TBR Library Deans and Directors’ Fall Meeting

November 10-11, 2011 at the TBR Building

Present: Faye Jones (NSCC), Chair; Stuart Gaetjens (MSCC), Secretary; Doug Cross (WSCC); Sylverna Ford (UM); Yildiz Binkley (TSU); Duncan Parsons (NESCC); Suresh Ponnappa (ETSU Med); Doug Bates (TTU); Joe Weber (APSU); Louise Kelly (VSCC); Kathy Breeden (Col SCC); Don Craig (MTSU); Robert Benson (RSCC); Vicky Leather (Chat SCC); Mary Evelyn Lynn (Clev SCC).

Campus Updates:

Doug Cross (WSCC): Author recognition program offers stipend from foundation

Sylverna Ford (UM): campus going through another round of voluntary buyouts, last year’s goal was 15, this year the goal is 10. Lambuth campus is being used, but sale is not final so UM is not investing heavily in infrastructure yet. Soon filling four librarian positions. Institution will not commit to Sierra.

Yildiz Binkley (TSU): Sierra approved ($51,000 TAF). Self checkout working. Multimedia commons opening next week. RODP nursing Masters program accreditation review November 16.

Duncan Parsons (NESCC): Sierra approved. SACS visit to new site went well. College expanding to two new sites, Bristol (joint with King’s College) to open in March and Johnson City later.

Suresh Ponnappa (ETSU Med): Next ETSU President should be announced this week. Medical accreditation passed. Won SEMLA exemplary library award for helping public librarians. Exploring school of dentistry. SACS 2013

Doug Bates (TTU): Gate count up 20-25% with Commons open. 120 laptops available, in six weeks 1500 circulations. Wireless connections in the building upped to 1024. Campus has record enrollment. Thinking about offering gaming (not gambling) rooms in the library.

Stuart Gaetjens (MSCC): Campus salary study completed, $90,000 committed for first year equalization. Library has focused on getting better access to already purchased collections by making sure MARC records are in the library catalog.

Faye Jones (NSCC): Ongoing chess game at Circ desk. Learning Support redesign increased traffic in the library. College expanding to Hickory Hollow and Clarksville.

Joe Weber (APSU): New systems person hired. Nine Kindles circulating – loaded with free titles. Each one has a theme – British Lit, American Lit, Mystery, Horror, Romance, etc. Three week loan, all always out with a waiting list.

Louise Kelly (VSCC): Renovation planned for 210 computers in the library. Presidential search starting. Working on a mobile library site.

Kathy Breeden (Columbia SCC): Starting LibGuides. Lincoln exhibit.

Don Craig (MTSU): John Adams exhibit. Bonny Allen will be new library dean. She starts 3/1/12. David Robinson (Systems librarian) died last week. Library wants to move to Sierra, but it has not yet been approved. Learning commons set to open in late February. Music and Media Libraries temporarily moved into Main Library. Over 500 computers in the library. 8,000,000 pages printed last year. Moved to a reservation system for 21 of 40 study rooms. Library temporarily housing the campus photo gallery. Salary equalization helped several library faculty.

Robert Benson (RSCC): library has ebook transition team to write documentation to facilitate downloading. Five iPads intended for student use, but staff still using to gain familiarity J New entrance on second floor, no problems. Para legal accreditation easier this time since fewer resources required. (Robert is President Elect of Tenn-Share.)

PSTCC (reported by Robert): five student iPads and five faculty iPads in circulation

Vicky Leather (Chat SCC): Suggestion box results – more computers. Library is only place for printing and computer assistance. Poorly staffed for computer support. Downloading ebooks frustrating.

Mary Evelyn Lynn (Clev SCC): Title III grant for library commons. QR code scavenger hunt went well. Two staff promote social media. Working on an IMLS grant for digitizing history materials.

How to best report updates

Stuart proposed having members submit brief written reports covering

a. Library budget issues

b. Library staff issues

c. Library collections issues (books, ebooks, databases, etc.)

d. Library building issues

e. Campus issues

In person we could share on those subjects or others

General discussion followed. We agreed to try it for the Spring meeting since updates at the joint meeting with UT can run the full four hours of the Thursday session.

Comments/Questions for Kay Clark on Friday – see Friday minutes since all topics mentioned here were brought up with Kay Clark and include his thoughts

Pearson ebook initiatives (Mary Evelyn)

There is a state contract being worked on in order for all campuses to have access to the Pearson My…Lab products.  These class shells have text, assessment tools, as well as EbscoHost databases and Smarthinking.  Ebsco and Smarthinking are inside the course shell which means the college will not benefit from the fact that the library and/or college may already have paid access to those materials.  Pearson does not want to break out pricing on each database/service.  Mary Evelyn also asked about putting additional library resources inside the shell.  Some of the logistics of campus access and authentication still need work.  (ie., The access code is on the outside of the shrink wrap so many students throw it away without realizing they will need it.  Pearson made students purchase another access code.)  The content was “very flat” – just text.  Cleveland State has used the Math product for three years and it works well.  

SWETS Searcher (SwetsWise) Vicky

THERE IS NO FULL TEXT LIMIT FEATURE

The general discussion revealed that very few libraries are strongly promoting the federated search.

Ebsco and Wilson Web (Sylverna)

WilsonWeb has been purchased by Ebsco and will cease to be a separate company. The RODP contract expires in the summer of 2012 as does the TEL contract with Gale.

It is important that the RFP for the RODP product include that the winning bidder not be a provider which is already available to Tennessee residents through TEL.

Peter’s Reports (delivered by Robert)

What additional resources should RODP provide? Ebooks?

Database of Databases (Joe)

Some would use it if it were up to date. We could use Google Forms and save it as a Google Doc. Price info was one of our interests when we made the 2008/09 list, but it adds a lot of complexity to gather and display it. Consensus was to keep the list, but to only have Title, Vendor, and Database Level (index or FT). Each library should send a list of databases (excluding TEL and RODP) to Joe by January 15, 2012.

Kay Clark question and answer

Dr. Clark’s opening remarks included that the TBR has three primary subcouncils: Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, and Faculty Council. The best way to get things done is to work through those subcouncils. He also said that the Complete College Act represented a radical shift for TBR and that the Chancellor wanted to make decisions based on data through EDI.

The librarians discussed

1. The value of libraries

2. The important services Angela provides and that she needs to be supported

3. It would help if the campuses had more similarity in purchasing procedures since we all work under the same TBR guidelines

4. Librarians would like the library to be integrated into the Academic Audit process

5. Status of the Pearson ebook contract

6. That we wanted him to serve as a conduit for information from TBR to us. (He said it would be better for us to ask specific questions which he could research and give us an answer.)

Dr. Clark appreciated our concerns and offered to take a focused list (one or two) ideas to the Academic Affairs Subcouncil (as long as Dr. Short approved). He asked whether we had specific recommendations or a list of priorities.

The conversation focused in on

1. Integrating library services into the Academic Audit. It is currently an optional step in Section 8.1, but since it does not impact the results it is ignored.

2. Libraries need to be involved in committees which discuss etextbooks and comprehensive electronic courses since libraries already subscribe to many of the embedded resources

3. Student engagement survey does not ask any library questions

After our conversation with Dr. Clark the group decided to appoint a subcommittee (Robert Benson, Joe Weber, Mary Evelyn Lynn, and Don Craig) to draft a recommendation focusing on assessment in time for the January meeting of the Academic Affairs Subcommittee.

Update from the Mobile Summit (Robert)

A group of reference librarians at the summit, dubbed the Mobilists, volunteered to facilitate communication regarding mobile services. They will help faculty find apps, work on the library presence on the tbr.elearning.org site, blog on what TBR librarians are doing, write research guides, and provide instruction on educational apps.

Robert also reported that even though Robbie had hoped to provide LibGuides and Campus Guides for all of TBR, there is no funding.

Tablet Devices on campus and check out procedures

ETSU Med has barcodes on devices and circulates through the library catalog

TSU – all faculty members have iPads

Chat State – Library staff have iPads; ten available for faculty

RSCC – five iPads for students in January circulate for two hours in-library only (they hold a driver’s license)

MU- ten iPads to library faculty and staff

Election of new Chair Elect

After an extended nomination process and due deliberation Doug Bates was unanimously elected Chair Elect/Secretary.

TBR/UT Retreat together in the future?

The group voted to invite UT librarians to the retreat next August and to preliminarily set the joint Spring meeting for March 15-16, 2012.