Collections & Public Services Meeting Summary

Arts & Sciences Libraries

Friday, April 13, 2007 ~ 9-11am ~ 223 Lockwood

Attending: Mary Soom, Fred Stoss, Don Hartman, Jason Parker, Charles Lyons, Cindi Tysick, Dorothy Tao, Tiffany Walsh, Will Hepfer, Karen Smith, Michael Kankiesicz, Karen Senglaup, Jill Hackenberg, Ruth Oberg, Charles D’Aniello, David Bertuca, Ligaya Ganster, Ben Wagner, Ed Herman, Jean Dickson, Glendora Johnson-Cooper, Margie Wells (Recorder)

Excused: Austin Booth, Chris Hollister, Cindy Ehlers, Michele Shular, Howard Pikoff

Guests: Regina Toomey (9-9:55am), Susan Davis & Cindy Hepfer (10-10:30am)

Undergraduate Academies – Regina Toomey, Senior Associate Vice President, Articulation & Advising Services (See http://academy.buffalo.edu/ )

Regina distributed the “Undergraduate Academies Prospectus” (April 2007) and then provided the background and plans for the Fall 2007 Academies on Civic Engagement and Research Exploration. The document describes the academies as:

… scholarly communities composed of faculty, students, and staff sharing a common mission, goals, and interests. The academies provide undergraduate students and faculty scholars an organized and comprehensive way to focus on one of our institutional strengths. Academies are envisioned as spanning a student’s entire undergraduate experience if desired by the student.

Two academies begin this fall – Civic Engagement and Research Exploration – and two will begin in the Fall of 2008 – Creative Expression and Global and International Issues. Students are enrolled for the Fall, and faculty coordinators and staff are in place for the first two academies. There are current efforts to find a sensible space for academy learning and administrative activities, including discussions with the Libraries. A Fact Sheet on the academies for the UB Toolbox (http://www.buffalo.edu/toolbox/) will be ready soon. Regina is interested in talking more with librarians about the possible collaborative opportunities created by the academies, including librarian participation in providing research consultation and instruction for capstone courses, research seminars and other courses and projects.

Regina also described the Discovery Seminar program, and encouraged librarians to get involved by teaching a seminar or offering research instruction for seminars. The document will be sent to individuals who did not attend the meeting.

Summer Space Projects – Karen Senglaup

Campus walkways, Founders’ Plaza (west side) and the Capen and Lockwood entrances will be renovated this summer to increase accessibility and appearance. The renovations will create many staff and service disruptions and relocations. Responding to suggestions from the group, Karen said she will ensure that large, laminated maps are available for staff at service desks to help direct people, and that she will investigate the possibility of creating tape “paths” to services and other popular areas to help people navigate the buildings. Reference services are currently planned for both desks, but we will adapt if/when needed, perhaps using Instant Librarian or laptops to provide services in different ways/places. Librarians teaching summer instruction classes should use centrally scheduled UB classrooms outside the Libraries because of the ambiguity concerning Libraries’ classrooms during construction. Contact Linda Gould (lgould@buffalo.edu) to schedule those rooms.

Electronic Resource Management (ERM) System – Susan Davis & Cindy Hepfer

Susan reviewed recent progress with the ERM, and demonstrated the information contained in it. Reports are available on the staffWEB (http://libweb1.lib.buffalo.edu/erm/ - available under Services and then Access, Collection Management, Public or Technical) with information requested by librarians. Reports on Terms of Use (ILL), Contacts (Vendors), Simultaneous Users and Resource Information are available. The report on simultaneous users is especially useful for librarians teaching classes to determine how many student will be able to use certain resources. Susan encouraged librarians to contact vendors directly to arrange temporary passwords if/when needed for larger classes. “999” indicates unlimited users. Susan asked whether any other reports would be useful, and Cindi Tysick said that an annual report for cost/hit would be valuable for collections and outreach decisions. Reporter are also available in Y:\ERM Reports, including the spreadsheet on Funds_Ref.xls (in development); Susan requested that people download their own copies of the spreadsheets and avoid changing the master copies in the Y: folder. The region also includes a Data Dictionary which explains the values for all fields. Send comments about the ERM to libejn@buffalo.edu or 645-2784. Questions were raised about usage statistics, and people were reminded of the Y: \Usage Stats\ folder maintained by Mike Lavin.

Desk Tracker and LibQUAL+ - Karen Smith

LibQUAL runs through April 20th. 457 responses have been received to date. Karen will report to the Directors Council at the conclusion of LibQUAL.

The group discussed the use of Desk Tracker software to collect statistics during the ASL statistics weeks:

• Karen asked whether we need to continue recording directional questions.
• Should we continue sampling, or collect stats every day. The overwhelming consensus was to continue to use sampling.
• Should we add a box to capture the content of questions?
• Should there be a separate week to record question content?
• Karen will convene a meeting soon to discuss and finalize decisions about Desk Tracker.
• The data will be saved, but will be purged at the end of the current fiscal year on June 30th.

ACTION ITEMS FOR ALL:

• Email Margie Wells (mwells@buffalo.edu) *by April 25th* if you would like to participate in the conversation about setting up a liaison program for students and faculty involved in the Undergraduate Academies.
• Review the Electronic Resource Management reports on the staffWEB (http://libweb1.lib.buffalo.edu/erm/) and send comments to libejn@buffalo.edu or 645-2784.
• Consult the Y:\Usage Stats\ folder and contact Mike Lavin (mrlavin@buffalo.edu) if you need additional information or have other statistics to suggest.
• Create or update your librarian profile page on the Libraries’ website. See __http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/aslstaff/Websupport/profiles.html__ to start your profile and see separate email on asl-ref-list for more information.
• Send feedback about Desk Tracker to Karen Smith (kfsmith@buffalo.edu).
• Contact Linda Gould (lgould@buffalo.edu) if you need to schedule central classrooms outside the Libraries for summer library instruction sessions.

INDIVIDUAL ACTION ITEMS:

• Karen Senglaup and Ken Hood:
  • Provide large, laminated maps to public services desks during construction
  • Investigate the possibility of tape “paths” to popular areas of buildings
• Tiffany Walsh & Don Hartman:
  • Monitor reference traffic and patterns during construction to determine whether service should be relocated using laptops, and/or Instant Librarian opened
• Margie Wells:
  • Arrange a meeting with Undergraduate Academies staff and librarians

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