Faculty Perceptions of the Library

Educause Review floats across my desk as a matter of course, so I try to take the time to read it as I often find it informative and useful. The most recent issue has an interesting, library relevant article by Roger Schonfeld and Keven Guthrie, “The Changing Information Services Needs of Faculty,” (July/August 2007, p. 8-9). The authors report on a recently JSTOR cosponsored survey of librarians and faculty about “attitudes and perceptions toward an increasingly electronic environment.” There are four points that caught my attention:
· Faculty perceive themselves as becoming decreasingly dependent on the library for their research and teaching needs;
· Despite this perception, the vast majority of faculty members view the “librarian’s role just as important now as in the past, and none believe their institutions should redirect library expenditures.”
· “The consultative role of the librarian in helping faculty in their research and teaching is viewed as an important function by most librarians, but most faculty members do not put the same emphasis on this role of the library.”
· Faculty members and librarians support the transition from print journals to electronic formats, “But neither faculty nor librarians want existing hardcopy collections to be discarded…”

My reflections…we have our work cut out for us.

· When faculty say that they are decreasingly dependent on the library for their research and teaching needs, I think that they have no idea how hard we are working to provide access to all of the electronic resources that they use from their office desk or their home, or how much money we spend buying access to these resources and getting the best possible deal. How can we better communicate this effort?
· Thankfully, despite this misperception, most faculty (and administrators I hope) do not support redirecting library expenditures. How long can we hope or expect this attitude to continue? ECU has been enjoying some very good budget years lately; what happens if this situation changes?
· We librarians are convinced that we can and do provide a valuable consultative role to faculty, if they will only ask. Is that true? Then why this perception? This only fortifies my determination to strengthen and enhance or perhaps totally revamp our library liaison program. This is the best possible strategy for combating this perception, but what else should we do?
· Am I the only person at Joyner who thinks that we have to explore discarding bound paper copies of journals if we have guaranteed access to the information that we have purchased, through agreements with the publishers or closed archive agreements such as LOCKSS?

Reflections on WG I's Report

I was recently re-reading Work Group I Final Report, and they brought up a number of issues which I think we need to address and try to put behind us—because they are keeping us from being as efficient and effective as we could and should be. Among the issues:
· Delayed or failed decision making: employees have become frustrated by pouring energy into a project or idea only to have it fall apart when no one will make a decision to carry it forward. This is a frustration that I too often experience as well. My proposed solution—be personally more accountable and ask others to be also. I am going to try to make sure that when a problem is identified, the responsible party is identified—so be warned!
· Divisive leadership in the past has led to a “Them against us” mentality. I sure hope this is no longer the case; I have continuously stressed that I have an open door policy; and I have done my best to stay in close communication with the Library. More importantly, I will never knowingly pit one against another. The Library is One Team—we all should be serving the same customer—our students, faculty and community.
· Will the Library be departmentally isolated as in the past or will there be a greater emphasis on teamwork to accomplish task? Yes, we are about teamwork.
· The subject liaison system needs immediate attention—I couldn’t agree more. This needs to be a priority for the Library.
· All departments could benefit from procedures wikis. Who can lead this for us?
· Marketing the Library is essential. Yes, it is. One of the most important marketing and outreach opportunities we will have in the near future will be the Chancellor’s and Provost’s visit to the Library on Thursday, September 13. We know that the Library is the Heart of the Campus—but sometimes it is too much taken for granted—and our users don’t really understand how we have adapted to the new “electronic reality,” while still needing to maintain a place for students and faculty to meet, study and do research.
· The entire student hiring system, including balancing the investiture of time to train students against the high turnover rate, the need to keep students occupied during slow times, and the attendant paperwork that consumes much time. I have asked CJ to take this task on, but also let me say that I will never advocate that we stop hiring students—despite the hiring, training, and retention problems. Providing our students an opportunity to work on campus and learn new skills is one of our main responsibilities—and provides a learning opportunity ever bit as important as the classroom.
· Committee work takes up too much time. Does it? How can we function w/o committee? I do like the suggestion that we learn how to run meetings better and more efficiently, these include: prepared agendas, information sharing before meetings, etc. Again will ask CJ to provide some training for all of us in this important skill.
· We need to have a better calendaring system—let’s ask our friends in Computing, Digital and Web Services to work on this for us.
· Why have so many of us created ghost systems for tracking orders, acquisitions, and cataloging. R2 identified this problem as well and it really needs to be addressed.
· Finally, a centralized system of new staff and faculty mentoring would allow newbies to receive all the information they need to be successful. I have asked the Faculty Affairs Committee to look into this; once we have that process moving forward, we will address the same issue for staff.

What did you find interesting or noteworthy in the Work Group's Report? What should we move on?

59 & holding

Yesterday was my 59th birthday; it was lots of fun to spend with my colleagues at Joyner. Besides a myriad of cards & electronic greetings, Frances & Gena were kind enough to stand in the hot noon day sun at B's Barbeque to bring back barbeque pork and chicken for a veritable birthday lunch. To say that I over indulged is probably not stretching the truth. Last night Sue & I grilled steaks--please don't anyone tell my family doctor who tells me that my cholesterol is already out of control.

Today, I went to visit the library at Elizbeth City Statue University. along with Ann Carol and Beth. We were warmly welcomed by Juanita Midgett, the Interim Director, and given a tour of the facility. We also talked about some things that we can colloaborate on, including some possible grant proposals. In addition, we invited as many as can come to visit Joyner on August 3rd, when Helene Blowers will be talking to the Library about "Library 2.0." Juanita was truly excited & plans to come and bring a number of her colleagues and spend the entire day with us. The Little Library is a wonderful facility, striving to serve the needs of the faculty and students of ECSU but they also face a number of challenges--mostly because of the limited resources they have historically received. I truly hope this will be the beginning a new and mutually rewarding collaborative effort on both of our instituitions parts.

Fun in the Sun

I did not write anything last week—much of the time I was on vacation. Early in the week, Sue and I spent three days at Atlantic Beach with my elder daughter, Bryn, and her husband Grant. What a relaxing time, and to have 80 degree, non-humid weather during the first week of July is nothing short of extraordinary.

Friday, we all traveled up to DC for our niece Susie’s, wedding. She was a beautiful bride and I was fortunate enough to be able to walk her down the aisle.

Ah, but back to the Library and business.

Yesterday, I heard Gloria Bradshaw say something which I plan to take as my personal mantra, “We should do our jobs and our duties by providing help as if we were the ones who needed it.”

I was really glad to see the turn out to hear the presentation of the R2 Workflow Analysis—there must have been 70 or more people. Rick and Hester did a great job, and you seemed very engaged. Jan Lewis sent out the report to everyone in the Library. Please, please take some quality time to read through the report very carefully, make notes, and note your questions—then pass those on to Jan as soon as you can. I have asked Jan to form up an Implementation Task Force to set priorities and put forth a time line for implementation. R2 has a great deal of experience in doing these analyses and my initial impression is that they were right on in their recommendations, so I am assuming we will be carrying out their recommendations unless there is some overwhelming reason not to. There are some very time critical recommendations, and I hope we can act on them quickly. Of course, we will not be able to carry out all of the recommendations, and certainly won’t be able to carry out all of them in the next couple of weeks. Still I think that R2 has given us a blueprint to make some substantive and needed changes.