of September 10, the Library offered Vanderbilt Visions sessions for all sections of this University-wide first-year program. More than 30 people from across the Library worked on this project. The presentations included video clips of students and faculty talking about research and library use. The focus of the sessions was to introduce these new students to how research varies from what they did in high school. Melinda Brown coordinated this huge effort. Flo Wilson, Sue Erickson, and Rachel Adams from OUL presented or assisted in sessions.
Sue Erickson and Flo Wilson met with Allison Pingree and Patricia Armstrong from the Center for Teaching and with Jen Holt from the Writing Studio to discuss ongoing collaborations. Sue and Flo also met with Frank Wcislo, Dean of the Commons, and Mike Martin, Digital Commons, to learn more about continuing developments for next year's first year students and plans for the Commons. Sue followed up with Frank and Jen Holt to discuss possible use of academic support space in the Commons Center. Frank Wcislo was invited to meet with the Library Directors Council (and Strategy and Planning Council members), and that meeting/discussion also took place in September.
Copier and Printing Services
Work was finally completed on the netting to prevent roosting of pigeons above the north and south entrances to the breezeway.
Work is underway to correct drainage problems on the west side entrance to the GLB, which has resulted in repeated instances of flooding in the Divinity Circulation work area. A trench was excavated to install a new French drain in the area, which uncovered a broken pipe in the existing drains as well.
Dewey donned his 'batman' gear recently to remove a small bat that was hanging
from one of the sprinkler pipes in the stacks. He removed the bat and transported
it to the woods near his home
to release it.
A number of new locations implemented VUprint with the start of the fall semester, including the Law School, and a new location in the Commons.
Interlibrary Loan Service
The new Faculty Delivery Service, which had been in quiet operation through the summer, was fully launched with the beginning of the fall semester. Student assistants were hired, announcements were added to the Heard public web, promotional bookmarks were made available for distribution, and the campus libraries were invited to contact their faculty patrons. The response from users has been very positive.
The volume of interlibrary borrowing and lending increased in September, as is usual for the beginning of the school year.
Copyright Clearing Service
Marymae Jansson finished clearances
for fall semester and Mod II ClassPaks, then turned attention primarily to
electronic reserves permissions.
Meetings,
Activities and Professional Development
Paul attended a NALA board meeting.