IRIS Management Group Quarterly Reports
April 2006
Collections:
Annex: The Library Annex continues to receive, accession
and shelve 2000 volumes each day
Catherwood Library: The Lenz Library at the ILR
Extension Division’s office in New York City will be downsized
from approximately 4,500 volumes to a small ready reference collection.
A video collection of several hundred titles will be maintained in
the city and additional titles purchased upon demand. A study group
will make recommendations about use of the space currently occupied
by the Lenz Library focusing on how best to support the instructional
and service commitments of ILR’s New York City office. Overall,
the shift in provision of information services in the city will be
more towards electronic delivery and teaching faculty, staff, and
clients of ILR’s Extension Division how to gain access to online
databases.
Collections, Reference, Instruction, & Outreach (CRIO):
CRIO selectors are very much engaged in the e-only review of serials
in the humanities and social sciences. All CRIO reference staff are
assisting with the evaluation of EBSCO’s Academic Source Premier
as a possible replacement for ProQuest’s Research Library. Three
CRIO members have been appointed to the CUL Social Sciences Review
Study Group. The group is examining collection development issues,
practices, and organization in the social sciences.
Fine Arts Library: Worked with staff from G&E,
the Johnson Art Museum, Library Alumni Affairs and Development, and
John Saylor to sort through a process for the handling of a large
gift collection from B.H. Friedman. Sold roughly 15 gift titles to
local book dealer. Profit went back to a collections account.
Music Library: The Sidney T. Cox Verdi Collection
was delivered to the music library late in January. The collection
consists of some 300+ items, including several first and early published
editions of Verdi’s operas. Processing should begin soon.
Facilities
Annex: Working with John Hoffman to cleanup some
outstanding issues from Construction.
Catherwood Library: Due to last minute design changes
in the plans for renovation of the faculty wing at Ives, construction
will be delayed by about 6 to 8 months. This means that when faculty
move out of the third floor of Catherwood, others whose work space
is affected by the construction will move in. Thus, conversion of
the third floor from surge to open stacks space will be delayed until
late 2010.
Collections, Reference, Instruction, & Outreach (CRIO):
We are still in the queue for renovations of our office suite. Work
continues apace in other areas of Olin. We are last in the queue.
Fine Arts Library: Two sets of meetings with OMA
architects, in January and in March, concerning the design of library
space within the new Milstein Hall and/or the renovated Sibley Hall.
Multiple discussions with AAP administrators and Library Facilities
personnel regarding new use of current FAL space by AAP staff, as
well as the design of new and additional office space for FAL staff.
New paint on the north walls of the 2nd floor of the library, plus
the seminar room and the staff lounge.
IRIS Account and Administrative Support: Room 213
has undergone a minor facelift. The furniture has been rearranged
to create a work space for Tiffany Howe. This rearrangement gives
the office a whole new appearance and added functionality.
Music Library: We are working with music faculty
members and music tech support to plan an upgrade of the Music Library
computer lab, ideally for Summer 2006. Following a ceiling leak in
a faculty member’s office, we are providing temporary office
space in the Music Library conference room
Research and Assessment Services: The floor plans for done and the
relocation of Research staff in 215 is scheduled for mid-April.
Services
Annex: The Library Annex has not added any new services;
we are continuing to maintain the Monday-Friday 24 hour turnaround
time for all patron services.
Catherwood Library: Donna Schulman, librarian at
the Lenz Library in New York City, and Deb Lamb-Deans announced “OIS:
Outreach Information Services,” in mid-February 06. This is
an initiative designed specifically to provide information consulting
services to the ILR School’s Extension/Outreach faculty and
staff across the state. The Extension Division was restructured last
fall into eight broad thematic areas. Deb will be the primary contact
librarian for four of those thematic areas, and Donna the remaining
four.
Collections, Reference, Instruction, & Outreach (CRIO):
Ida Martinez and Tony Cosgrave led an instruction session
and a tour of Olin & Uris for Cornell’s Educator Professional
Development Day on Friday, March 24th. The event drew over 1400 area
teachers. Our session was titled, “Introduction to Academic
Library Research for Advanced Placement and Honors Classes”
and approximately 10 teachers attended. To learn more about issues
that are timely and pertinent to reference, instruction, and outreach
services among peer-institutions, three CRIO staff attended Columbia
University’s Reference in the 21st-Century Symposium. Reference
Specialist Gaby Castro-Gessner and Reference Librarian Lynn Thitchener
presented a poster session at the symposium. The poster was titled,
“Late Night at the Reference Desk? Virtual Supervision of Student
Workers Using Courseware.” It highlighted Gaby’s and Lynn’s
use of Blackboard as a supervision tool for student reference assistants
who work 10pm – 2am shifts at Olin and Uris. Ida Martinez also
attended the symposium to learn more about innovative outreach initiatives
at other institutions. Lynn Thitchener has taken the lead in organizing
an Olin, Uris & Asia public services group to help facilitate
communication and other service issues among our public service desks.
This group is an outgrowth of the staff in Olin reference and circulation
who have been collaborating on shared services for 3 years. Ida Martinez
is teaching a 1-credit course in library research strategies (LSP101).
Enrollment in the class began with 13 students in January. Current
enrollment in the class is 22. There is a good mix of freshmen-seniors.
Outreach efforts continue as CRIO selectors meet with faculty in the
humanities and social sciences to discuss issues in scholarly communication.
In January, all CRIO staff participated in a ½-day team building
retreat facilitated by Linda Bryan.
Fine Arts Library: The Fine Arts Librarian is working
with the Visual Resources Task Force to help understand and plan for
faculty research and instruction needs in the realm of digital image
resources. The FAL will continue to host the pre-thesis student show
through early April. The FAL will install a photography exhibit by
Cornell alumnus and professional photographer Gordon Sander. This
exhibit will open April 14 and continue through reunion.
IRIS Account and Administrative Support: Our team
has recently completed the physical asset inventory, and the 2006-2007,
4705 budget. We are currently involved in budget analysis for various
IRIS departments, support work for SIP distribution, allocation for
LCDs for IRIS members, preparation for the upcoming Digital Workshop
conducted by Research, and providing administrative assistance to
Preservation for the Native American Internship.
IRIS Design/ Library Communications: Developed banners
for Find (images, databases, get it! Cornell, etc.)
Music Library: Bonna Boettcher provided an overview
of music library resources for an undergraduate musicology seminar.
Olin/Kroch/Uris Access Services: The Faculty Department
Book Delivery Service is very popular with the humanities faculty.
Since January, Olin/Uris staff has delivered 324 books to department
offices.
Research and Assessment Services: The French version
of the Digital Preservation Management tutorial, sponsored by the
Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN), should be announced
in April. Assessment Services has been coordinating SPEC surveys,
developing the website for assessment services, assisting with several
requests for environmental scans, gearing up for the annual statistical
report data gathering, and preparing for the June 15-16 visit by the
ARL Making Library Assessment Work research team. We will send an
announcement soon about an ARL presentation on June 15. The File Format
Media Migration Service is gearing up to provide a poster for academic
departments to encourage faculty to use the service.
Staff
Annex: New staff member, Troy Shaver, on a term
appointment.
Catherwood Library: James DelRosso has been hired
to fill the Public Services Assistant IV position in reference, succeeding
Paulette Manos who became Assistant Director for Alumni Affairs at
the ILR School. Jim will be working with Mary Newhart to maintain
the Workindex.com database (part of a business relationship with LRP
Publications), helping to populate the DigitalCommons@ILR repository,
and serving as backup in Access Services working with Angie Wagner.
He will also be serving on the reference desk, working with Suzanne
Cohen. His prior Cornell experience included nearly two years as Interlibrary
Borrowing Specialist at Mann Library from 2001 to 2003.
Collections, Reference, Instruction, & Outreach (CRIO):
We are still very much feeling the loss of Janie Harris – personally
and professionally. In Janie’s memory, Fred Muratori completed
a Peace Studies subject guide that they had worked on together previously.
Sarah How temporarily increased her hours to full time to take on
a significant portion of Janie’s selection duties, including
400+ e-only serial reviews. The search for a CRIO director continues.
The search committee believes they have a good applicant pool and
has conducted a few phone interviews with candidates. We hired one
new student worker to assist our part-time administrative assistant,
Liane O’Brien. We are also fully staffed now with our student
reference assistants who work very late hours and some early evening
hours at the Olin & Uris reference desks. Also, (CL)3 is fully
staffed now with students. Tony and Kizer completed the New Supervisor
Orientation Certificate Program. This program consists of seven sessions
focusing on twelve topics relating to supervision at Cornell. Howard
Brentlinger will begin offering bibliographic support services to
CRIO members beyond collection development and has been training in
the use of RefWorks in preparation for this expanded support role.
Kizer Walker participated in a library study tour of Eastern Germany
sponsored by ACRL's Western European Studies Section. He attended
the Leipzig Book Fair and Germany's national Library Congress, held
this year in Dresden. Kizer Walker attended the U of Michigan symposium
Scholarship and Libraries in Transition: A Dialogue about the Impacts
of Mass Digitization Projects (http://www.lib.umich.edu/mdp/symposium/.
Ite). Eleven staff training sessions were provided this quarter. Nancy
Skipper is the managing supervisor for a Syracuse University intern,
Olivia Nellums, who also works full time in ILS, She is learning about
all aspects of reference services and will be spending time at the
Olin reference desk. Maureen Morris will take over responsibility
for collection development and outreach for the Anthropology Dept.
on July 1st.
Fine Arts Library: The Fine Arts Librarian attended
the annual conference of the Visual Resources Association in Baltimore,
March 5-10. The annual performance evaluations are almost complete.
IRIS Account and Administrative Support: Staff members
have been working on self development to improve job knowledge. Tiffany
is taking a Certificate Program in Communications and Rachel is doing
a class in Crucial Conversations. Mary is enrolled in a Supervisor
Development Certificate Program.
Music Library: Jim Alberts received notification
of promotion to Senior Assistant Librarian. Jim was appointed chair
of the Music Library Association’s MARC Formats Subcommittee.
Jim and Bonna attended the 2006 MLA annual meeting in Memphis, TN.
Andrew Justice has given several performances, including the Bach
Gamba Project, which he organized. Ken Fung and Eric Feinstein worked
with Steven Stucky to make available via the in-house listening system
a recording of Stucky’s recent Pulitzer Prize-winning symphony.
Olin/Kroch/Uris Access Services: Sam Hultzman, Reserve
Supervisor, took a job at the Naval Academy. Johanna Williams was
hired as the Olin Student Supervisor. Diana Goodrich was hired to
fill late night Olin position.
Preservation and Collection Maintenance: New conservation
technician: Andrew Rabkin
Other
Catherwood Library: Patrizia Sione and Mary Newhart
submitted a three year IMLS (Institute for Museum and Library Services)
grant proposal for $243,318 to allow archiving web sites of organizations
(approximately 50 are targeted for purposes of the grant) active in
the debate on the effects of globalization in the workplace. Outcome
of the proposal is to be announced by the agency this September.
Collections, Reference, Instruction, & Outreach (CRIO):
Virginia Cole was invited to attend a meeting in Washington D.C. at
the Computers in Libraries Conference on OCLC’s new QuestionPoint
chat software that CUL began using March 18th. Gaby Castro-Gessner
has taken the lead in working with Bill Arm’s Computer Science
501 students who are creating a sophisticated database for recording
and reporting reference statistics online. Maureen Morris helped organize,
and attended, the User-Centered Design workshop and the follow-up
staff forum. She also participated in the implementation of WebBridge.
Fred Muratori made a major contribution to the Voyager upgrade. He
completed a programming script that allows for initial articles to
be included in title searches in the OPAC. Instead of a “no
hits” message, users are alerted to re-submit their search without
the initial article. Lance Heidig is coordinating the fourth annual
CUL and Library Advisory Council Book Collection Contest. The contest
will take place in April/May. This year the Contest will include a
separate competition for graduate students, with both the three undergraduate
and graduate prize winners being awarded $1000, $500, and $250.
IRIS Account and Administrative Support: Beginning
in May we will be heavily involved in closing accounts, and budget
analysis in preparation for year-end closing.
IRIS Design/ Library Communications:
· 2006 Book Collection Contest publicity. Contest is now open
to graduate as well as undergraduate students.
· Public Services Administration site is finished and content
providers have been trained.
· 2006 New Student Reading Project book has been announced
and we’ve begun work on the new graphics and web site.
· Working with Asia staff to develop a compliant, accessible
Asia Collections site with a strong, unified visual presence.
· Publicity materials for numerous events and new services
for Library Alumni Affairs and Development and RMC
· Transition to Fatherhood site
· Digital Preservation Management Tutorial images for French
translation
· 2005-06 Library Annual Report project planning
· InsideCUL and Kaleidoscope mark up and images
· RLG Diginews mark up and images
· Sarah's CUL greeting cards
· On-going support for IRIS unit sites
· Library Communications web site
· Staff web design and development
· Annex site done
· CATALYST web site: design comps done, development will start
when Xin gives the ok.
· Collection Development web site
· Working with DLIT to develop CommonSpot training and manuals
for CUL staff.
· Developed banners for Find (images, databases, get it! Cornell,
etc.)
Music Library: Lenore Coral left a bequest in her will to establish
an endowment for fresh flowers for the music reference desk. The distribution
was received and income is now available to use. Lenora Schneller
coordinates flower purchases.
Olin/Kroch/Uris Access Services: Martha Clark, Uris
student assistant, was nominated for and was awarded a Fuerst Student
Award.
Preservation and Collection Maintenance: Technicians
from the conservation unit assisted with exhibit in Rare Books and
Manuscripts Dept. for recent Alpha Phi Alpha meeting, and helped install
“Novel Picture” exhibit at the Johnson Museum
Research and Assessment Services: The Research team
has been primarily focusing on two projects: a CLIR/ARL sponsored
report on e-journal archiving and a white paper on preserving and
providing access to 3D digital objects for the KMODDL project. We
published the February issue of RLG DigiNews.
Question: What does your Unit/Area do to involve new
Faculty/Students?
Catherwood Library: For faculty, we obtain a roster
of new hires and make an appointment to tour the facility and review
the services provided. For students, we work with the Office of Resident
Instruction to schedule tours for incoming students. And, as a promotional
effort, we do Cookie Day in early September during which we hand out
cookies (nearly 1,500) to students as they enter the library reading
room as a way of welcoming them (or welcoming them back) to Catherwood
after the summer break. In addition, the library gets a 10 minutes
allocation of time on the large group orientation held for new students
in August.
Collections, Reference, Instruction, & Outreach (CRIO):
· We engage in a new-faculty-welcoming process every year.
We solicit lists of new faculty in the humanities and social sciences
from the A&S Dean’s Office and contact all new faculty,
inviting them to meet with us in their office or at the library for
an introduction to the library and it’s services. We work with
the appropriate selector, given the faculty’s teaching &
research interests, to ensure that all new faculty are aware of both
solid reference and collection development staff in their fields.
These visits occur throughout the year since new faculty arrive on
campus at the beginning of all three semesters (summer, fall, spring).
Fall, of course, is the busiest time for new faculty visits.
· We market our instruction services to new faculty every year
– the success of which is evidenced in consecutive years of
significant increases in instruction session requests.
· We invite all new graduate students in the humanities and
social sciences to a welcoming reception in the Libe Café,
where reference staff and IRIS selectors are present to greet and
meet the students. This reception will include new faculty as well
beginning 2006-1007.
· Each fall, during orientation, we offer two sessions in “Academic
American Libraries” geared towards new international students.
They are well attended and well received. International student organizations
participate in marketing the session.
· For several years, CRIO members have taken the lead in organizing
the Library booth at the annual (August) Barton Hall information fair
for new undergraduates and families. We also regularly participate
in the new graduate student information fair, and the First Families
Weekend in October of each year.
· At the beginning of each semester, we offer numerous tours
of Olin, Uris, and Kroch Asia for new students and faculty.
· At the beginning of each semester, we also offer library
research workshops for new students and faculty.
We host and organize a Library E-Services event (formerly the Library
Technology Fair) for new students and faculty to come and learn about
our electronic/technology services.
Fine Arts Library: The Fine Arts Librarian offers tours of the Fine
Arts Library to new faculty and students. These tours are sometimes
done in groups and at other times on an as-needed basis. The Fine
Arts Librarian is often invited to departmental orientation sessions
where she is introduced to new faculty and students. She typically
is asked to say a few words about the collections and services of
the Fine Arts Library. She attends on average 4-6 tours/orientation
sessions at the start of each academic year.
IRIS Design/ Library Communications: We produce
publicity and marketing material for events and new services through
web sites and print media such as the New Student Reading Project.
Music Library: Letters of welcome, outlining library privileges for
music majors are sent to new students.
Olin/Kroch/Uris Access Services: Information regarding reserves is
sent to department administrative assistants at the start of each
semester to disseminate to faculty, including new faculty.
Preservation and Collection Maintenance: We provide
support to all users of the Media Center on a daily basis. The Map
and Geospatial Information unit is working closely with all users
who want to make use of the collection.
Research and Assessment Services: We provide information
about the File Format Media Migration Service for faculty orientation
packs.
