Collection Development
Goal: Provide a collection of information resources that will support the identifiable research needs of the university community as well as those of scholars worldwide.
Keep abreast of new features of electronic resources and platforms in order to inform members of my liaison group and to provide quality instruction.
Ongoing. I monitor relevant listservs and blogs and I visited the exhibits hall at ALA Annual to find out about new resources and platforms that may be available. I also attend the collections coordinators meeting as well as the social sciences selectors meeting and learn about new resources that MSU is considering purchasing or have already purchased. I email my liaison group at James Madison College whenever I learn of new acquisitions that may be of interest.
Keep up to date on issues, developments, resources, materials, trends, events, programs, and classes related to U.S. and international government, as well as areas of interest to James Madison College faculty, such as political science.
Ongoing. I applied for the pilot Federal Depository Library Program Coordinator Certificate program offered by the Government Publishing Office (GPO). I was not accepted for the pilot, but plan on applying later in 2015 or 2016 once the program is officially launched.
Participate in collection development meetings, projects, and training sessions.
Ongoing. I attend the collections coordinator meetings and the social sciences selectors meetings as my schedule permits.
Evaluate databases and attend vendor demonstrations to help determine suitable purchases.
Ongoing. I actively participated in the evaluation of LexisNexis Academic v. Westlaw.
Goal: Maintain the international documents collection by selecting, purchasing, curating, and weeding appropriate print and electronic materials.
Evaluate the international documents collections and work to eliminate gaps and enhance our collection to meet the needs and research foci of our patrons.
Ongoing. I continue to evaluate our collection and look for appropriate items to purchase.
Update the international documents collection development policy.
Ongoing. I migrated this libguide to libguides 2. I updated the international documents collection development policy to include a statement about data per the Collections Division G’s and O’s. I will continue to review and update this policy annually.
Attend biweekly collections coordinators meetings.
Ongoing. I attend collections coordinators meetings as my schedule permits.
Work with Mary Jo Zeter on maintaining the European Union collection.
Ongoing.
Goal: Successfully administer the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) at MSU by selecting, curating, and weeding the federal government documents collection and following all FDLP legal requirements.
Update the federal documents collection development policy.
Ongoing. I migrated this libguide to libguides 2. I updated the federal documents collection development policy to include a statement about data per the Collections division G’s and O’s. I will continue to review and update this policy annually.
Review our FDLP item selection profile at least once a year to add or remove items depending on the needs of our researchers and community.
Ongoing. I reviewed our item selection profile in September 2014.
Foster a collaborative relationship with our regional depository library, the University of Minnesota.
Ongoing.
Attend and participate in virtual meetings with our regional library.
Ongoing. I attend bimonthly virtual meetings with our regional library to remain current on the events and actions of our regional and other depositories that are maintained by our regional.
Meet with our regional librarian, Kirsten Clark, when she visits Michigan in the Fall 2014.
Done. I met with Kirsten at the GODORT of Michigan fall meeting in October 2014.
Evaluate and weed the print federal documents collection, following FDLP guidelines and requirements.
Ongoing. Major weeding that occurred this year included: disposal of print Congressional Record, transfer of the Serial Set to Remote Storage, sending selected volumes to our regional depository library, sending volumes to Google for destructive digitization, disposal of most of our print Congressional Hearings.
Goal: Gain appropriate knowledge of U.S. government resources and agencies to provide high-quality, specialized reference services to the MSU community.
Attend training events and meetings hosted by the Government Printing Office (GPO) to learn about government agencies and the services that they offer.
Ongoing. I attend the in-person Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) conference hosted by GPO April 30-May 2, 2014 in Washington D.C. I attended the virtual FDLP conference December 2-4, 2014.
Attend webinars and training events hosted by other groups such as the Government Documents Round Table and our regional depository to learn about effective searching techniques and how to find government information.
Ongoing. I continue to look for and attend webinars and training events about government information.
Gain an understanding of the Essential Competencies for U.S. Federal Government Information Librarians recommended by GODORT (http://wikis.ala.org/godort/images/a/af/Federal_gov_competencies.pdf).
Done. I have an understanding of the Essential, Recommended, and Useful Competencies for U.S. Government Documents Librarianship as recommended by ALA GODORT.
Attend the Depository Library Council (DLC) and Federal Depository Library Conference, April 30-May 2, 2014 in Washington, D.C.
Done.
Service to Users
Goal: Foster a collaborative relationship with the students and faculty in James Madison College (JMC).
Promote my liaison services to JMC faculty.
Ongoing. I continue to send out emails regarding library services and how I can assist JMC students and faculty with their research projects.
Seek new opportunities for librarian course integration in the JMC department.
Ongoing. As I work more with JMC faculty and build relationships, I am being asked to provide more library instruction sessions, especially for upper-level JMC classes. I also encourage my MC 112 faculty who teach upper level classes to consider adding either a library instruction session or allow me to create online library modules for their classes.
Provide course-specific library instruction to JMC classes.
Ongoing. I provided the following library instruction sessions for JMC:
MC 112: 14 sessions (Spring 2015)
MC 367: 1 session (Fall 2014)
MC 384: 1 session (Spring 2015)
MC 498: 1 session (Spring 2015)
Seek opportunities to develop and improve my instructional techniques by attending workshops, training sessions, and webinars.
Ongoing. I attend the Art of Liaison and Instruction series (see Criterion II for a full list of attended sessions). I applied for and was accepted to the MSUL’s Teacher Librarian Community of Practice led by Sara Miller. This program runs from September 2014 – September 2015.
Create course-specific library research guides.
Ongoing. I created 4 new libguides for James Madison classes and updated 9 others. This included migrating existing guides to libguides 2.
Work with JMC faculty to help them explore available library resources that they can use in their classes.
Ongoing. I have met with several JMC faculty during the Fall and Spring semesters to discuss appropriate library resources that they can use in their curriculum.
Communicate with JMC faculty about trial and new library resources.
Ongoing. I notify JMC faculty when the library purchases or has a trial of products that could be of interest to them.
Attend JMC faculty meetings to promote the library and available services and better understand their needs.
Ongoing.
Provide research assistance to JMC students and faculty, both virtually and in-person.
Ongoing. I continue to provide research assistance to my liaison group for their research projects.
Goal: Provide maximum access to resources for our users through high-quality reference services.
Provide reference services at the Main Library Reference Desk and through virtual reference (chat and email).
Ongoing. I currently have about 6-9 reference shifts per week.
Create research guides as needed to help students, faculty, and librarians find information.
Ongoing.
I currently maintain 13 published research guides and migrated them from libguides to libguides 2.
I led a collaboration with Eric Tans to create a research guide for the 2014 MSU Spartan Debate Institute.
I led a collaboration with Anita Ezzo and Jane Meland (MSU Law Library) to create a research guide on international food law.
Contribute to the improvement of reference services by sharing news and information that will be helpful to other librarians and our users via reference meetings and the reference blog.
Ongoing. I continue to contribute to the reference blog, by sending emails to the reference email groups, and by sharing information at reference meetings.
Attend reference meetings and training sessions in order to increase my knowledge of researching all subject areas in order to provide more complete answers to patron questions.
Ongoing. I attend reference meetings as my schedule permits.
Receive training in the new discovery tool, SearchPlus, so that I can better train our users in its use.
Done. I received training for SearchPlus.
Promote SearchPlus to my liaison group.
Done. I have sent out promotional materials to JMC faculty about the benefits of using SearchPlus.
Incorporate SearchPlus in my course libguides.
Done. I added a new “Getting Started” tab to my course guides that explains what SearchPlus is, how to use it, and why to use it.
Incorporate SearchPlus in my JMC library instruction sessions.
Done. For my MC 112 instruction sessions, I show and explain SearchPlus at the start of the class.
Goal: Increase campus and peer knowledge of data management issues, services, and best practices.
Help MSU librarians understand issues related to data management and best practices.
Ongoing. I am continually working to promote data management to my colleagues.
Share with outside individuals and other institutions the efforts that the MSU Libraries have taken in regards to data management.
Ongoing.
Promote Research Data Management Guidance services to faculty, staff, and students.
Ongoing.
Work with other data librarians to determine gaps in services related to research data management and work with them to create solutions.
Ongoing. Several MSU data/digital librarians and myself are working on a project to analyze successfully funded National Science Foundation (NSF) grant proposals written by MSU faculty. This study will allow us to analyze trends in MSU data management proposals, look for service gaps, and work on trying to expand data management-related services at MSU. Before beginning this project, we had to receive approval from the Institution Review Board (IRB) and successfully complete IRB ethics training.
Work with Devin Higgins on the Congressional Record data from Proquest to be used by our researchers for text mining.
Done. Devin and I provided a data description at lib.msu.edu/congressional to help our researchers understand and use this textual data.
Collection Maintenance
Goal: Organize, maintain, control, preserve, and secure the federal documents collection for maximum utilization.
Evaluate and weed the print collection.
Ongoing. There have been several weeding projects in government documents and approximately 37,500 physical volumes have been removed from the Main Library.
Evaluate and assess usage for the various formats that we receive and work to select the best format for usability to encourage the most utilization.
Ongoing. I am working to evaluate our collection and add more materials, both print and electronic, that will be useful to our researchers.
Maintain and create relevant libguides about U.S. government information.
Ongoing. I currently maintain 9 research guides about federal government information.
Hire, train, and supervise student employees who will shelve and maintain the government documents collection.
Ongoing. I hired two new student employees it spring 2014 and I am supervising three student employees now.
Send U.S. government documents to Google for the Google/CIC destructive digitization project.
Done. I have sent 13,682 items to Google for destructive digitization.
Send Serial Set volumes to Remote Storage.
Done. 5,344 volumes of the Serial Set were transferred to Remote.
Dispose of print Congressional Record volumes following FDLP guidelines.
Done. 2,224 volumes of the Congressional Record were disposed of.
Evaluate print Congressional Hearings collection and dispose of selected hearings within FDLP guidelines.
Done. I evaluated over 17,000 print Hearings and about 13,000 volumes were withdrawn (about 315 individual shelves-worth of material).
Goal: Maintain the international documents collection by selecting, purchasing, curating, and weeding appropriate print and electronic materials.
Evaluate the international documents collections and work to eliminate gaps and enhance our collection to meet the needs and research foci of our patrons.
Ongoing. This includes purchasing electronic items such as the Yearbook of International Organizations to make it easier for our patrons to research intergovernmental organizations.
Update the international documents collection development policy.
Ongoing. I migrated this policy from libguides to libguides 2. I updated the international documents collection development policy to include a statement about data per the Collections Division G’s and O’s. I will continue to review and update this policy annually.
Attend biweekly collections coordinators meetings.
Ongoing. I attend these meetings as my schedule permits.
Shift Canadian Documents collection to maximize useable space on 3 West while eliminating unnecessary empty shelving.
Done. The Canadian Documents collection was shifted and approximately 1.5 full shelves/ranges were emptied and removed to create more patron space.
Temporarily shift international documents, Census, and Michigan Documents for recarpeting of 3 West.
Done. These collections required time and staff management on my part to ensure that my student employees were able to move necessary parts of the collection to temporary storage on book trucks before the end of the fall semester. Once the recarpeting project was completed, materials that had been temporarily stored had to be reshelved and all of these three collections needed to be straightened, as many books fell out of place during the various moves.
Library Promotion
Goal: Promote the use of the Libraries and appropriate information resources.
Promote the MSU Libraries’ resources and services to the MSU community.
Ongoing. I continue to work to promote the MSU Libraries at every opportunity.
Create exhibits that highlight both a significant event/topic and the libraries’ collection.
Ongoing. I submitted an exhibit proposal entitled “Unidentified Flying Objects – Flying Saucers, Little Green Men, and Other Extraterrestrial Subjects” to promote government documents, the Main Library collection, and items in Special Collections. This exhibit will be installed July 2015.
Promote services such as UBorrow to patrons during reference interactions.
During reference interactions, I direct users to appropriate interlibrary loan services and explain/demonstrate how to use the various services.
Staff the Libraries’ table at the Academic Orientation Program’s resource fair in order to promote the Libraries’ and their services to incoming freshmen and their parents.
Done. I helped staff the AOP resource fair on various dates in June 2014.
Participate in the Libraries’ Open House.
Done. I staffed one of the Open House tables in September 2014.
Diversity
Goal: Maintain a diverse staff with the skills to support the Libraries’ goals.
Hire and retain student employees with appropriate skills.
I hired 2 new student employees for Government Documents shelving and am now currently supervising 3 students.
Serve under-represented populations through my collection areas, instruction, and liaison.
I am looking to eliminate gaps in the international documents collection relating to under-represented populations.
Address library-related social issues through professional development activities.
I attended the Art of Liaison, Instruction, and Selection series on February 19, 2014 entitled “Exploring the Why and How of Accessibility in Higher Education.”
Professional Development Activities
Goal: Contribute to the development and dissemination of new knowledge.
Participate in professional organizations and scholarly activities.
Ongoing. Please see sections B and C for a complete list.
Seek appropriate Library and University committee involvement.
Ongoing. I volunteered for the Libraries Nominations/Elections committee (not selected) and I continue to look for University-wide opportunities.
Explore University programs for participation opportunities.
Ongoing.
Explore presentation and publication opportunities.
Ongoing. Please see part B for a list of proposals that I submitted.
Share expertise and resources with librarian subject specialists for use in their own instruction.
Ongoing.
Meet with new reference librarians to train them in my subject areas and on how to answer typical reference questions received at the reference desk, on chat, and via email.
Ongoing. I have met with several new reference librarians to explain my subject areas and liaison area and how to assist these patrons.
Seek opportunities to get involved in the American Library Association’s Government Documents Round Table (GODORT).
Ongoing. I’ve volunteered for ALA GODORT but was not assigned to any committees. I will continue to volunteer.
Become a member of the Special Libraries Association (SLA), SLA Michigan, and the Government Information division.
Done.
Self-nominate to be on the ballot for Member Services Director for ALA’s New Members Round Table (NMRT), which if elected would be a two-year term, 2015-2017
Done. I will be on the upcoming ALA NMRT ballot in spring 2015.
Apply for MSU Libraries’ Teacher Librarians Community of Practice cohort for 2014-2015
Done. I was accepted into this cohort and am currently actively participating in this program.
Apply to be a peer reviewer for the Emerald journal Reference Review.
Done. I have been accepted as a reviewer and have reviewed one article thus far.
Participate in the Libraries’ mentoring program.
Ongoing. I am currently mentoring with Denise Forro.
Attend the Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) sessions at the ALA Annual Conference.
Done. I attended many GODORT sessions at the conference in June 2014.
Attend the Spring 2014 GODORT of Michigan conference and business meeting in Traverse City.
Done. I attended the meeting on June 13, 2014.
Attend the Fall 2014 GODORT of Michigan conference and business meeting in University Center.
Done. I attended the October 3, 2014 meeting.
Submit an exhibit proposal for use of a Main Library display case for an exhibit entitled “Unidentified Flying Objects – Flying Saucers, Little Green Men, and Other Extraterrestrial Subjects.”
Done. Exhibit will be installed July 2015.
Compile and submit my reappointment dossier.
Done. I was successfully reappointment.