Discussion Group Reports fromScience & Technology SectionALA Annual Conference, 2004:Orlando, June 25-29

College Science Librarians Discussion Group

Bringing People Back to the Library

As online resources increase, fewer people are coming into the library building. We, as librarians, need to convince people of the importance of the library as a place and bring them back in. To show the importance of the library as a place, we must develop new and different roles for librarians. However, there is the concern or challenge of handling current roles as well adding on new roles. An additional issue is determining what our users want and need.

Julie Miran introduced the topic and shared some of her experiences and thoughts.

1. Find creative ways of hiring and using student assistants . Solicit input from faculty on which students might be best (from their experiences in the classrooms and labs) and also ask current student employees. Three-quarters of the students are from science disciplines and she also hires non-science to round out.
2. Investigate funding opportunities , for example the Minority Scholar Program (MSP). Julie took a risk and asked if the Library would be able to be accepted as a “workplace”. Administrators agreed and funding was approved. Julie matched the MSP students with current students to enhance experience for both of them as they could share ideas and receive mentoring.
3. Maintain an effective Web presence . Have your pages linked from course pages and department pages. Improve the ease of accessing S/T information and improve the visibility of the library.
4. Provide needed technology . For example: a new scanner - with the increasing technological know-how of users putting new technologies in the library does not take so much staff time as expected. Ask faculty about computer programs that are needed for the library, such as SPS (a statistical package for the sciences). Students now come into Julie's library to use the equipment and occasionally ask questions so they are becoming more information literate. With the increase in student needed software programs, there is less hacking as the students are being provided with what they need to do their work. Julie also was instrumental in getting programs that the faculty wanted and served as an advocate for them with the Campus Computer Systems. She recommends moving towards wireless; market this and people will come in and use it.
5. Communicate with faculty and get involved . Julie taught instruction sessions for poster sessions and noticed that students did not know how to create effective poster sessions or how to use the technology and resources for poster creation effectively. Learn the way users are using information, what they are using it for and what's needed. Julie secured a Teaching with Technology grant from the University and created a tutorial to be used in Blackboard which discussed research principles, using and finding images (took the tool bar from PhotoShop which is quite complicated and designed a simpler one, and validating the use of images (copyright), among other things. After four classes, this tutorial has been very highly received. Storage server - most users do not know about this, so Julie built information on it into the tutorial.
6. Utilize class syllabi. Julie performed a syllabus project for all S/T classes (that she could access) and discovered that there were more paper projects than expected and noted that faculty selected the resources (gave specific sources to use). She then created a master schedule of assignments (what's due when, so staff could be prepared and resources could be made ready if a frequently used resource was required). This gave Julie the opportunity to go to the faculty and praise them for their efforts, and also ask what the Library could do to help. Julie noticed a difference between faculty expectations and student experiences. From her efforts, she began getting more calls for classes, often at the last minute. Although not normally done, Julie took the classes because she notes “Don't close doors when you get a chance if at all possible.”

The session was then opened up for questions.

1. How did Julie get the syllabi ?: Julie is a system administrator for Blackboard. She suggested that we ask if we can get access to the syllabi for all classes from the administrators. Also, you could ask faculty for guess access to the syllabi or “make the departmental secretary your best friend” and ask them for the syllabi. Another person noted that it is increasingly frequent for faculty to mount their syllabi on the web so they are easy to access.
2. Concerning poster sessions - does Julie's library have a large format printer ?: Julie replied that it is in the works, and she expects it to bring people in to use it.
3. More on the Technology Grant ?: It's an endowed grant. Julie suggested that we can work with faculty on grant applications, even volunteer to do the paperwork. A participant suggested that we learn what grants are available through our library and college, and also learn about external grants that are available. Julie noted that if you should include your time (research and application completion) when applying for a grant and to watch for restrictions on the use or application of the grant.
4. How many instruction librarians work at Julie's university ?: Julie has five departments and it is only her.
5. How does Julie utilize her students ?: She has 25-30 at any given time, and has a student liaison for grants. Julie learns their strengths and tries to capitalize on them, and also build up their weaknesses. She looks for them while they are freshmen and then recruits them in their second year to reduce turnover rates and build knowledge.
6. Do you have drop in hours ?: Yes. Normally they are during set times but will shift to when they are needed. A participant suggested including the drop in hours and the web page and perhaps tying them into the research consultations (one-on-one sessions).
7. What sort of staff do you have ?: One librarian (Julie) and one assistant. Students work a minimum of six hours and overlap with a fulltime person for at least one shift to allow for continual training. She tries to have an relatively equal gender ratio and equal numbers across the science disciplines along with a few arts and humanities majors.
8. How do you handle instruction sessions ?: There is a room that can handle 10 or less at a time, or have to move to a larger room in the main library. A participant had a similar issue and noted that then students don't get “into” the S/T library. Julie added that getting people into the library is 90% of the battle. Another participant suggested the use of a laptop program as this will bring users into the library. A two part session could be used as well, with the hands on/demonstration part taking place in the main library and a second part consisting of a tour of the S/T library. Performing the session in a departmental classroom was another suggestion and some faculty are more open to this option, which at least allows the students to get used to the librarian. You can encourage students to come into the library and find you for some one-on-one, and this librarian noted that the majority of the students do come and visit her. Another option for this would be to arrange a project to bring them into the library such as a scavenger hunt. Another person suggested developing a web page for the class and noted that she had up to a 90% return rate with this method. Another participant emphasized that the class page needs to have a link to the librarian's e-mail. A participant noted that it is important to get to know the departmental secretaries as they can provide a wealth of information, such as class syllabi and new faculty names. Another suggestion was to call the one-on-one sessions “research consultations” and noted that he gets a 60-75% response rate with this term as “research consultations” sound more informative and interesting to the students.
9. Using virtual reference as a tool : Generally there seemed to be issues with low response rates although several people noted that their e-mail systems can receive long e-mail questions.
10. Using WebCT or Blackboard as a tool : Several participants have joined class-based discussion groups and chat sessions. This activity did lead to some additional one-on-one sessions.
11. Gaining a rapport with students and faculty : A participant suggested that we need to emphasize our own research experience and current projects, both in S/t and in Library Science research. The importance of sharing our Library Science research was echoed by another participant who noted that we need to show that we are “researchers” as well.
12. Use of space: As a final comment, Julie noted that we need to be looking for ways to collaborate with departments, such as creating a tutoring center for the departments, and suggested that collaborating with the career center and writing centers would also be useful.

Submitted by Beth Thomsett-Scott, Co-Chair, College Science Librarians Discussion Group.

Issues in Sci/Tech Library Management Discussion Group

The Irresistible Force and the Immovable Object: Alternative Forms of Publishing and your Faculty

The following is a synopsis of the issues in Sci/Tech Library Management Discussion Group session. Norma Kobzina and Victoria Mitchell, the Discussion Group Co-Chairs, wish to acknowledge the special contribution made by Mary Ochs, of Cornell University, who was the session leader. She provided an excellent synthesis of what her institution is doing in regard to scholarly communication. Her presentation included a list of questions that served as the basis for the rest of the discussion session.

Norma Kobzina (U.C. Berkeley) gave a brief overview of communication with the faculty at the University of California as a whole, and at UC Berkeley in particular, about questions regarding the contract with Elsevier and other publishers. Letters went to the faculty from the University Librarians and the Chancellor in the fall, indicating that it was possible that they would be canceling a substantial number of journals from Elsevier and other publishers. However, a contract was signed in the beginning of January that was acceptable, so that most of the journals would still be available electronically. The web site on collections management has a history of the negotiations and the relevant documents. CDL, the California Digital Library of the University of California, also has a website devoted to the issues of scholarly communication.

Mary Ochs (Cornell University) gave a presentation describing the range of activities going on at Cornell related to scholarly communication. Mary described the Cornell Faculty Senate resolution regarding the campus subscriptions to Elsevier's ScienceDirect journals and the decisions made at Cornell to move to the “Limited Option”. Representing the range of activities, Mary described:

1. An institutional repository: Cornell is developing a DSpace institutional repository. The project team includes the Associate University Librarian for Collection Development, the former Dean of the Faculty, and a representative of the IT group on campus. The repository is accepting a variety of content. Graduate students can submit theses in pdf format. Faculty have begun to submit a variety of material they would like to have available online.
   
2. Cornell University Library has created an Open Access Task Force. The group was created to discuss the implications for Cornell of a full-scale move to open access.
   
3. The Cornell University Library has created a scholarly communication website designed to inform the faculty about issues in scholarly communication. The site includes a link to the faculty resolution on serials.
   
4. Cornell librarians publish short pieces in campus newsletters and other publications to inform the Cornell community about issues in scholarly communication. These articles often use material made available by SPARC.
   
5. Partnerships with publishers: Cornell works closely with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization on two programs set up to deliver electronic journals in health and agriculture/environment to the developing world. AGORA (Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture) and HINARI (Health Internetwork Access to Research Initiative) provide free or low cost access to over 2500 journals to researchers in developing countries. Cornell has assisted with system development, collection building, outreach and training. Cornell has also developed Project Euclid to deliver electronic journals in Mathematics.

In closing, Mary offered a series of discussion questions:

Role of the Librarian

• What are some other ways librarians can get the word out about alternative forms of scholarly publishing?
• Should librarians be actively promoting specific methods or be impartial providers of information about the options?

Role of the Library

• What is the role for the library in financing articles in an “author pays” model?
• Are any libraries hosting institutional repositories?
• Can institutional repositories replace traditional publishing? Is this desirable? Should there be subject repositories?

Outreach

• Who is hosting web sites on scholarly communication?
• What kinds of information do you provide for your faculty?
• Are you using institutional newsletters, etc., to get the word out?

Other Issues?

Following Mary's presentation, there were a number of questions specific to the situation at Cornell, including the following:

Q: How many titles did they lose?

A: Because of their many branch libraries, much of what they cancelled were duplicate subscriptions, but they probably also lost 40-50 unique titles. Some life sciences faculty asked to keep print in some fields, e.g. Plant Science.

Q: What were the criteria for cutting journals?

A: They procured a report from ISI to see what journals Cornell faculty were citing and in what journals they published; also looked at usage statistics, and did a ranking of the journals based on these factors in relation to the price of the journal.

Q: What about cancellations vis a vis consortial use and interlibrary loans?

A: Cornell does consider whether other libraries own journals that they are canceling. Cornell is part of the NERL consortium and participates in several document delivery projects across NERL.

Also, a concern was raised that citation patterns and cost per use vary across disciplines, i.e. that it's difficult to compare across disciplines and that some disciplines might suffer relative to others using cost/use and citation criteria.

A lively interchange of ideas, opinions, information, questions, and answers ensued, much (but not all) of which related to Mary's general discussion questions. We covered a variety of topics, including low-use niche journals and usage statistics, open access and institutional memberships, faculty tenure and publishing patterns, serial prices for society publishers, librarians and publishers as partners not adversaries, and institutional repositories. Some trends did emerge. Most, if not all, of the attendees felt that it is the library's role to pay for institutional membership to open access publishing ventures, to support their faculty and researchers publishing in these journals. Several of the libraries represented are at least in the early phases of developing institutional repositories. It should come as no surprise that all of the libraries represented are struggling with paying for access to scholarly and scientific information, and are looking for-and taking-new and creative approaches to the situation. Since this is continuing to be a key issue for librarians and faculty, the group expects to have continued discussions, possibly at an STS panel at ACRL, or at subsequent programs at Midwinter and/or Annual meetings.

STS Discussion Group Schedule from 2004 Annual Conference

Last update September 10, 2004