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The publication of Vanderbilt's Strategic Plan provided the impetus for the development of the Heard Library system's own strategic plan. The focus on change, creativity, and institutional identity in the University's plan provided valuable direction for the Library's efforts.
The Heard Library system is a significant contributor to the University's goals of teaching, research, and service. In the face of the changing nature of information delivery and changes in the University's strategic emphasis, the Library must reexamine its services and organization, focusing on ease of access and the trans-institutional nature of scholarship. A new vision of the Library is proposed, one that both recognizes the needs of students and faculty in a digital age while acknowledging the library's ongoing functions as archive, provider and organizer of information, and a physical place for study, dialogue, and learning.
To strengthen its position as a strategic asset to the University, the Library has established the following five-year goals:
1. The Library will become a trans-institutional "Center for Academic Life".
2. The Library will develop a comprehensive plan for space utilization and collection management in an environment of limited capital expansion.
3. The Library will build a powerful infrastructure for digital collections and services.
4. The Library will develop, in consultation with faculty, a cross-college information competencies instruction program to educate students in the use, evaluation, and management of information resources.
5. The Library will communicate more effectively with our users.
Over the past decade, constant and dramatic change has been a fact of life for libraries in general and for the libraries at Vanderbilt in particular. The Internet and digital media have dramatically altered the nature of library collections and services. While library staff continue to provide in-person assistance for faculty, students, and staff at service desks, they also provide a host of virtual services and information resources for that same community.
Since they serve the entire academic community, University libraries are trans-institutional organizations. At Vanderbilt, however, the libraries' distributed physical infrastructure and budget structure reflect the University's propensity, under the ETOB (Each Tub on its Own Bottom) budget model, to replicate services and decentralize decision-making. Each divisional library offers a high level of customized services for its primary user group. However, those same users often cross divisional boundaries to use libraries other than those of their schools. The customization that serves them well in their "home" library can lead to confusing inconsistencies when they go to other divisions.
Moreover, while many of the Library's new digital assets and services are trans-institutional, most library staff work in the divisional libraries. The locus of both collections and services has shifted to the Internet, making the divisional alignment a much less meaningful organizing principle. Thus, while continuing to support the needs of each school, the Libraries must develop less fragmented and more consistent trans-institutional services.
Technology has changed the mission and role of libraries in very dramatic ways. No longer stored primarily on paper, information is transportable, easily replicable, and unrestrained by geography or time. Academic research libraries have responded to this change with creativity and reinvention.
That responsiveness to change continues to be necessary. The beginning of a revolution in publishing appears to be on the horizon, one in which universities may regain some control of scholarly publishing (previously ceded to commercial publishers) and one in which Google proposes the digitization of millions of books, many out of copyright.
Institutional repositories (digital archives of faculty intellectual property, including articles, course-related materials, unpublished research, etc.), open access publishing, and digital libraries will also transform scholarship. At Vanderbilt, ETANA.org, a cooperative venture of the Library, the Divinity School and a consortium of scholarly societies and universities, holds the promise of offering almost immediate access to Near Eastern archaeological excavation reports. The Vanderbilt Television News Archive continues to capture, index and offer scholars the unique resource of national news broadcasts. New services include e-journals edited by Vanderbilt faculty and "published" by the Library, expanding the Library's role from acquiring content produced elsewhere to facilitating the creation of content locally. The Library thus becomes the host to new types of scholarly communication.
Technology affects how information is received, evaluated and processed, but it also influences users' behaviors and attitudes toward libraries. At Vanderbilt, Library staff are increasingly aware that each year's entering class arrives with higher expectations about technology because of their experiences to date.
The growth of digital collections makes it possible for users to access many library resources without coming to the Library. At the same time, the Library can retain its role as a place for study individually or in groups, serving the needs of today's college students. Their new learning styles demand new kinds of library spaces. The Library must find ways to make itself compatible with the characteristics of today's students using the concept of a "learning commons", with a variety of pleasant and useful study and gathering places, with available library staff when assistance is needed, technology features that support research, and more targeted information finding aids. Additionally, the Library has an ongoing role in teaching even these sophisticated technophiles how to make judgments about the quality of the information they find.
Print Collections: Large academic libraries have traditionally measured their value in collection-centered terms, and the breadth and quality of collections are key to faculty satisfaction with the library. By this standard, the Vanderbilt Library's growth is impressive. It took almost a century to amass the first million volumes (1873-1966), a quarter century to collect the second million (1992), and little more than a decade to reach three million (2004). This accelerated rate of acquisition reflects the phenomenal expansion of scholarship and publication in the second half of the twentieth century, a process that continues apace and increasingly challenges both budget and physical plant.
Electronic Collections: Over the last decade we have aggressively developed electronic collections; we now commit over 25% of our materials funds to digital resources. Library users can now access over 200 databases, 12,000 journals, and 150,000 books online, anywhere, anytime. User response indicates that the strategy of building a digital library has been resoundingly successful. When given a choice, users consult electronic materials far more often than their print counterparts.
Electronic Services: By instituting electronic services, the Library has expanded its presence beyond its buildings. Users can now renew charged books, place items on reserve, request interlibrary loans, and ask reference questions through the Library's Website.
Library Staff: The Library's staff is one of its key assets. Despite a decade of intensive and often stressful change, staff members have proven themselves to be exceptionally flexible, resilient, and inventive. Rapidly evolving technologies demand that staff constantly relearn their jobs and acquire the skills to manage new forms of information. Because of these constant efforts, library staff are able to help our users make the most effective use of the incredible variety of information tools available to them. Service quality is a core organizational value.
User Perceptions: Surveys and the many interviews conducted by library staff for this report reveal that faculty and students perceive the services and collections of the libraries at Vanderbilt very positively. Faculty members repeatedly cited e-journals as a singularly beneficial research innovation.
National Ranking: The libraries at Vanderbilt rank in the middle range of the 113 members of the Association of Research Libraries in terms of collection size, staff size, and total expenditures.
Fiscal Constraints: Funding growing print and electronic collections at the same level as in the past is jeopardized by several factors. Inflation in the cost of library materials, especially scholarly journals, has been a chronic problem for almost two decades. New initiatives, such as open access and institutional self-publishing, may control costs over the long term but will not provide immediate relief. A significant challenge is the conversion of journal back files, literary texts, historical documents, and other core library resources to digital form. The costs of these sizable electronic collections often exceed $100,000 each. The Library's materials budget grows at 4-5% annually, a rate that is generous if compared to cost-of-living increases, but inadequate in the context of the information economy.
Physical Infrastructure: While digital collections and services have substantially altered the library paradigm, our physical infrastructure remains important. The Heard Library operates in eight locations, five of which have been rebuilt or significantly renovated within the decade: Biomedical, Law, Music, Peabody, and Science and Engineering. Each of these divisional libraries features attractive venues for reading, study, and public service. It is clear from use patterns that students enjoy and visit these new facilities. Despite users' preference for electronic resources, the library as physical place-for study, for group projects and assignments, for the sense of academic community-remains significant.
The General Library Building, the most heavily used site and home to three libraries, has not been substantially refurbished since its original construction and expansion. One of its tenants, the Divinity Library, is developing plans for renovating and possibly enlarging its space. The Central Library recently engaged an architectural firm to draw up proposals for a multi-year project to renovate several of its larger rooms, though funding has not been identified. An overall remodeling plan for the building is not, however, imminent.
The Library will become a trans-institutional "Center for Academic Life".
The campus has recently created the Center for Student Life to offer a host of services to students in support of their social life on campus. In a similar fashion, the Library intends to offer a suite of trans-institutional services in support of the academic pursuits of both students and faculty. It is only reasonable that a strong support system for scholarship and research exist on a campus that is dedicated to academic excellence. This Center for Academic Life would draw together a host of academic support services into a virtual organization to help students and faculty more easily avail themselves of existing and new services.
Library staff are positioned to offer many new types of assistance that complement and expand on traditional services. New service models include research and writing support, the compilation of image databases for classroom use, the creation of an institutional repository, support for e-journal publishing, development of e-portfolios (collections of individual students' work, including course papers, presentations, multi-media projects, etc.), geographical information systems, dataset management, instruction in course-related technologies, and discipline- or group-based portals within the Library.
The Library can leverage its ability to provide some of these services by partnering with other University units. We have already begun conversations with the Center for Teaching and with the Office of Innovation through Technology to co-manage a digital media unit and to locate a "learning commons" in the Library that would provide specialized software, hardware, and expert assistance to both faculty and students. Opportunities for collaboration also exist through active participation in OAK development and in preparation for the impact and implementation of residential colleges. The Library's subject specialists and school-based librarians provide a natural linkage with the faculty and schools in identifying new opportunities for partnership in the educational mission.
The Library will develop a comprehensive plan for space utilization and collection management in an environment of limited capital expansion.
In addition to being a place for storing materials, libraries are also places for users to study, collaborate, and learn. Students and faculty expect to find a variety of research and study spaces in contemporary libraries. They expect group study areas, individual carrels for intensive research, technology-enabled spaces, lounges that offer an "Internet café" experience, and quiet reading rooms. The Library needs to become a "third place" (after the residence hall and the classroom), where users find inspiration, contemplation, scholarship, and learning.
Some of the divisional libraries in the Heard Library system offer a variety of study and research spaces in modern, attractive buildings. The General Library Building is a major exception, and the Central Library (located in the GLB) receives constant negative comments from both students and faculty about its unattractive condition. An architectural firm has been employed to develop a revitalization plan for selected portions of the building; however, the College of Arts and Science has not identified funding for the project.
Although there is little possibility of increased library space within the next decade, the Library's physical collection continues to grow. Current annual acquisitions number more than 50,000 volumes. Each building in the Heard Library system has reached its capacity to house print material, so that an increasing proportion of the Library's collections will be located off site. To assure rapid access to needed off-site materials, services such as book delivery to faculty, scanning, and faxing will be necessary.
Despite its high-density storage system, the Library's Annex is expected to reach capacity in five to eight years. Without changes to the current model, a second storage facility will likely be needed before the end of the decade.
The Library has aggressively built our digital collections and services in support of the academic mission of the University. Our task now is to develop a powerful infrastructure to organize this content and to make it easy for our users to find and use digital resources. Work will proceed in a number of areas.
The Library will continue its proactive acquisition of scholarly information in digital formats. As well as acquiring digital material produced elsewhere, the Library will focus on assembling, preserving, and making accessible the digital intellectual property of Vanderbilt faculty and students.
To support such development, the Library must offer a host of new digital services that support local research and scholarship. Such services include
· Providing software, infrastructure,
and services to support locally developed e-journals
· Building an institutional repository to archive and make available
Vanderbilt's scholarly digital output
· Creating digital collections of images, digitized special collections
materials, audio, video
· Offering descriptive (metadata) services for the management of campus
information resources beyond the Library
The Library will seek to optimize access through new and improved tools that simultaneously support discovery throughout the collections and present reliable results in an intelligible manner. These tools must be simple and easy to use. They must support near seamless access to the resources available.
Digital library capabilities are improving and changing rapidly. The Vanderbilt Library must remain current, consider developments opportunistically, and implement enhancements to the systems in a timely and judicious way. Adoption of new digital library services and collections will enable the Library to continue its traditional partnership with faculty by providing a rich digital environment for the presentation and interpretation of scholarly discoveries.
The Library will develop, in consultation with faculty, a cross-college information competencies instruction program to educate students in the use, evaluation, and management of information resources.
Library research found that students need more help in learning to evaluate the quality of information their searches retrieve. They also need to develop better searching skills to find relevant data in both digital and print media. Google cannot answer every research question completely, and the value of un-refereed forms of communication, such as blogs, for academic purposes is highly questionable.
Currently, the Library offers information literacy instruction in a decentralized fashion, with each division devising programs in response to local needs. A multi-college instructional program that utilizes and builds on divisional best practices would eliminate duplication of effort across the Libraries and create a consistent instruction experience for students. Working with faculty, the Library will design a comprehensive program of information competencies that can be utilized throughout the University but customized to specialized needs. The new Residential College system and the new Freshmen Commons may be perfect venues for exposing undergraduates to information analysis and retrieval skills.
The Library will communicate more effectively with our users.
Faculty and student interviews and focus groups revealed that many users are unaware of the Library's new services and information products, unsure of how to use them, or unclear about the benefits of new types of digital information. These findings indicate a need for greater dialogue between library staff and our users. The Library will create opportunities, venues and forums that facilitate communication about these new research tools and will also establish an assessment program that enables us to measure the Library's effectiveness in this area. By increasing faculty awareness of new scholarly databases and services, the Library can assist in the process of revitalizing the undergraduate learning experience and strengthening graduate education.
Bringing the Library's collections and services into better alignment with the University's goals is a major intent of this strategic plan. An institution that seeks to lead in the quest for new knowledge, disseminate that knowledge through teaching, and creatively experiment with ideas and concepts must have a robust and vital library.
Undergraduates, graduate students,
and faculty expect a range of resources and services from their library. Undergraduates
want not only attractive physical and social environments in the library but
also easy access to faculty-approved electronic resources seamlessly connected
to their course materials. Graduate students make heavy demands on library resources.
Those in the humanities, especially, expect physical facilities that support
intensive library study and research. Graduate students in the sciences and
engineering view immediate access to electronic databases and scientific literature
as a basic need. Faculty demand all of the above in support of their teaching,
while also identifying strong collections in support of their research as essential
for their decision to work at Vanderbilt.
The Library at Vanderbilt already provides many of these necessary resources
and has the talented staff to offer the highest-level services to the academic
community. To accomplish the goals described above, however, we must find creative
ways of redeploying staff, especially as our digital collections continue to
grow. We must not permit the University's ETOB budget structure to bind us to
a silo mentality, and we must reach out to other academic units on campus to
leverage our talent, expand our resources, and provide easy access to all of
our services. We must ensure that library resources are used to their fullest
across the campus, across divisions and schools, and that the Vanderbilt academic
community is aware of the Library's potential to partner with them in their
scholarly endeavors.
As a next step, the Library will develop a detailed implementation plan to accomplish its five goals. We will devise "trans-library" budgetary, personnel deployment, policy, and organizational tactics. Most important, we will cultivate a library organization and climate that will help us attain our goals.
· We will strengthen our user-centered orientation and constantly work toward understanding and meeting the needs of the Vanderbilt academic community.
· We will cultivate a climate of assessment to measure our success, adjusting our course in light of what we learn.
· We will strengthen our commitment to service quality.
· We will be a learning organization in which staff acquire new skills at an increased pace to keep current with technological change.
· We will foster a strong collective identity that encourages a spirit of cooperation and collaboration with common understanding, beliefs, and behaviors throughout the library system, and that encourages the staff to work together to provide effective and efficient services, while at the same time endorsing divisional innovation.
For more information about the major issues facing the nation's libraries, an
overview of the planning process conducted by the Library in preparation for
this document, and the Library's mission and vision statements, see the Appendix.
Updated 3/29/2005
Copyright 2005 Jean & Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University |
