Council of Library Directors Retreat

February 25-26, 2007
Comments Summary

1. What are the current trends on your campus?
   
   Resources
   • Demand for more online, full text resources
   • Integrated and transparent access to resources
   • Increase in costs in subscriptions
   • Decrease in number of subscriptions
   • Expansion of article delivery services
     
     
   Students
   • Increase as well as decrease in student enrollment
   • Need to improve student retention
   • Less prepared for university study
     
     
   Space
   • Need a repository and an online retrieval system
   • Need more space
   • Reconfiguring space to meet user needs
     
     
   Curriculum and Education
   • Development of new curriculum areas
   • Increase in multi-disciplinary research and coursework
   • Change in core curriculum – impact on technology and instruction
   • Increase in international studies programs – access issues
   • Growth in distance education and online learning
     
     
   Staff
   • Recruitment and retention
   • Hiring freezes, staff cuts
   • Need for new skills for new work
     
     
   Faculty
   • More sophisticated research needs
   • Increase of “publish or perish”
     
     
2. How will the trends affect the work of your library over the next three to five years?
   
   
   • Showing how new services improve student retention
   • Improving and selling the overall library experience
   • Adopting and embracing new technology
   • Doing more with fewer funds
   • Providing a wider range of resources and services
   • Coping with increased student enrollment
   • Creating a more intensive research environment
   • Enhancing or improving use of space
   • Managing staffing needs – need for more, losing to cuts
   • Re-engineering services for higher productivity – streamline and integrate services with campus services and beyond
   • Retooling the way we do our work
   • Building online education programs
   • Seeking new partnerships and collaborations
     
     
3. Which trend will have the greatest impact?
   
   
   • Assigning faculty to specific student categories
   • Managing increases in student enrollment
   • Offering a wider range of resources
   • Dealing with more complex budget issues
   • Depending on networked information
   • Re-engineering ourselves
   • Creating a personalized information experience
   • Using technology for scalability and deliver/development of resources and services
   • Taking information to where the users are
     
     
4. What should the consortium begin doing over the next 3-5 years?
   
   Consortium
   • Conduct a review of the consortium
   • Create an awards program
   • Create a vision that moves beyond Aleph and ITD centric view
   • Evaluate divergent technology needs of libraries as reflected by their different missions
     
     
   Aleph
   • Implementing Version 18 to maximize usage by consortium members
   • Provide expert support for assistance to libraries
     
     
   OPAC
   • Plan for the next RFP for system
   • Evaluate what the future of the OPAC for the consortium should be
     
     
   Baseline level of services for all institutions
   • Automatic patron loaders
   • Standard delivery time / method for patron placed holds
   • Consortial reference service
   • Core databases centrally funded and accessible to all
     
     
   USMAI approach to Services
   • 24 / 7 reference delivery
   • Software support for online resources
   • Improved document delivery
   • ILL agreements
   • ILLiad
   • Centralized cataloging
   • Federated search engines
   • Customization ability for libraries
   • Institutions taking leadership on initiatives
   • Collaboration ventures on national issues
     
     
   USMAI wide approach to Preservation
   • Archiving
     
     
   USMAI wide approach to Digital Library
   • Pay attention to consequences of Google’s digitization projects
   • Creating digital collections
   • Share online repository
   • Enhanced access to owned resources – Special Collections
   • Integrated online catalog searching
     
     
   Training
   • Share training and education opportunities (information and classes)
   • Leadership development
   • Collaborate on creation of training materials / user guides for databases
   • Orientation and training on Aleph for new staff
     
     
   Storage
   • Offsite storage
   Repository
   • Cooperative collection development
   • De-duping collections
     
     
   Scholarly Communication
   
   MDL (Maryland’s Digital Library)
   • Support a strong commitment to program
   • Build relationships with school and public libraries
     
     
   Budget Planning
   
   Buying Power
   • Leverage consortium buying power
   • Negotiated licensing agreements – equal access to larger number of resources
     
     
   Marketing
   • Recognition for accomplishments
   • Highlight what the consortium does
     
     
5. What should the consortium consider discontinuing over the next 3-5 years?
   
   
   • Current USMAI Aleph DB architecture
   • Lack of equitable distribution of funding and ownership of databases
   • Micromanaging consortium activities
   • Reliance on ITD to run processes and reports that can be automated
   • Managing all projects through ITD
   • Disrupting the Aleph services implementation schedule because new projects are added
   • Defining the consortium only as sharing an online system
     
     
6. How does the consortium benefit your library?
   
   
   • Resource sharing
   • Sharing of people and ideas
   • Buying power – consortial licensing
   • Interlibrary loan – sharing collections
   • OPAC and its services
   • Aleph
     
     
7. What measures should the consortium provide as evidence of its contribution to the USM?
   
   
   • Write an annual report that can be shared with staff, MHEC, USM officials
   • Hold / recall statistics and circulation reports to demonstrate use
   • Measures for ILLiad implementation
   • Presenting statistics on total loans, intercampus loans, PPH, article deliveries, online searches and downloads
   • Demonstrate how knowledge sharing and buying power benefit all members libraries – evidence of database purchasing power
   • How the institutions meet the specific needs of users in the member libraries
   • Conduct quantitative research
   • Data on how libraries directly impact an institution’s ability to deliver and create new academic programs
   • Measures of patron satisfaction with ILLiad, SFX, PPH service, and online catalog
   • Create effectiveness and efficiency objectives
   • Branding and marketing of consortium resources and services