These minutes are also available at: http://library.missouri.edu/staff/committees/libraryassembly/

Present: Wendy Batson, Jack Batterson, Rachel Brekhus, Jim Cogswell, Tammy Green, Dustin Hoffman, Shelly McDavid, Matt Miller (subbing for Adrienne Arden), Jeannette Pierce, Anne Riley, Sandy Schiefer, Marcia Strong, Bette Stuart, Sheena Waggoner, Deb Ward

1. Discuss:

Welcome all Library Assemblers

Library Assessment Committee (Jeannette Pierce)

• Thoughts on Assessment

Why are we even talking about this? Why a committee?

To better understand our organization, how our organization is changing, how it might need to change.

Ways to Use Assessment:

• Benchmarking (change over time, comparison to peers) – statistics
• Identifying needs (what our users need to succeed) – anthropological studies, surveys, focus groups
• Understanding perceptions (what our patrons like/don’t like) – surveys, feedback forms, focus groups
• Value/Impact on teaching, learning, research (outcomes) – correlation studies; citation analysis; competency exams/evaluations; ROI

Assessment is a key component in how we articulate our value

• Utilized to show how we support undergraduate work
• Need to find ways to show how we support our faculty

LibQual Survey and LibQual Lite

• Cost associated with this survey, skipping it this fiscal year, will be doing it again for fiscal year 2016
• Provides benchmarking and perceptions that show changes over time
  • Many comments and feedback associated with this survey
• Determining more ways to mine this data

Surveys conducted on our own

• Last Spring we conducted a survey to determine if new faculty have different expectations of the libraries than faculty who have been at Mizzou a long time.

     Assessment Committee activities

• Spent time looking and reviewing data on benchmarking from the past years
• Currently working on the annual statistical report for 2014

Comparing MU Libraries to their Peer Libraries

• Who we think we compare to in terms of academic libraries
  • Land grant institutions that are members of the AAU and ARL
  • Total monetary investment in their libraries; total staffing; total collection expenditures
  • Regional Libraries: Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois
  • SEC Libraries

Assessment Committee Documents

• Located in the Assessment Committee Sharepoint site

Webinars

• Occasionally the assessment committee will provide library staff with access to information on upcoming webinars in the subject area of assessment

Greater Western Library Alliance

• Current Assessment project evaluating student outcomes
• Academic Libraries currently very interested in defining our value and showing we have a positive impact on student success

Limitations of the Assessment Committee

• Staff time and budget
• Survey participation

Annual Statistical Report 2014 [forthcoming]

• Shows how far we still need to go to be ranked in the mid-range of the AAU, like MU Libraries was 20+ years ago

The Assessment Committee is very interested in your ideas and how you might be using assessment in our libraries. The committee would like to stress that assessment is not just limited to just this committee. 

Some Assessment Related Sites:

Academic Libraries Standards:

ARL Statistics & Assessment
http://www.arl.org/focus-areas/statistics-assessment#.U2HJKLEo6M8

ACRL Standards for Libraries in Higher Education
http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/standardslibraries

ACRL Guidelines for Services to Undergraduates
http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ulsundergraduate

ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education
http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency

Examples of academic library assessment initiatives (there are many, many more…):

ARL’s LibQual
https://www.libqual.org/home

ACRL Value of Academic Libraries
http://www.arl.org/focus-areas/statistics-assessment#.U2HJKLEo6M8

Erial Project (Ethnographic Research in Academic Libraries)
http://www.erialproject.org/

MISO – Measuring Information Services Outcomes
http://www.misosurvey.org/

A few notable external surveys:

Ithaka Surveys
http://www.sr.ithaka.org/

National Center for Education Statistics
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/libraries/academic.asp

National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)
http://www.acrl.ala.org/value/?p=412

2. Director’s Announcements:

Update on Student Library Fee Proposal

• Working group meeting on Tuesday afternoons from 4-5pm
• Continuing to put together a narrative for the administration, making the case for and the outcomes of a possible student library fee
• The Chancellor may want to expedite bringing this to the Board of Curators soon with it taking effect Fall 2016
  • To be determined if we need to expedite a student referendum this coming Spring or if the Chancellor will wait and plan for it taking effect Fall 2017
    • This is all dependent on the Chancellor’s decision for a course of action
    • Best course of action would be to have elected representatives of the students be the ones endorsing this fee
• Initial $5/student credit hour fee for the first year, equals approximately $4.3 million in revenue coming to the libraries (all libraries on campus) for student centered services, collections and spaces
  • This student fee would incrementally increase over time

Planning MU Libraries changes if fee approved

• Turning main level of Ellis Library into a 24 hour study would be the highlight of the first year
  • More security needed, better lighting outside of Ellis, locking elevators down, possibility of self-checkout machines, student ID swipe access, Bookmark Café open 24 hours/day
• Plans for future years might entail purchasing access to databases or other electronic resources we are currently lacking and are needing
• Looking at the student feedback received when the information commons was established and looking at the HSL student surveys
  • Some information comes from our own knowledge of trends in libraries and some is from previous assessments/surveys of students
• Planning to reorganize library student ambassadors to provide relevant, needed input and feedback
• Predetermined need to hold Town Hall meetings with students

Deans Retreat

• New Chancellor met with them
• Budget woes – continue, Rhonda Gibler talked about this, cannot rely on the state to provide needed funding for us.
  • MU Libraries is #13 out of 13 divisions that report to the Provost, no flexibility on our budget at all
• Library development office and fundraising, about to reach the first million dollar mark of new capital campaign
  • Campus capital campaign likely will be announced next fall
• Provost search, 2 of 4 final candidates have been to campus, 3 of the 4 are women

3. Departmental Announcements

Marcia Strong, Ellis Library Security

• Flu shot fliers https://www.umsystem.edu/curators/wellness/2014_flu_shots#schedule

• Restrooms in Ellis Library: the day porter is doing the best he can to keep up
• Noticed more spills on the first floor carpet than any other floor of the library

Rachel Brekhus, Ellis Library Reference

• Personnel: Wayne Barnes’ last day of work was October 27. Christina Virden has been hired for 20hrs/week, until the end of December 2014.
• Instruction: (handwritten on the copy I gave Shelly at the meeting)

September – 63 classes and workshops, 1170 people (English 1000, Subject, Workshops – Fridays at the Library, EndNote, Zotero and International Workshops)

75 orientations/tours – FIGS/SSC, 611 people

• Collection Development: There are two deselection processes underway. One involves removing volume from the stacks that are part of JSTOR collections, contingent on type of visual material included in the journals and other factors. The other involves sending volumes to the WEST Depository program as part of the partnership the MU Libraries have entered.
• Events: October has been a very busy month for Civil War related events during the day, and in the evenings, and on weekends. A full list of them can be found at http://library.missouri.edu/about/events/lincoln. The Civil War Bus Tours had long waiting lists and received good to excellent evaluations. Aaron Astor’s book talk on CAT-TV, on his book Rebels On the Border, is now available for viewing; I have linked this URL to the events page.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkp2NXL2FXM&feature=youtu.be

• Book Display: The Faculty Picks Book Display has had more than 21 checkouts as of yesterday.  This exceeds Nancy’s goal of 20 checkouts by the end of October.

Jack Batterson, Cataloging & Metadata

• Great news, we just received Washington University Library’s donation of 262 boxes of Y4:  these will replace some of our government docs that were lost to Mold.  These boxes were delivered to U1, and Dan Atkins is bringing ten boxes per day to Ellis Library. Cataloging management is cataloging these replacements and then discarding the damaged copy. For now, these newly cataloged replacements will go to U1.

Mat Miller (subbing for Adrienne Arden), Digital Services

• Digital Services is currently working on the spring and summer 2014 electronic theses and dissertations.  Due to the Jesse Hall move, this process was somewhat delayed while we awaited arrival of paperwork.
• October 24 – 26, Felicity attended the Bi-Annual Conference of the Online Audio-Visual Catalogers Group which was held in Kansas City.  She served on the Local Arrangements Program Committee.
• We are testing the new MOspace IR interface and ORCID integration.  Stay tuned.
• We have added a new veterinary medicine title to MOspace: Equine Ambulatory Newsletter.  We currently have Vol. 10, fall 2014 in MOspace and are in the process of harvesting all available back issues of the journal.

Deb Ward, Health Sciences Library

• United Way campaign continues. Please remember to take the time to go to the web site to indicate your preference for this year's campaign.
• We note an uptick in gate-count numbers for both VML and HSL. VML saw the highest gate-count ever this September, and HSL saw a large increase in gate-count for the last academic year.
• Mike Spears hosted a lap-top and mobile device registration day.
• Meeting on Thursday, October 10, 2014 with HSL group to show them the conceptual drawings for the proposed renovation. This funding will need to come from fund-raising efforts.
• Some of the HS librarians attended a five-chapter meeting of the Medical Library Association. Barb Jones and Rebecca Graves taught a continuing education class on how libraries can help with reduction of diagnostic errors. Barb Jones received "Most Innovative Poster" prize for her poster on libraries' contributions to patient safety.
• We are still short-staffed at HSL, but coping.

Shelly McDavid, Veterinary Medical Library

• 3 stacks are slated to be taken down over Christmas Break to open up more light into the library and create a nice study area for students.

Meeting adjourned 2:03pm