oals and Objectives  FY2000 -2001: Collections

Develop and maintain a quality collection of library materials reflecting the needs of the academic community. 

At the end of FY2001, the library staff established an extremely ambitious list of objectives under the five broad goals of the library program.  We were forced to postpone many of the objectives that required staff and resources that were not available - those objectives have been forwarded to the list for FY2002.   The Hilton C. Buley library staff did accomplish a remarkable number of challenging tasks and initiatives in FY2001 – some of them are outlined here.  

In FY 2001, the Library continued to build core collections in all formats.  Nearly 25,000 volumes were added, bringing the total collection to 575,947 volumes as of June 30, 2001.  The monograph collection increased by 20,356 volumes.  A New Titles area with lounge seating was established on the main floor to highlight these new acquisitions.  Many friends of Buley Library donated books and other materials; 867 of those gift books were added to the collection.  A small collection of large-print reference titles was established near the Reference Desk.  A journal use study formed the basis of a comprehensive assessment of the periodicals collections, and the Library began making adjustments to the periodical title holdings to more closely align with the curriculum.   By the end of FY01 the Library held 2,857 print journal titles fifteen print subscriptions were cancelled and sixty-nine titles were added.  We expect to continue this process, making significant adjustments in the next year.   Considerable resources were devoted to building core collections of media – the nonprint collection increased by 717 (more than 15%), to a total of 5,405 media items.  Despite these additions, the media collection is not yet adequate to support the curriculum – continued rapid growth is planned.  The array of electronic resources was expanded and upgraded – seven new databases were added, five were upgraded, and four were converted from CDROM to web access.   This collection growth has brought the Hilton C. Buley Library much closer to fully meeting the American Library Association’s A-level quantitative standards for collections.  The introduction of the Ed.D. program will increase the target volume count considerably – an additional 25,000 volumes will be needed.

• Continue to build library collections to meet A-level ALA quantitative standards

Utilizing American Library Association calculating methods to determine volume count, the Buley Library increased its total holdings in all formats by 24,643 volumes.  This represents a major investment in strengthening core collection quantity and quality after many years of serious underfunding.  The administration has reaffirmed its commitment to library collections by its recent full approval of the FY2002 Library Materials Budget Request – the funding will enable the library to continue adding approximately 25,000 volumes.    

Library Collections

• Review departmental book allocations and adjust to accommodate demonstrated departmental needs and to support areas targeted for collection strengthening

Continued increases in library materials funding for books covered inflation as well as adjustments to departmental allocations to support basic, ongoing needs.  The funding enabled the Library to continue responding to curricular changes and interdisciplinary needs and to target critical collection weaknesses.  Librarian subject selectors worked with faculty liaisons in each academic department to develop core book collections.  Materials funds carried forward from FY2000 were also applied to the book fund to enable one-time expenditures above the allocations in nearly every discipline.  A total of $760,518 was expended and encumbered for books in FY2001.  Special target areas included business, health sciences, urban studies, and women’s studies.  A total of 20,356 monograph volume records were added to the CONSULS database – 16,139 to the circulating collection and 4,217 to reference and special collections.

FY2001 Subject Selectors – Book Funds

• Inventory the circulating collection; update the online catalog database and replace missing materials as appropriate

Two library divisions, Access Services and Technical Services, have worked together in a team effort to inventory the circulating collection.  Beth Paris, Library Technical Assistant in Access Services, and Mary Migliaro, Library Technician in Technical Services, coordinated the project and supervised the training of Access Services student assistants.  Shelf lists were generated from the CONSULS system, circulation staff compared the shelf lists to the books on the shelves, and discrepancies were reported to the cataloging staff.  Corrections were made to CONSULS in response to the reports – Karen Shea worked diligently on updating the records.  Lists of missing books were then sent to the librarians responsible for collection development in those areas for feedback on the need to replace the missing titles.  Approximately one-third of the inventory is complete – from Library of Congress call number A through call number HQ.  The inventory should be completed by the end of FY2002, a remarkable accomplishment highlighting the excellent work of our student assistants under the able leadership of Beth and Mary.

• Continue to expand the array of online reference and full text resources in appropriate subject areas

A significant increase in the budget allocation for electronic resources enabled the library to take advantage of consortial pricing opportunities, to respond to the shift from print to electronic resources in many disciplines, and to expand the scope of resources available from remote locations.  Susan Clerc, Electronic Resources Coordinator, has done a remarkable job in managing this growing collection of critical resources.  Seven new electronic resources were added:

• ComAbstracts: Indexes and abstracts communication literature.

• GeoRef: Indexes and abstracts materials in geoscience.

• Historical Abstracts: Historical coverage of the world from 1450 to the present Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts: Indexes and abstracts literature

•  in the fields of communication and communication disorders

• McGillOnLiterature: Critical analyses and brief plot summaries, Masterplots and Masterplots II, Cyclopedia of World Authors, Cyclopedia of Literary Characters, and Magill's Literary Annual.

• Oxford English Dictionary:  Full text of the OED.

• Philosophers Index:  Indexes and abstracts philosophy literature.

Five electronic products were upgraded:

• Disclosure - added user capacity

• FISOnline – added user capacity in various components

• Genderwatch - added user capacity

• JSTOR – added Ecology & Botany Collection and Arts & Sciences II Collection

• Project Muse - upgraded to full package of 167 journals

The long-term goal of expanding access to electronic resources by moving subscriptions from CD-ROM to web-based was achieved in FY2001.  The remaining CD-ROM products are one-time purchases that will be phased out as they become too dated to be useful or the equipment fails.  Edward Hoyer has contributed his technical expertise in keeping the older computers working, removing the CD-ROMS as subscriptions were cancelled or transferred, and consolidating the remaining CD-ROMs on fewer workstations.

• Compile and analyze journal use study data to assist in serials collection development decisions

Based on the use data gathered over the past four years, the subject selectors began working with faculty to determine which titles should be cancelled, and to select more appropriate titles to reflect current curricular needs.  Examination of the data revealed that some journals received very little or no use.  After consultation with the affected departments, 588 bound volumes were withdrawn from the shelves, and fifteen subscriptions were cancelled.  Sixty-nine new journal titles, more closely meeting current curricular needs, were added in FY2001.

New Journal Titles – FY2001

• American Theatre

• Annals of Tourism Research

• Antipode

• Arab World Geographer

• Association for Persons With Severe Handicaps, Journal

• Australian Geographical Studies

• Behavioral & Brain Sciences

• Biological Research for Nursing

• Caribbean Quarterly

• Caribbean Studies

• Central European History

• Child Language Teaching & Therapy

• Cognition

• Community Health Funding Report

• Composition Studies

• Computers & Composition

• Conservation Biology

• Contemporary Educational Psychology

• Contemporary Issues in Communication Science & Disorders

• Critique of Anthropology

• Crossroads

• Current Directions in Psychological Science

• Developmental Review

• Diplomatic History

• Environment & Planning D: Society & Space

• European Accounting Review

• Exemplaria

• Gender, Place & Culture

• Geo Info Systems (New title: Geospacial Solutions)

• Geografiska Annaler: Series B - Human Geography

• Geographic Information Sciences

• Geoworld

• German History

• Green Guide: Environmental Change Begins at Home

• Holocaust & Genocide Studies

• International Journal of Geographical Information Science

• International Journal on Grey Literature

• JAC: a Journal of Compostion Theory

• Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

• Journal of Archaeological Science

• Journal of Caribbean Studies

• Journal of Child & Family Nursing

• Journal of Geographical Systems

• Journal of Hospice & Palliative Nursing

• Journal of Human Evolution

• Journal of Iberian & Latin American Studies

• Journal of Management Education

• Journal of Real Estate Finance & Economics

• Journal of Real Estate Research

• Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology

• Journal of Social Work Research & Evaluation

• Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

• Library History

• London Review of Books

• NACLA Report on the Americas

• Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology, Behavioral Neurology

• Perception

• Personality & Individual Differences

• Policy, Politics & Nursing Practice

• Psychological Science

• Reader

• Research Technology Management

• Rhetoric Review

• Rhetoric Society Quarterly

• Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography

• Women's Review of Books

• Writing Center Journal

• Writing on the Edge

• Written Communication  

• Shift the circulating collection to accommodate anticipated growth and to facilitate shelf maintenance

Karl Groneman, Library Technical Assistant, coordinated shifting projects that involved nearly every book in the circulating collections.  During the fall semester, the oversize collection on the second floor was shifted to allow for further expansion.  An extensive shift was also completed on the first floor, from the “Gs” to the “Ns,” solving some of this section’s space problems.  During the spring semester, Karl and his crew of student assistants shifted the “A” through “F” sections so that all new material could be shelved.  A significant number of Connecticut Room materials, primarily in the “D”, “E”, and “F” areas, have been integrated into the circulating collection.  The government documents collection has been shifted to release additional space for the juvenile collections.  The oversize section on the first floor was shifted to give the “N” section more room for growth.  These labor-intensive shifts will continue until the Buley Library addition is completed, allowing more room for the growing collections.

• Centralize acquisitions and cataloging of nonprint media in Technical Services

Technical Services’ responsibility for acquisition and cataloging of all nonprint media was facilitated by the appointment of Technical Services Librarian Hing Wu in February 2001.  Hing is responsible for the cataloging of all non-book materials purchased for the library.  With a multimedia budget of $50,000, approximately five times what it had been in previous years, the volume of material alone mandated a full-time staff commitment.  A total of $41,256 was expended and encumbered for media in FY2001; 717 new titles were cataloged.  The new multimedia cataloger will be in direct contact with other CONSULS libraries to bring the problems and issues of multimedia cataloging to the consortium for discussion and resolution.

• Integrate books held in protective storage into the general collection