Report to the Faculty Senate on Activities of the Library Committee

Annette LeZotte, College of Fine Arts, Committee Chair

May 11, 2009

Annette LeZotte                 College of Fine Arts, Chair Faculty Senate Library Committee

Tim Craft                                             W. Frank Barton School of Business

Peer Moore-Jansen                            Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – Social Sciences

Prakash Ramanan                            Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – Math/Nat. Science

Robert Feleppa                                   Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – Humanities

Tim Quigley                                        College of Health Professions

IkramAhmed                                      College of Engineering

Kim McDowell                                   College of Education

During the 2008-2009 academic year the Faculty Senate Library Committee worked to address the issues we identified as action areas in our 2007-2008 report to the Faculty Senate.  These included:

·         The necessity to better communicate the needs of individual colleges to the library

·         The desire to foster individual faculty support for library initiatives

·         The importance of examining the impact of the university’s increased research agenda on library resources

·         The need to address the urban-serving mission of the campus 

We began with a web-based library resources survey which was sent to the WSU faculty to assess their needs and priorities in terms of library materials and services.  The survey was structured in a manner which allowed us to analyze the results by college in order to identify specific college needs/issues.  Armed with the survey results both the Library Committee Chair (Annette LeZotte) and the Committee as a whole engaged in a series of invited meetings with various individuals on campus whose interests intersect with those of the library.  These individuals included:

·         Dr. Ravi Pendse, Associate Vice-President for Academic Affairs and CIO

·         Dr. David McDonald, Associate Provost for Research and Graduate Dean

·         Pam Chamberlain, Library Liaison to the WSU Foundation

As a result of the library survey and the subsequent meetings with Dr. Pendse, Dr. McDonald, and Ms. Chamberlain, the Library Committee has begun the process of both revising the committee’s charges and preparing a document outlining our recommendations to Dean of Libraries Pal Rao on how to “reduce, reshape, and rebuild” the University Libraries.  The committee will meet on May 12, 2009 to review the draft of this document and it will be distributed to Dean Rao, the Faculty Senate, and select administrators the week of May 18, 2009. 

Although Senate Committees have traditionally been inactive over the summer, we will be considering the possibility of forming a summer sub-committee to work on developing guidelines for the SOAR database and to work with Associate Dean of Libraries Kathy Downes on developing a channel for better communications between grant-funded research disciplines on campus and the Libraries (given that the three subject librarian positions in these areas are currently vacant.) 

In the course of our activities during the year we have identified additional issues that we will address/explore in the 2009-2010 academic year.  These include:

·         Working with Dr. McDonald as a constituency group during the five year review of the ORA’s grant funding procedures

·         Working with the SGA and the CIO on expansion of the 24 hour spaces and technologies associated with the library

·          Analyzing the Libraries role in the globalization and honors initiatives on campus

Respectfully Submitted,

Dr. Annette LeZotte

Chair, Faculty Senate Library Committee

Associate Director, School of Art and Design

Associate Professor, Art History