Council of Library Directors

Retreat Notes
February 26, 2007

Review of Strategic Plan

Barbara Gontrum, Chair of the CLD, led a discussion on the plan. A number of comments and issues were raised including:

• Growing applications integration – using open sources
• Digital expertise
• Major impact of human resources
• Expand item 2c
• Identify the “new” core functions
• Commercial versus local
• Ask our users what they need / use
• What are the readiness factors for each of our institutions
• Delivery service issues
• Marketing
• Staffing – is there a consortium focus
• MDL – taken out of the Governor’s budget; work continues on common buying

Other considerations noted:

• How activities benefit all members of the consortium
• How innovations are rolled out
• Need to leverage fiscal resources

Review of Current Vision

CLD members reviewed the current vision and identified important concepts for the future. Concepts considered important for the vision: go beyond resource sharing, go beyond Maryland, build, and create.

Current Vision To be the leader in library cooperation for resource sharing in public higher education in the State of Maryland.

Draft Revised Vision To lead public higher education into the digital future through cooperative development and delivery of innovative library resources, services and education.

The CLD will continue working on a revised vision in future meetings.

Innovation: How Do We Define It?

• a change
• imaginative
• new
• non-traditional
• action
• cheap
• doing
• adds value
• different
• expensive
• positive
• involves risk
• goal is improvement
• creative
• meet a need
• meeting future demands
• responding to opportunities and challenges
• change from where we currently are
• something beyond what is and evokes what could be

Top Innovative Projects or Services

(based on small group discussions and large group review/discussion)

Overarching Goals:

• Partnerships
• Standardization of Policies – change in autonomy. Must show clear benefits to users and save time

1. Redesign library user interfaces
   • Comprehensive gateway (federated searching) changing the user experience
   • Social networking
   • Community of resources
     
     
2. Ubiquitous set of e-resources
   • Money, politics
   • Utilization pricing – pay as you go
     
     
3. Develop mechanisms for developing and sharing knowledge and expertise for staff
   • New overhead
   • Human element
   • Provide training on wikis
     
     
4. Develop mechanisms for developing and sharing knowledge and expertise for end users
   • Information literacy
   • nowledge base
   • Share experiences and knowledge from staff
     
     
5. Develop consortial digital respository for use by the consortium libraries
   • New overhead
   • Learning objects
   • Digitized archives
     
     

Other Projects

Disaster Planning / Emergency Preparedness for the Consortium

• Important issue
• Broad partnership role
• Need to just do this

Small Group Work – Innovative Projects or Services

• What is the project or service?
• Why is it innovative?
• What criteria is used to define its innovativeness?

Small groups worked together to address the three questions above. The notes below are transcribed from the flip chart pages. The information is summarized above under Top Innovative Projects or Services

Group (Lowry, Tooey, Tress)

1. Ubiquitous E-Resources Access
   • Criteria: equity, good for users, creates uniform set of education and research resources
2. Comprehensive Gateway Interface in Virtual Environment
   • Innovative
   • Social networking – being where the users are
   • Criteria: tested to see if it is what users want, does what we think it does
3. Shelving Facility – Benefits of Share Facility = De-duping and Preservation
   • Multiple needs for shelving
   • First state facility
   • Build on current efforts
   • Economies of scale
   • Criteria: benefits de-duping and preservation

Group (Rabinowitz, Labash, Ruschoff)

1. Redesign the Public Web Interface for Consortial Resources
   • We don’t have it
   • More integrated than we have had in the past
   • Potential for meeting local user needs
     
     
2. Promote Mechanisms that Support Knowledge Exchange within the Consortium
   • Not ITD driven, but ITD involvement
   • Flexibility and openness within and between institutions
   • Need that staff have been vocal about
     
     
3. Identify and Extend Partnerships Within and Beyond on Campus for Content, Goals and Services
   • Involves taking risks
   • Creates opportunities to redirect
   • May provide more resources
   • Lead to potential for more innovation
     
     

Group (Heil, Kelley, Gillespie)

1. Single, Google-like Interface to E-Resources
   • Integrates all sources through one common portal
     
     
2. Federated Searching Beyond Single Source
   • Accessible and combines multiple resources to integrate resource sharing
     
     
3. One Core Set of E-Resources for Consortium
   • Funded centrally – accessible at same level of service to all
     
     
4. Standardization of Policies
   
   

Selection Criteria

• Immediate, fundamental impact
• Service to the user in a format they appreciate
• Fundamental base of resources to bank in trying budget times
• Leverages the power of the consortium
• Provides greater equivalency across all libraries to better serve faculty and students

Why they are Innovative

• Goes beyond current delivery paradigm
• Meets oft-stated need from patrons
• Demonstrates value of library as portal
• Timely and attainable

Group (Gontrum, Wilt, Nolan, Spicer)

1. Consortial Digital Repository
   • Libraries play a leadership role
     
     
2. Cheaper Access Records (Incomplete Records) Via Collective Methods (wiki-like)
   • Gets records out more quickly, especially thing that one can’t afford to catalog now
     
     
3. Staff Training by Some sort of E-Learning (face-to-face too)
   • Help small institutions
   • Cost effective
   • Develop shared learning modules
     
     
4. End User Training
   • Knowledge base
   • Developed collectively
   • Draw on library associations
   • Supplemental learning/usage modules for class instruction
   • Blackboard – building block on library topics
     
     
5. Negotiate With Some Vendors for Utilization Pricing
   • Universal array of databases
   • Pricing models
     
     

Discussion on the Issues that Could Impact the Implementation of Innovations (Large group discussion after lunch)

• Empowering staff and how this is done
• Help staff to understand the benefits of changes (in how libraries do their work as well changes in the operations of the Consortium and ITD)
• Balance of new “innovations” with ongoing ITD work
• Leveraging what we can learn from other institutions (outside of USMAI)
• Project management – ownership and leadership comes from other places (other than ITD)
• Budget
• Organizational placing
• Potential new structures
• Using electronic means to meet innovations
• Limitations of ITD as a resource – create ITD toolboxes
• Task groups – encouraging them to look outside of the consortium
• Director’s roles in articulating changes to any new groups and even existing groups (provide structure and goals)
• Roles of Chair and Vice Chair or Executive Council to serve as “go to” people
  • Liaison role to each task group
  • Set up regular reporting
  • Set up regular meetings with Task Groups
  • Create accountability mechanisms
  • Act as advocates for Task Groups
• Chairs of Task Groups need to be non-ITD staff
• Building collaborative relationships
• Decision-making responsibilities – what happens with recommendations

Framework for Implementing New Ideas and Innovations

1. Discussion about new ITD structure. CLD meetings coming up on March 12 and March 15 to focus hear about plans for ITD structure as well as work on items below.
2. Review current projects
   • Create clarity
   • Facilitate communication
   • Encourage empowerment
   • Convey excitement
   • Where are the Task Groups in their work decision priorities, support execution of projects, what is the best way to get things done, revisit coordination with decision-making
3. Rethink project pipeline and how they fit into the ongoing work
4. Work plan – review of current projects – what will it take to complete
5. Revise vision

CLD Discussion of Any Remaining Issues

• Do environmental scanning / conduct research
• Upcoming campus initiative setting – campus versus consortium
  • Create decision matrix
  • Talk to campus contacts
  • Understand what ExLibris is doing – what is the software future
• Possible meeting with CIO’s – create agenda, discuss disaster planning, training
• Utilizing / developing assessment programs, sharing pratices
• Maximize our budget and planning
• Encourage Task Groups to bring issues upward
• Some campuses – we need to recognize issues of broad consortial interest; all things might not be of interest to everyone; recognize that not all campuses will want something or want to pay for it
• Fundraising and development – bring someone in to talk with CLD – how to do it, share ideas (possible speaker – Adam Courson-Finnerty)
• Orientation to directors new to CLD
• Hold a retreat at least once a year to have the discussion that just took place over the last evening and following day. Retreat would not necessarily have to include an overnight session.

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