UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
2012
PROGRESS REPORT A supplement to
OUTWARD AND UPWARD The University Libraries Strategic Plan 2010
Change is constant, and our planning must reflect this
足reality. The strategic plan we created two years ago, Outward and Upward, outlined our 足direction and 足priorities. It set our course and gave us newfound momentum. We are proud of all we have done to achieve the goals within that plan. This report highlights only some of our many accomplishments. Not all of those goals are realized, of course. Outward and Upward was a document created to take us to the future. Because our changing environment presents new 足opportunities, this report also identifies new activities and next steps. We have much good work yet to do, and our future will continue to be guided by the needs of students and faculty we work daily to serve.
Patricia A. Steele, Dean of Libraries pasteele@umd.edu
See the 2010 strategic plan, Outward and Upward: www.lib.umd.edu/strategic
C O L L E C T I O N S : P R O V I D I N G I N F O R M AT I O N I N
Michelle Smith Peforming Arts Library
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ALL ITS FORMS
Our goal, always, is to balance print and electronic collections with the diverse needs of students and faculty. WHAT WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED Added more than 40 electronic databases to support a wide range of research and learning. Purchases, subscriptions and access fees for the databases represent an annual investment of more than $2 million. Dean Steele calls it an “across-the-board benefit” that offers students and faculty in every academic discipline access to information they need for their work. Joined HathiTrust, a partnership of major academic and research libraries collaborating in a broad digital library initiative to preserve and provide access to digital books and materials. Over time, vast online collections like the HathiTrust will change how faculty and students use our print collections and how we will store and manage them. Worked with the University Library Council to promote the adoption of a University Senate resolution to explore open-access issues. Making scholarship freely available to the public via the Internet makes good sense for libraries. Our budgets cannot absorb skyrocketing costs of journal subscriptions. In effect, we’re buying back the university’s scholarship from publishers.
Learned from experts who, as part of an inaugural speakers’ series, increased our understanding of future directions in libraries and higher education. As libraries make the transition from books to bytes, how will libraries manage electronic collections? What are the implications of open access? What are strategies for large-scale sharing of print collections? Scanned about 10,000 items, reflected in the 3,500 new records added to our digital collections. Researchers now have online access to 800 historic university football films; more than 700 documents relating to African Americans and slavery in nineteenth-century Maryland; personal papers relating to the Civil War in Maryland; and materials relating to the university’s history. We also scanned nearly 2,000 postcards from our National Trust Library Historic Postcard Collection. Contributed content to the Internet Archive, an organization working to create an Internet library by providing access to historical collections that exist in digital form. We added 500 volumes, including University of Maryland basketball media guides, state planning documents dating from the 1930s to the 1980s, and several rare Kelmscott Press volumes never before digitized.
Items never checked out
A national survey of academic libraries reveals that 56% of volumes were never checked out. Source: Data-Driven Deselection 2009 R2 circulation survey.
Serial prices are expected to increase this year by 4 to 6 percent or, for us, by about $343,000. One chemistry society announced it will increase prices by 12 percent. Source: Annual periodicals price survey from American Libraries (2011); Royal Society of Chemistry.
C O L L E C T I O N S : P R O V I D I N G I N F O R M AT I O N I N
Engineering and Physical Sciences Library
WHAT’S NEXT Explore tools to allow students and faculty initiate purchases of books, e-books and serials for our collections. Though we have long purchased materials mindful of the needs of students and faculty (and frequently at their suggestion), this patron-driven model not only empowers researchers, but also reduces the possibility of our acquiring and storing materials that may not be used. Develop a plan for digital collections, curation and stewardship, with a future emphasis that addresses relevance to institutional needs and the broader regional, national and international impact of these collections. This follows a recent departmental reorganization to facilitate this effort.
Collaborate with other universities to form the Academic Preservation Trust, a national consortium for digital preservation. Envisioned as a complement to the HathiTrust, this consortium illustrates how progressive libraries, working together with clear goals and noble ambitions, are shaping their future. Champion open access—the free and unrestricted access to online scholarship—and help the university community identify solutions appropriate for a wide range of needs and disciplines.
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ALL ITS FORMS
$ 5.00 $ 4.00
The Cost of Keeping a Book
$ 3.00
A library bears an annual cost of: $4.26 for each volume held in open stacks $0.86 for each volume held in high-density storage
$ 2.00 $ 1.00
Source: On the Cost of Keeping a Book. June 2010 Council on Library and Information Resources Report.
Open Stacks
High Density Storage
Electronic Resources as a Percentage of Library Materials Budget 80
Approximately 75% of our collections are purchased in electronic form. The national average for research libraries is 62 percent.
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Source: Electronic Resources Expenditures Association of Research Libraries Statistics 2009-2010.
SERVICES: SERVING OUR COMMUNITIES
Architecture Library
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Increasingly our work is defined not by the collections on our shelves, but by the services we provide to make information more useful.
WHAT WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED Introduced a video-streaming service so students can access films and video 24/7 for their coursework. The service is immensely popular and on track with how students now expect delivery of materials. Eighty professors requested that nearly 500 titles be streamed for their students. Extended a service to graduate students to scan articles from our print collections and deliver them electronically. We fulfilled 3,400 requests since launching the service in February 2011, saving students time and effort. “I know how hard you and the entire staff work,” wrote one grateful beneficiary. “The job you do really is amazing.” Began loaning laptops to students for their short-term needs. By far the most popular: 12 MacBook Pros, which have
been checked out 3,500 times since the program launched in April 2011. We also loan an assortment of 60 e-readers, tablets, cameras, and headphones, and even recharging cables and adapters. Taught more than 21,500 students in about 925 classes, orientations and tours in fiscal year 2011. As leaders in the Provost’s Commission on Learning Outcomes Assessment, we expanded the degree to which we measure the effectiveness of our teaching. Established the Undergraduate Library Research Award to recognize outstanding use of library resources and services in scholarly work and to promote their value. Essays and projects of winning students are included in DRUM, the university’s digital repository for scholarship.
WHAT’S NEXT Focus on digital stewardship, e-research, and geographic information systems. New staff and reorganization will provide leadership in identifying needs and expectations of stakeholders. We will coordinate development of standards and best practices for managing digital assets and associated technologies across the University Libraries and take a leadership role in campuswide enterprise GIS efforts and collaboration.
Redefine and reshape the Nonprint Media Services department to cement its longterm relevance and to leverage potential and existing partnerships within the university and beyond.
THE LIBRARY TECHNOLOGY FEE, a $50-per-semester student fee approved by the university in 2010, supplements funding for collections and technology within the University Libraries. A diverse group of students meets throughout the academic year, engages in discussions about the changing nature of libraries, and advises the dean on issues important to them, including how their fee is spent.
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Terrapin Learning Commons, McKeldin Library 2nd floor
S TA F F I N G : L E V E R A G I N G O U R E X P E R T I S E
Technology has forever changed libraries, and the pace of change accelerates daily. Our job is not to keep up; it’s to lead. WHAT WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED Hired senior leadership posts for information technology and administrative services. Babak Hamidzadeh, from the Library of Congress, joined us as associate dean for information technology; David Rivard joined as assistant dean for administrative services. Identified additional skills needed to meet objectives in the strategic plan and hired individuals to help us achieve our goals. Launched a hiring initiative to match recent post-master’s professionals with two-year positions aligned with strategic priorities. In addition to providing new hires an opportunity to develop their expertise, the program also provides us the flexibility to respond to
changing needs. First up: e-research. Next: access services and broadcasting archives. Unleashed creative problem-solvers by establishing a fund to reward and implement good ideas. Among the first projects funded: offering a popular reading collection of current titles and best-sellers in response to student requests, and using iPads for instruction. Embraced our geeky side by forming a group to demonstrate and evaluate emerging technologies and identify how they can improve our services and practices. Using a cloud-based application for synching documents, for example, helps us work more efficiently.
WHAT’S NEXT Hire an associate dean for Public Services, a new position, to identify creative partnerships throughout campus and beyond that promote and support proactive user-centered services. Foster relationships to extend international collaborations to provide greater
opportunities for students and to support university priorities in this area. Opportunities exist to foster relationships with libraries in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Meaningful partnerships involving university students have been in place for years in Nicaragua, thanks to the relationship-building of two of our impassioned librarians.
NOT STRATEGIC OR PLANNED More than 27,000 books fell from McKeldin Library shelves following a rare East Coast earthquake on August 23, 2011. Other libraries on campus, including Hornbake Library and the Architecture Library, also experienced damage. As a testament to the hard work of more than 90 staff and volunteers, all items were reshelved within three and a half days—well before students returned for the fall semester. Great people work in libraries. And we don’t like a mess.
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S P A C E A N D I N F R A S T R U C T U R E : C R E AT I N G
We offer environments that help students succeed. WHAT WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED Created a space for collaboration and community by realizing the Terrapin Learning Commons on the second floor of McKeldin Library. By tripling the number of computers on the floor to 100, we now provide about 500 computers to students across campus. Add scores of outlets for laptops, monitors for group activity and new furnishings, and the space supports the way students work today. Open 24 hours a day through much of the academic year, the TLC is one of the most popular places on campus. In partnership with the Graduate School, we also opened two study spaces especially for graduate students.
Launched an ethnographic study to gain a better understanding of student needs and patterns that will inform a redesign of McKeldin Library. Associate Professor Michael Paolisso’s anthropology students spent the fall semester observing and surveying students. Their findings, combined with similar studies undertaken by our staff, informed the work of graduate architecture students working with Dean David Cronrath. This year, other graduate students will develop a design working with a Baltimore-based architectural firm. The goal, says Dean Steele, is to rethink the spaces of McKeldin Library and “reflect what academics are today and how students work.”
E N V I R O N M E N T S F O R A C A D E M I C S U C C E S S 13
Terrapin Learning Commons, McKeldin Library 2nd floor
OPERATING EXPENSES
(FY2011 total: $25,469,550*)
WHAT’S NEXT Introduce multi-year budget forecasts to assist in operational planning and to predict surpluses available for priority projects; introduce functional budgeting to empower divisional managers to make spending decisions within pre-defined parameters.
Redefine our assessment program to ensure decisions regarding services and collections are data-driven.
10,778,248
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Move to new information technology infrastructure and management platforms including and using virtualization and cloud infrastructure as appropriate.
11,346,316
Collections Salaries & Wages
3,344,986
Offsite storage Equipment & software Online catalog Other operating costs * Numbers include Library Technology Fee expenditures
STUDENT TWEETS
About to do a good 12 hours strong with McKeldin Library ;)
In the zone - Otherwise known as McKeldin 2nd floor
2nd Floor of McKeldin has really stepped up its game this year #impressed
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I wanna see the new McKeldin everyone is talking about
New favorite floor in McKeldin #2ndfloorchillin Done with classes. Back to McKeldin to study until my brain explodes.
Follow us @umdlibraries
PA R T N E R S H I P S A N D C O L L A B O R AT I O N S N AT I O N A L Academic Preservation Trust A national consortium including regional counterparts such as Johns Hopkins and the University of Virginia that is framing the next phase of digital preservation. arXiv Cornell’s scientific research repository Association of Research Libraries A membership organization of 126 top research libraries in North America. Center for Research Libraries An international consortium of libraries that acquires and preserves traditional and digital resources from a global network of sources. CLIR Council on Library and Information Resources CLOCKSS A joint venture of leading scholarly publishers and research libraries to ensure the long-term survival of Web-based journals. CNI Coalition for Networked Information DuraSpace An organization dedicated to developing open-source repository software, like that used to support Maryland’s own DRUM. Digital Preservation Network A national consortium established to provide a federated approach to digital preservation. E-Science Institute A program to strengthen support for esciences, coordinated by the Association of Research Libraries and the Digital Library Federation. HathiTrust A partnership of more than 50 major research institutions and libraries creating a shared digital library to preserve and make accessible the cultural record.
Kuali OLE A community of libraries and vendors that is creating software to manage interrelated library transactions that range from ordering and loaning books to managing digital collections. Kuali is the name for community-sourced enterprise software for higher education; OLE stands for Open Library Environment. LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) An international community initiative, based at Stanford University, that provides libraries with digital preservation tools and support so that they can collect and preserve their own copies of authorized e-content. Project Bamboo A national initiative to develop a digital infrastructure to better support humanities scholarship across institutions. S TAT E a n d R E G I O N A L Association of Southeastern Research Libraries A regional research library consortium. Maryland Digital Library A gateway to electronic resources available to students and faculty at universities and colleges across the state of Maryland. Maryland Library Consortium A consortium of school, public, and academic libraries in Maryland. National Library of Medicine, Universities at Shady Grove, University of Maryland, Baltimore A partnership to support mutual interests in medical and health education, advanced training, and information dissemination. Northeast Research Libraries A regional research library consortium. University System of Maryland and ÂAffiliated Institutions
Concept and text: Eric Bartheld. Design: Rebecca Wilson. Photography: Michael Morgan. Printed on Chorus Art Gloss 55% recycled paper (30% post-consumer waste).
ARCHITECTURE LIBRARY • ART LIBRARY ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES LIBRARY • HORNBAKE LIBRARY MCKELDIN LIBRARY • MICHELLE SMITH PERFORMING ARTS LIBRARY P R I D D Y L I B R A R Y AT S H A D Y G R O V E • W H I T E M E M O R I A L C H E M I S T R Y L I B R A R Y
Patricia Steele, Dean of Libraries 6131 McKeldin Library College Park, MD 20742-7011
OUR MISSION
To enable the intellectual inquiry and learning required to meet the education, research and community outreach mission of the university.
N O N P R OF I T OR G . U. S . P O S TAG E
PAI D
PE R M I T N O. 1 0 CO L L E GE PA R K , M D