From the University
Librarian
"NEVER"
Sarah Thomas
A few weeks ago, President Rawlings invited me to meet with him to catch up on
what was happening in the Library. Before I started my update, though, I asked
him to tell me about his recent library experience at the University of Virginia,
where he and his wife, Elizabeth, had spent spring semester. President Rawlings
began by noting that Virginia had not placed as much emphasis on research until
the 1950s and thus did not have the same depth of collections as did Cornell.
The first service, which Rawlings declared made Virginia faculty feel especially
valued, was delivery of library books to their offices. “Coming to Cornell
this fall!” I announced. The second library experience that President
Rawlings singled out was accompanying his wife to get her library card. To
his surprise, he learned that any Virginia residents could check out up to
twenty-five books for thirty days. Cornell’s contract college libraries
have borrowing privileges that parallel those at Virginia for state residents.
As a private institution, Cornell has a different relationship to New York
than UVA has to Virginia. However, Cornell, through its land-grant status,
has a strong commitment to serving others outside its immediate community.
As part of the Library’s review of our borrowing and lending patterns
in conjunction with plans for a multi-institutional repository at the Annex,
we are examining the use of our collections by individuals and institutions
within New York State, and we will make recommendations later this year on
this topic.
The third service was another borrowing feature that was also very appealing.
Faculty checking out books from the UVA Libraries received the due date: “NEVER.” Freedom
from worry about overdues and the gratifying sense of having limitless access
to the riches of the library were two elements that contributed to faculty
morale and a feeling of receiving special treatment.
Returning to Olin, I fired off an e-mail to Anne Kenney, asking her to look
into the feasibility of importing these services at Cornell. Delivery to faculty
departments, long in the works, will commence in mid-October. PSEC took up
the discussion of faculty due dates on August 24 and recommended that books
checked out to faculty be stamped: “Due back upon recall or upon leaving
the university.” Faculty will be sent annual notices reminding them of
the books they have checked out and that the books must be returned when they
leave or retire. This will serve three purposes: remind faculty to bring back
books that they no longer need, allow them to dispute the library’s claim
that they indeed have those books out, and provide the library with documentation
should we eventually need to pursue book retrieval from a departed faculty
member. This is a fine example of the flexibility and responsiveness of library
staff, and I am sure Cornell faculty will welcome this new perquisite.
Brainstorming with Penn State
The Library’s Mellon-funded grant to create
open-source journal-management software supports collaboration between Penn
State and Cornell. As we move into the second and final year of the grant,
we are thinking about how to encourage the use of the software after its release
next spring. To aid me in my thoughts, I proposed that I travel to meet with
my colleague Nancy Eaton, the dean of libraries at Penn State. Soon the visit
snowballed, and an informal exchange of ideas had become a formal discussion
involving Tom Hickerson, Terry Ehling, and David Ruddy; nine representatives
from PSU, including librarians and the deputy director of the Penn State Press;
plus a consultant from Informed Strategies who is evaluating our options for
managing the open-source code and journals-management service. Since we were
arriving on the evening of the Libraries’ picnic,
we were invited to join in the festivities. It’s a tradition that the
picnic follows the annual “housecleaning day,” in which staff file,
back up data, and otherwise devote the work day to getting organized for the
new school year.
Our grant supports generalizing the journal-management software CUL developed
for Project Euclid so that others can use it and making that software open
source. Cornell calls that software DPubS. Penn State has made a number of
advances in promoting the scholarly communications of its faculty and in making
scholarship affordably accessible. Penn State University Libraries has an assistant
dean for scholarly communications collections strategies who oversees the office
of digital scholarly publishing jointly with the Penn State University Press.
A board of faculty advisors works with the office to develop a strategy for
investing funds that the library has reallocated to support digital publishing
initiatives. In addition to Pennsylvania History, supported through
DPubS at present, the office plans to focus on publishing conference proceedings,
titles in Romance languages, and nutrition. In addition, the office is overseeing
the conversion of the Penn State Press’s entire backlist. The Libraries
and the Press have buy-in within their organizations, from senior administrators,
and from faculty.
The Cornell/PSU meeting was very helpful in illuminating some of the areas
in which we need to move forward. Although we are still awaiting the recommendations
of our consultants later in September, we concluded that we need a clear and
simple definition of what DPubS is (a tool, a community resource builder, and
a service) and a chart that compares DPubS to other software and services being
promoted within the academy, such as DSpace, DLSX, HighWire, Portico, and FEDORA,
so potential users can understand their various features and how they relate
to one another. To spread the word about DPubS and its capabilities, we plan
to speak at a variety of forums that reach out to technical, administrative,
and academic audiences.
Internally at Cornell, the facility offered by DPubS and the support provided
by the Library’s Center for Innovative Publishing should be important
concrete services for faculty editors and authors. The Library has created
a valuable resource that we should employ to increase access to publications
of interest to our faculty, to reduce the overall costs of the publishing cycle
to the university, and to accelerate the availability of scholarship.
Next: Kudos
