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January 16, 2002
Sarah Thomas called the meeting to order at 10:30 A. M. Marcy Rosenkrantz, the new Director of Library Systems, was introduced.
Pat Schafer, Nancy Skipper, and Christian Boissonnas presented some of the results of the 2001 LibQUAL+ survey and discussed plans for the 2002 survey. Pat reminded us that LibQUAL+ is a three year ARL research and development project to develop a Web based survey to assess the quality of service as perceived by customers. CUL chose to participate in the hope we could influence the design and get the desired result. The survey cannot be locally customized. At the end of the first year, there were 43 participating institutions not all of them ARL’s. The results show CUL significantly exceeding the minimum expectations of our users, but still below the desired level of service, and CUL ranked first among the participating institutions. The most significant service shortcoming was in the area of business hours, and this is common theme from other institutions. One highlight reported was that 77% of those surveyed used the physical library at least once every week, and 64% used library resources remotely at least once every week. This seems to confirm the importance of the library as a place and the importance of developing remote resources. CUL has signed up for year two of the survey. This will be an improved instrument with fewer questions. We are still not fully satisfied with some of the questions and the demographic groupings, but the survey instrument does have a comments box that may provide useful feedback. While CUL will forgo incentives to improve the response rate, there will be more publicity and more personalized e-mail reminders. Sarah Thomas noted that going with the LibQUAL+ survey gave us access to a professionally developed instrument at a significant cost savings. The Library may want to consider moving to a locally developed instrument to get into more specific details than LibQUAL+ cannot provide in the future.
Oya Rieger provided a brief update on the programs coordinated by the Office of Distributed Learning (ODL). The CUL/CIT collaboration to support the Faculty Innovations in Teaching Program has 20 projects this year involving 45 faculty members, and 11 library units are participating. The Cornell Copyright Service Model has created a Web site to assist faculty in their use of multimedia materials, the protection of intellectual property they create and other copyright issues. Alumni and Friends Access is moving forward with many people involved and hopes to launch a pilot in the spring with a suite of services. The CUL Distributed Learning Website for Faculty is under development and will publicize our services to faculty and other providers. Distributed learning activities can be explored in more depth at : http://www.library.cornell.edu/DL/
Sarah Thomas reported that Ed Weissman is compiling the reports from the CUL Master Plan meeting of 12/10/01. Consultants have been engaged to help LMT refine and prioritize the plan's goals and objectives. Lee Cartmill, Ross Atkinson, and Ed are already meeting to discuss how to fund the priorities that emerge. A series of meetings will be held with units to get feedback on the plan. The goal is to have the master plan in place by July.
Submitted by: Steven Rockey
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02/25/02 vwb