Summary of ULC Activities, 2007-08

The University Library Committee was highly active in the 2007-08 academic year. The year started out with faculty acting as a sounding board, and ended with a broader range of faculty involvement.

In the fall, the committee was updated about the good news in the success of the Library in fundraising as part of Campaign Oregon - reaching $18 million dollars raised, well over the goal of $10 million. But the committee also heard about the ongoing needs, in particular the over $4 million per year required to bring us in line with our comparator institutions. While many ULC members were vaguely aware of the current position of the library, knowledge of this shocking concrete figure is an important first step in reversing the damage which has been done.

The heightened awareness of the library's fiscal difficulties helped to motivate the ULC in supporting a proposal for one-time funding from the Provost's office to avoid another round of serials cancellations. ULC members sent letters to support this proposal, and we are happy to report that it did get funded. The $225K gift means that library staff and faculty will not need to spend valuable time determining which of our titles need to be cancelled. We hope to get faculty more involved in funding issues going forward, as we discuss below.

Another major activity of the ULC involved the area of Authors' Rights. In February the University Senate passed a motion regarding retention of copyrights for faculty-authored journal articles and charged a subcommittee with the task of working out specifics of implementation. There was significant ULC representation on that subcommittee (Karduna, Matthas and Sinha), which thanks to the leadership of JQ Johnson met every week for five weeks to discuss the new NIH mandate, how best U of O authors can be encouraged to use authors' addenda, and activities around education. The Senate unanimously approved the recommendations of this subcommittee in its May meeting. The ULC is charged with helping to monitor progress in this area going forward.

The ULC played its usual prominent role in helping to evaluate the Undergraduate Research Awards (thanks to Baird and Psaki). It also acted as a sounding board on proposals including a space reorganization in Knight Library, moving some titles to temporary storage, and the utilization of library classrooms and faculty carrells.

One difference this year is that the ULC also took the opportunity, following up on the Library's 2006-07 annual report and its post-campaign strategic plan, to do some strategic planning of its own for how it might reinforce what the library does in light of a need for faculty involvement. Ten areas were identified:

Funding
Better utilization of Scholars' Bank
Electronic formats of theses
Customizing library web pages
Creating a publishing consortium for faculty and administrators
Reviving an "Information and Technology Services" subcommittee
Revisiting staffing priorities
Space utilization
Tracking faculty publications
Information sharing

In a discussion that was touched on in three different meetings as well as a Blackboard discussion board, it was felt that all of these ideas had significant merit and would be worthy of ULC attention in the future. In the shorter term - including for next year's ULC to consider - it was felt that the following areas were highest priority. First, issues around funding, since our current lack of funding severely limits all other areas. It is suggested that next year the ULC pay attention to how the new budget model works for the library. The ULC should also work with the Development office, getting faculty more involved with this process. It was also suggested that the library can be a good starting point for general citizens of the state to be more connected with, and thus invested in the funding of, the university. Secondly, the ULC feels that a publishing consortium for faculty and administrators is an idea whose time has come. We strongly recommend that the Senate follow up on this next year, with JQ Johnson and Dev Sinha taking a leadership role. The customization of library web pages, aiming them at faculty within one discipline (or group of related disciplines) rather than primarily at undergraduates, is a manageable project we hope that library staff and faculty can work on together next year. Finally, the question of how best to share information with all faculty on campus is one which the ULC runs up against with some frequency. Progress on this front would be a great contribution to the campus community in general.

After some good progress on a number of issues this year, we feel the ULC is in an even better position to be highly productive next year.

Submitted by Dev Sinha
Chair, 2007-08 University Library Committee

Maintained by: Sheila Gray, skgray@uoregon.edu

Last Modified: 09/18/2009