Published by Rosemary Arneson on 04 Nov 2011
Mind Full
The t-shirt I got at the launching of the University’s new website proclaims on the front that UMW is the place “where great minds get to work.” On the back, it says “Mind Full”.
I have been out of the office for a week and a half, attending first the Virginia Library Association’s annual conference in Portsmouth and now at the Charleston Conference on Issues in Book and Serial Acquisitions. I have heard a lot of great presentations, talked to a number of colleagues from around the country, and thought a lot about what all this means for the UMW Libraries.
And my mind is full!
It’s going to take a while to process all that I have learned over the past week and a half. This post is my first attempt at trying to pull together some common themes.
1. E-books, e-books, and more e-books.
There seem to be as many ways of acquiring and delivering electronic books as there are libraries. The UMW Libraries already have a number of books in electronic format, but there are more things we can do with them. We’re talking with one of our vendors about doing a pilot project that would explore a different way of acquiring e-books than our traditional acquisitions process, so expect to hear more about this in the coming weeks.
2. Digital repositories are cool.
The UMW digital repository project has stalled a bit in the last couple of years, and this is an area where we need to do a lot of catching up. We need to develop a planned approach to acquiring digital resources. For example, is it part of our mission to preserve UMW blogs as part of the archive? If so, how do we do this while protecting the rights of individual blog creators?
3. Learning Commons are common
The Learning Commons has been the big thing in library building design for the last 5 years at least. Now just about everyone (except UMW!) has one. The Convergence Center will serve as something of a Learning Commons when it is built, but that building is also going to be serving a lot of other purposes. How can we re-think both the Stafford Library and the Simpson Library into the Learning Commons model? What can we do with these spaces now, without waiting for the Convergence Center to be built.
4. Student learning is central to everything we do
I heard a great presentation from a librarian at Illinois Wesleyan about a project they undertook to interview their teaching faculty about how library resources support student learning. It was a way for them to get at what resources they needed to add, as well as which ones were no longer useful. The project also helped them raise awareness among the faculty about library resources, and it provided the opportunity for librarians to help faculty see new ways to use resources. Don’t be surprised if we don’t start a similar project in the not-too-distant future.
5. Library organizations
As library collections continue to evolve, lines of responsibility blue, and the old ways of organizing staff no longer work. One of the questions I am always thinking about is if the UMW Libraries are organized to give us the greatest efficiencies in our processes and services. Are we organized (here’s a thought!) with the idea the student learning is central? Are there ways we can streamline processes to make better use of the staff resources we currently have?
6. No one understands copyright
Well, actually the three panelists who presented on copyright this morning did. But they were all lawyers. The rest of us are all confused, and we’re working with a copyright framework that was built for a print-only world. One presenter talked about a workshop her library offered to help faculty understand what rights they may be signing away when they sign a publication contract. Many faculty, in the rush to get an article published and to get that credit for tenure and promotion, will simply sign the contract without paying it much attention. In doing so, however, they may be signing away their rights to their own intellectual property. This has implications for us as we look ahead to building a true institutional repository as well.
7. Librarians are really wonderful people
At the Charleston Conference, I got to spend time with two librarians I helped get started in the profession. One worked for me in her first professional job, and she is now a leader in the profession. The other worked for me as a student worker, and he made his professional debut here by presenting a poster session. Over the years, I have gotten to know many wonderful, talented, smart, creative, innovative librarians. I’ve mentored a few as they moved into the profession, and I have been mentored by some of the greats.
Tired as I am at the end of this hectic couple of weeks, I can still say, “I love my job.”