WeTALC Minutes November 5, 2005
President Scott Cohen called the Board meeting to order at 10 AM at the University of Tennessee at Martin thanking Steve Rogers for hosting. Those attending included Pam Walker, Steve Baker, Steve Rogers, Priscilla Stephenson, Hope Shull, Pam Dennis, Darlene Brooks, Lan Wang, and Margaret Cardwell.
Scott announced that he had contacted TLA to inquire about WeTALC becoming an affilitate member in order to make our organization more visible in the state. Hope mentioned that she had sent the necessary information to TLA when she was president but that they have yet to act on it. Scott has also contacted Southern College of Optometry in Memphis and Mid-South Community College in West Memphis to discuss membership in WeTALC.
Without a specific agenda for new business, Scott suggested some topics for discussion which included the idea of the “Information Commons” and the place of the library in academia; what libraries are doing relating to periodical subscriptions: to continue binding, to offer electronic or print or both, to discard print that is covered by aggregated databases, MARC records for electronic journals included in aggregators downloaded the local catalogs; OCLC pricing structure; WeTALC consortia deals with EBSCO and others, the Database of Databases, EBSCO/Google partnership and Google Print. Steve Rogers reported that the TBR Regents’ Online program is doing so well that they are able to increase budgets for electronic resources at the University of Tennessee at Martin.
The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for March 11 at Rhodes College. Scott announced that the spring reference meeting will be at Bethel College.
Minutes were approved as electronically distributed.
Respectfully submitted,
Margaret Cardwell
CBU Report for Fall 2005
This has been a busy summer and fall for us at CBU. We have a new librarian, Julie Gilmore, who joined us in July of this year. She is our cataloging librarian, replacing Liz Jackson, who has gone back to the Memphis City Schools. Julie graduated from the Univ. of Tennessee’s distance program in August. A 2001 CBU alum, she worked at LINC in the Memphis Public Library system while working on her MLS. She recently attended a SOLINET cataloging workshop in Macon, GA. She’s been working very hard on getting our curriculum library materials into the catalog.
Debi Babb spent a major part of her summer and fall implementing Endeavor’s ENCompass and LinkFinder products. This federated search capability, together with the link resolver, provides seamless searching and display of results across databases. We were able to purchase these products with the gift from one of the college benefactors who wishes to remain annonymous. His gift also funded our migration to our Voyager web catalog last year. With the remaining funds we purchased two JSTOR collections.
As our bound periodicals rapidly fill our shelves in the basement we are pursuing a project whereby we intend to discard the paper issues of those items duplicated in JSTOR. Debi Babb sent a letter to the faculty asking them to review the journals in their area and notify us if they had any objection to our discarding those bound volumes. At this point we’ve only heard from one dean who is concerned that our participation in JSTOR may someday be interrupted and we would no longer have the print volumes.
In addition to her Acquisiton duties, Suzanne Mangrum has taken on the entire supervision of our student work force. She spent a good portion of the summer writing a very detailed manual for all the duties associated with circulation. She is currently auditing a class to learn more about how to write access reports for use in the circulation and acquisition mmodules.
This fall CBU piloted a new Interdisciplinary Studies course that will be the CBU signature course required of all freshman beginning next fall. Benjamin Head and I have worked with the faculty who are teaching this course to incorporate Information Literacy into that curriculum. Because this is a pilot program each of the instructors has had a slightly different view of how and how much instruction should be incorporated. One instructor has yet to schedule a class. One instructor has scheduled 4 classes. It has been a real learning experience for us. Needless to say we will have to insist on some consistency for the next fall class. The spring plannning meetings should be very interesting!
In September, I was fortunate to be able to attend the Council of Independent Colleges workshop on “Transforming the Library.” This workshop is designed for Chief Academic Officers, librarians, and other senior administrators. Our VP for Academic Affairs, Tony Aretz, our VP for Student Life, Evelyn McDonald, and I travelled to Chicago to meet with 24 teams from other private institutions. We were challenged to think about the library in new ways. Presentations were made about information literacy, the library space, budgeting, and most importantly the role of senior academics in supporting information literacy on our campuses. Each team developed a plan to take back home. The main focus of our plan is to obtain faculty status for our librarians.
The long dreamed of curriculum library finally opened this last week. Julie Gilmore has worked furiously to add records to the catalog, label the items, and make materials that have been sitting in various offices for years available for our students. Computers paid for by an IBM grant have been installed. New materials are being ordered with funds from an Assisi grant. The new library is located in the basement of the library
Luther L. Gobbel Library, Lambuth University
Reported to West Tennessee Academic Library Consortium
Fall 2005
It has been a high-tech semester for us at Lambuth. Our library is now entirely wireless with the addition of two routers. Since the installation earlier in the semester, we have seen lots of students with laptops taking advantage of the additional connectivity. Except for a new renovation in the 3rd floor teaching area of the administration building and our Starbucks bistro, we are the only wireless area on campus. In addition, we have installed EZProxy, a proxy server that allows our students to access all of our databases except FirstSearch from off campus by use of a student ID. Database use, especially EBSCO databases, Oxford Reference, and netLibrary, have risen significantly and we hope the ease in remote access will increase the usage even more. We have also added a color laser printer at the circulation desk so students can print out projects and PowerPoint presentations.
These installations have been chiefly accomplished by Sammy Chapman, our Reference Librarian, and by our new Technical Services Librarian and system administrator, Laura Simpson. Laura comes to us from the University of Southern Mississippi, but she is no stranger to WeTALC since she worked formerly at Christian Brothers University.
Sammy has also completely revamped our library’s web page so that it is more user friendly for our patrons. The new look allows students more obvious access to online finding aids.
Book signings this semester include two alums, one a former missionary to the Belgian Congo and the other a recent author of a children’s book. Two events are already scheduled in the Spring which include the signing of a new book by one of our English faculty and a book signing by another alum.
We enjoy patronage by about 20 children each week who are taking part in a joint literacy program sponsored by our Financial Aid department and Quinco Counseling. The children are learning to read and use library resources through the help of student tutors. In the coming weeks, the School of Business will do community service through tax consulting and will take advantage of the high-tech computers in the library.
We continue to increase the collection through budget and through generous gifts by alums and the community. In addition to Jackie’s ongoing new acquisitions, Paige has now cataloged nearly 3000 government documents, many of which include URLs to up-to-date statistical information. There is no longer an oversize section. All books were reclassified this summer, and shelves were rebuilt to incorporate the books for easier access by the students. We also completed cataloging this week the 400+ books given to the Lambuth-B’Nai Center for Jewish Studies, located in the library. All items receive added Tables of Contents as they enter our collections, and we are receiving regular comments from faculty about the importance of this service. We have begun checking out CDs and leisure videos to students. Circulation of all materials is up considerably over last year, and I attribute that to the number of students who are being reached through orientation sessions and bibliographic instruction. The students now have a central email system, and we hope to send out our first online student newsletter in the coming weeks to reinforce the training students are already receiving.
Student reserve usage has increased considerably as well with faculty taking advantage of Michelle’s new simplified reserve policies. And though we have fewer student assistants this year, they are all outstanding, assisting in Technical Services, in the archives, in government documents, at circulation, and in completing the year-long magnetic stripping process.
Rex continues to fight the journal inflation problems, but he is working closely with faculty to streamline subscriptions so that we can continue to grow in that area. As prices rise for paper copies, faculty are paying more attention to our continued advertising of online databases that include many of their journals.
So, we go with the flow, housing an excellent collection of traditional resources in addition to moving into the 21st century in technology to meet the learning needs of a new generation.
LeMoyne-Owen College
Hollis F. Price Library
We are pleased to report that all full-time staff members attended a professional conference including the Administrative Assistant who attended the Tennessee Library Association Annual Conference in Nashville, Tennessee the 2004-2005 Academic Year.
IT will refresh all computers and laptops in the library the Fall 2005 semester. A computerized projector was added to the meeting room in the spring. Faculty, staff members and students have been very pleased to have all this new media equipment for their classes and meetings.
Mrs. Linda Rousseau has been assigned to serve as the Director of Honors. Mrs. Marian Morrison and Mrs. Harriet Young are serving as Interim Circulation/Reference Librarians until we filled the position. Mrs. Linda Rousseau change of assignments will aid in the development of a formal information literacy program.
The Library staff continued to classify and catalog videos, recordings and CD’s. The staff started to inventory the collection during the summer months along with weeding, bar-coding and adding and linking records to the online catalog. This project has been delayed because of the lack of personnel.
Mrs. Annette Hunt attended the Census Information Census Program Training Conference: 2005 in Washington, D. C., May 31-June3, 2005 to learn how to help local communities through census data.
On July 1, 2005 Dr. Shelia Fleming-Hunter joined the Lemoyne-Owen College staff as Senior Vice President-- Academic & Student Affairs.
We will continue to find better ways to serve our library users to support teaching, study and research.
Submitted by:
Annette Hunt
Library Director
HFPL:11/02/2005
JACKSON STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE LIBRARY NEWS
SACS REACCREDITATION
Jackson State has completed its SACS off-site review and on-site visit. The Library only received one comment and that had to do with off-campus library staff. SACS felt that additional staff was needed to supplement the Learning Resource Assistants at Lexington and Savannah.
NETLIBRARY RECORDS
All 47,000 JSCC Netlibrary records are now loaded into the Online Catalog. The University of Memphis Cataloging Department has completed this task. Students can click on the link to the electronic books and go directly to the text.
RFP
The JSCC Library provided input to the University of Memphis Libraries for its development of the RFP to obtain a new Integrated Library System. Each JSCC staff member is now assigning weights to each major point of the RFP on a 1-3 point scale. Joyce Johnston developed an Excel spreadsheet which allows each staff member to put his or her ratings on to the form.
5 YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN
The JSCC Library staff has completed an analysis of Library strengths and weaknesses as well as threats and opportunities (SWOT) Dr. Teri Maddox, Director of Developmental studies and Sharon Younger from Younger Associates participated in the process.
The staff then came up with strategic goals and objectives for the next 5 years. They voted on their priorities.
Proxy Server
The JSCC Library now has a proxy server to provide authentication for the use of the library databases by its off-campus students.
ACQUISITIONS
Gloria Hester, Acquisitions and Circulation Librarian, has been working to order materials in a world of diminished budgets. She works closely with vendors and attempts to purchase notable materials at reduced rates.
REFERENCE AND INSTRUCTION LIBRARIAN POSITION
Mary Ellen Pozzebon, our former Reference and Instruction Librarian, is now WEB Services Librarian at MTSU. The JSCC Library is interviewing 3 candidates for the position.
TENNESSEE LIBRARIES, ONLINE TLA JOURNAL
Scott Cohen is the Interviews editor for the online journal of the Tennessee Library Association, Tennessee Libraries. The latest interview was done with librarians from throughout the country on the topic of how the Library can remain viable in the age of the Internet.
http://www.lib.utk.edu/~tla/TL/v55n2/interview552.htm
AGENT FEDERATED SEARCH
Jackson State and all the community colleges in the state now have Agent. AGent is a library management system from the Autographics Company that allows users to search multiple databases, full-text repositories, the Web, and local catalogs simultaneously through a single search interface
DISPLAYS
Veronica Jones and Jill Daniel have developed a display showcasing what the Continuing Education Department does on our campus.
LIBRARY DIRECTOR’S REPORT
J.W. & DOROTHY BELL LIBRARY
CRICHTON COLLEGE
FOR
WEST TENNESSEE ACADEMIC LIBRARY CONSORTIUM
UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE MARTIN
PAUL MEEK LIBRARY
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2005
The Library staff has been busy this fall semester:
· A new program was started for incoming freshman called Graduation Bound, and the library had to do a session one week. The Assistant Librarian, Alice Ruleman, presented the sessions.
· With the help of the Library Committee, the Library Director, Pam Walker, evaluated the Library’s Periodical Collection to cut out duplication and see what could be accessed online thus eliminating the print and the need to keep back issues in bound or fiche format.
· The Library acquired a new Periodical Management Program, and the Library Assistant that handles that task has been busy inputting periodical information into that program.