WeTALC meeting

November 8, 2003

Dyersburg State Community College

Minutes of the Board

President Steve Rogers called the meeting to order after a continental breakfast provided by our hosts from Dyersburg. Those present included Hope Shull, Steve Baker, Scott Cohen, Lan Wang, Darlene Brooks, Robert Lhota, Priscilla Stephenson, Margaret Cardwell, Louise Manhein, and Sylverna Ford.

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved.

Old Business:

Since the minutes had mentioned that Steve Rogers and the University of Tennessee would house the archives of WeTALC, there was a discussion of exactly where those documents might be. Everyone is to look through his or her files. Anything found should be sent to Steve. Steve Baker thought that he might have some items.

New Business:

Scott Cohen proposed the idea of setting up an ad hoc committee to work with the reference group who has initiated plans for developing an online tutorial. The plan is that members of WeTALC would meet and develop a tutorial that all WeTALC schools could use and that could be easily modified to meet local requirements. After discussion the motion to set up such a committee was proposed and passed.

Scott also shared with the group information about OCLC’s pilot program, Open WorldCat that provides links to books that are in WorldCat. When a person using a search engine retrieves a citation to the book, the user can input his zip code or other information and WorldCat will display the libraries closest to that location that own the book. A discussion about impact this would have on libraries ensued.

Pam Dennis mentioned that they will host a workshop dealing with cataloging issues in February 2004. More information will be forthcoming once the dates are established.

Jackson State has offered to host the spring meeting in 2004.

Jackson State Community College
 

Scott Cohen
Library Director
Jackson State Community College
2046 North Parkway
Jackson, TN  38301
731-425-2615 (phone)
731-425-2625 (fax)

This summer a significant renovation of our Germantown campus was

completed. This added 10 new classrooms and other facilities. The campus

now has over 500 students. We anticipate the hiring a librarian for that

campus to begin fall of 2004. This new position will split time between

supporting the library research needs of that campus and teaching

several classes in our master's program in School Library Media

certification that will be offered on that campus for the first time

next year.

The library on our main campus will be getting a bit of a face lift to

improve its appearance and image. In addition, the University is nearing

the end of its five-year plan and is entering into a new process of

strategic planning this year. This new plan will take the University to

2010 and includes a significant library component.

Due to the small number and general lack of quality among candidates

for our most recent MLS hires the University has made a conscious

decision to develop two of current support staff who show promise for

the future. Jeannie Byrd, who manages our serials operation, has

enrolled in the UT online program. She holds a masters in English and

several years of prior college teaching experience. Valerie Howell, who

manages our circulation desk, has enrolled in the online program at

Texas Women's University. She holds a maters degree in communications.

The library has seen a marked shift in usage during the past year.

Retrieval of electronic resources(i.e. journal articles and e-books) is

escalating rapidly while numbers for circulation of physical materials

and exits from the library are waning. During 2002-2003 circulation

dropped a total of 6,770 or 17% from the previous year. Gatecount

dropped 37,576 or 24% during the same period.

Steven L. Baker, Library Director

Emma Waters Summar Library

1050 Union University Drive

Jackson, TN 38305

731-661-5410

November 8, 2003

The big news is that we have signed a contract with Endeavor to migrate our catalog from DRA to Endeavor. We should be "live" by June. The staff is very excited the project. It has been funded by a grant from a local businessman. We hope that he will be pleased with the product and perhaps approve the rest of our request for the ENCompass and LinkFinder products as well.

Laura Simpson is about to leave us to take a job at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. We have several candidates to interview in the coming week. Hopefully we will be able to fill the position in Jan.

Jane Fleet, our technical services librarian was seriously injured in an automobile accident on Oct. 31. She broke a vertebra in her neck and shattered her knee. She is doing remarkably well and hopes to be moved to a rehabilitation facility this weekend.

Benjamin Head, Laura Simpson, Bridgette Decent, & Margaret Cardwell attended a weeklong WebCT workshop that held for the faculty in June. From this workshop Benjamin, Bridgette, and Laura developed an extensive introductory library tutorial. At this point approximately 100 students have completed the tutorial. The tutorial was required work in 6 classes this fall including a sophomore level English class and several business classes. The students were surveyed last week and the results are being compiled. It appears that most students found the tutorial valuable.

The library faculty voted in the Spring of 2003 to subscribe to Ebsco Information

Services databases "Academic Search Premiere" and "Business Source Premiere"

in place of existing ProQuest resources entitled "PA Research II" and "ABI-Inform".

The new databases offer twice the number of fulltext and refereed journals as ProQuest for approximately the same price, and will benefit UTM students taking classes at several locations, including Lambuth University and the Tennessee Technological Center in Jackson. This change was endorsed by the Academic Affairs Council in April and the contractual paperwork was approved in time to begin a fiscal-year cycle with Ebsco. In addition, we have just recently learned that ASP has expanded its journal and full text offerings by 11% at no extra charge to subscribing libraries.

The library’s "Millennium" automation system upgrade was funded through the Campus Technology Fee as approved by the Academic Computing Advisory Committee in April of 2002. The library began implementation and training procedures for the new upgrade in August, 2002, with some training in the Technical Services areas continuing into the Spring of 2003. Over the course of fiscal year 02-03, the library purchased a number of desktop and service computers required in support of the conversion to Millennium. This system improves the library’s ability to manage student circulation data and other library records. The library is now in the second year of a three year pro-rate agreement with Innovative Interfaces for the purchase of this costly upgrade.

The university’s decision in 2002 to move the University Museum to the Paul Meek Library has proven of great benefit to the campus. Special Collections Librarian and newly-appointed Museum Director Richard Saunders and his assistant Karen Elmore worked with the university’s Maintenance Department and an outside contractor to design and supervise the construction of a museum gallery space within the large Special Collections area. Since the opening of the new University Museum in September of 2002, the library has sponsored a number of exhibits of interest, including "Leaves of Lanka" (photo exhibit of Sri Lanka), "Vietnam: Journey of the Heart," "Tradition, Power

and the Right to Vote in Fayette County, Tennessee, 1959-1962," and "African-American Gardens and Yards in the Rural South," among others. Museum Director Richard Saunders also secured a Conservation Assessment Program (CAP) grant to evaluate security and HVAC issues associated with the Special Collections and Museum area.

The library faculty recently decided to purchase a new collection of electronic books featuring 6,800 scanned titles and a broad range of subjects from over 100 publishers. This will increase the library’s total holdings of electronic books to 21,287. The collection was offered by SOLINET in the Spring of 2003 at a cost of $1 per FTE student or $5317 for UTM. Statistics provided by Systems Librarian Jim Nance indicated that there has been a significant amount of student use of our existing e-book collection.

During the 2002-2003 academic year, Systems Librarian Jim Nance produced a library

Library and Computer Center staff worked together to put into place a new online booking system for the library’s two media classrooms. This new "Calcium" calendar system allows faculty and students to view online bookings for both the Library’s Seminar Room and Bibliographic Instruction Room. The new booking system was activated during the Fall Semester by Media Specialist David Stout and Computer Services Senior Analyst Bruce Harrison. "Calcium" may be accessed in read-only mode by going to the library's HomePage and clicking on "Departments", then clicking on "Media Services" and scrolling down to the heading "Media Classrooms". This feature will assist members of the teaching faculty with their schedule planning.

The Paul Meek Library staff as well as the entire university community was saddened

by the sudden passing of Media Specialist David Stout on October 13, 2003 of a brain aneurysm. Dave was one of the university's best service professionals and a friend to everyone who knew him both in the library and across the university.

Lambuth University – WeTALC – November 8, 2003

This has been an extremely active year for the library at Lambuth University. Through a partnership with the local synagogue, the Lambuth-B’Nai Israel Center for Jewish Studies was officially opened on the second floor of the library on April 15, 2003. The first exhibit, "Jackson’s Jewish Legacy," is currently on display in the administration building, including memorabilia, oral histories, art work, and historical information.

Several items have been added to the library’s website for electronic access. With appreciation to Steve Rogers at UT-Martin’s library, Lambuth now has access to EBSCOhost’s Academic Search Premier and Business Source Premier, two leading article databases. Susan Banks, our circulation librarian, added an exceptional Government Documents website as part of her coursework through UT-Knoxville’s information science program. The site includes local, state, national, and international links and is particularly useful for statistical information. Mitzi Brown, technical services librarian, has added a New Books button to the OPAC search screen, enabling faculty, staff, and students to know what has been added to the collection over the past four months. Items can be searched by title, author, call number, and location. She has also incorporated our three netLibrary collections into the general collection, decreasing the amount of effort needed by patrons to access these added materials. For better accessibility by patrons, we are slowly incorporating our oversized books into the general collection, rebuilding shelves as necessary. We have found that many students do not know that the Oversize collection exists and are, therefore, not taking advantage of many new books.

All library staff have actively participated in workshops and training sessions this semester. Additionally, in September, Mitzi led a Tenn-Share workshop on "Collaborating with Faculty," and Sammy led a session on "Web Design." Lambuth will host two SOLINET cataloging sessions in February.

The library has seen increased usage by faculty through the introduction of book reviews, sponsored by the Library Committee. The first review was led by history professor, Lynn Vacca, who spoke on "The Politics of Work – A Review of Recent Literature Addressing the Twentieth Century Struggle for Gender and Racial Equality." Art professor Lendon Noe is now taking advantage of library space to house student art work.

We have an open position in the Government Documents area, so we find that all staff have had increased work loads. But, that additional work has not decreased the use of the library. This year, nearly 5,000 books have been checked out with nearly 10,000 renewals. Gate counts continue to remain high in addition to nearly 10,000 hits to our library web page. The reference area is particularly busy with 1200 reference questions and 30 bibliographic instruction sessions offered during the academic year. With the addition of nearly 1,000 new items to the collection, Lambuth University’s library continues to strive for excellence in providing information to our patrons.

Dr. Pam Dennis, Director

LeMoyne-Owen College

Hollis F. Price Library

November 7, 2003

Dr. Lester Porciau reviewed the library for the SACS visit in May 2003. LeMoyne-Owen College completed the SACS review with two recommendations for the library. As a result of these reviews we will employ a full-time paraprofessional.

Annette Berhe Hunt attended the American Library Association Annual Conference in Toronto Canada in June 2003. The conference was well attended and organized.

Annette Hunt and Alice Jo Doerner attended the, ‘Book Blitz or how to make MARC records that really works TMQ MARC cataloging workshop", in June 2003. This workshop was conducted by Deborah A. Fritz.

The Library staff continued to attend WeTalc Reference Users Group and the Memphis Civil Rights Research Consortium meetings.

A student intern has been assigned to work in the Archives. He is arranging and re-arranging items by provenance.

The Music Department has ordered over 300 CD’s for the Music/Listening Center. They have also ordered musical videos for this collection. We are rearranging the I.L. Meyer Room for the Music Center.

Rhodes College signed with the SIRSI Corporation on March 20, 2003. In August 2003, Bill Short (Head of Public Services) and Rachel Feinman (Cataloger and Collection Development Librarian), began working with the Academic departments to begin a major weeding of the collection. During the week of October 13-16, the Library staff was involved in onsite SIRSI training. During the week of November 3-7 the Serials and Acquisitions department went through a week of training separately from the other departments. The very next week I went to Huntsville, Alabama along with Doug Walker, Network Administrator in the IT department, for Administrator training at the SIRSI Headquarters.

The new library building is ahead of schedule by 5-6 weeks. The building has really taken shape, and the Library staff can tell approximately where there offices are located. Because the Library is under the Division of Information Services—the new library is being designed to accommodate both departments: Library and IT. Ice breaker events have been planned by our Dean to facilitate unity in the division before the move is made.

Summer:

UTHSC Health Sciences Library added three new faculty in August:  Lin Wu is a Reference Librarian; Steve Golanka is our Access Services Librarian; and Jennifer Watson is our Electronic Services Librarian. 

Recent purchases include SciFinder Scholar, the Chemical Abstracts Service database, and Stat!Ref, a full-text collection of health care textbooks. For the genetic researchers we added Mouse Knockout & Mutation Database.

Fall:

Tom Singarella, our Director, has organized a library faculty publication forum which meets monthly to discuss faculty members' research ideas and to provide guidance and support to individual research projects and promote professional publications.

Jennifer Watson is working to streamline our electronic journal holdings information. She has added 180 of the electronic journals indexed in the TEL databases to our A-Z e-journal list and to our online catalog, and allowed us to cancel the purchase of electronic access to several titles. She is also adding URL links to our catalog for those titles that are open access as we become aware of them. She has updated the A-Z e-journal title list with holdings information, so that it is possible to tell at a glance how many years holdings are available with online access, or if there is a current-year embargo (as so many of the EBSCO collection require).

Lin Wu has been awarded one of 4 EBSCO / Medical Library Association meeting grants. She will receive $1000 toward travel expenses to attend the MLA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC this May.

PS

The Burroughs Learning Center has added EBSCO Business Premiere for our off-campus SUCCESS students who have had difficulty accessing TEL. Christopher Schlegel is tracking our database usage and his report provides valuable information, e.g. cost per search and cost per retrieval.

Christopher continues to provide instruction to all incoming freshmen on use of their laptop, basic computer skills and how to use the library’s web page. He introduces the students to the card catalog and basic library resources. Harold Kelly and Billie Jo Harris provide bibliographic instruction to the off-site SUCCESS students during their Saturday on-campus sessions.

This past year we have reorganized and re-cataloged the Curriculum Materials Center, reorganized the children’s collection and eliminated the paperback collection. We have reorganized the Reserve collection and are still in the process of shifting and weeding the bound periodical collection. Our ILL usage has increased considerably (due to the addition of new Ph.D.s on staff).

All books, with the exception of reference and the Heritage collection, have been bar-coded and we now can say that we have properly inventoried almost the entire collection. We have bar-coded over 60,000 items and entered 13,000 into the database.

Louise Manhein met with the division heads and has made some inroads with encouraging new faculty in their use of the library. We now have access to the administrative database of student information and are trying to tackle the ‘challenge’ of overdue notices.

Louise Manhein 4/04

Mary Ellen Pozzebon, Reference and Instruction Librarian, is taking a web course through ACRL on "Assessment of Information Literacy Programs"

Jackson State Community College is in the process of becoming a "Learning College".

Joyce Johnston, Catalog/Reference Librarian, has prepared a bibliography dealing with the Learning College.

Scott Cohen has been working on a Focus Group for students to elicit opinions about the library's services and resources. Plans are to have the focus group on November 14.

The Library has instituted a new program of having Library department supervisors mentor classified staff on their performance evaluation goals. Supervisors meet with employees and fill out a form which state the date that they met with the employee, the employee goals, the status of the goals and the assistance given to the employee.

The Library will provide the "Soaring to Excellence" teleconferences for library staff for the 10^th year. It will also sponsor the Reference teleconferences.

Literature Resource Center and Newsbank/Jackson Sun are two databases in the library.