These short “
pecha kucha-like” sessions will feature 5 PowerPoint presentations of 6 minutes and 40 seconds each. We will have time at the end of the session intended for Q&A for all presenters. Come for a lively, rapid-fire group of talks.
1) Prelude to a Health Sciences Library Assessment: Introducing the Woodward Model (Jean Gudenas)Before starting any collection assessment, one needs to know what and how to assess. For instance, metrics are a necessary tool for acquisition, but determining what exactly a library should collect depends on more than just statistics. Statistics can help to justify retaining or canceling a resource, but they do not completely define a collection. What defines a collection is going to also depend on the mission and needs of the institution. With this in mind, the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) recently hired a new Director of Information Resources and Collection Services to do an assessment of the current collection and determine how to collect for the future.
This presentation is intended to introduce the vision for assessing MUSC’s collection. The proposal will describe the “Woodward Model,” which is a weighted intersection of four factors that are necessary in creating and maintaining a collection. This includes foundational core titles, the three R’s (which are recommendations, requests, and required resources), non-data driven needs, and emerging technology and resources. Acting as a fluid model, the Woodward Model is intended to shift with the changing needs of the library, allowing the distribution of funds to each category to fluctuate.
The initial goal is to document the current collection at MUSC, make a three-to-five-year strategy as to where the collection needs further development, and start employing the Woodward model as to how funds are allocated. Future presentations will discuss the effectiveness of the Woodward Model, challenges and/or opportunities that were encountered, and determine if this model could be utilized by other institutions.
2) Creative acquisition practices for funding clinical resources in an academic health sciences library (Pamela Bradigan, Joe Payne)Clinical, point of care resources fall outside the traditional acquisition model for libraries. However, many academic health sciences libraries provide and manage these resources for their medical center communities. These resources are typically priced based on hospital statistics such as inpatient admissions and physician counts and are amongst the most expensive database subscriptions provided by libraries. Traditional library collections budgets may not provide funding for these types of patient focused resources. Because of this, the library may look to outside departments for funding for these types of resources.
This presentation will define clinical resources, share examples of unique pricing structures, the purchasing process used involving funders from outside the library, and the involvement of organizational purchasing staff during the negotiation. The expertise and value libraries can bring to the process in managing these resources will be clearly identified. The presenters will also share experiences and lessons learned communicating with customers and leaders throughout the process of securing product recommendations and funding for purchase.
This presentation will illustrate how a health sciences library can contribute to the patient care mission of the larger organization by providing access to these important tools.
3) Shared Print Retention: Risks, Opportunities, Issues, and Challenges (Lars Meyer)What are the risks, opportunities, issues and challenges associated with participating in shared print programs? Participation in such programs requires libraries to realign finances and staff for effective collaboration. Participation also affects many library operations, including inter-library loan, collection development, access services, preservation, and technical services. Using Emory University’s participation in two shared print programs – Scholars Trust and the HathiTrust Shared Print Program – I will review key risks, opportunities, issues and challenges that libraries should investigate when considering participation in a shared print program.
4) Library-vendor relations in the era of bad news (Robert Heaton)
Libraries are in lean times. The prices for all kinds of continuing resources continue to rise, putting unprecedented pressure on flat or falling budgets. Librarians assess and vendors strategize, but these may never happen in the same room. As the Big Deal’s appeal is waning, librarians want to know how they can keep from losing resources, and vendor reps want to know how they can keep from losing customers. This Lively Lunchtime Discussion will center on handling bad news in the best ways. What information should libraries share with vendors when they are considering a major cancellation? How early should that conversation start? What conditions embody a fair engagement? When products are being compared, how can we ensure that the product information is accurate and unbiased? Most important, how can vendors and librarians partner to meet user needs more effectively than either could do alone?
5) Ask and ye shall receive: using a commercial document management service for book storage and retrieval (Meredith Giffin, Kirsten Huhn)Offsite storage solutions for library collections are a reality at many academic libraries. There has been much discussion of the impact of offsite storage on usage, as well as the mammoth data analyses that go into determining what items may be sent offsite. But what if there is neither time nor opportunity for detailed analysis? For the final phase of a multi-year library renovation, over 430,000 books or 60% of the circulating collection of Concordia University’s main library, covering LC classes H through P, had to be moved out and stored for at least six months. Lacking any suitable space on campus, the university contracted with a local document management company to store the books and provide delivery service on demand, starting in January 2017.
After outlining our experience piloting this project with a document management company rather than a traditional storage facility, our presentation will dive into the detailed loans data for the winter semester with the offsite delivery service in operation. Overall, total loans of books from the main circulating collection, whether located offsite, at the main library, or the smaller library at our satellite campus, decreased by less than 2.5% compared to the previous semester when all print books were available onsite. The data further reveals interesting patterns in the usage of the print book collection at a large urban university, and goes on to address the much-echoed concern: Does offsite storage work for researchers?
