University Library Committee Annual Report, 2013-2014
Membership
Schools (three)
Ronald Wakimoto, Ecosystem & Conservation Sciences (Chair)
Emily Plant, Management
Margaret Baldridge, Music
Steve Shen, Missoula College
Humanities (One)
Bridget Clarke, Philosophy
Sciences (One)
George Stanley, Geosciences
Social Sciences (One)
Lois Muir, Psychology
Mansfield Library (Two)
Barry Brown
Tammy Ravas
2015
2015
2016
2016
2014
2016
2014
2015
2014
Staff (One;One-year terms)
Andi Armstrong
Student /Undergraduate (Two, one-year term)
Ryan Hazen
Student /Graduate (One, one-year term)
Mark Triana
Ex-Officio (Non-voting)
Shali Zhang, Library Dean
During the academic year, the ULC meets on the second Monday of each month, 4:10-5:00 pm,
in the Dean’s Conference Room in the Mansfield Library (except on the first Monday in
December and May if necessary).
The ULC is open to hear all concerns and questions from the faculty and the campus community
regarding the Mansfield Library (or the ULC): please contact its chair, or come to one of the
meetings.
More information about the ULC can be found on the committee website,
http://www.umt.edu/facultysenate/main/Library.htm.
Committee Membership
The Committee’s membership was revised to include an additional member to assure
representation from the Missoula College. The revision required an amendment to the Faculty
Senate Bylaws. These were approved by the Faculty Senate on March 13th (appendix 1).
Operations items

Budget
The committee was provided with the collections budget in October (appendix 2). Existing
database and journal subscriptions were cut due to the FY 2014 budget reductions. Usage
statistics were primarily used to determine which materials to cancel. Fiscal Year 2014 began
with a library base budget reduction of $360,000 which was applied to the Collections
Budget. Additionally, instead of receiving an expected inflationary increase of 8% to the
Collections Budget there was an increase of less than 4%. This essentially resulted in an
additional base reduction of $221,000. The impact of those reductions was communicated to
the campus during the summer and early fall semester. In December there was a temporary
freeze on the library’s purchasing, but it was lifted after a few days. In FY 2014, the library
experienced additional one time only reductions of $363,876, including $277,000 from the
Collections Budget (this came out of Digitization, Collection Utilities, and Monograph and
Media acquisitions). Altogether, these reductions have resulted in a collections budget
decrease of over 10% compared to the previous year. UM’s library collections budget is now
substantially below MSU’s which it has historically been higher than.
The library is also working to plan for next year’s budget cuts. The main cut will be from
collections given the library’s small operating budget. Significant cancellations of existing
resources will need to occur.
The University Library Committee approved a resolution to take to the Faculty Senate at the
May meeting requesting the administration not cut the library budget proportionately more
than other academic instruction departments (appendix 3).

Strategic Planning
The library started its three-year strategic planning process in fall 2013. Strategic plan will
assist the library to make strategic priorities which reflect the UM 2020 Strategic Goals,
guide the library on numerous major initiatives to enhance services and programs to UM
students and faculty, collaborate with campus units, libraries beyond the UM system, and
better allocations of limited resources. During the process, UM students, faculty, staff, and
administrators were invited to participate in the open orientation sessions, focus group
sessions, and public presentation sessions throughout the process. The final version of the
library’s Strategic Plan is available at (http://www.lib.umt.edu/files/STP-document-finaldraft_0.pdf)

ScholarWorks
The committee was provided with an information session on Scholar Works, a platform that
stores, showcases and provides access to scholarly works by UM faculty and students
including published articles, theses, dissertations, presentations, performances, and
conferences. ScholarWorks serves as an institutional repository platform for UM. It
optimizes the searchability and discoverability of the materials, provides reliable citations
and monthly reports that show how often materials are viewed and downloaded. This
platform was launched in fall 2013. Since then, over 8,000 items were made available to
researchers worldwide who have douwnloaded papers over 50,000 times.

Common MUS Discovery Tool
An outcome of the State-wide Academic Library Symposium, an annual event organized by
the UM and MSU libraries, was for campuses in the UM system including SKC, and St.
Patrick Hospital to decide on the use of a common Discovery Tool for finding library
resources. Both UM and MSU system libraries are implementing this new discovery tool
since January 2014. The public access to the federated search platform will be available on
July 1.

The Deans of MSU and UM Libraries, representing good wills from each library system,
collaborated on a joint legislative funding request for an integrated library system. It has
been submitted to the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education to be considered for
the Board of Regents’ priorities for the legislative session in 2015.

Three library faculty members were awarded grants. Dona McCrea, Head of Archives and
Special Collections, received a $6,000 NIH grant to assist with preservation; Julie Edwards
received a grant of $4,300 from Humanities Montana to bring a national exhibit to campus in
October. There will be a press release and associated lectures. Karen Jaskar, Assistant
Professor, was awarded IMLS funding to participate in Research Design in Librarianship at
the Loyola Marymount University Library.

Two issues of the library’s newsletter, Connections, have been published as a way to
recognize donors since July 2013.

The library has purchased new tables and chairs with gift funds for the Poetry Corner and the
Theta Rho Room to create additional quite study space in response to student comments.
There is a trend for students to work in groups and talk loud. The existing study rooms need
upgrades so the sound does not carry.
Outreach

The library invited International Programs Office Director, Paulo-Zagalo-Melo and
Disability Services for Students Director, Amy Capolupo to meet with the Library faculty
and staff to discuss their services and how the library can better serve international students
and students with disabilities. Director Paulo-Zagalo-Melo recommended a reference book to
guide the library. The scanner has a function that adds Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
to PDF documents.

There are 600-800 veteran students at the University. The Library invited the Veteran’s
Education and Transition Services Office (VETS Office) to present a panel, “Student
veterans: Academic transitions & library services,” with discussion to help raise awareness
and identify ways to better serve the veteran students. According to a recent survey the
library is the second campus facility visited most often by student veterans. Sue Samson
works with the VETS Office to provide information sessions to student veterans.

The library invited a Native American Storyteller to help increase awareness and sensitivity
when serving Native American Students.
Events and Exhibits

In February the library had exhibits located throughout the main level focused on the
achievements of African Americans to celebrate African American History Month.

The Library has both physical (Archives, level 4) and online “Women in Montana Politics”
exhibits. There were two events related to the exhibits. On March 12thDian Sands, women’s
history scholar and former Montana State representative gave a lecture and on March 26th the
Leading the Way: Montana Woman Suffrage and the Struggle for Equal Citizenship".

Exhibits opened with a UM Women’s Chorus performance. These events were entered on
the University events calendar.

On April 14th the library collaborated in hosting one of a 3 part session on Creative Research
in conjunction with Innovation and Imagination activities coordinated by the Vice President
of Research and Creative Scholarship. The library also sponsored a music performance at the
reception of II 2014. The library participated in the 2014 Service Learning Colloquium on
March 6th. Professor Stark gave a session on bridging academic information and service
environment.
Appendix 1
Faculty Senate Bylaw Amendment - University Library
Committee 3/13/14
SECTION III.
COMMITTEES
A. Standing Committees of the Faculty Senate
5. University Library Committee
a. Membership
The University Library Committee consists of nine eight faculty members, three students,
one member of the Staff Senate, and the Dean of the Libraries or the Dean's designee (exofficio and non-voting). Departmental library representatives are encouraged to
participate on this Committee and shall be given nomination preference. One faculty
member each shall be from the humanities, science, social science, and the Missoula
College, two faculty members shall be from the Library Faculty, and three shall be
chosen from the remaining professional schools.
b. Responsibilities



Communication: The University Library Committee (ULC) communicates between
the Faculty Senate and the library administration.
Advocacy: The ULC advocates on behalf of the development and maintenance of
library resources and services as well as the needs of library stakeholders, including
faculty, students and staff, especially as communicated through the Faculty
Senate. Additionally, the committee reviews library matters as they relate to the
University’s academic mission.
Review: The ULC reviews the annual library acquisitions budget and strategic
plan. The committee participates in the selection and periodic evaluations of the
Dean of Libraries. The committee also participates in the accreditation processes
affecting or involving the Mansfield Library.
Rationale
The University Library Committee is advisory to the Mansfield Library. It communicates,
advocates, and reviews information with the needs of various stakeholders in mind. The
Missoula College has a separate library location managed by the Mansfield Library. The
Missoula College has a two –year mission and attracts a student population with different
needs. A representative from the Missoula College will assure that these needs are represented
during Committee discussions.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
Appendix 2
Mansfield Library Collections Budget: FY2013 and FY2014 - Two Year Comparison (10/14/13)
FY 2013
FY 2014
Total Materials Budget = $5,010,076
Total Materials Budget = $4,826,680
Collection Categories:
Collection Categories
Databases & Ejournals = $3,462,358
Databases & Ejournals = $3,349,434
Serials (paper subscriptions) = $231,360
Serials (paper subscriptions) = $237,752
Monographs & Media = $1,039,358
Monographs & Media = $905,188
Standing Orders = $119,880
Standing Orders = $81,688
Core Approval Plan = $300,000
Core Approval Plan = $220,000
Supplemental Fund = $228,528
Supplemental Fund = $182,400
Ebook Sub. & Econtent = $194,950
Ebook Sub. & Econtent = $245,100
Digitization Projects =
Digitization Projects =
$196,000
Collection Utilities = $272,000
Collection Utilities = $329,306
Binding = $5,000
Binding = $5,000
$176,000
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Appendix 3
University Library Committee’s Resolution
Whereas, the Faculty Senate recognizes that Mansfield Library collections and services serve as
essential parts of the University of Montana infrastructure for research and creative scholarship and are
also vital for a strong teaching and learning environment; and
Whereas, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities Accreditation Standard 2.E
requires the institution to provide access to library and information resources with an appropriate level
of currency, depth, and breadth to support the institution’s mission, core themes, programs, and
services; and
Whereas, the library, as an academic unit, is critical to student academic success; and
Whereas, academic instruction has undergone significantly lower budget reductions than other
campus units in order to minimize direct harm to students and is anticipating a one percent reduction
for fiscal year 2015; and
Whereas, the library has been required to reduce its budget disproportionately to other
academic units this year and is anticipating a base budget cut of eight percent next year; and
Whereas, the cost of academic library resources typically increases at a rate of 6-8% annually
and providing inflationary increases to the library collections budget are necessary in order to maintain
current subscriptions to journals, indexes, databases and other continuing resources; and
Whereas, in addition to base budget cuts the Dean of Libraries has been told to anticipate
receiving no inflationary allocation for fiscal year 2015 (which results in an additive four percent budget
cut for a total base budget cut of 12% in fiscal year 2015); and
Whereas, the effects of large funding rescissions on academic library resources are compounded
each year and necessitate the cancellation of resources (see list of planned cancellations for FY 2015); and
Whereas, the ASUM Senate has passed a similar resolution supporting the library;
Therefore, Let it Be it Resolved, that the Faculty Senate asks the President, Provost, and Vice
President for Administration and Finance to not cut the library budget proportionately more than other
academic instruction departments; and
Therefore, Let it Be it Further Resolved, that the Faculty Senate asks the President, Provost, and
Vice President for Administration and Finance to provide adequate yearly inflationary increases to the
library collections budget.
Mansfield Library - Collections Budget – 3 Year Snapshot and Notes
FY 2012 Allocation = $4,641,551 (includes 8% Inflationary Increase)
No Rescissions
Net Collections Budget = $4,641,551
Impacts:
 Maintained existing resources
 Added significant new resources
Comparison: MSU Library Collections FY 2012 = $4.6 Million
FY 2013 Allocation = $5,010,076 (includes 8% Inflationary Increase)
Additional One Time Only Rescission of $141,544 after allocation
Net Collections Budget = $4,868,532
Impacts:
 Maintained existing resources
 No new subscription resources added
Comparison: MSU Library Collections FY 2013 = $4.9 Million
FY 2014 Allocation = $4,826,680 (Base budget decrease of $360,000; plus less than a 4% Inflationary
Increase)
Additional One Time Only Rescission of $277,000 after allocation
Net Collections Budget = $4,549,680
Impacts:
 No new subscription resources added
 Cancellation of some existing databases & journals (see list for FY 2014)
Comparison: MSU Library Collections FY 2014 = $5.3 Million
FY 2015 Allocation = $4,210,948 (Base budget decrease of $615,732; plus 0% Inflationary Increase)
Notes: The total library budget for FY 2014 was $7,696,533. A base budget reduction
for FY 2015 of $615,732 is 8% less. The expected 8% inflationary increase to the
collections budget would be $336,000. The loss of the inflationary increase is an
additional reduction of 4% for a total library base budget reduction of 12%.
Impacts:
• No new subscriptions or large electronic resource acquisitions
• No new electronic journal backfiles
• Large reduction of monograph and media acquisitions
• Large reduction of digitization projects
• Substantial reduction in the number of current databases & journals
Comparison: Expected MSU Library Collections FY 2015 = $5.6 Million