Every January, EBSCO holds an Executive Seminar at ALA Midwinter for the Directors of ARL Libraries.  For several years, I was the director that planned the program for these seminars.  They are open only to the directors and have been of the quality to ensure strong attendance.  EBSCO also generally publishes the presentations in an online series called Vantage Point (http://www2.ebsco.com/en-us/NewsCenter/publications/vantagepoint/Pages/vantagepoint.aspx)

The 2011 Seminar was titled:  Distributed Print Repositories: Will We Trust the Trust?  This is a critically important issue for the OSU Libraries given our mission and role as a cultural heritage institution with a long term stewardship responsibility.

Dennis Massie, Program Officer, OCLC Research

Dennis Massie from OCLC made the first presentation at this seminar.  He rightly notes that “a distributed network of print repositories appears to be the answer.” He goes on to pose several important questions for OSU:

• Who will play what role?
• Do we have a preservation mandate?
• Are we going to be a consumer or a supplier when it comes to this distributed network?

The OSU Libraries’ answers to these latter two questions follow:

• Do we have a preservation mandate? Yes, we certainly do.  That is why we have a book depository with appropriate environmental storage for general and rare collections.  We are making decisions to eliminate some collections, but in the context of their being available electronically as well as in secure print repositories elsewhere.  But, we are retaining a large and significant corpus of material as an important hub in the distributed network of print repositories.
• Are we going to be a consumer or a supplier when it comes to this distributed network? Both, we will be both a consumer and a supplier.  Part of the beauty of a shared, distributed network is that one can retain some things locally as a contribution to the network as well as eliminating some content that can be “consumed” or borrowed from another partner library.  Our role in the first shared print repository for the CIC at Indiana is a good example of that.  Rather than all CIC libraries retaining their journal backfiles in print, a single copy will be stored at IU allowing the remaining libraries to make retention decisions on their own campuses.

Brian Schottlaender, Audrey Geisel University Librarian, University of California, San Diego

The third presentation in this set addresses the issue of trust.  There is a lot written now about the emerging shared print network or repositories – particularly focused on the details of how each is approaching their work.  That is, of course, interesting, but what I enjoyed most about Brian’s presentation was his focus on what it means to “trust.”  Brian quotes a definition of trust from Peter Smith Ring and Andrew Van de Ven:

“the confidence on the part of an organization that another organization will behave according to its expectations and that it will exhibit goodwill.”

Brian’s presentation goes on to discuss the four things on which we base trust – you’ll have the to check it out online for all the details (http://www2.ebsco.com/en-us/NewsCenter/publications/vantagepoint/Documents/33673_Vantage_Point_2011_FINAL.pdf)

Guest posting by Beth Black

How do college students use computing devices to study and learn within campus libraries at “crunch time” (i.e. end of the term)?  What individualized information spaces, consisting of web sites and applications, do students create for themselves?  The latest Project Information Literacy report, Balancing Act: How College Students Manage Technology While in the Library during Crunch Time, explores these questions.

Ohio State was one of 10 campuses involved in the study this spring.  As part of my participation in the study, I interviewed 100 OSU students who were working in the Thompson Library or the Science and Engineering Library between May 16 and May 26, 2011.

1. More than half of the OSU students interviewed (58%) had two technology devices running at the time of the interview. The most frequent combination of devices in use was a cell/smart phone (87%) and a personal laptop (82%).
2. Nearly nine out of 10 OSU interview participants (89%) had a web browser running on their primary device at the time I interviewed them and half the time (51%) sites were being used for course work.
3. The sites most frequently in use at the time of the interview were Facebook (16%), Carmen (12%), Web-based email for personal use (e.g., Yahoo mail) (10%), and Google (6%).

One of the overall findings of the study, across all 10 campuses, is that during the last two weeks of the quarter students seek out the library as a “safe harbor from everyday distractions.” OSU students echoed this sentiment. A sophomore I interviewed at SEL commented that he liked the quiet, the large tables and the 24/7 hours at SEL “so I can stay quite late if I wanted to.” A freshman at Thompson Library said, “I come to the library to get stuff done. I feel studious automatically by being here. Everyone is studying around me. We are all here for a common purpose.”

Study Finds Carmen’s Library Link is Useful to Students

In addition to the questions asked at all of the campuses in the Project Information Literacy study, I asked 10 OSU-specific questions.  Carmen has included a Library link in the top left hand navigation area since autumn quarter 2009. But is the library link familiar to students and if so, how are the library pages available through Carmen being used?

The Carmen Library Link is the outcome of a collaborative project between the University Libraries and Office of the Chief Information Officer’s Learning Technologies division.  Librarians have continued to build resources pages targeted either to the general discipline or to the specific course. In all cases, the page accessed by clicking the link is seen by students within their course. Timing–when the information is most likely to be useful to students–is the trigger for usage.

In our study, we used a set of Carmen and library page screen shots during our interviews with 100 students in Thompson Library (n=50) and the Science and Engineering Library (n=50) during the final weeks of the term last spring.

We summarize the key findings as follows:

1. Nearly all (99%) reported using Carmen for at least one course during the current quarter.
2. At the time of the interview, one third of the sample (33%) had Carmen open in their Web browser.
3. When we showed students a screen shot of a sample library page accessible via Carmen, a third of the interviewees (33%) reported being familiar with the library page. Moreover, almost one quarter of the sample (21%) reported using a page this quarter similar to our screen shot.
4. When it came to students using the library page via Carmen, nearly everyone in the sample (95%) reported using the library page to find sources for a research assignment. Plus the majority of students also reported the page was useful the last time they had used it for learning something new (90%), getting started on an assignment (76%), helping them get a good grade (66%), completing course work (57%), and conducting a comprehensive investigation (52%). (See figure)

   n = 21 OSU students in the sample who specifically reported their use of the library page via Carmen.

As a whole, we found OSU students we interviewed were highly familiar with Carmen and to a lesser extent, the library page accessible via Carmen. Moreover, students claimed that the library page (via Carmen) was useful to them in multiple ways–not only for finding sources for an assignment.

Though these key findings from the OSU-specific study are limited by sample size for generalizing to the entire OSU population, the findings do provide useful insights about students’ use of Carmen.

Credits:

Alison J. Head, Ph.D, a research scientist in The University of Washington’s Information School, is the Principal Investigator for this spring’s PIL study. Parts of this post are from a report she authored.

Lisa Carter and the faculty and staff of Special Collections have initiated a survey of unprocessed collections across our special collections.  Tabia Gaston, library school student at University of Pittsburgh, was hired on a temporary contract to survey the collections and create a database/report.  That work is well underway.  It is the first step in an important strategy in our new strategic plan:

• Strategy –highlight and improve access to and engagement with distinctive collections
  • Tactic – develop and implement processes for identifying high value distinctive collections and acting to expedite their processing and/or digitization

OCLC Report: Taking Stock and Making Hay: Archival Collections Assessment

We are, of course, not alone in tackling this issue that faces virtually all large research libraries.  OCLC released a report by Martha O’Hara Conway and Merrilee Proffit in 2011 called Taking Stock and Making Hay: Archival Collections Assessment (http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2011/2011-07r.htm)

The report addresses four potential purposes of such an assessment:

• Expose hidden collections – “preparing and sharing consistent, comparable, summary descriptions of some or all of the collections in their care”
• Establish processing priorities –”serves as a very useful tool for planning, informing, and guiding priorities for collections processing”
• Assess condition – “capture information about physical condition”
• Manage collections – “without exception, those institutions that have undertaken collections assessment for any of the first three primary purposes described above have reaped inevitable secondary benefits in the form of better informed, more active collection management.”

So if you don’t know much about this kind of work, check out the rest of the report.

Identification and description of hidden and under processed collections is only the beginning.  Ultimately the purpose of this project is to get information about the collections that are unique to us into the hands of users so that rare materials can be used to enhance teaching, learning and research.  The outcomes from this project will allow all of us to better address our faculty, student and communities’ needs—allowing you to connect your users with OSU’s highly distinctive collections in new and enriching ways.  We look forward to the results of Tabia’s good work to inform next steps for this portion of our strategic plan.

I am delighted with the first round of proposals for the innovation fund.  We received 14 proposals which are posted at http://library.osu.edu/staff/administration-reports/InnovationFundApps/.  The quality and thoughtfulness of the proposals is a great start.  We know the first deadline was quick and appreciate the work that went into getting these first proposals together.

Each application was reviewed and decisions were made to approve, consolidate, or send proposals back to the applicant(s) for additional development.  The chart http://library.osu.edu/staff/administration-reports/InnovationFundApplications.pdf provides a summary of each proposal and the Executive Committee decision.  The appropriate AD will contact each applicant with information on how and when to move forward with their projects.

Most proposals were approved as written.  One was referred back to the applicants for additional clarification.  We are supportive of the proposal and expect to approve it in the next proposal rounds once the issues of concern have been addressed.

Three proposals were consolidated into a phase 2 of iPad use by subject librarians.  In particular, the proposal from Alan Green and the Music/Dance staff included a robust set of goals, expectations, and assessment of success.  The proposals from Graham Walden and Cyndi Preston have been consolidated with Alan’s so that they can be assessed in the same fashion.

The second round of innovation fund applications is due on March 31, 2012. The Innovation Fund Application can be found at: http://library.osu.edu/staff/administration-reports/InnovationFundApplication.pdf

We’re off to a great start.  It comes as no surprise to me that we have a number of innovative and creative proposals that will improve upon the great products and services that OSUL already offers to our students, colleagues and the entire OSU community.

Created with the assistance of Nancy Courtney

One of the things I am asked to report on a regular basis is our work in outreach and engagement.  It is challenging to represent the full range of the outreach and engagement activities of the OSU Libraries without creating a very long report.  Instead, we have created a brief highlights document which is not comprehensive but should provide a flavor of the range and scope of our activities.

International

• Continued our exchange program with Shanghai Library exchange sending one librarian to China for a month where she worked with the library and gave lectures.  We are also working to renew the exchange programs with Shanghai Library and Wuhan University Library.
• Collaborated with the Center for African Studies, the Arts and Sciences digital team, the University of Sierra Leone and Kennesaw State University on an NEH Digital Humanities grant proposal to create a database of historical significance in Africa.
• Provided staff support to Dr. Qinghua Sun, College of Public Health, with the first Gateway Interactive Course Module Seed Grant class “Climate Change and Human Health.”   It was coordinated with Dalian Medical University (DMU) in China and included 13 OSU and 27 DMU students communicating via videoconferencing.
• Assisted with the coordination of the international course component for Biochemistry/ Molecular Genetics 694 for a total of 5 video-conferences with 3 universities in India.

National

• Gained considerable interest and attention for our Art-On-Campus map which was featured in an article in the Columbus Dispatch. People from around the country contacted us via email and phone regarding the map and how they could make one themselves.

State and Region

• Held a session for the Office of International Affairs 2010 Global Institute for 100 Ohio teachers.  Six OSU Libraries faculty and area studies subject specialists provided information on how to introduce international content across the curriculum and connect to teachers and students around the world, as a part of a network of K-12 educators, community and government partners.
• Organized a special session at the MidWest Conference on Asian Affairs to introduce OSU’s manga collection to conference attendees and to have an opportunity to deepen our cooperative projects.
• Hosted the first “Rare Books Academy” for children aged 8 to 10. Fifteen students—from Columbus and as far afield as Morgantown, WV—enrolled and spent three days learning how manuscript books were made in the Middle Ages, how books were printed in the hand-press period, and how librarians and conservators today help to ensure that old and rare books will continue to survive for years to come.
• Sponsored a three-part series of lectures by OSU faculty and graduate students and participated in the Ohioana Book Festival.

Local

• Prepared a research training module for Fisher Professional Services for graduate students going on international consulting internships this summer.
• Planned, organized and secured grant funding for an exhibit Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World exhibit and associated lectures by Carla Mulford (Penn State), Philip Dray, James N. Green (Library Company of Philadelphia), a concert of 18^th century music, and demonstration of the Libraries 1871 Albion press.
• Created an exhibit on Jesse Owens in Thompson Library as part of a university-wide celebration of the 75^th anniversary of the Berlin Olympics.  As part of the weekend, the Owens family toured the exhibit in Thompson Library.  In addition, the Archives staff also created a display in the Ohio Union for the VIP reception and were present to answer questions.  Photographs from the Archives were used during the banquet in a video montage honoring Jesse Owens.
• Developed a course in Digital Storytelling that will be offered in fall 2011.  The course is a companion course for instructors who want to have students in their classes create digital stories as an assignment.
• Curated and organized a major Thompson Library exhibition “‘Translation… openeth the window to let in the light’: The History and Abiding Impact of the King James Bible”. Over 2,000 people visited the exhibition during its run.
• Took a more proactive approach to including the work of OSU authors in the KnowledgeBank.  We identified OSU authors and requested permission from those authors to put their work in the repository.  Initially, 842 articles were identified, of which 58% were entered into the KnowledgeBank.  This database has a high profile in the institutional repository world and serves as an excellent venue to highlight the research of University faculty.
• Participated in the Buckeye Book Community’s 2011-12 book selection
• Participated in planning events and selecting research resources for the campus-wide Conversation on Immigration.
• Organized and presented 22 ReadAloud programs and 10 Science Cafés, including some held at the Worthington Library that targeted children and their parents.

I collect a variety of odds and ends that I find interesting but don’t warrant a full blog posting.  Here are the latest.

The Library’s End? A Long Way Off

In January 2010, Brian T. Sullivan published a report in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled “Academic Library Autopsy Report 2050.”  [Despite the current economic situation, I’m sure I’m going to be retired by then!] It’s not so much this article that I want to bring to your attention but rather the response written by Patricia Tully, University Librarian, Wesleyan University.  Her rebuttal vision includes the following:

• Book collections in the cloud
• Customized discovery (help finding online content)
• Online research literacy
• Library-IT-faculty-student collaboration continues
• Seamless help services
• Commitment to high-quality, fiscally responsible services

Her concluding paragraph:  “Librarians in 2050 will be doing the same thing we are doing now – making content accessible to our users.  We will be doing this very differently, of course, just as we are doing things very differently now than we did in 1960.  The library will look and operate differently, and perhaps provide a different kind of experience for students and faculty. But the library’s end is a long way off.”

Check both articles out online at:

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Librarys-End-A-Long-Way/126018/

http://chronicle.com/article/Academic-Library-Autopsy/125767/

Abandoning the Stacks for a Multimedia Wonderland

And this contribution from Mike Valinis, Acquisitions, from the Spiegel Online International provides an interesting perspective on new libraries from around the world.  Check it out at http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,791138,00.html#ref=nlint

Scholarly or Research Commons

Our strategic plan includes investigation of the research commons concept – either physical or virtual space – and whether that concept has a place at Ohio State.  This is still an emerging concept on many campuses much like the Information Commons concept emerged many years ago.  Here are a few links to get you started thinking about what this might look like.

• Illinois – http://www.library.illinois.edu/sc/
• Washington – http://commons.lib.washington.edu/about
• Case Western – http://library.case.edu/ksl/whoweare/researchcommons.html
• New York University – http://nyu.libguides.com/content.php?pid=169930&sid=1431172

Sample & Hold: Rick Lugg’s Blog

If you have a role or interest in print retention and making decisions about what collections to retain, you’ll want to check out the insightful and data-driven blog by Rick Lugg.  Here’s a sample of a posting dated May 25, 2011 called “Curating a Discovery Environment.”  Rick reflects on the changes that have occurred in collection development and management in the past decade.  He notes two current emphases:

• Collecting for the moment
• Curating a discovery environment

Rick writes for a broad library audience so not everything applies specifically to every library, but most postings give me at least one idea to reflect upon and consider its implications for the Ohio State University Libraries.  Check it out at http://sampleandhold-r2.blogspot.com/

University Presses

And finally, another interesting article from the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled “Five Things that University Presses Should Know about Working with Libraries.”  The author Leila W. Salisbury notes five issues that have significant import for the health of university presses:

• Collection development is different than it was five years ago
• Patron driven acquisitions will not go away
• The current “big deal” may not be
• Libraries are not all the same
• It’s okay to be a business

Check it out at http://chronicle.com/article/Five-Things-That-University/127636/

One of the most visible and prototypical ways in which our users interact with our collections in through borrowing books from our collections. Our most recent LibQUAL Plus results suggested that there are some ways we could improve on users’ experience of borrowing items from our collections. I want to share with you two improvements we are now prepared to make – extending our loan periods and eliminating the $10 billing fee associated with assumed lost and billed items upon return.

In September, Karla Strieb and I charged the OSUL Task Force to Review Standard Loan Periods, to draft a proposal for new standard loan periods and any needed changes in policies for special groups; to consider benefits and implications, share with partner libraries and submit the proposal to the Libraries Executive Committee for next steps.  Since the University will move to semesters this summer, there is an opportunity to consider extending loan periods for OSU Libraries monographs and to standardize loan periods across the OSU Libraries system.  This change would allow us to align loan periods with the new academic schedules, and to match up more closely with our peer institutions in the CIC, most of which loan monographs for at least 120 days to faculty, staff and graduate students.

The Task Force recently recommended that OSU Libraries extend loans to faculty, staff and grad students from 70 days to 120 days and to undergrad students from 21 days to 42 days.  This recommendation has been adopted by the Libraries Executive Committee and endorsed by the Council on Libraries and Information Technology. This new policy better meets the needs of researchers but is also advantageous in that overdue reminder emails can be sent less frequently and fewer items are likely to be billed annually.

Despite the longer loan periods, the policy for recalled items will be maintained with no changes.  This policy allows the initial user a minimum of 21 days (or ten days from the date of recall if the minimum use loan period has already passed) before fines are generated.

This new loan period would be introduced after the spring 2012 term when the fewest number of items are checked out.  Patrons will be able to have the new loan period applied to all items they have checked out simply by renewing the items.  Except for recalled items or items borrowed from SearchOhio or OhioLINK, the new loan period will automatically be applied.

At the same time, the Task Force recommended some changes in our policies for courtesy borrowers and these have also been accepted and will be implemented. Most of our CIC peer institutions and OhioLINK partner libraries restrict the number of items that can be borrowed and/or the number of renewals allowed to courtesy users.  OSU Libraries’ loan policy for courtesy users will restrict the number of loans to 5 items at a time for 21 days with 4 renewals.  This is similar to limits imposed by the other CIC member libraries and OhioLINK sites. Our records suggest that, in fact, very few courtesy users seek to borrow more than 5 items.

Another concern I have is that loan periods between OSU Libraries locations be as standard as possible. That way our users do not need to remember that some items have different loan periods just because they were borrowed from different locations.  Circulation of books, including (and maybe especially) those on Closed Reserve, should be standardized to whatever degree possible so policies can be easily explained and users know exactly what to expect.  The new extended loan periods should be used in all OSU Libraries locations where ever this is feasible. The Executive Committee has asked the Task Force to generate a list of collections with exceptions from the standard loan period and work with appropriate faculty and staff to determine whether exceptions are justified by the nature of the material. This review should help us reduce to a minimum the number of exceptions that our users have to deal with as they work with our print collections.

I am also pleased to note that while we are extending loan periods for our users, we will be eliminating the $10.00 billing fee associated with lost and billed items.  This fee was originally assessed to recover the costs of mailing notices and bills to patrons prior to the implementation of email notices.  The elimination of the fee also reinforces our commitment to our longstanding philosophy, that the return of our resources is paramount.   I’ve also asked that the text and subject lines of the automated library notices be adjusted to enhance the patron borrowing experience.

Library staff are encouraged to ask questions or provide input regarding the issues in this proposal via email to Tony Maniaci (maniaci.1) by January 31.

One thing that leaders (at all levels) work to achieve is improved organizational communication.  As a result, I am always interested in finding new ideas and approaches to ensuring that our organization continues to improve its ability to communicate both with employees, with patrons, and with stakeholders.  There is a lot a business literature about communicating effectively with lots of good advice.  Recently I’ve been reading a series of short books that incorporate leadership into a series of case studies, fables, or other means of teaching a lesson.  Throughout our culture we have examples of teaching through fables (remember the Tortoise and the Hare?) or lessons from the Bible (Cain and Abel for example).  This particular series is written by Patrick Lencioni and include titles such as “The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive.”

But I digress from my purpose, sharing some information from Lencioni’s book about communicating.  He advocates for three critical practices for effective organizational communication:

• Repetition
• Simple messages
• Multiple mediums

Repetition

Research reveals that only after hearing a message six times does a person begin to believe and internalize it.  So if at any level of our organization, you are expected to convey information (this would also hold true for those of you who communicate with faculty groups or other patrons), get used to saying the same things again and again, to different audiences, and in slightly different ways.

Simple Messages

The key here is to avoid overcomplicating key messages.  All of us are inundated with information every day.  In order to cut through that web of information, we need to make clear, uncomplicated messages.  Another good example of this is how we convey information on our web site.  Google is often cited for its very simple opening web page.  It doesn’t take a user long to learn to navigate that page to the additional options such as Google Scholar but the opening page remains very simple.

Multiple Mediums

It is easy for us to get stuck in one form of communication to convey messages.  For someone in my position, there are options to communicate through this blog, through a message to liball, through faculty and Libraries General meetings, through the Executive Committee (my direct reports) who are then charged with relaying messages to employees deeper in our organization.  Lencioni asks the question: Which of these methods is best?

You can probably guess the answer from the title of this section – all of them.  If we rely on just one or two of these methods, you can be sure that some members of our organization will miss key messages.  After all, employees also have preferences about the way they receive information.  Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages as well.  In person communication allows a level of interaction which is not possible with other methods.  Email has the advantage of conveying the same message to everyone (at least everyone who reads it) at the same time.

Conclusion

So you might be asking yourself, why didn’t she just send this message to the Executive Committee or the Admin Plus group?  Because everyone single member of our organization can use this information in the work they do whether it be as a subject librarian who communicates to departments and colleges or a staff member who serves on a committee.

Citation:  Lencioni, Patrick.  The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: A Leadership Fable.  Jossey Bass, 2000.