Annual Report for the Faculty Senate Library Committee 2005-2006 Members: Pauline Boersig, Theatre Jennifer Cargill, Ex-Officia, LSU Libraries Kerry Dooley, Chemical Engineering Robert O Connell, Physics and Astronomy Evelyn Orman, Chair 2005-2006, Music Tyler Sandow, Undergraduate Student, Biological Sciences Mary Sirridge, Philosophy & Religious Studies Cameron Thies, Political Science Eugene Turner, Costal Ecology Meredith Veldman, History Maud Walsh, Agronomy & Environmental Management Charge: To participate in the development and monitoring of a long-range plan for the library To advise the administrative officers of the LSU Library on all matters related to development and utilization of library resources and facilities, including allocation of funds for acquisitions and their distribution among various formats; To inform faculty about library policies, collections, and financial standing; To serve as a channel of communication for expressing faculty needs and expectations to the library administration. Meetings: The full committee met September 16 th, 2005; December 2, 2005; February 13, 2006; March 20, 2006 and April 17, 2006. Sub-committees met during October 2005. The chair met with Jennifer Cargill on two occasions prior to the first committee meeting to discuss the possibility of subcommittee and full-committee visits to different library entities. Committee business for this academic year included the following: The committee began the academic year by reviewing a discussing the current library budget summary, an update on Journal Cancellation/Renewal and New Subscriptions, electronic holdings, a survey tied to an upcoming library review, an update on the status of library holdings, update of library responses to needs in the aftermath of the hurricanes, and expressed concerns over delay in acquiring Interlibrary Borrowing requests. In addition, the committee decided to conduct short review of selected units of the library through visits by sub-committees or the full committee. Areas reviewed by sub-committees included Educational Resources, Government Documents and Library Instruction/Information Literacy and Liaison Responsibilities. Areas reviewed by the full committee included Hill Memorial and Interlibrary Borrowing. Full written reports
(available from the chair) for each sub-committee review were distributed and discussed in subsequent committee meetings. Discussion summaries are in the approved minutes attached at the end of this report. A draft summary of the full committee reviews written by the chair is also attached at the end of this report. Concern over the budget rescission imposed on the library prompted work on a draft letter acknowledging that the library is at the center of the university s core function and thus any portion of the budget lost would potentially be felt campus wide. However, notification that the rescinded funds had been returned coupled with other concerns over the memo resulted in a unanimous committee vote to drop plans for submitting the memo.
Faculty Senate Library Committee Minutes Friday, September 16, 2005 2:30 3:30 pm. Middleton, Rm 295 Conference Room Members Present: Jennifer Cargill, Evelyn Orman, Mary Sirridge, Pauline Boersig, Kerry Dooley, Maud Walsh, Meredith Veldman, Robert O Connell, Tyler Sandow. I. Call to Order (2:40 pm) Since there was not a quorum at 2:40 pm, the chair elected to delay the start of the meeting to give others time to arrive. As various members arrived, members initiated individual introductions and Jennifer began an informal account of the status of other libraries due to Katrina. II. III. IV. Welcome and Introductions 2:55 pm. Having a quorum, the chair officially welcomed everyone and began the meeting. Since informal introductions had been made, in the interest of time, formal introductions were suspended. Budget Summary Jennifer Cargill Jennifer reported that the present year s library budget is the same as last year although a request was made for a $300,000 increase. She has not yet heard whether the requested increase will be funded or not. She reported that we now have approximately 55,000 electronic books and 30,000 electronic journals. Journal Cancellation/Renewal and New Subscriptions Update Jennifer Cargill Jennifer reported that $50,000 of new subscriptions have been acquired. V. Explanation of upcoming library review Jennifer Cargill Jennifer reported that the library receives approximately $400,000 to $420,000 dollars as a percentage of the overhead for external grants awarded to the university. Since the majority of the grants are in the hard sciences, historically the library has used that money to help fund serials in the hard sciences. These are some of the more costly serials of the entire collection. The federal government has requested specific data be reported as to the use of these funds; therefore, the library has retained the services of an outside consultant with experience gathering data for this same request at other large universities. An electronic pop-up survey will be administered during a randomly selected 2-hour time period once a month for the next 12 months. In addition, those entering the library during this same 2 hour time period will be handed a paper/pencil survey to complete. The survey is designed to determine whether the library resources are being used for research or for other reasons such as to study. If asked, individuals should complete the survey more than once (multiple months). Jennifer encouraged members of the library committee to spread the information about the importance of this survey to other
faculty members. VI. Update on the status of other libraries due to Katrina Jennifer Cargill - Jennifer reported that our library had specific information about libraries at UNO, Health Sciences and Tulane but had not heard officially from Dillard, Xavier, Delgado or other universities affected by Katrina. Our library is actively accepting and working to save as many collections containing one-of-a-kind, non-replaceable items as possible from the other institutions. In addition, LSU is working to help restore lost collections at other institutions by donating duplicate items from our collection. Finally, office space, some equipment, and other support is being provided by our library to the administrative staff of other libraries affected by Katrina. Pennington is now serving approximately 350 new medical students with 2 librarians. Therefore, some displaced librarians have been encouraged to contact Pennington for possible employment. VII. VIII. Library Senate Committee Activities for 2005 2006 Evelyn Orman A suggestion, for the Faculty Senate Library Committee to break into smaller sub-committees and conduct short reviews of selected units of the library was proposed. Discussion ensued concerning the need for subcommittees to complete this task, the need for 2 visits by the subcommittees to the units, and the necessity for some of the proposed questions. The committee decided that we would break into subcommittees and conduct a review of the units by visiting the units once, thus more time would be devoted to the full committee discussing the findings, and the proposed questions would be used possibly as a starting point during the visit. The full committee will convene in early November to report and discuss the outcomes of the visits. Each member signed up for the sub-committee of his/her choice. Other 1) A concern over delay in acquiring Interlibrary Borrowing requests was raised. Several members of the committee said they had not experienced delays while others indicated they or others from the academic areas they represent had experienced delays. Jennifer explained that Interlibrary Borrowing requests were at the mercy of the library that owned the materials and that many delays occurred due to the time it took to receive the materials since most requests were submitted within 24 hours of receipt. 2) Jennifer reported that in order to increase available space, Chemistry and Design had elected to transfer their library holdings to Middleton. Some of that transfer and integration of materials into the existing holdings is on-going. IX. Adjournment (3:20 pm) Meeting adjourned late (approximately 3:45 pm).
Minutes of the Faculty Senate Library Committee December 2, 2005 Library Conference Room, 205 Middleton Attending: Pauline Boersig, Jennifer Cargill, Kerry Dooley, Evelyn Orman (chair), Mary Sirridge, Gene Turner, Meredith Veldman, Maud Walsh The Faculty Senate Library Committee meeting was called to order at 2:45 pm by Evelyn Orman, chair. The Minutes from the September 16 th meeting were approved. Dean Cargill reported that the Library s budget had been rescinded by 4% (approximately $305,000) in the post-hurricane rescission. She indicated that so far there had been little overall impact on Library operations, as funds from unfilled positions had covered most of the rescission. Turner commented that there would probably be more budget adjustments soon and suggested that the Committee send a memo to the Chancellor to try to forestall further cuts to the Library budget and/or suggest that contributions to LSU, such as likely donations from the Athletic Department, be directed to the Library. Cargill suggested that the memo also go to Provost Palm. Turner agreed to draft a memo that Orman could review then send to the rest of the Committee for comment. Dean Cargill reported on the status of university and college libraries affected by Katrina and/or Rita. The UNO library was in exile at LSU, but just moved out. Classes will start at UNO in January. The Loyola and Xavier libraries had little to no damage. The Dillard library had some water. The SUNO library was heavily flooded. LSU Libraries has been assisting in document recovery, including photos from the Port Authority and newspapers from St. Bernard Parish. The Educational Resources Sub-committee (Dooley and Veldman) reported that they had been unable to meet with Peggy Chalaron because of scheduling problems. They expect to meet with her soon and have developed questions for the meeting. The Government Documents Sub-committee (Boersig, Orman and Turner) reported meeting with Maureen Olle and learning about the Library s role as a government depository. Among other things, they learned that documents from 1976-present are available online, and earlier documents are cataloged online. Cargill noted that the use of government documents increased 300% once documents were available online. In addition to US government documents, the LSU Library has state documents, patents and trademarks. The government document collection is open to the public. Sub-committee members indicated concern that since many of the Government Documents are one-of-a-kind documents and that it appeared the Middleton basement which houses these documents has had noticeable water damage in the past and could possibly be prone to flooding in the future. Cargill indicated that the Middleton Library basement, where Government Documents is located, has leaked in the past and that some of the Government Documents collection would be a candidate for remote storage. Turner commented that timely access to government documents is essential for the research process. The Library Instruction/Information Literacy and Liaison Responsibilities Sub-committee (Walsh, O Connell, and Sirridge) submitted a written report (available as a separate document).
Walsh and Sirridge discussed key findings of their meeting with Paul Kelsey and Mike Russo: 1) Liaisons serve as the first point of contact for faculty with the Libraries; they communicate Libraries-related information or news to the faculty and answer questions about resources. One of the challenges involved in liaison services is making faculty aware of the resources and services offered, despite the variety of communications outlined above. For instance, many faculty members do not realize that book requests submitted by faculty are almost always filled. 2) One of the main means of formal library instruction conducted by the Library Instruction group LIS 1001, a 1-credit, half-semester class in research methods. The class focuses on information literacy; the objectives of the class are to ensure that students know when they need information, how to find the information, and how to evaluate the information. The major challenge facing library instruction efforts, according to Mr. Russo, is the fact that the University has not made a strong, clear statement about the importance of information literacy in all curricula. Dooley suggested that the meet and greet courses or sessions common in many colleges would be a good place to introduce information literacy. The committee agreed that the fact-finding subcommittee approach seemed to work well and should be continued in the spring. Orman reminded the committee that she and Turner would circulate a draft memo regarding library funding. The meeting adjourned at 3:30 pm.
Minutes of the Faculty Senate Library Committee February 17, 2006 Library Conference Room, 205 Middleton Attending: Pauline Boersig, Jennifer Cargill, Kerry Dooley, Robert O Connell, Evelyn Orman (chair), Mary Sirridge, Meredith Veldman, Maud Walsh The Faculty Senate Library Committee meeting was called to order at11:45 am by Evelyn Orman, chair. The Minutes from the December 2, 2005 meeting were approved. Orman opened discussion about the draft memo on Library funding by summarizing concerns that had emerged since the last Committee meeting. O Connell commented that the Chancellor feels strongly that all fundraising should be centralized. He also noted that other high-profile groups assisting the library, such as the Friends of the Library and the Claiborne group, were not mentioned in the memo. Cargill observed that the memo used incorrect terminology ( budget cuts rather than recission, anticipates funding cuts that may not occur, and uses statistics on library funding that are unclear or incorrect. Cargill reported that today she had received notification that the Library s funding was not reduced at all. O Connell requested a copy of the Budget Recissions for each College. These were provided to the committee. The Committee voted to drop plans for submitting the funding memo. Dooley distributed a copy of the report of the Subcommittee on the Education Resource Center. The only issue for concern that emerged from the visit and discussions of the committee with Peggy Chalaron, librarian in charge of the center, is the lack of visibility of the Center. It was suggested that introductory classes might be a good forum for publicizing the resources. The Committee discussed future plans for 2005-6 activities and agreed that focusing on units and services of the Library was a valuable exercise. The Committee will examine Interlibrary Borrowing (ILB) and Hill Memorial in the Spring, with a visit to Hill Memorial in March and a meeting with ILB librarian in April. Orman will schedule these meetings. The meeting adjourned at 12:15 pm.
I. Call to Order (11:40 am) II. III. IV. Faculty Senate Library Committee Meeting April 17, 2006 Agenda Approval of the revised minutes from the February 17, 2006 meeting Discussion of visit to Hill Memorial Visit with representatives from Inter Library Borrowing V. General comments from the chair VI. Other VII. Adjournment Draft Summary of Committee Discussion of Visit to Hill Memorial Special Collections housed in Hill Memorial are considered the top in the Southeast United States and are within the top 10% nationally. Impressively the collections and acquisitions are funded from endorsements rather than state funds with many endorsements/donations originating from the individuals or entities making the collection(s) donation. The discussion confirmed the importance of continued funding of these collections with notable mention of the restoration work, newspaper project, one of a kind nature of the holdings and the availability of necessary infrastructure such as the large freezers. In addition, the committee complemented the exceptional volume of photo digitizing that has been completed and is now readily available via the Internet. Time and space were noted as the most constraining variables with regards to processing and proper storage of items within the collection. Draft Summary of Committee Discussion of Interlibrary Borrowing The full function of Interlibrary Borrowing is directly related to the function of the lending library. Many of the rules and restrictions are imposed by the lending library and/or are contractual agreements regarding electronic resources. Concerns expressed by library personnel included increased frequency of patrons abusing due dates. Further discussion identified specific items that can be requested through Interlibrary Borrowing such as lost items within our own collection and items within our collection that have been sent to the bindery. Discussion ensued concerning how early Interlibrary Borrowing items can be renewed and what, if any, restrictions existed for requesting electronic only publications through Interlibrary Borrowing. Respectfully submitted, Evelyn K. Orman, Chair.