Dean's Letter

From the Desk of Dean Schmand

My first year as dean of the James E. Walker Library was remarkable. As you can imagine, there is quite a lot to learn about an organization during the first year, and I know that there is still more learning ahead for me.

Initially, I had conversations with library staff and faculty, then scheduled conversations with colleagues across campus, including college deans, vice presidents, program and center directors, and more. Each of these interactions presented a picture of the amazing work happening in support of student success as well as potential future opportunities and partnerships. Additionally, I met with some amazing MTSU alumni and friends of the library and heard more about their individual experiences.

Several changes to library services and spaces emerged from these discussions. From experience with lending equipment at my previous institution, I worked with Library Technology to expand available equipment for checkout to students. For the Fall 2021 semester, we extended the checkout period for laptops from only four hours to three days. We also added some existing Makerspace technology into the circulating equipment pool, and we purchased more digital cameras and audio recorders to loan. Additionally, we made some changes involving study spaces and furniture around the building before students returned in the fall.

It was clear early on that the faculty, staff, and student employees working in Walker Library are committed to creating an exceptional user experience for everyone across MTSU. Throughout the pandemic, they navigated working remotely, designing new online support services, and then returning to campus with new protocols and modified working and learning spaces. Faculty, staff, and students remained resilient, adaptive, and successful in handling the multitude of changes and challenges they faced.

Upon my arrival in January 2021, the library was in the midst of two major projects:

• The transition from cataloging materials in the Dewey Decimal system to Library of Congress (LC) classification, which is more commonly found in academic libraries across the U.S. It involved shifting more than 800,000 printed books. Over 15,000 volumes were moved to the second floor and cataloged in LC. As additional items are borrowed, they will be re-cataloged upon return in LC. As you’ll see in this issue, managing the library’s collections is a complicated bit of work, but fundamental to the curricular and research support of faculty and students.

• Implementation of a new open-source library services platform, FOLIO, which had a July 2021 “go-live” date. While FOLIO serves as the “back-end system” to the library’s work, this project represents a fundamental change in how library faculty and staff do their jobs every day. FOLIO is the leading edge of library automation because of its open-source development, but also because of the community behind its evolution. We look forward to contributing to this project and benefiting from the collective development behind it.

As you can see, planning played a significant role in my first year. I worked with Walker Library’s leadership team to implement operating plans that reflected existing priorities as well as writing reports that illustrated the library’s accomplishments in advancing the institution’s goals. You’ll see some of the data we collected that conveys the impact of the library’s services, collections, and spaces for students and faculty in this issue.

Last August, I held a kickoff event for a yearlong strategic planning project (see accompanying sidebar). We’ll be announcing details of our plans soon.

Kathleen L. Schmand, Dean of James E. Walker Library

Grand Plans

Developing a shared vision for Walker Library was an established goal upon my hire at MTSU.

After reviewing previous planning documents from the library as well as the University’s Academic Master Plan and Quest 2025 priorities, I recruited several library faculty and staff to serve on a library strategic planning team.

During the fall semester, the team created questions to gather feedback from the MTSU community. We received more than 500 student responses to a survey and tabling exercise!

We held conversations with deans, program directors, research centers, and the Student Government Association.

We are now in the process of revisiting the library’s mission, vision, and values. This spring, the strategic planning team worked with library faculty and staff to draft action items and goals for the coming four years. Look for more details after July 1.