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.
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.
Goal: Maintain the international documents collection by selecting, purchasing, curating, and weeding appropriate print and electronic materials.
Learn collection development policies and procedures.
Done. I have reviewed the Bibliographer’s Manual. I have met with Mary Jo Zeter and Hui Hua Chua to learn about purchasing material for our international documents collection.
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 am working to evaluate our collection and add more materials, both print and electronic, that will be useful to our researchers.
Update the international documents collection development policy.
Ongoing. I have updated the collection development policy and plan on reviewing this policy annually.
Attend biweekly collections coordinators meetings.
Ongoing. I attend these meetings as my schedule permits.
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.
Complete the mandatory 2013 FDLP biennial survey.
Done. This survey is required by the GPO and it provides the GPO with important information about our depository program. It was due on July 31, 2013.
Update the Federal Documents collection development policy.
Ongoing. I’ve updated information regarding our regional depository and plan on updating how much material FDLP material that we receive and the types of material we receive.
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 in September.
Foster a collaborative relationship with the new regional depository library, the University of Minnesota.
Ongoing.
I met with the new regional librarian, Kirsten Clark at the end of July 2013. Kirsten has been supportive of our (myself, administration, and tech services) work to minimize our print government documents items. We have successfully sent approximately 3 pallets of books to UMN that MSU had but UMN lacked.
I volunteered to become a member of the Regional Library Advisory Group which is made up of representatives from South Dakota, Minnesota, and Michigan and meets virtually at least 4 times per year. The primary charge of this group is to provide input to the regional about what sorts of educational and training programs are needed in these states and to update our State Plans to ensure that they remain relevant documents.
Learn and understand the legal requirements of participating in the FDLP.
Done. I attended a week long Interagency Depository Seminar hosted by the GPO in July 2013 that is aimed at teaching new depository coordinators about the FDLP and its requirements. I have also met with Hui Hua Chua and Jon Harrison for government documents training.
Evaluate and weed the print federal documents collection, following FDLP guidelines and requirements.
Ongoing.
We have sent material to our regional depository library.
MSU will participate in the Google Government Documents project and we have received a preliminary list of items that Google would like to destructively digitize.
We are working on sending our Serial Set volumes to Remote Storage. While we have access to the Serial Set electronically, there are many maps, images, foldouts, etc. that may not be digitized or digitized poorly, so we are keeping the print volumes in case our researchers need them. Some maps of interest are being removed from the volumes and being stored in the Map Library.
We plan on disposing of our printed volumes of the Congressional Record and its predecessors in favor of electronic access.
I have begun evaluating our collection of Congressional Hearings in order to determine hearings of historic importance, which we will keep in print. All other print hearings will be disposed of in favor of electronic versions.
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 attended a week long Interagency Depository Seminar hosted by the GPO in July 2013 that is aimed at teaching new depository coordinators about the FDLP and its requirements.
I had planned on attending the Depository Library Council Annual meeting, which is usually held in the Fall, but was canceled this year due to the government shutdown. I will attend the rescheduled meeting at the end of April 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 have attended many webinars hosted by the University of Minnesota, as well the Help! I’m an Accidental Government Information Librarian series organized by the North Carolina Library Association Government Resources Section.
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).
Ongoing. I am working on increasing my competencies in these areas by attending webinars, following listserv discussions, reading relevant books, and discussing issues with colleagues at other institutions
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 send out emails at the start of the semester encouraging instructors to contact me for library instruction sessions and libguides for their classes. I have also attended the JMC writing faculty’s meeting to learn about the different class topics and encourage the faculty to contact me for library instruction.
Seek new opportunities for librarian course integration in the JMC department.
Ongoing.
Provide course-specific library instruction to JMC classes.
Ongoing. I taught 13 out of 15 sections of MC 112 classes for Spring 2014. Two of the sections had more than one library instruction session. I also taught an instruction session for MC 384 on finding Census data and two classes for MC 111 in Fall 2013.
Seek opportunities to develop and improve my instructional techniques by attending workshops, training sessions, and webinars.
Ongoing. I attended three of the Art of Liaison, Instruction, and Selection series that were offered in 2013. I am working with Rachel Minkin in Information Literacy to design my library instruction sessions to ensure that they are informative and engaging to the students.
Create course-specific library research guides.
Ongoing. I have created 12 library guides for JMC classes between Fall and Spring semesters. Four of these guides were for classes that were either being taught for the first time or had not had a libguide created in the past.
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. These included newly acquired collections such as Data Planet and Popular Culture in Britain and America 1950-1975, as well as video collections, such as the Meet the Press archive.
Communicate with JMC faculty about trial and new library resources.
Ongoing.
Attend JMC faculty meetings to promote the library and available services and better understand their needs.
Ongoing. I have attended the JMC writing faculty’s meeting in the Fall to discuss the Spring writing classes.
Provide research assistance to JMC students and faculty, both virtually and in-person.
Ongoing. I have helped answer 26 reference questions from JMC affiliates between Fall and Spring semesters (these do not include questions that I have answered while on the Reference Desk or during chat reference shifts).
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 hours of reference shifts weekly.
Create research guides as needed to help students, faculty, and librarians find information.
Ongoing. I am maintaining 29 published research guides.
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 presented at the February 6 reference meeting about how to help MC 112 students. I have also added entries to the Reference Blog.
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.
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. Ranti Junus and I coordinated an exhibit with some members of the Digital Scholarship Collaborative that highlighted the importance of preservation.
Share with outside individuals and other institutions the efforts that the MSU Libraries have taken in regards to data management.
Ongoing. I co-presented with members of the Digital Scholarship Collaborative at the Michigan Library Association Annual Conference on the topic of “The Open Data Imperative: The Role of Academic Libraries and Archives in Research Data Management Support.”
Promote Research Data Management Guidance services to faculty, staff, and students.
Ongoing. I represented data management services at the Faculty Resource Fair on August 27, 2013, answering questions for faculty, handing out flyers, and encouraging faculty to use our services.
Work with other data librarians to determine gaps in services related to research data management and work with them to create solutions.
Ongoing. I attend monthly meetings of the Digital Scholarship Collaborative whenever my schedule permits.
Collection Maintenance
Goal: Organize, maintain, control, preserve, and secure the federal documents collection for maximum utilization.
Evaluate and weed the print collection.
Ongoing
I have sent material to our regional depository library.
MSU will participate in the Google Government Documents project and I have received a preliminary list of items that Google would like to destructively digitize.
I am working on sending our Serial Set volumes to Remote Storage. While we have access to the Serial Set electronically, there are many maps, images, foldouts, etc. that may not be digitized or digitized poorly, so we are keeping the print volumes in case our researchers need them. Some maps of interest are being removed from the volumes and being stored in the Map Library.
I plan on disposing of our printed volumes of the Congressional Record and its predecessors in favor of electronic access.
I have begun evaluating our collection of Congressional Hearings in order to determine hearings of historic importance, which we will keep in print. All other print hearings will be disposed of in favor of electronic versions.
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 reviewed our item selection, including the formats selected, in September and will continue to review annually.
Migrate the Government Documents Library webpages to Drupal.
Done.
Maintain and create relevant libguides about U.S. government information.
Ongoing. I am currently maintaining 9 libguides related to U.S. government information. I am also co-owner of 2 guides related to Census information.
Hire, train, and supervise student employees who will shelve and maintain the government documents collection.
Ongoing. I hired and trained one student in Fall 2013 and will hire and train two additional student employees this Spring.
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 am working to evaluate our collection and add more materials, both print and electronic, that will be useful to our researchers.
Update the international documents collection development policy.
Ongoing. I have updated the collection development policy and plan on reviewing this policy annually.
Attend biweekly collections coordinators meetings.
Ongoing. I attend this meeting as my schedule permits.
Library Promotion
Goal: Promote the use of the Libraries and appropriate information resources.
Create exhibits that highlight both a significant event/topic and the libraries’ collection.
Ongoing. I have helped to create three exhibits this past year to highlight the library’s collection:
April is Copyright Month
Fifty Years of Doctor Who
Preservation: Forestalling the Ravages of Time
Promote services such as UBorrow and ArticleReach to patrons during reference interactions.
Ongoing. During reference interactions, I direct users to appropriate interlibrary loan services and explain/demonstrate how to use the various services.
Diversity
Goal: Maintain a diverse staff with the skills to support the Libraries’ goals.
Hire and retain student employees with appropriate skills
I have hired one student employee and will hire two more who are detail-oriented and well-organized.
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 activities.
I am looking for opportunities to improve my skills with working with ESL students, such as attending the upcoming webinar on interacting with ESL patrons on April 9, 2014.
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 more information.
Seek appropriate Library and University committee involvement.
Ongoing.
Explore University programs for participation opportunities.
Ongoing. I will attend the half-day Leading the Spartan Experience program offered through University HR.
Explore presentation and publication opportunities.
Ongoing. I have submitted poster proposal to the Michigan Library Association Academic Conference and to the American Library Association Annual Conference.
Share expertise and resources with librarian subject specialists for use in their own instruction.
Ongoing. I have presented at the Reference meeting on February 6.
Seek opportunities to get involved in the American Library Association’s Government Documents Round Table (GODORT).
Ongoing. I have joined ALA GODORT and have filled out a committee volunteer form for 2014-2015.