Millersville University Library

2005-2006 Library Annual Report

  1. Executive Summary

    In addition to the goals accomplished under Section II, the major initiatives undertaken or completed during fiscal year 2005/06 included the following:

  2. Publications and Presentations by Library Faculty and Staff

  3. 2005-2006 Progress Toward Academic Affairs Goals

    Goal #1: Transform the curriculum and educational programs to respond to the changing needs of a dynamic society.

    Goal #2: Intensify and convert our ongoing commitment to social equity, diversity and globalization into deliberate progressive action

    Goal #3: Assure a student-centered environment emphasizing holistic learning experiences.

    Goal #4: Advance civic engagement through expanded partnerships and community outreach to contribute to the well being of the state, nation and the world.

  4. Unit Reports

    1. Access Services

      Stack Maintenance
      Reclassification projects and issues relating to floor load capacity throughout the building created the need for several major and minor shifts of the collection. In addition, stack maintenance staff have adopted certain strategies to assist with the aesthetics and cleanliness of the building.

      DVD and Music CD Collections
      To facilitate browsing, the DVD and music CD collections, previously kept behind the circulation desk, are now shelved in open stack ranges on the first floor.

      Circulation of Laptops
      The “Laptops @ the Library” lending service continues to remain exceptionally popular with students. Between July 1, 2005 and May 23, 2006, the 16 laptops circulated a total of 12,646 times to Millersville students. In addition, 13,044 batteries, 2,584 cases, and 5,409 power cords were also circulated.

      Duplication Services
      From June 1, 2005 through May 22, 2006 library staff filled 3,737 requests made by students, faculty, and others through the library's duplication service. This represents a significant increase over the previous year when we filled 2,440 duplication requests. Begun in December 2002, this service allows users to request electronic copies of journal articles and other selected materials available in physical format in the library's collections.

      Interlibrary Loan Services
      From July 1, 2005 through May 31, 2006 the Millersville University Library lent a total of 4,031 items to other libraries (1,978 books and 2,053 articles) and borrowed a total of 4,751 items from other libraries (2,668 books and 2,083 articles).

      Electronic Reserves
      Electronic reserves usage has increased from 41,340 document hits (July 1, 2004-May 31, 2005) to 45,624 document hits (July 1, 2005-May 31, 2006). The past five years have seen a steady increase in the use of electronic reserves.

    2. Archives and Special Collections

      Public Service
      Since spring of 2005, over 1982 visitors have come to Archives & Special Collections for research and to use our resources (as compared with 1299 last year). As a result of continuing instruction sessions, along with growing interest in our collections, we continue to experience increased numbers of visitors to Archives & Special Collections. During fall semester, over 1100 visitors came through our doors. This does not include 375 students, faculty and staff who participated in LibraryFest on September 14. During the month of February alone, we had over 475 visitors to our area for research and use of the collections.

      In addition, we responded to 72 requests through the information request form on the website (primarily for sheet music reproduction) and offered research assistance and scans/photocopies to 234 students, faculty, staff, and community members for questions relating to university history, primary source research, and local history.

      Collection Development
      627 items were added to the collections over the past year, including 269 rare books, 168 titles for the Millersville Authors Collection, 88 titles for Special Collections, 53 for the Wickersham collection, 40 theses (department and university honors as well as masters), and 9 manuscript collections.

      Sample titles of new materials include the Henry Ensminger Farm Ledger/Account Book (1860-1913), which documents the business of a Pennsylvania German farmer and orchard grower in South Annville Township, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. As a result of increased interest in the history and sociology of health, several health and hygiene titles for the Wickersham collection were purchased including Eating for Strength or Food and Diet in their Relation to Health and Work together with Several Hundred Recipes for Wholesome Food and Drinks by M.L. Holbrook, M.D. (1888), and Dr. D.H. Jacques' The Temperaments: or the Varieties of Physical Condition in Man, Considered in their Relations to Mental Character and the Practical Affairs of Life, also published in 1888.

      We also added an address delivered by J.P. Wickersham at the National Teachers' Association meeting in Harrisburg in 1865 titled Education as an Element in the Reconstruction of the Union. We purchased the second American edition of John Stuart Mills' The Subjection of Women (1870), along with the Rules of Discipline of the Yearly Meeting of Friends (1834), published by Joseph Rakestraw of Philadelphia. An additional letter written by Sallie Bolton was purchased and added to the Sallie Bolton Collection.

      Processing of Materials
      We completed the processing and inventory of the Marguerite Porter Davison Collection which contains over 300 books, journals and notebooks on basketry, cooking, costumes, decorative arts and handcrafts from 1845-1953. The Page and Normal Literary Societies bought a majority of the collection in 1953 after the death of Mrs. Davison, an authority on Scandinavian and Native American weaving and textiles.

      The materials donated by Bruce Kellner related to Carl Van Vechten were originally separated into three distinct collections: The Carl Van Vechten Photograph Collection, The Bruce Kellner Dance Collection, and The African-American Collection. After discussions with Bruce Kellner, we consolidated the three collections into one and created an inventory for The Carl Van Vechten Memorial Collection of Arts and Letters, making access to this important collection much easier for researchers.

      Over the past several years, we have received e-mails that several portraits in the Wallach Collection on the website are mis-identified. We reviewed the entire collection, correctly identified portraits and removed art/landscapes from the portrait collection. The next step will be to create a link to the updated inventory from the website.

      In a review of materials in the Special Collections area, we de-accessioned titles related to Berks County genealogy and sent them to the Berks County Historical Society, reclassified reference titles in Special Collections into the LC Special Collections area, reclassified multivolume sets in Dewey Special Collections, and shifted the collection in the reading room to accommodate the changes. With the assistance of Anne McGillivray, Quaker Tracts in the Special Collections area were re-classed and moved to Rare Books.

      New materials arrived in the Archives from the Provost's office (15 boxes), the Music Department (10 boxes), and sororities (10 boxes). President Caputo's papers (228 boxes) were moved to the Walker Room in the basement. We have been working on large back file of photographs which have accumulated over the past ten years from the Touchstone, sorting the images into subject areas and incorporating them into the collection. We have also worked on a shifting project in the Archives to make room for the new materials.

      Instruction
      During the past year, Educational Foundations, English, History, and Sociology classes have assigned projects which make use of primary source materials in our area (a total of 34 sessions). The following classes received instruction in the uses of primary source materials this year: Educational Foundations 376 (Whose School is it Anyway?), Educational Foundations 601 (Research Methods), English 110 (Composition), History 105 (The Craft of History), History 279 (Public History), History 453 (Colonial Pennsylvania) and Sociology 317 (Sociology of Health). Dr. Marilyn Parrish worked with faculty members in these departments, offering introductions to primary source materials and secondary research articles as well as in some cases, tailoring instruction sessions to meet the requirements of collaboratively created research projects.

      During fall semester, students in Dr. Cheryl Desmond's EDFN 376 class used archival materials to create an exhibit for the first floor of Ganser Library, based on areas of interest in Millersville's history. Dr. Ron Frankum asked his students in History 105 to examine archival materials from Millersville during the 20th century to research one year in the life of the institution.

      Prof. Monica Spiese brought her History 279 class to learn about the world of archives by processing an unprocessed archival collection. Newly processed records include athletics statistics, Hungarian Studies resources, and recipes from dining services.

      For the first time this spring, Professor Greg Szczyrbak and Dr. Marilyn Parrish worked with Dr. Carla Rineer to assess the use of primary and secondary sources in the research projects in English 110 for one of three sections. Greg created an online tutorial for students to evaluate. This tutorial will be edited and available as a resource for any class carrying out primary source research. Following this semester, we will be analyzing student essays to determine how well the students met goals for selecting primary sources and integrating them creatively with appropriate secondary material.

      In Sociology 317, Dr. Carrie Smith asked her students to examine three hygiene or health texts from the late 19th century to explore cultural aspects of health from the period. These students made use of textbooks from the Wickersham Collection as well as secondary research articles related the history and sociology of health.

      Oral History
      Eight people associated with Millersville were interviewed this year. Frances Keller, Marjorie Rambo and Mary Heisey Shellenberger were interviewed in July, 2005 (all library science graduates from the 1940s). They shared their memories of working in the library (now Biemesderfer) during World War II. Florenz Webbe Maxwell was interviewed at the beginning of fall semester about her experiences at Millersville in the late 1950s and then again in the 1970s when she returned to complete her degree. Barbara Hunsberger was interviewed again (the tape from her first interview was never submitted by the student interviewer) about life on campus as the president's granddaughter, as a student, and as a faculty member. During Alumni weekend, two additional alumni were interviewed by Friends of Ganser Library board members and student assistants from the archives: Judy Carter, and G. Allen Eckert.

      Digital Initiatives
      Millersville is part of the pilot project for the use of CONTENTdm by KLN Libraries. Millersville is represented on the metadata group, along with representatives from West Chester, Slippery Rock, and Kutztown Universities. We are in the process of establishing field properties parameters for digital objects such as letters, photographs, and postcards. Each institution has begun work on a manual for use in the project. These institution-specific manuals will be the basis for a guide that will be available for other PASSHE institutions as they join the project and will result in more effective cross-collection searching.

      The Snapper (1995-2005) was sent to OCLC Preservation Services in Bethlehem for microfilming and digitization. As soon as the contract is approved the remaining years (1925-1995) will be sent for digitization, so that the entire run of The Snapper can be available through CONTENTdm for researchers.

      Exhibits
      Archives & Special Collections staff and students have created and assisted with a variety of exhibits this year. During fall semester, Janet Dotterer created a reading room exhibit to highlight the experiences of international students at Millersville (to go along with the article she wrote for the fall issue of the Friends Folio). In the spring, student assistants Laura Kuchmay and Kaelyn Considine created exhibits on the Tunnels of Millersville and Maggie Cameron, growing out of the research they completed for their articles in the spring issue of the Friends Folio.

      During fall semester, Dr. Cheryl Desmond's class created an exhibit based on their research in the cases on the first floor: Whose School is it Anyway? Millersville Students Research Millersville History in Archives & Special Collections. Dr. Parrish and Ms. Dotterer also assisted the committee working on the William Trout exhibit (William Trout's Interior Landscape: His Poetry and Passion.) which was on display from the beginning of March through the end of April, 2006. They also participated in the planning and installation of MUtopia: A Galaxy of Ideas, which opened May 5, 2006.

      Each year Archives students and staff assist the Alumni Association in creating exhibits which highlight specific reunion years. This year 90 images were scanned for the exhibit.

    3. Cataloging

      Cataloging Staffing
      The Cataloging unit is once again delighted to have Anne McGillivray and Cheryl Lutz with us as adjunct librarians this year. During most of the Fall semester, Cheryl held a full-time assignment in the Cataloging and Reference units while Anne served a three quarter time assignment in the same areas. In Cataloging, Anne and Cheryl have assumed responsibility for a portion of the complex copy cataloging. They also create original cataloging records for monographs, media materials and Special Collections items and assist with departmental projects including authority control and reclassification.

      For much of the academic year, the Cataloging unit has also enjoyed the half-time assistance of Milta Vega, a library assistant who spends the other half of her day in the Government Documents unit. Milta has assisted the Cataloging unit with our pre-cataloging process and with the reclassification project. She is currently being trained in Library of Congress copy cataloging.

      Authority Control
      Changed name, series and subject heading were updated in the library catalog during October, 2005. Headings for current cataloging were authorized in October, 2005 and January and May 2006.

      Library staff continued to participate in Keystone Library Network (KLN) activities associated with authority control. Although much of the grant-funded authority control project was completed last academic year, other KLN libraries are still in the process of establishing authority control procedures and troubleshooting various issues and problems. As a long-time client of LTI, the company which is also providing the other KLN libraries with authority control services, we have continued to respond to questions when our assistance is requested. During the summer of 2005, we also reviewed a KLN grant proposal for LSTA (Library Services and Technology Act) funding of the training necessary to establish a NACO (Name Authority Cooperative) funnel project within the KLN. The proposal was funded.

      Ebooks
      Two additional files of bibliographic records were received and evaluated for materials recently added to the American Council of Learned Societies ebook collection. The records were reviewed and edited using MarcEdit, a freeware record editing program, and are now awaiting assignment of appropriate URLs by the Systems unit. When this process has been completed, the records will be loaded into the Voyager database.

      In early 2006, the library purchased access to the Early American Imprint Series I, a collection of over 36,000 electronic books first published in print format between 1639 and 1800. As part of the purchase price of the collection, the library will receive MARC bibliographic records for nearly all of the included materials. In order to insure that the records meet the library's needs, the record vendor has supplied a sample file of records, which have been revised to reflect the libraries requirements. Before the end of the academic year, we anticipate receiving the complete file of records. In order to preclude double loading of such a large file, the records will be sent for authority control before being loaded into the Voyager database.

      Gifts
      A large collection of juvenile gift books and many individual gift materials, including a large number of gift DVDs, were received and processed as part of the Cataloging unit's general workflow. In processing these materials, we began experimenting with an expedited workflow which, when fully implemented, should significantly reduce the amount of time required to search and download gift materials from OCLC into the Voyager system.

      OCLC
      In February 2006, the library transitioned from transaction- to subscription-based pricing in paying for its OCLC cataloging services. The move, which is completely transparent to those who use the OCLC software, ensures that the library pays OCLC a flat monthly fee for use of its cataloging service, permitting greater predictability with regard to pricing and less need for those who use the cataloging service to evaluate their search strategies for maximum cost-effectiveness.

      Weeding
      Weeded materials continue to be processed and withdrawn as rapidly as possible in order to maintain current and accurate records of the library's holdings. Materials were removed from a number of areas of the collection, the most notable being the withdrawal of roughly 250 slide collections from the Curriculum Center.

      Cataloging reports
      A daily report continues to be run to identify materials in Cataloging or Labeling that have had a "hold" placed on them by a patron. Those items are processed and sent to the Circulation Desk for circulation to the requestor within two working days. Cataloging, labeling and various other reports allow us to monitor cataloging unit activities easily.

      Reclassification Projects
      During the 2005/2006 academic year, the Cataloging unit continued to reclassify materials located in a number of portions of the Dewey Collection. Since the floor load issues which first became evident last academic year were still in the process of being resolved during much of this year, materials from various portions of the collection were slated for reclassification ahead of the American literature materials which are among the Library's reclassification goals. The volume of materials which required reclassification as a result of floor load issues did decrease, however, so that library staff and faculty were able to resume work on the American literature collection. Unfortunately the complexity of reclassification within the literature collection dictated that staff and faculty, rather than student employees, complete nearly all of the work on the American literature collection, slowing the process. Since our student workers could do little to assist with the literature reclassification, we requested and received permission to have them begin working on reclassification of the Juvenile Non-fiction collection, a relatively small collection with a much higher percentage of available Library of Congress classification numbers. While this project is still in its early stages, notable progress has already been made with reclassification of the Dewey 000s, 100s, 200s, and much of the 300s having been completed.

      Database Clean-up
      For much of the year, database clean-up initiatives have necessarily taken a back seat to other unit priorities, most notably the completion of the technical services program review. We anticipate further progress with regard to database clean-up after the end of the Spring semester.

    4. Collection Development

      Personnel
      Following the retirement of Professor Irene Risser, her acquisitions duties were assigned to a part-time Acquisitions Librarian--a position currently filled by Professor Lin Carvell. Responsibility for collection development was assigned to a full-time Collection Development Librarian, Dr. William H. Walters, who began working at Millersville in August 2005. Dr. Walters has nine years' experience as a collection development librarian at Cornell University and St. Lawrence University.

      Serials and Online Resources
      Journal prices continue to rise by approximately 9% each year. Despite a major serials cancellation project completed in Fall 2005, the library's regular materials budget is barely adequate to cover the cost of our ongoing commitments (subscriptions and annual fees). As a result, the regular materials budget has been allocated exclusively for the maintenance of the library's journal subscriptions ($199,000), online resources ($306,000), and standing orders ($60,000). The acquisition of books and other monographic items has been possible only through the use of special funds: gifts, endowments, and Performance Funding.

      Without additional expenditure, we improved our bibliographic database coverage in 2005-06 by switching from Sociological Abstracts to SocINDEX. The change in databases expands our bibliographic coverage of the core sociology journals and provides access to a greater number of full-text periodicals.

      Performance Funding
      The University's success in the PASSHE Performance Funding Program resulted in a one-time library grant of $350,000 in 2005-06. Of that amount, $239,000 was allocated for the acquisition of books and monographic media. Recognizing the need to fill major gaps in the collection that have arisen due to inadequate funding in recent years, the librarians embarked on a major initiative to identify and acquire the best books published since 2000. A second initiative, the provision of special book funds for new faculty, has been favorably received in at least three respects: as a means of improving the library collection, as an incentive for new faculty to become more closely involved with the library, and as a means of showing new faculty that the University is committed to supporting their teaching and research.

      The remaining Performance Funding money for 2005-06 was used to acquire several major online resources including

        the Children's Literature Comprehensive Database
        435 online books in business, computer science, and nursing
        25 Lippincott nursing journals
        the Early American Imprints collection of more than 36,000 items published in North America between 1639 and 1800.

      To avoid increasing our future expenditure commitments, we focused on those resources that could be acquired as one-time purchases. Performance Funding will also be used to digitize The Snapper and to make it freely available on the web.

      Due to increasing journal costs, future efforts to maintain and develop our book collection are likely to depend on the continued provision of Performance Funding in 2006-07 and subsequent years.

    5. Curriculum Materials Center

      Collection Development
      Performance Funding for the outstanding accomplishments of Millersville University improved the outlook of book budgets for the 2005/2006 fiscal year. This improved funding, along with the more generous timeframe available this year because the Performance Funding was made known early, allowed the Library to engage in some of the most thoughtful and productive collection development in years. In purchasing juvenile books, the Education Librarian, along with a faculty member specializing in children's literature, focused on filling gaps in the collection of children's books, fiction and non-fiction, that focus on gay and lesbian, African-American, Asian-American, Latino, and Native American experiences and history. A concerted effort was made to acquire the entire catalog of titles for approximately 50 children's authors who are the most well-regarded and well-reviewed authors writing in the diversity genre.

      Curriculum Materials acquisition focused on improving the elementary and secondary level social studies resources. Textbook series, primary source kits, and activity manuals represent some of the materials purchased. Other areas of focus were early childhood reading, reader response, and diversity.

      MU Math & Science Teachers' Center
      Although the National Science Foundation funding for the CETP-PA grant has run its five-year course, partial funding was continued by a collaboration between the PASSHE institutions that have participated during the past five years. This funding allowed Millersville to retain a coordinator, Dr. Lynn Marquez, and to continue the "Teacher Scholar" scholarship opportunity for selected students. The MU Math & Science Teachers' Center benefited from the work of three Teacher Scholars, who worked together with the Education Librarian to carefully spend nearly $30,000, donated by the School of Education from grant funds, on curriculum resources and professional materials in the area of science education.

      Curriculum Textbook Weeding
      The Curriculum Textbook Dewey collection has been weeded. Ideally, the Dewey Textbook collection would be a candidate for reclassification to Library of Congress based on its relatively small size, significant circulation statistics, and status as a weeded and current collection.

    6. Government Documents

      As the Government Documents Collection has transitioned to a more electronic format the Government Documents Unit has needed to respond to the dual nature of the collection. This involves increasing the visibility of government documents whether they might be in the library, in the library catalog, or on the Internet.

      Library Government Documents Physical Area

      • Government Documents have been consolidated into a more streamlined area. Collections, such as the Congressional Hearings are now grouped together, making materials easier to locate.
      • Government Documents Reference moved to a more prominent location.
      • New signs that are both directional and instructional have been added to the area.
      • Bulletin boards on Government Documents and Freedom of Information have been displayed.
      • "New" Documents Display area created in "living room".

      Government Documents in the Library Catalog

      • Started PURL checking using Marcive-provided list of documents no longer electronically available. Alternate PURLs are researched and documents are removed if none are found.
      • Creating list of Government Serial publications that are not in Journal Finder in physical format.

      Government Resources on the Library website and Internet

      • Provided coherent structure and organization to the Government Resources - resources are now organized by governmental level: federal, state, foreign, or international. Federal resources are aligned with the branches of the government. This allows for a subtle elucidation of government organization while finding resources
      • Hot Topics and Current Issues page created for a presentation of government documents supporting current issues in the news
      • Currently creating section for Federal Government Resources by Topic
      • Added many new resources with descriptions
      • Updated or removed dead links
      • Successfully encouraged STAT-USA to provide IP authentication for Depository Libraries using the tool.

      Promotional Activities

      • 40th Anniversary of Ganser Library in FDLP
        • Press releases to local newspapers
        • Articles in Snapper and Exchange
        • Government Document of the Week to faculty via email
      • Sunshine Week--special page of resources on library website linked from the library main page, email to faculty through Government Document of the Week, notice on my'Ville for students, bulletin board about Sunshine week.

      Workflow Initiatives -- initiated new ways of accomplishing materials processing for greater efficiency. These include:

      • Excel spreadsheets of item selections were downloaded from Documents Data Miner 2 (DDM2) and annotated to reflect our items selected and any special handling of the materials.
      • DDM2 is now used to determine new item numbers added to our selection profile - this ends the item by item comparison of item lists each month.
      • Shipping lists are now checked-in in an Excel file.
      • Separates shipments on tracked with Excel.
      • PURL referrals - signed up for FDLP PURL referral statistics. We can now determine how many times government document PURLs (electronic resources) are accessed from our library catalog or university domain.

      Government Document Unit Projects

      • CIA Map Weeding - the Depository map collection has been completely weeded. Student assistant (Susan Beverly) pulled the maps from the drawers, grouped them by location and attached their corresponding shelf list cards. Maps superseded, outdated, or of no historical significance were withdrawn. Over 1000 maps were reviewed and processed.
      • USGS Maps - worked with Chuck Geiger of the Geography department to catalog USGS maps housed in the Geography department map laboratory. This is an ongoing project as these maps are many and were considered to be an area of concern at the last GPO inspection
      • Review shelf list cards to eliminate shelf list, removing the OCLC cards and downloading cataloging records for older government documents.
      • Cataloging microfilm resources of historical importance - American State Papers, Annals of Congress, and Census materials.

        Summer 2006

      • Review and complete the Annual Item Selection Update for revisions to the item numbers and formats selected for the depository library.
      • Revise and complete the annual Marcive profile for item number changes to be reflected in the outsourced bibliographic records received monthly from Marcive.
      • Pennsylvania documents review to examine holdings and establish holding/retention patterns for serial titles from 2000 to present or the most recent two years depending on the content of the serial publication
      • Continue to review and examine documents by item number, SuDoc, title and series to decide retention of previous editions and ensure electronic records represent the set in the library catalog.

    7. Library Instruction

      From Summer 2005 through the end of the Spring 2006 semester, library faculty taught a total of 246 classes, reaching more than 6174 undergraduate and graduate students. Library instruction was offered in the following subject areas: African American Studies; Anthropology; Art; Biology; Business Administration; Chemistry; Communication; Early Childhood Education; Earth Sciences; Economics; Educational Foundations; Educational Leadership; Education; Elementary Education; English; French; Geography; Government; History; Industry and Technology; Mathematics; Nursing; Philosophy; Physics; Psychology; Reading Education; Social Work; Sociology; Spanish; Special Education; Wellness and Sport Science; and Women's Studies, and included classes in both the AIM for Success Program and the University Honors College. Ten library faculty members provided instruction in the Library Instruction Classroom, in the Special Collections area, or in various computer labs and classrooms across campus.

      Professors Greg Szczyrbak and Cheryl Lutz completed additional 'How-do-I" tutorials for basic library help, with audio assistance by Professor Robert Spicer and students from Advanced Audio Production (COMM 422). Professor Szczyrbak continues to develop a tutorial for using Primary Sources. Additional intermediate level tutorials will follow.

      Professor Szzyzrbak is collaborating with Dr.Changfu Chang and students from TV Production 2 (COMM 421) to create library orientation videos.

      The library began a subscription to RefWorks, an online research management tool, and began promoting its use to students and faculty.

    8. Library Systems

      During course of this year two new student Library Technology Assistants (LTA) were hired, bringing the total complement of systems unit students to five. One student was hired to replace a graduating Senior and another to help with programming projects. One LTA was on leave of absence during the Spring 2006 semester, but is expected back in the Summer of 2006 at which time another LTA will be deployed for approximately one month in June as part of his routine Air National Guard obligations. Accomplishments of these computer science students this year have been many and unusually multifaceted.

      Projects Completed

      • Exhibits System created. A major undertaking this academic year has been the creation of a systematic means of capturing, editing, and presenting contributions to the annual academic exhibit. All of the LTA's (and one former LTA who generously consulted to get the project off to a good start) were involved in specifying, creating, configuring, and implementing a fully functional (version 1.0) web based system to assist the Special Collections unit in handling the growing volume of contibutios associated with this annual exhibit. The entire unit participated in numerous meetings with the Special Collections faculty and staff to generate specifications, test interfaces, and generally ready the system for back office and front end users. MUtopia: A Galaxy of Ideas will be the first exhibit to be generated using this new system. All of the LTAs' participating were exposed to and began learning the ASP.NET framework and had the opportunity to begin using commercial grade integrated development tools to complete this project.
      • CONTENTdm system implemented. CONTENTdm is a digital collection management tool that will greatly improve the accessibility of digital objects to the students, faculty and staff at Millersville University. While not a long term preservation tool in it's currect state, it is a significant and positive step in the right direction for improving the organizational state and accessibility of digital objects. Millersville is participating as a member of the KLN Digital Collections initiative.
      • Proxy Service. Millersville University Library is a member of and beta partner with the Keystone Library Network (KLN). During the Spring 2006 semester the library systems unit has been working to help implement a new proxy service to improve access to library materials for not just Millersville University students, faculty and staff but people at all of the other KLN institutions as well. The KLN implementation of a proxy service will be considerably more robust and faster than the version that has been deployed locally at Millersville. This new proxy service will be used in conjunction with the new OpenURL service that was established this academic year.
      • New OpenURL Service. A new OpenURL linking service (Article Linker by Serials Solultions) was implemented during this academic year. This new implementation of our linking service will better capitalize on the library's general efforts related to profiling electronic journal and database holdings as well has traditional physical holdings of journals.
      • Voyager Upgrades. Throughout this year, the systems unit deployed and configured new Voyager clients for two major upgrades in support of Millersville's implementation of the Voyager integrated library management system.
      • Library ID Issuance. Process improvements have been undertaken by both the library systems unit and Univeristy IT staff to decouple the issuance of library ID numbers from the issuance of physical Univeristy ID cards. This is a significant change and should dramatically reduce the turnaround time for legitimate and enrolled students so that they can obtain and begin using their library ID number to access library resources and services prior to receipt of their University ID card. This change will also significantly lower the burden for accessing library resources and services for graduate, non-traditional and distant education students that have historically had problems obtaining University ID cards in a timely manner.
      • Host Management via MAINTAIN. Computer name and IP management for the the library was integrated into the University's MAINTAIN system during the academic year. This is part of a larger effort to systematize technical information and provide IT with the necessary information to help them identify, maintain, and correct potential problems and provide possible resolutions faster than in the past.
      • GoPrint hardware configured. In anticipation of implementing the GoPrint print management system in the library, the appropriate furniture, computer hardware and software licenses were obtained during the academic year. Once the library domain has been fully integrated into the Millersville domain as a bonafide "sub domain" then the equipment and the service will be fully deployed. The library would then be "in parallel" from a printing perspective with the remainder of the university and able to track and/or charge student / community patrons on a subsidized, cost recovery or cost plus basis for printing.
      • Referring URL's for some library content. Referring URL's were configured as an access mechansim for all EBSCO content. This will allow students to seamlessly pass to any EBSCOHost hosted content from either Blackboard or the library's electronic reserve system without having to re-authenticate themselves.
      • New Equipment deployed. Five new computers were deployed with various "trickle down" activities resulting in five additional PC's in the library's Reference Area.
      • New Software deployed. Five additional instances of the Microsoft Office suite were made available to users in the Library Reference Area. Approximately half of the library faculty and staff had ODBC software installed and configured for use with Voyager. The library systems unit was able to procure and deploy five seats of the new Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition software.

      Projects Nearing Completion

      • Special Collections Website Migration. The content located in the Special Collections website is being reviewed for technical changes, reformatted as necessary and being transferred to the Library's primary web server. This is part of a larger and more cohesive effort to better align workflows and services with extant hardware and various tool sets and services that are being utilized and developed to manage the library's web presence. During the academic year the general look and feel and various single web pages were migrated along with all of the archives related content. Next year the manuscript content will be the main focus and once that migration is completed the old web server can be decommisioned.
      • Library as Millersville Sub Domain within Millersville.edu The Library systems unit is working to complete active directory integration with the new millersville.edu domain by the end of Summer 2006.
      • Macro Software. Several versions of macro software were evaluated in the Spring 2006 semester with a small number of seats of Macro Express being procured and readied for deployment.

      Projects Underway

      • Microsoft Project Server. In response to the growing number of projects within the systems unit, and a request from other library units of the library for a tool to help manage various projects, Microsoft Project 2003 was procured and is being configured.
      • Fedora, Digital Content Software. Fedora, exceptionally robust (and complicated) open source digital content management software has been downloaded. Equipment suitable for testing this software has been identified and made ready for installation of Fedora. As the library moves forward with digital content a full featured and archival quality mechanism will need to be brought online to help manage electronic records, institutional repositories, and general access to digital content. Fedora is being used for all of these appliations (and more) by larger institutions. This software has an active development community that is right now in the process of developing tools (Fez in particular) that are designed by and suitable for the library environment and mission.
      • Library Portal. To improve access to and the use of various library services, the library systems unit has invested LTA time and talent into the development of a new library portal. Building on the single sign-on approach for all extant library services, this new implementation will also provide integrated access to resources and materials placed on library reserve for specific users enrolled in specific courses, in addition to a providing a smoother mechanism for renewal of materials, and the ability of users to customize a certain number of variables in their "library environment." This will also allow the library to "push" appropriate resources to students based on their major and/or minor.
      • Exhibits System version 2. Learning from this academic year's experience along with a growing knowledge of what the ASP.NET framework will support because of portal and other related work being undertaken, it is very probable that a significant upgrade to the Exhibits systems will be undertaken to improve the ability of Special Collections and the Library Department in general to support the annual exhibit of faculty and staff scholarly and creative works.

    9. Reference

      Library faculty consider reference service to be an extension of our instructional programs. The goal of reference service is not necessarily to find answers for people but to help them find the answers themselves.

      Total reference transactions at the Reference Desk from May 16, 2005 to April 24, 2006 were 8454. Total questions were 1127 during the summer sessions, 3998 for the Fall semester, 144 during the winter term, and 3185 in the Spring semester. Questions completed included: 2765 directional/informational questions (requiring 2 minutes or less to complete); 3542 short reference questions (requiring 5 minutes or less to complete); 1509 medium reference questions (requiring between 5 and 10 minutes to complete); and 638 lengthy reference questions (requiring more than 10 minutes to complete). It is not possible to compare the total activities with those of last year as library faculty only began keeping statistics at the Reference Desk in October 2004. From October 2004 through the end of the Spring 2005 semester, a total of 6919 questions were received at the Reference Desk.

      Additionally, from the beginning of the 2005 Summer session through the end of the Spring 2006 semester, library faculty responded to 289 electronic reference questions through the "Ask a Librarian" service; 58 in Summer 2005, 99 in Fall 2005, 15 in Winter 2005-2006, and 117 in Spring 2006.

    10. Serial and Monographic Acquisitions

      Personnel
      Kurt Bodling, formerly the full-time adjunct Acquisitions Librarian, left Millersville in early October. Jennifer Fischer, a Library Assistant 2 working primarily in Collection Development Acquisitions with technology assignments, left the department in mid-August. The replacements for these employees were: Linda Carvell, a half-time adjunct Acquisitions Librarian who spent much of her time on the Reference Desk, and Barbara Forney, a temporary full-time employee.

      Staff members Thelma Eckerd and D'Ann Ressler continued in their positions within the unit. Sally Levit continued to work half-time on the Blue Book Periodicals Project and was temporarily assigned half-time to assist in Acquisitions ordering.

      The unit is in a state of transition due to the faculty and staff departures and the temporary replacements. Along with the Technical Services Program Review Committee, requests for information on procedures and job-descriptions, the re-assignment of tasks formerly handled by the Collection Development (Serial and Monographic Acquisitions) to William Walters has created a reassessment of the unit's function. Training the temporary faculty and staff members has placed considerable time constraints on Thelma Eckerd and D'Ann Ressler. The unit awaits decisions based on the report of the Technical Services Program Review Committee to implement necessary alterations in procedures, job descriptions, work flow, and personnel.

      Materials Budget
      License agreements with database vendors were completed, and detailed tracking of all electronic resources subscriptions was accomplished. The serials invoices were processed to ensure uninterrupted receipt of subscriptions in electronic, paper and microfilm formats.

      The 2005-2006 Performance Funding allotment for online periodicals has been spent and the allotment for monographic materials will be spent by the end of the fiscal year.

      Journal Review
      The journal cancellation project, aiming to realize a necessary reduction in expenditure of $75,000, was successfully completed during the summer of 2005. Much of this academic year was spent on reviewing and implementing the cancellations, plus clearing the stacks of cancelled titles.

      Vendors
      Swets, the PASSHE journal subscription vendor, continues to be the primary vendor for our print journal subscriptions. Our records, previously with EBSCO, have been switched to Swets. Due to cancellations, we reduced our serial titles from approximately 1300 to 900 titles. Our account with Swets requires careful monitoring since their method of service is less customer-service based. While they are responsive to our inquiries, we must be vigilant in order to be assured of uninterrupted subscriptions.

      National Archives Publishing Company (NAPC), formerly part of Proquest (formerly Bell & Howell/UMI), and Princeton Microfilm Company continued to be the major microfilm vendors. We acquired nearly a third fewer microfilm titles due to the cancellations and to electronic resources availability.

      Baker & Taylor continued as the major vendor for monograph and continuations ordering. Last year's discount of 17.5% was raised this year to 17.8%, based on the SSHELCO sales volume. The price for paperback binding remained at $4.00 per title although there had been a report that the price would increase. Baker & Taylor has upgraded their interface to Title Source 3 Academic version. D' Ann Ressler and Linda Carvell completed an online training session on the use of the upgraded version. Several Library faculty members have opted to create carts as an efficient method of requesting titles for purchase.

      Online vendors, such as Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, provided excellent service for both media and print titles. Use of a Millersville University credit card made online ordering an easy, efficient process. Most direct orders are placed online using the card as well.

      Software Upgrade
      In January 2006, Voyager upgraded to its new software, from 5.01 to Unicode. This upgrade enables us to use a new OCLC Connexion module for local holdings record management.

      Unit Staff Cross-training
      Since the consultant to the Technical Services Program Review has recommended a reorganization of the unit, reassigning positions, procedures, and workflow, members of the unit are defining base-level knowledge and skills which would be shared with each other and other members of the Library faculty and staff.

      Bindery
      Because of the cancelled microfilm, there was a small increase in the amount of titles sent to the bindery. Each title is reviewed on the basis of subject content and permanent access in other formats.

      Ongoing Projects

      • UNESCO Library Project: In support of the project directed by Dr. James Cosentino, many paper issues duplicated by microfilm are withdrawn from the collection and are sent to libraries in various African countries.
      • OCLC Union List Local Data Record Updates: A focus continued to be made on updating the holdings records in the national union list.
      • Blue Book Project: The major retrospective data clean-up project based on the last published list of local serials holdings from 1996-1997, continued. The project involves correcting cataloging records so that they adhere to national standards. To comply the following actions are taking place: removing inaccurate records; adding the correct record or run of records; identifying change of title within a serial run; revising and adding holdings records; cutting and/or splicing microfilm reels; re-labeling bound volumes; re-shelving material; removing inappropriate materials from the collection; and cleaning up the connected records.

  5. Committee Reports and Special Projects

    1. Collection Development and Management Committee

      The Collection Development and Management Committee met several times, chiefly to review particular resources under consideration for acquisition. More generally, the Committee is working on several initiatives designed to improve the collection development process. While most of these projects are still in the planning stages, we aim to:

      • document, update, and expand our current collection development policies; establish collection policies for online resources, including sustainable access criteria for online journals
      • make better use of available use, cost, and citation data; develop better tools for collection assessment and evaluation
      • ensure that all acquisitions, renewals, and format changes are reviewed by the Collection Development Librarian and brought before the Committee, if necessary
      • work toward the provision of regular, long-term funding for the book collection
      • streamline and standardize the procedures for book selection and ordering, providing a greater range of information to liaison librarians and faculty
      • provide for more systematic subject coverage within the book collection, perhaps through the establishment of an approval plan for scholarly books
      • develop a coherent plan for the withdrawal of outdated and superceded materials.

      The report of the Collection Assessment Committee for Academic Program Review will describe some of these initiatives in greater detail.

    2. Information Services Committee

      The Information Services Committee developed guidelines for the provision of Dialog service to library users. The Committee also reviewed the library information in the University's Undergraduate and Graduate Catalogs for possible revisions. There were no significant changes.

    3. Library Liaison Program Committee

      The Liaison Program Committee organized two meetings that included the academic department's liaisons to the library and the library faculty.

      • On November 17,2005, the liaisons and library faculty met in Gordinier Hall to hear presentations by Science/Government Documents Librarian Prof. Megan O'Malley (Top Government Secrets Revealed) about information published by the government and made available through the federal depository library program and Collection Development Librarian Dr. William Walters (Building a Sustainable Library Collection) about issues in building library collections to meet current and future needs.
      • On February 21, 2006 the group met in Gordinier Hall to discuss the Library's program review and conduct a building visioning exercise with library liaisons from academic departments.

    4. Faculty Publication Exhibit Task Force

      Library faculty and staff coordinated the 3rd annual exhibit of faculty publications and creative works MUtopia: A Galaxy of Ideas. The exhibit included works by more than 70 faculty and administrators representing most academic departments. An opening reception, held on May 5, 2006 in conjunction with the University's first annual academic festival, featured the MU Guitar Ensemble.

    5. Outcomes Assessment

      Library faculty and staff and the Director of Library Services focused 2005-2006 outcomes assessment on the three areas of program review: Library Building; Collection Assessment; and Technical Services.

      Assessment of the library building included a review of an outside consultant, focus groups and discussions with faculty and students, visits to nearby libraries with recent renovations, and 2004 LibQual+ survey results. The following weaknesses of the building were identified: not universally accessible; entrance is hidden; physical layout is difficult to navigate; inadequate exhibit, reception and programming space; décor is not attractive or welcoming; electrical wiring is insufficient; engineering specifications of building do not meet current needs for weight of materials; HVAC system is inadequate; and Special Collections has urgent need for expanded space. Renovating the library has been identified as a possible focus for the University's next capital campaign and funds have been requested from the state to upgrade HVAC system and elevator. The Library Department and Director will identify a building renovation group comprised of faculty and staff from library and across campus and will hold forums for campus-wide dialogue on planning for renovation and addition to library. They will develop a design plan that can eventually be given to an architect.

      Collection assessment included a comprehensive analysis of the library's collections based on (a) accreditation standards, (b) comparisons with peer institutions, and (c) comparisons with externally-defined collection development criteria. Current resources were found to be inadequate in comparison with regional peer institutions. There are too few recent books, especially in certain subject areas, uneven subject coverage within book collection, too few top-ranked journals, especially in natural sciences and social sciences, and too many highly-regarded journals for which sustainable access has not been achieved. There are strong book holdings in education and business and strong faculty support for library collections and services. The Library Department and Director will request an increase to the library materials base budget. They will begin profiling for an approval plan; will begin refinement of the book selection process; will develop collection policies for online resources; and will evaluate journal holdings systematically.

      Assessment of Technical Services included a review of an outside consultant as well as surveys of library faculty and staff. The strengths of technical services include knowledgeable and dedicated faculty and staff members. Weaknesses included uneven and imperfect communication systems; insufficient use of existing software; inconsistent electronic resources management; inefficient budget management process; and redundant and time consuming workflows. The Department and Director will seek approval to conduct a faculty search for a Coordinator of Technical Services. The Department will work with the Director to determine priorities for faculty and staff complement and then conduct a search to fill the open staff position as determined by Department and Director. The Department will ensure that staffing in Technical Services meets the Library's needs. Technical services faculty and staff will continue the development of documentation and of staff training in the technical services unit. They will also continue the process of streamlining workflows in the technical services unit.

    6. Friends of Ganser Library

      The Friends of Ganser Library sponsored the following events:

      • On September 13, 2005 Dr. William Smith of MU's Philosophy Department discussed his book “Plato and Popcorn, a Philosopher’s Guide to Film.”
      • On September 24, 2005 the Friends sponsored their second bus trip to the National Book Festival in Washington, DC. More than 100 people from Lancaster County participated in the trip.
      • The Friends raised $5,709 for the Library’s Special Collections unit at its March 20-22, 2006 book sale. This amount was the second highest ever raised. The total income resulting from 28 years of book sales is $105,068.
      • On April 11, 2006, the Friends sponsored a public lecture by Dr. Henry Fischer III, Director of the MU Center for Disaster Research and Education

      In addition, the Friends allocated $10,000 for the microfilming of The Snapper covering the years 1995-2005.

  6. Major Accomplishments/Contributions of Faculty/Staff

    Faculty

    Scott R. Anderson

    Linda Carvell

    Jessica George

    Marjorie White Greenawalt

    Cheryl Lutz

    Anne McGillivray

    Megan O'Malley

    Marilyn Parrish

    7. Leo Shelley

    Gregory Szczyrbak

    William Walters

    Marjorie Warmkessel

    Teresa Weisser

    Support Staff

    Janet Dotterer

    Thelma Eckerd

    Barbara Forney

    Krista Higham

    Sally Levit

    D'Ann Ressler

    Linda Rogers

    Sue Rohrer

    Deborah Sowers

    Loree Strickler

    Joan Tollinger

    Milta Vega