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January 2007 |
The Walker Management Library introduced its new website in January. The site has been re-designed from scratch, and much new information is included. Navigation is designed to be easier, and so far the feedback has been quite positive. It’s partially database driven, has forms, a Google customized search engine, 20 new research guides, and a blog (The WML Spotlight) where users can read news and announcements from the library. The content of the blog is also incorporated seamlessly into the homepage and users can subscribe to its RSS feed. One of the goals for the new website was to make the use of the Library much more self-service in finding information and seeking services. Rachel Vacek is largely responsible for the wonderful new site. Many staff assisted in the development of content and the review of the site for accuracy, and all staff participated in learning more about the site through a guided exercise so that we can better assist users and know what’s available on the site.
The long-awaited electronic room reservation system was launched at the beginning of MOD III and was received very positively by the students. Brent and Flo Wilson worked with Owen IT and the Owen Student Government Association (OSGA) for several months as the program was developed. Owen Systems Analyst, George Sibble, modified an off the shelf calendaring program to fit the needs of the Owen community, and by all accounts, came up with a successful interface. Brent and Bec Hinton transferred all standing room reservations to the new system during the early part of January, and the staff began using the new program exclusively for room reservations at that point.
Statistics gathering has been a challenge. Hilary Rudsenske, Brent, Flo, and Rachel began investigating the use of Libstats for data collection. An important additional data gathering opportunity will be to track more of the questions received at the circulation portion of the service desk in order to get a better understanding of the overall need for ‘information’ services. For January, circulation is down 11%; reserve circulation is down 26%, reference and research flat, and directional questions are down 66%; for the first 7 months these same measures are down 6%, 25%, 30% and 59%, respectively. We no longer have gate counts to compare physical usage of the library, although that seems largely unchanged. We are anxious to understand the underlying causes for these substantial changes; one assumption is that the reconfiguration of the two service desks has made the reference portion less visible.
Deborah, Rahn Huber, and Brent are working as a project team to create a plan for combining the circulation and reference functions at the Service Desk. We hope to have a plan in place and training complete by sometime this summer. All staff will work at the Service Desk, and we'll be developing enhanced information skills for all of them. Referrals and handoffs of difficult questions will be passed on to appropriate staff.
Services
Access & Circulation
Brent and Laura Norris arranged training sessions for print and e-reserve processing for Joe Collins and Bec during January. Laura will remain the person primarily responsible for processing print reserves, and Brent will continue to be responsible for e-reserves in Blackboard. Bec and Joe will now be able to serve as back-ups during busy times or when either Brent or Laura are out.
Bec agreed to work all day on Saturday in order to provide staff coverage now that there isn't a reference librarian that day. Sylvia, Elaine, Bec, Laura, and Joe were each very flexible and supportive in staffing the circulation desk and opening in the morning during the several staffing challenges experienced during January.
Statistics Management Library books delivered to faculty in other schools Number of documents delivered to faculty (non-book) Hard-copy items placed on reserve Records for print reserves modified Hard-copy items removed from reserve Electronic reserve records created in Blackboard Electronic links created in OAK (for School of Nursing Staff) Electronic links corrected or reactivated at faculty request
Circulation Statistics Items Charged Items Discharged Received from other libraries Items Renewed Reserve Items Charged Reserves Renewed Recalls/Holds Created
Information Services
Beginning in January, the hours that the Information Services Desk is staffed was reduced from 70 hours per week to 52 hours per week. Saturday and evening staffing of the desk was discontinued. This change is a result of an analysis of reference statistics and the need to reallocate librarian time to the performance of in-depth reference services and consultations. Also this month an Orientation to Information Services was presented to the entire Library staff; the session included a discussion of common information requests and the utilization of our new website to help guide customers in the absence of a librarian.
Charlene Cunniffe rejoined the staff as a weekend term reference librarian, she was retrained on Sunday January 7th. All Information Services staff were invited to attend David Furse’s undergraduate class “The Entrepreneurial Challenge”; each librarian will act as an information consultant to one of 5 student teams.
In January the information services team received a total of 232 questions. This is a 19% decrease from the 287 questions that we had during the same time period last year. This change may be attributed to the change in hours that the reference desk is staffed. However, the number of reference questions answered this January actually increased 11% from 170 questions last year to 192 this year. This change and shift in the types of questions asked may be attributed to our customers being better able to self-help simple directional questions by utilizing our new website as well and our promotion of asklibrarians and consultation services. We had 28 directional questions and 12 faculty research requests.
Instruction
ENGM 221 – Management of Technology – John Bers – 40 students /w Carlin Sappenfield
ENGM 221 – Management of Technology – John Bers – 37 students (without Carlin)
Information Services staff continued their ‘information consultant’ work with their EMBA groups and with David Furse’s MGRL 195 – Entrepreneurial Challenge class groups. They also began to prepare for assistance with Gary Scudder’s and Jon Lehman’s strategy classes.Guides
Many new research guides were added to the new website; many were completed in earlier months. Deb Sommer and Hilary developed al Bloomberg A-Z guide.
Faculty Research
The Library continues to update the School’s faculty research database by adding in citations and links to published research. During January Deb added 15 new publications, added one new faculty member with 12 publications, and revised 20 existing entries.
Outreach and External Services
The Business Information Service has 73 current clients. January was a relatively slow month with 4 client meetings, one unaffiliated research request, 5 document delivery requests; billings were $840.
Rahn and Tracy Primich have been working with the VU Office of Technology Transfer & Enterprise Development to conduct an information assessment and develop recommendations to improve their library related research efforts.
Rahn had a follow-up conversation with Shirley Bigna, University of California, who has submitted a proposal to begin a new BIS service.
Collections
Deb presented recommendations for ¾ of the Walker Databases that are currently under review. Each included an evaluation of the merits of the databases and alternative products as well as price and usage levels. We hope to free up some funds from cancellations so that we can subscribe to databases in areas that are currently not well covered. The following upgrades were considered: Market Research.com Academic (health sciences) upgrade, Business Insights (Access Asia) upgrade, Plunkett’s Research Online (new database), Socrates (New database), Vault (upgrade – still working on).
A special acquisitions request for VLEF funding to purchase the online Encyclopedia of Statistics was approved; we will pay the ongoing annual access fee. We acquired the electronic versions of International Directory of Company Histories (volume 59-77).
Deb, Rachel and Deborah began to document the procedures WML should follow in acquiring and canceling of new electronic resources, which is ever becoming a more complicated process. Having written documentation will be helpful in clarifying roles and responsibilities.
Deb prepared a Weeding Proposal for the circulating collection, but a decision to proceed is pending a determination of priorities and available staff.
We called a moratorium on Annex transfers for January. Our selections of older years of bound volumes indicated that there may be some inventory problems with accuracy and Acorn records. We discussed the issues with the Annex staff and determined that prior to transferring any more volumes we would go through each volume and mark missing issues. Hopefully, this would be beneficial and would help to insure an easier work flow for the Annex staff as well as reflecting was we actually owned. We would resume transfers beginning in February. Access Services staff will assist with pulling and organizing the volumes; Joe began a clean-up and shifting project in the bound periodicals in those locations where transfer material had been removed. He will continue that project as more volumes are removed.
This month was also busy with liaison activities with Management, Order Services and Technical Processing staff. Deborah and Sylvia Grant assisted with spine label corrections, holdings update, invoice resolutions, title change notification and processing, fund monitoring and updating.
During this time we completed and submitted our statistics for the ARL survey.
Statistics: Serials Periodicals processed Reference Claims processed Looseleaf pages filed Annex Transfers Bindery (sent) Bindery (returned)
Statistics: Acquisitions Books ordered Books ordered for Reserves
Facilities
Bec developed a new seating arrangement for the 2 nd floor, incorporating existing tables and chairs and enhancing and expanding useable space. She and Joe rearranged the furniture the week before classes began, and the returning students use of new study areas showed their approval.
The Career Management Center (CMC) required the use of the five 1 st floor study rooms for recruitment interviews beginning in early January. The process got off to a bit of a rocky start with numerous changes being required early on. These issues were soon smoothed out, however, and as we learned more about the operation of the system, CMC was able to begin making and changing their own reservations. CMC kept the library informed of instances where rooms were no longer needed so the spaces could be made available to OGSM students. By month’s end, very few problems with the process were noted. Staff continued to assist in making study room reservations for various departments within Owen.
A new fax machine was installed at the service desk. The old machine was prone to failure and was often out-of-order in recent months. The new machine allows both the receipt and transmission of faxes, whereas the old machine could only be used to send faxes.
Technology
The major accomplishment for the month was the introduction of the new website. In production, a number of improvements needed attention. Rachel worked with Hilary on customizing Google Analytics and Google CSE in order to measure the use of the website. The Spotlight blog on the library’s home page prompted meetings among Rachel, Brent, and Rahn about blog management; these were followed up with discussions with Celia Walker and Suellen Stringer-Hye about an upcoming meeting regarding new library blogs. Rachel collaborated with Owen IT to customize error handling and other issues in the new website in relationship to the Owen website.
Rachel set up Cynthia Kutka’s laptop to be ready for her arrival in early February, as well as making sure she was on the appropriate distribution lists and had an Owen ID. Rachel also set up a computer at the Reference Desk for Charlene Cunniffe for Sunday desk shifts. She created electronic letterhead for the BIS service.
Administration
Flo prepared the budget proposal for the 2007/2008 fiscal year; she met with Dean Bradford, Tricia Siegfried, and Joe Blackburn to discuss the proposal. We are requesting exception funding for library materials if the usual amount is not available from Walker funds. The Walkers have made another gift to the Library, but the disposition - amount and timing - is not yet clear.
Flo met with Tricia Carswell, Associate Dean of Development and Alumni Relations. They discussed the possibility of holding a 25th year celebration for the Walker Library this spring. More planning will occur in March. We will plan to invite Shirley Hallblade (Director, 25 years ago) and Carol Dickerson (also previous director following Shirley). Flo also met separately with Marshall Turnbull, Director of Alumni Relations, to learn more about how we might work better with alumni; the BIS service was offered as a potentially valuable program for alumni.
Since moving back into the library space after renovation, the files in the director’s office have been stacked in a corner. Elaine Hill organized these, created new files and file folders, and returned everything to a much better organized scheme.
Staff Activities & Professional Development
All staff have been reading chapters in the book ‘Type Talk at Work’, and we have been discussing one chapter at each of our staff meetings. We are becoming more aware of our many different approaches to the various aspects of our work. The discussions are based on our taking the Myers Briggs Type Inventory in the fall and later discussions about ‘types’.
Brent received a certificate for his work on the 2006 Community Giving Campaign.
Rachel met with Paul Gherman to talk about the need for mentoring or career coaching for new or young library staff within the library system. She attended the webcast SirsiDynix Institute, Learning 2.0: Make "Play" Your New Year's Resolution. Her notes are on WML Tech Updates. She also received certificates for her service on the SFX Maintenance Project Team and the Staff Development Committee.
Brent and Rachel are each serving on the GetIt! Project teams for testing Primo. Rachel serves on the SFX Project Team. Rahn serves on two Staff Development Committee Project Teams: Meeting Management and Project Management.
Rachel participated in presenting the Brown Bag on Training Pages and Element K. She, along with Celia Walker, Judy Carter, and Chris Waldrop, talked about the various opportunities for library staff interested in continuous learning and training opportunities on the recently updated Heard Library Training Resources page. Rachel attended the ALA Midwinter Conference in Seattle, WA. A summary of her conference experience can be found on Rachel’s blog, WML Tech Updates. She also met with Daisy Whitten to discuss updating the Technology & Training Support Coordinators’ webpages, per the suggestion of the Staff Development Committee. She attended the monthly Spiders meeting and took notes, which are on WML Tech Updates.
Rahn began her official activities as Budget Officer for SARV IV (Southeastern Regional SLA conference). She has been asked to speak at the College and University Librarians division of SLA on BIS and Outreach for the June 2007 conference. She attended the GIS presentation at the Reference and Instruction Forum.
Deb had her LOEX Proposal accepted for their 2007 Annual Conference; this was a joint proposal with Sharon Weiner and Leslie Foutch.