The Agenda - Faculty and Staff Newsletter

Author: Krisellen Maloney

  • Google Books, HathiTrust, and Our Contribution to the Collective Collection

    The record for a HathiTrust text displayed in QuickSearch.

    As you may have read in the Cabinet minutes, the Libraries recently formalized our commitment to participate in the Google Books Library Project. With the goal “to create a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog of all books in all languages,” this partnership between Google and dozens of libraries worldwide—including those of the BTAA, which signed an agreement to participate in 2007—has digitized millions of books and made them searchable through the Google Books platform.

    In addition to improving Google’s search, the books scanned through the Google Books Library Project are deposited into the HathiTrust Digital Library. The BTAA and University of California system were instrumental in setting up HathiTrust, a community-owned partnership developed to “be a vital catalyst for emerging forms of research, teaching, and learning that engage the scholarly and cultural record.” We already benefit greatly from the services of HathiTrust, which include preservation of the scanned versions of the content, access to research tools such as textual analysis, and books for people with print disabilities. Moreover, full-text content from HathiTrust is discoverable in QuickSearch, adding to the amount of resources our users have access to at the click of a button.

    Though our work on this project is really just beginning, it has already been months in the making. Last spring, we worked with Google to go through a test run of their digitization process, from the identification of books in our collection to the review of the final, scanned versions. Now that we’re moving forward, a Librarieswide team has been formed to carry out the project with Joann Parrone acting as the central coordinator. This group had its kick-off meeting last month and is already working to comb through the candidate list provided by Google, which amounts to nearly 170,000 unique items. Each needs to be reviewed for eligibility, taking into consideration size, condition, and a variety of other factors.

    And this is all just the tip of the iceberg. This project will call upon many of us throughout its lifecycle, from the selection of materials, to packing and staging, to coordinating checkout policies while the books are away being scanned. But this this is an important undertaking and a great opportunity for us to further our contribution to the collective collection, advancing the elements of our mission to accelerate discovery, illuminate understanding, and contribute to the public good.

    In their new report on operationalizing the BTAA collective collection, Lorcan Dempsey and his colleagues write that “effective collaboration, the provision of shared infrastructure, and operational sustainability are all now central issues for libraries and the institutions of which they are a part.” Contributing to initiatives like the Google Books Library Project and the HathiTrust Digital Library is one of the many ways we can embrace this spirit of collaboration and ensure that we maximize the impact of our collections—not just in the here and now, but around the world, and for generations to come.

  • University Librarian’s Report – July 2019

    I’d like to start my article this issue by thanking all of you who attended our State of the Libraries meeting in June. It was a great opportunity for us to network with colleagues we don’t often get to see in person, celebrate our collective accomplishments from the past year, and look forward to the challenges ahead. I hope you found it a useful and productive event.

    For those of you who stayed behind, I invite you to review the slides from my presentation as well as the videos from the poster session below.

    As I reflect back on Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s presentation about Generous Thinking, a key takeaway for me was the challenges inherent to developing academy-driven, community-supported infrastructure that provides open access to scholarly material in a sustainable manner. In order to realize this vision, academic institutions need to commit in earnest to the idea of collaboration, and take seriously a sense of shared responsibility to our collective enterprise.

    Deep collaboration is difficult. It requires trading control and specialization for efficiency. In a recent short essay appropriately titled “Library Collaboration is Hard; Effective Collaboration is Harder,” Lorcan Dempsey summarizes his recent presentations and blog posts and ends with the recommendation that “There should be active, informed decision-making about what needs to be done locally and what would benefit from stronger coordination or consolidation within collaborative organizations.” At Rutgers, we collaborate all the time, every day, all day. Nearly every project that we undertake involves collaboration across separate parts of our complex organization. We have talked about the importance of a collaborative approach in other contexts as well, such as Dempsey’s notion of the collective collection and how the continuum of consolidation applies to the Libraries’ services framework.

    Recently, we’ve seen the fruits of collaboration bear initiatives like CADRE, the shared big data gateway we’ve partnered with Indiana University and others to develop, which is further evidence of what is possible when institutions work together to address common needs. We are also exploring a transformative license agreement of Oxford Scholarship Online backfiles and frontlists, the terms of which were negotiated by PALCI. Even more opportunities, such as shared infrastructure for journal publishing, are on the horizon as well, thanks to our membership in the Big Ten Academic Alliance.

    With these examples in mind, it becomes clear to me that forward-thinking academic institutions need to be open to participating in these new, cooperative models in order to maximize our impact. And I believe the way forward for all libraries—including our own—is to accept this challenge to collaborate deeply across institutional boundaries. As we know from experience, there are bound to be some tradeoffs, and compromises will have to be made. But only by committing to working together in a meaningful way can we truly advance our mission of contributing to the public good.

  • University Librarian’s Report – May 2019

    The last several months have been a flurry of activity. In addition to the day-to-day demands of a busy spring semester, it’s also the most planning-intensive period of the year, as we assess our standing at the close of the current fiscal year and plan in earnest for FYs 2020 and 2021.

    I received a lot of feedback during town hall season and in continued conversations with the library directors that we could do a better job of clarifying the different stages in the planning process and of describing central’s role in supporting local priorities. In an organization like ours, it is definitely a complex puzzle and it can be difficult to see how all the pieces fit together.

    We’ve made some updates to the University Librarian page on our staff resources website to provide a resource that brings more transparency to the planning process and illustrates how local and central priorities work together. The page includes a broad overview of the annual planning process as well as links to the local units’ plans and a list of major central infrastructure projects. Hopefully this will help demonstrate how we prioritize our collective work, and I invite you to review this information and continue to provide feedback to me and the library directors.

    At the Cabinet retreat in April, we had very productive discussions about the unit plans and the different tradeoffs we’d have to consider between local priorities and central capacity to support those activities. It became clear to me that we’re becoming better at navigating these conversations and seeing the local plans not as competing sets of priorities, but as opportunities to identify the activities that will bring the most benefit to the most users, while still allowing us to serve our individual communities in ways that will best suit their unique needs.

    As we move toward the next retreat in May, during which we’ll finalize our local plans and our Librarieswide goals and metrics, I’m optimistic that we will continue to build toward an environment where the “One Library – Four Missions” approach can flourish.

  • University Librarian’s Report – March 2019

    As we learned in Lorcan Dempsey’s presentation in January, collections are one area where academic libraries face strategic choices along a continuum that ranges from cooperation (weakest) to consolidation (strongest), with collaboration in the middle. When does it make sense to consolidate infrastructure? What are the advantages of offering access collaboratively versus locally? And what are the tradeoffs that come with these decisions?

    It was somehow reassuring to see that libraries in general are grappling with these issues, since asking these questions is something we do every day at Rutgers. When Cabinet developed our Services and Planning Framework, we thought about what aspects of our work it would be beneficial to consolidate centrally, where our efforts would require shared coordination, and which services were best left to local discretion.

    At this point, the majority of our Foundational services are consolidated. These include activities related to acquisitions, cataloging, and discovery, for example, which are all handled centrally. Services that benefit from having a consolidated infrastructure are typically large-scale and have substantial startup and operation costs—especially in terms of faculty and staff time, with the recent Alma/Primo implementation being a prime example. Once implemented, changes to these services have wide ranging impact and need to be carefully planned and communicated.

    Of course, there are pros and cons to consolidation. On the plus side, it increases operational efficiency and lowers the long-term cost of providing the core services that reach the most faculty and students. The biggest drawback is that in order to gain efficiencies, some local features and specializations can be lost.

    In other areas, like reference and instruction, our activities are coordinated. We decide collectively on a tool or service like Credo or Leganto, but how it is deployed locally is up to the individual unit. Then there are the truly local activities. Education and consulting services, from workshops to systematic reviews, can be tailored to meet the specific needs of our local communities. There is a lot of freedom and flexibility in this area to use the available infrastructure in your own unique way.

    Whether in the BTAA or OCLC, the trending discussion is about these tradeoffs between efficiency and autonomy. At Rutgers, we’re fortunate to have experience navigating these same issues. As the larger academic library environment continues to evolve, we will be well-positioned to contribute meaningfully to these discussions.

  • University Librarian’s Report – January 2019

    Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you’ve had a restful winter break and are ready to tackle all the challenges of the upcoming semester.

    Though we are between terms and the activity on campus may have slowed a bit, this is actually a busy time in the Libraries’ planning cycle. The library directors have just completed progress reports on their 2018-2019 plans, adjusting them to reflect progress as well as any changes in their goals for the rest of the year. In addition, the Discovery Working Group, Web Improvement Team, and Virtual Reference Group have updated their annual plans. We have now received news about our 2020 budget, so we will have solid information as we move into the 2019-2021 planning cycle.

    We are also in Town Hall season. Last month the central units had a Town Hall, yesterday was Camden’s, later this week will be New Brunswick’s, and RBHS will hold theirs in February. This year, my Town Hall presentation has focused on our planning cycle. Although some of you have already seen the presentations, and others will soon, it is worth seeing a few times. Like all things Rutgers, the process is a bit complicated but the results are worth the effort. Here are the slides that I’ve been presenting:

    As you can see, the Libraries operate on a two-year planning cycle that is tied closely to the budget activities of the university overall. It’s a three-phase, iterative process that includes establishing local priorities, taking stock of central capacities to support those priorities, and looking ahead to solidify a plan and develop related budget requests. This helps us stay focused on our core services while maintaining the flexibility to respond to important new requests as they come in.

    Our priorities document for 2018-2020 has been added to our mission page and I invite you to read through to get a sense of where we’re headed in the months to come. And, if they haven’t already, your library director will soon be updating you on the local implications of the 2020 budget.

    I know that it seems like a lot to juggle all at once, but sound planning ensures that we continue to build on the momentum we’ve gained and can make the best choices on behalf of all our users. I look forward to seeing all we will accomplish together in 2019.

  • Libraries and Open Science

    Open science by designAs you probably know, last week was International Open Access Week, a time when trends and issues related to open access are on the minds of many in the academic community. I was no exception, and found myself thinking back to Open Science by Design: Realizing a Vision for 21st Century Research, a report published over the summer by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

    According to the report, real progress has been made toward open science in the last number of years, and we are beginning to see the benefits of researchers having free access to the latest publications, data, and other research products in their fields. Open science encourages cross-disciplinary collaboration, accelerates the dissemination of knowledge, achieves efficiencies in the use of resources, and much more.

    That said, the research community still faces a number of challenges, both economic and cultural. Many of the most prestigious venues adhere to traditional, closed publishing models, and it is difficult for academic institutions to adequately incentivize and reward open science practices. Moreover, significant cost and infrastructure barriers remain.

    In response to this ecosystem, the authors of the report propose a framework for open science by design. They lay out a series of practices and principles aimed at helping researchers share and collaborate more effectively, contributing to and benefitting from open science at each stage of the research process.

    But what does this mean for us here at the Libraries?

    As the report notes, libraries are a key stakeholder in the scholarly communication process. We have a responsibility to facilitate open science, from training researchers in best practices such as compliance with FAIR data principles to ensuring the long-term preservation and stewardship of research products.

    At Rutgers, we have established a reputation on campus as being at the forefront of open access, playing leadership roles in establishing the university’s Open Access Policy, publishing and providing a platform for gold open access journals, spearheading the university’s ORCID initiative, and managing SOAR, the university’s green open access repository.

    Of particular interest to us, however, is the report’s discussion of the high cost related to green open access repositories. While they are a useful first step in the move toward a fully open system, green repositories are costly to build and maintain, present ongoing challenges in terms of content storage, and are impacted by continuing discussions about bibliographic metrics. Moreover, “compliance involving deposits in a repository requires time, which necessitates education, assistance, and incentives,” the authors write. And so it is unsurprising to see that comparatively little of the scholarly literature is available through these avenues.While we are well-positioned at Rutgers to effect change in this area, clearly we can’t do it alone. In order for us to be successful, we need to canvass key partners on campus for their support and promote a unified approach to open access. We have to scale up and develop new methods to acquire content. And we must use the findings of reports like Open Science by Design as guidance to ensure we are facilitating open scholarship in an effective and sustainable way that realizes the vision articulated by the National Academies.

  • 2018 Faculty Staff Picnic

    Before we get swept away in another fall semester, I’d like to take one last opportunity to thank everyone who attended the faculty/staff picnic in August. It was a fantastic event–dry despite the forecast of rain–and the catering, games, and decorations all came together beautifully to make it feel like we were really enjoying an afternoon spent down the Jersey shore.

    As I mentioned during the picnic, I’d had some remarks prepared but decided not to deliver them lest I distract too much from the festivities. So I thought that my contribution to the Agenda this month should include a brief list of the many achievements we’ve had cause to celebrate in the past year:

    • The successful implementation of QuickSearch, which was a true all-hands effort and impacted the work of just about everyone throughout the Libraries. I’m impressed with the way we came together to make the rollout happen and how diligently the Ex Libris Implementation Team has worked since then to make improvements in response to user feedback.
    • The OAT Program continued into its second year, bringing the total savings for Rutgers students up to $2.1 million.
    • The ORCID program exceeded its first year benchmark, facilitating over 1,800 ORCID connections at Rutgers.
    • We took major strides to bolster our collections, including the addition of the complete Elsevier
    • We began the extensive redesign of our website to make it more accessible and user friendly.
    • And there have been countless local programs and initiatives that made sure you were meeting the unique needs of your users. To name a few:
      • RBHS hosted traveling exhibits from the National Library of Medicine in Piscataway and Newark
      • Dana held award-winning boot camps for graduate students and celebrated its 50th anniversary
      • The States of Incarceration conference and institute brought together partners from across Rutgers–New Brunswick and New Jersey
      • We spearheaded a campus-wide celebration of Paul Robeson’s 120th birthday in Camden
      • The IJS made the news with its acquisition of the Count Basie Collection, as did the New Brunswick Music Scene Archive, which earned an Innovative Archives Award from MARAC.

    Though they are really just the tip of the iceberg, these achievements are important not only because they support the local missions in Camden, New Brunswick, Newark, or RBHS, but because they also position the Libraries as a good collaborator on university-wide initiatives.

    I know there is plenty of work on the horizon—from improving QuickSearch and running a new round of OAT awards to enhancing our instructional technology support with the launch of products like Credo, Pressbooks, Leganto, and illumira—but we should be extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished together so far and excited about all that’s yet to come.

    Of course, the picnic would not have been possible without the thoughtful planning of the major events committee, so I’d like to recognize them all for their hard work and creativity—Matt Badessa, Matt Bridgeman, Janie Fultz, Chantel Harris, Tad Hershorn, Tara Kelley, Megan O’Connor, Erica Parin, Jessica Pellien, Antoinette Perkins, Daphne Roberts, and Rich Sandler—and thank all those who volunteered on the day of the event.

    Congratulations, Irina, on winning the desk duty prize!

    Last but not least, I want to acknowledge our colleagues who stayed behind to keep the libraries open while we enjoyed the party. As I mentioned in an earlier email, we held a special “desk duty” prize drawing this year, and I’m delighted to announce that Irina Loutchkina, library assistant at Alexander Library, was selected as our winner. Irina has received a prize pack including four football tickets from Rutgers Athletics, an RWJ Medical School tote bag, a beautiful hardbound Zimmerli exhibition catalog, a drink coozie and ID holder from the Division of Continuing Studies, a Libraries coffee mug, and more. Congratulations, Irina!

    Thanks again to each and every one of you for all that you do on behalf of the Libraries. I can’t wait to see what we can accomplish in the 2018–2019 academic year and beyond.

  • Creativity, Inc., Ex Libris Implementation, and Working without a Script

    Book coverIt has been more than a year (March 2017) since I wrote an Agenda post about one of my favorite books on organizational success, Creativity Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace. What impressed me most about the success of Pixar was the approach to planning and problem solving that they used. The animated movies didn’t begin with a script; they started with an idea, which I think maps well in our environment for the purpose of an initiative.

    It isn’t the release of The Incredibles 2 that has me thinking again about Pixar. (Although these hot, humid days of summer would be a perfect time to go to the movies.) What has me thinking about Pixar, and the creative process they use, is the release of our new library services platform.

    I watched the implementation process unfold and realized that it had a lot in common with the way Pixar made films. The Ex Libris Implementation Team was not given a script for the implementation.  They had a list of deliverables but were never given quite enough of the plot to decide what exactly to do. Primo/Alma is a platform, and configuration decisions vary depending on factors such as your current environment and the workflows you are trying to establish.

    We had an idea of what we wanted: integrated workflows for staff, improved ability to generate statistics and assess our collection, and the reduction of silos for our users. The problem is that there is no single right way to implement Primo/Alma. The decisions that the Ex Libris Implementation Team made along the way depended on the workflows and functions we were trying to support. We had some idea of what those would be but were not quite sure how they would fit together. To make matters more complicated, the timeline for implementation was only six months (by comparison, The Incredibles 2 was 12 years in the making!). Finally, the implementation team brought together people from different backgrounds.  Although each person has an area of specialty, no one person had the expertise to solve the problem alone.

    The group worked together to develop the plot and the script. I will say that, from the sidelines, there were times when it was stressful for the group members as they struggled to determine how best to move forward. Like the folks at Pixar, they worked together and solved problems quickly. In the words of Catmull, “…if you put your faith in slow, deliberative planning in the hopes it will spare you failure down the line—well, you’re deluding yourself.” The group planned, but at some point (perhaps much earlier than any of them wanted) they had to test their plans. There were definitely mistakes along the way but again, as Catmull says, “Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new.”

    The original group consisted of:

    Tao Yang (co-lead) Interim AUL for Collection Development and Management Resource Sharing
    Chad Mills Digital Library Architect Digital Collections, Data Migration & Systems Integration
    Abbey DiPaolo (co-lead) Director of Financial Planning and Business Operations Acquisitions
    Gracemary Smulewitz Head of Collection Services and Resources Sharing Electronic Resources
    Chris Sterback Integrated Information System Administrator Data Migration & Systems Integration
    Joseph Deodato Discovery Services Librarian Discovery
    Mary Beth Weber Head of Central Technical Services Resource Management

    Because of identified gaps, several other people were later added to the group.

    Laura Costello Virtual Reference Services Librarian Fulfillment
    Amy Kimura Web Services Librarian Website Design and Updates
    Jessica Pellien Director of Communications and Web Communications & Marketing

    I have to say that I am completely impressed by the team. The breadth and depth of knowledge in the group will provide the Libraries with a strong foundation for the future. They all know how the pieces fit together and how they can continue to make the system better. And each member of the team has worked with other groups to implement aspects of the platform, drawing on a broader range of expertise while exponentially increasing the reach of this knowledge. As an organization, we are not reliant on a few gurus with all of the answers.

    This is only the beginning. There are plenty of issues to address, some we know about and more that will be uncovered. Borrowing one last time from Catmull’s insights on Pixar, I like to think that what makes the Libraries special “is that we acknowledge we will always have problems, many of them hidden from our view; that we work hard to uncover these problems, even if doing so means making ourselves uncomfortable; and that, when we come across a problem, we marshal all of our energies to solve it.” This is the new world in which we live, and—thanks to the work of the Ex Libris Implementation Team and the lessons we’ve learned along the way—we are now better prepared to thrive in it.

  • Shared and Central Components of the Rutgers University Libraries Service Framework

    With the pending release of Alma and Primo, this seems like a good time to continue the discussion of Frameworks. In March, I talked about the local components of a service Framework. Items described in the ‘Local’ and ‘Local Infrastructure’ rows of the Framework are the aspects of our work that directly relate to our users and include Services and Projects. Services are ongoing and can be described as:

    • Foundation—directly related to finding, evaluating, and using information.
    • Boutique—designed by a small number of stakeholders to serve either a small group of scholars within Rutgers or broader community.
    • Education—for the purposes of this Framework, providing information for a wide range of faculty and students about scholarly communication (beyond Foundation)
    • Consulting—providing recommendations and information directly to an individual or group based on their specific need.

    In addition to the categories of Services, there are also two categories of Projects. Projects are short-term and require extensive expertise. Projects that fall under the ‘Creating’ column are designed to create new Boutique services, and projects in the ‘Innovating’ column are designed to develop new or improve existing Foundation services.

    The local portions of our services and projects are often just the tip of the iceberg. In order for the local units to be successful, there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes. We have seen this first-hand over the last six months during the Ex Libris implementation. The complete Framework includes two additional levels beyond local services: Shared Coordination and Central Infrastructure.

    Framework
    Click the image to download a PDF of the Framework.

    Shared Coordination: Here in the Libraries, teams, working groups, and committees coordinate and prioritize the resources and work of Central Infrastructure. These groups are usually led by a central coordinator and include representation from all of the local units. This structure encourages transparency and equity in how work is assessed and prioritized and ensures that local needs and priorities are fully considered.

    In my April Agenda post, I talked about the results of the Cabinet planning retreat. As one of its primary roles, Cabinet provides high-level coordination between local and central units and develops the Libraries-wide priorities for the upcoming year. In addition to Cabinet, there are several other coordinating groups, including Discovery Working Group, Web Improvement Team, Virtual Reference Group, Collections Analysis Group, and more. These groups are responsible for not only making recommendations for how to prioritize the work, but also for completing approved work as needed.

    Coordination is essential in all complex organizations, but it is particularly important for us since a single Central Infrastructure has to support the unique missions of four local units. The shared infrastructure includes basic organization functions such as budget oversight, human resources, and communications. It also includes library specific functions such as collections, acquisitions, cataloging, and discovery. Server-based information technology including websites, the library system, and RUCore, are also central. In the Framework, central infrastructure is accurately depicted as spanning and supporting ALL areas of service and all types of projects.

    The Framework provides an overview of the components of our services and projects and the dependencies. Through Shared Coordination, we are constantly looking at how best to prioritize and use the Central Infrastructure, but the activities in the Shared Coordination row respond to and reflect the needs and priorities of local services and infrastructure thanks to our planning processes.

    I hope you will take a minute to review the Framework and think about where and how your own work is positioned and how it contributes to or is supported by the other parts of the organization. In an organization as large and geographically dispersed as the Libraries, it is easy to feel like our work is isolated, but the Framework demonstrates the opposite is true. If you have thoughts or suggestions for improvement of the Framework, please let me know.

  • QuickSearch Logo

    quicksearch logo
    Help us select the new QuickSearch logo! Click the image to take the survey.

    Hello all –

    I know I said we’d return to Frameworks this month, but events of the day (or month) have once again intervened. As we’ve seen from recent communications from the ExLibris Implementation Team, we are moving ahead full steam toward the June 1 go live date. I know many of you are preparing for the technical freeze and helping to communicate these changes to our users, but I write today with a different purpose.

    We recently announced that the name of our search interface will be QuickSearch, and I am writing today to invite you to help us with the selection of a graphic to build recognition and visibility for our new service.

    We want your input. You know your users and the Rutgers community – what they

    like and dislike and what works for them.

    We want to use this visual on our website and in marketing materials, so it has to be eye-catching and work in multiple formats. It will be used alongside messaging that emphasizes that QuickSearch allows users to search across our collections with greater efficiency, accuracy, and relevancy. With the help of the ExLibris Implementation Team, we have managed to whittle the options down to a top 7. We need your help to get this down to the final graphic.

    So, with that in mind, please let us know:

    • What would be most appealing to Rutgers faculty and students?
    • What communicates the excitement of QuickSearch most clearly to you?
    • Which graphic most clearly matches your vision of what QuickSearch does?

    Conversely, let us know:

    • What visuals simply don’t work in your opinion?
    • Which ones aren’t clear or don’t match the function of QuickSearch?
    • Is there anything confusing about the graphics? Would you mix and match any elements of the graphics to create a new graphic?
    • Or do you have a completely new concept you would like to share?

    Please click here to let us know what you think of our leading QuickSearch graphics so far. We are in a time crunch, so please get your comments in by Tuesday, May 8 at 5 p.m.

    Thanks in advance! We’ll announce the QuickSearch graphic next Wednesday!

    if you prefer to email your comments, please send them to me or Jessica Pellien.