Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Dean’s Council: Minutes from August 24, 2010

Present: Mara Saule, Marianne Burke, Jeffrey Marshall, Nancy Bercaw, Birdie MacLennan, Tina Kussey, Alison Armstrong

Absent: Paul Philbin, Peter Blackmer, Selene Colburn


iPads

Mara commented that because libraries employees should have opportunity to test new technologies, the Dean’s Office ordered five iPads to be distributed among service units for people to experiment with them. Marianne mentioned that medical students are working with Tablets. (Alison noted that Dan DeSanto is developing an application for Long Trail hikers. Way to go, Dan!)

Strategic Planning

Short term goals, and steps for achieving them, are in process. In doing so, the Libraries may discover that the Strategic Plan needs updating and tweaking. The Dean’s Council is dividing into action groups to take on sections of the Plan, with specific attention to the Institutional Repository. Libraries’ master planning may warrant the attention of an architectural design consult.

Birdie and Paul will speak with Dan Harvey, chief of staff for Dom Grasso, regarding electronic thesis and dissertations.

Marianne and Jeff will work together on the Institutional Repository: What are we building toward and what can we do this year? Does it include archives?

Alison/Elizabeth to provide ongoing Cook updates.

Tina/Alison will look at near-term space issues.

Mara will follow up with Peter Spitzform and the Discovery & Delivery Council on these issues as well.

For next meeting, the Dean’s Council will read through the Strategic Plan and consider what should be added or removed.

Faculty/Staff Development Half-Day Event

The Dean’s Office will plan a half day of development activities for late fall. To include, but not limited to: emergency procedures for the libraries, disaster planning, dealing with problem patrons, improving customer services, and CPR lessons. All suggestions are welcome. A special guest librarian speaker may be part of the event as well.

The National Newspaper Digitization Project

The timeline for the project is underway, space has been identified, and there is a strong pool of applicants for the position created by this grant. A library forum about the project will be held mid-Fall.

Collection Growth Committee

The final 54-page report by the Collection Growth Committee is being reviewed by the committee members. The committee’s charge was to review and challenge assumptions made by the 2004 report—focusing on space and current trends.

Updates

Marianne charged a small group to do some shelf redesign in order to get some additional carrel seating and more flexible open space at Dana. They will also look at redesigning the reference desk this year. Dana will also reprise its research-to- publication educational series this year, which features two days of programming to include literature review, knowledge management, choosing a publication for publishing, grant opportunities for grad students.

Jeff reiterated that Bailey/Howe’s 50th Anniversary is next year. Special Collection’s 50th is in two years.

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