Summary of Discussions – Retreat Outcomes

  1. Perfect academic library?
    Spaces facilitate learning
    Library fosters collaboration
    Library is hub of academic life
    Easy to use
    Focused on services not collections/computers
    Library services linked to curriculum/teaching
    Preserves information for the future
    Embedded
    Safe
    Flexible
    Welcoming
    Willing to experiment
    Library makes connections
  2. Challenges we will face in achieving this ideal?
    Retirements – loss of expertise
    Retirements – making right decisions and hiring for the future
    Developing skills in staff
    Professional identity of librarians
    Defining meaning of a library
    Protecting space for library
    Online competitors
    Students lacking even basic information literacy skills
    Defining information literacy (within libraries and to external audience)
    Giving up legacy issues/work
    Articulating the value of libraries
    Communicating better (internally and to external audience)
    Instability in the publishing world
    Diversity in technical skills of library users (technical literacy)
    Inherent conservatism of the academy
    Future of discovery systems
    Funding for libraries
    Copyright – need to push limits of fair use
    Information silos
    Calcified administrative structures/roles for librarians and staff
    Vendors – not always our partners
    Problems with sustainability of the business model for scholarship – link to changing landscape for tenure-track positions
  3. Single most important thing we need to address in the next 5 years?
    Information literacy integration into the curriculum (27)
    Organize staff and budget competitively for the present and future (not past) (19)
    Leverage human resources and succession planning (18)
    Build a flexible support structure to enable change (16)
    Communicate library value to University’s learning /research missions (15)
    Agree on core service (15)
    Improve management, access, and discovery of digital resources (13)
    Embedded library: sustainability, discoverability, seamless, long terms preservation, fair use, proactive (13)
    Ensure CCL students have same access to services/resources as UP students- need level playing field with equitable technology and resources  (13)
    Improve content delivery mechanisms and systems (12)
    Consumer model of education – prove value when dealing in intangibles (11)
    Create buy-in for new staffing and service models (11)
    Access/discoverability and more technology, deeper collections, more languages (11)
    Alignment with teaching, learning, and research in a global environment (proactive, collaborative, entrepreneurial) and focused on continuous assessment (11)
    Deal with internal and external competing interests for library space (10)
    Human resources/workforce – planning for next generation (diversity, training) (10)
    Collaboration and diversification broadly (7)
    Preserve and archive research outputs of PSU and purchased resources for ongoing access  (7) 

Discussion of directions

What programs/services will we offer? – seems to be agreement we want to be part of teaching mission of the University, we’re involved in discovery of information as well as its preservation, but we need to agree on what it most important and central to our mission going forward

How will we do it? – not on our own. We want partnerships (internal and external) and we want to evolve. We also need resources (money, space, technology, etc.)

Who will do it? – There is a human resources dimension with an aging workforce, changing work for librarians and staff

Why does it matter? – Agreement on need to demonstrate our value, create metrics that make sense to us

What we do must be set within this framework:

Sustainable

Ethical – and promotes integrity

Embraces diversity

Capable of being assessed

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