Charge to the Task Force

The Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs established the Task Force on June 30, 1999, and set its charge as follows. Members of the Task Force were nominated to serve by their respective deans and heads of schools. The charge of the task force set out by Vice Chancellor Singer was:

* To identify the information needs of Purdue University Calumet students, faculty and staff as expressed by these actual or potential users of the Library

* To review options for gaining access to information in all its formats and make recommendations on an appropriate format mix for Purdue University Calumet

* To advise on priorities for collecting, and other means of access to information, and to secure a balance between resources required and funds available to support these resources

* To review existing procedures for budget allocation and management for collecting and information access and to recommend improvements, enhancements and other changes

* To consider options for ongoing collection evaluation and other assessment strategies and recommend approaches that best enable the Library to continue to meet the expressed needs of students, faculty and staff

* To compile an agenda of issues important to developing the Library's strategic plan as they emerge from the work of the task force and to serve as a focus group for Library strategic planning

* To present the task force findings and recommendations to departments, schools and other units with an active interest in Library collection development and information access to obtain feedback

* To capture the above information in a concise report with your recommendations

Timetable

As the Task Force started its work, the group developed a self-imposed timetable for completing the charge: Convene Summer 1999 Compile information, review Fall 1999 options and prepare recommendations Seek feedback from the Winter 2000 campus community Prepare a report Spring 2000 Implement improvements Spring 2000 for academic year 2000-2001

Findings of the Task Force:

In an effort to better understand the campus information access needs, the Collection Development Policy Task Force has spent a great deal of time talking with various members of the campus community. Members talked to students (graduate and undergraduate), full-time faculty, adjunct faculty and off-campus Faculty and administrators. Members gave a presentation on the charge and initial findings of the Task Force at the Academic Affairs Town Hall Meeting on October 27, 1999. These are the major themes the Task Force discovered:

Identification of Resources

* Users must be able to search from anywhere

* Resources must allow for comprehensive searches

* Searches must be easy to do

* "Hits" must be up-to-date

* Searches must also retrieve classics in the field

Acquisition of Resources

* In many cases, information does not have to be on the shelf

* Information must be delivered quickly if available by document delivery

* Information can be available electronically (full text with figures) Overall, flexibility was a major theme. Academic units need flexibility in ordering, structure for placing requests, orders, etc. Also, the Library staff need flexibility on how resources should be allocated. Allocation based on type of need rather than strict allocations to academic units may be a useful approach. Since there is a major cost difference between having materials available on the shelf compared to providing electronic access or document delivery, the question of resource priorities changed from "Who needs the information," to "When does the person need the information?" The diagram below is intended to show the trends in need for information to be on the shelf versus available by other means.

Feedback from the Campus Community

During April and May 2000, the Task Force presented its findings and recommendations (noted below) to faculty and other users throughout the campus. These sessions included:

* Construction Technology Department (April 13)

* Department of English and Philosophy (April 17)

* Schools of Professional Studies Convocation (April 17)

* LASS Department Heads (April 21)

* New Student Orientation Committee (April 25)

* School of Technology Department Heads (May 11)

* EMS Department Heads (May 18) An FYI session was presented to the Academic Administrative Council on March 3. In addition, a link to the findings and recommendations was established on the Library Web site on April 27 and the text was distributed as a cc:Mail attachment on May 17. The faculty's reaction to the findings and recommendations was positive, even encouraging. They endorsed The notion of flexibility in handling access to information resources. They acknowledged the usefulness of a prioritized approach to collection building that emphasizes on-site and immediate access to materials needed by students and off-site delivery of more specialized resources. Improving document delivery in terms of method, timeliness, and completeness was a priority. Several faculty encouraged the Library to secure membership in the Center for Research Libraries and make greater efforts to enter into reciprocal or consortial agreements with research libraries. Most faculty endorsed the trend toward electronic access, but with the proviso that the Library provide more information about resources of interest to them. They also supported reworking and refining a formula for fairly allocating funds across disciplines.

Recommendations of the Task Force Assumptions

All recommendations emphasize the following organizational values:

* Ongoing assessment

* Two-way communication

* Knowledge of and responsiveness to the changing information environment

* Flexibility

* Technology-assisted procedures

Recommendations

*The Library will assess the information needs of PUC students, faculty and staff on an ongoing basis by means of use data, direct user input, curriculum proposals and similar methods.

* The Library will offer each department an annual informational session about information resources.

* The PUC community will adopt a dynamic model for providing access to information -- a model that integrates need, priority and format as follows:

*Highest priority to print and licensed electronic resources with the greatest immediacy of need and the broadest likelihood of use

*Lowest priority to resources with the least immediacy of need and the least likelihood of broad use

*Document delivery for specialized resources, using commercial document delivery services as the priority method for obtaining specialized resources from elsewhere

* Individual selection decisions will reflect the model for assessing need, priority and format as described in the third recommendation above. Therefore, the priority for individual selection decisions and purchases is as follows:

* General reference use

* Undergraduate coursework

* Undergraduate research

* Graduate coursework

* Graduate research

* Faculty course/program development

* Faculty research

* Any interested parties are authorized to send prioritized requests or suggestions for purchase or access directly to the Library for action. The Library will devise an appropriate procedure for indicating the priority of requests.

* Periodically, a Library collection development and information access advisory committee will review assessment data and advise on collection or access purchases requested by individual students, faculty or staff. This broadly representational group will be convened by the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. The Library will provide each member of the committee with an orientation to collection development policies and procedures at the start of his or her term of appointment.

* The advisory committee noted above will also review and assist in revising the existing formula for allocation of collection development funds to best meet the needs of all disciplines. The existing formula allocates funds by academic department according to six factors: credit hours offered, average cost of books in the discipline, average cost of periodicals, circulation data, document delivery data and the previous year's allocation.

* The degree to which the Library's existing print and electronic collections reflect and support the priorities noted above will be assessed. If changes are deemed necessary, they will be implemented gradually.

* The Library and the Office of Institutional Advancement will jointly organize a systematic, ongoing program of fund raising in support of information resources.

* These recommendations will be adopted for the 2000-2001 fiscal year.

Focus Group Summary

The Task Force met with a facilitator on May 3, 2000 to serve as a strategic planning focus group. Since this group has been involved with discerning the information access needs and options for filling those needs on our campus, it was well suited for this task.

The focus group questions were:

What is the Library doing well?

What does the Library need to improve?

What role does the Library play in your teaching?

What role does the Library play in your scholarship?

Where do people go if the Library does not have what you want?

While the Library is open sufficient hours, has a good user orientation service, and has a good basic reference collection there are some areas where improvement has been identified. The biggest areas where improvements are needed are document delivery (especially for electronic delivery), expanding the collection for discipline-specific areas, and online access. There are a number of implications that the Library and its strategic planning group will have to address. These include staffing for keeping the electronic access up-to-date, which materials to make available online and which to have on the shelf, and how to make document delivery quick and efficient for students and faculty when materials are not physically in the Library.