Review of 2007-2012 Strategic Plan
Submitted by: Special Collections and Archives Department
Develop, implement, and maintain user-driven services that are responsive, highly
collaborative, and broad-based to meet diverse user needs.
Goals
Identify, implement and continuously assess user-driven services.
Employ the most appropriate and effective pedagogy and continuous collaboration with
faculty to improve information literacy skills.
Understand the evolving information needs of both local and remote users and respond with
the most appropriate and effective delivery modes and technologies.
Implement staffing and training that will provide optimal information services to all users.
Raise awareness of AU Libraries’ services and resources through effective and innovative
public relations and marketing initiatives.
Special Collections & Archives raised awareness of the department’s resources through
a variety of public exhibits mounted by the department and based upon our holdings.
These included a display of historic English translations of the Bible to mark the 400th
anniversary of the King James Version; a collection of memorabilia left at Toomer’s
Corner following the recent poisoning of the live oak trees there; an exhibit of
photographs taken by the Cooperative Extension Service in rural Alabama during the
1920s; an exhibit of Alabama writer Kathryn Tucker Windham’s papers following her
death; and an exhibit regarding issues related to the First Amendment that arose at
Auburn. Some of the exhibits, such as those regarding the First Amendment and
historic English translations of the Bible, accompanied lectures hosted by Special
Collections & Archives. Several of them, including the Bibles, received attention in the
local media. The Toomer’s oaks exhibit created national media attention.
Objectives
Explore and implement the learning commons construct to provide the most effective formats
and technologies for reference, information literacy, document delivery and circulation
services.
Increase information literacy sessions to first-year University and upper level courses.
Host faculty seminars on information literacy outcomes for faculty and graduate teaching
assistants.
Participate in national standardized information literacy assessment to improve learning
outcomes.
Provide spaces and scheduling for effective interaction between subject specialists and
faculty, students and library colleagues.
Monitor virtual reference services to determine optimal staffing and software configurations.
Evaluate subject guides for usability and ADA compliance.
Develop informational sessions and materials on document delivery services.
Measures
Measure use, service quality and user satisfaction with services (e.g. LibQual+).
Measures of the use, service quality, and satisfaction with services in Special Collections
& Archives include the department’s ability to attract scholars involved in major, long
term research projects. During the past five years, these included an historian writing a
book on engineering education at Auburn University; a television producer gathering
information for a documentary film on World War II from the papers of Eugene B.
Sledge, an Auburn graduate and author of a widely-respected combat autobiography; a
researcher who subsequently published a biography of Auburn University’s George
Petrie; a doctoral candidate writing a dissertation on youth movements in Germany, the
United States, and the Soviet Union between World War I and World War II, with 4-H
clubs as his American model; and the authors of the University Libraries’ ceremonial
three millionth volume, a study of the British naturalist Philip Henry Gosse.
The quality of reference services offered by Special Collections & Archives also
attracted considerable use from administrators within Auburn University, the most
noteworthy being the offices of university counsel, the registrar, the provost, the
president, the board of trustees, student affairs, and alumni affairs. We also furnished
information regarding record retention and disposal policies and procedures to these
and scores of other university departments. Our administration of these policies and
procedures aids the entire university through the timely disposal of records with no
permanent value.
Auburn University faculty members likewise demonstrated satisfaction with the
services offered in Special Collections & Archives for teaching purposes. These included
faculty members and hundreds of their students enrolled in the survey of British
literature, Shakespeare, Chaucer, undergraduate and graduate courses in historical
methods, and classes concerned with historical preservation. Numerous history
undergraduates wrote their senior theses based in part upon source material in this
department. Graduate students in Auburn University’s archival training program also
did internships in Special Collections.
Benchmark services with similar institutions.
Conduct formal user studies to evaluate effectiveness of services.
Assess impact of library instruction activities on student learning.
Analyze user statistics including reference and gate counts.
Build and maintain a robust technological infrastructure that is responsive to the changing
needs of the Libraries’ users and employees and that will support increased flexibility in the
delivery of resources.
Goals
Improve resource discovery.
Evaluate and apply innovative learning technologies.
Support digital projects and new forms of scholarly communication.
Objectives
Extend the Libraries’ catalog by developing integrated interfaces that provide direct and
seamless access to library resources in diverse formats and from a variety of sources;
participate in collaborative open-source projects aimed at extending the OPAC and
developing new resource-discovery tools.
Improve the Libraries' web site and its tools and services.
Institute a program of regular usability testing for the web site and related services.
Incorporate library resources into Auburn University’s course management system.
Expand the Digital Resource Laboratory and integrate it with the projected Learning
Commons.
Work with faculty, students, and other campus units to develop, assess, and promote the
integration of technology used in teaching, learning, and research.
Experiment with podcasting and video podcasting for educational and instructional purposes;
participate in Auburn University’s podcasting initiative.
Set up a space —a “sandbox”— where librarians, students, and faculty members can
experiment with new information technologies.
Expand the libraries’ digital collections, adding at least one major collection each year; work
with faculty to promote the use of digital collections in teaching and research.
Special Collections & Archives worked with the University Libraries’ Systems
Department to create several online collections based upon our holdings. These
included a major addition to the online collection of Auburn University’s student
yearbook, the Glomerata; our student newspaper, the Auburn Plainsman; historic
Auburn University catalogs; minutes of the university’s board of trustees; set designs,
photographs, and other materials created by Auburn University’s Department of
Theater; an online version of our Civil War letters collection, in part to mark the 150th
anniversary of that conflict; and additions to the online version of the Discover Auburn
Lecture Series, planned and hosted by Special Collections & Archives, recorded by the
Systems Department, and made available through the Digital Library. These lectures
typically featured Auburn University faculty members discussing their research
interests. During the past five years, they included speakers from the departments of
English, history, agriculture, foreign languages, religion, political science, and biological
sciences. During 2012, the lectures consisted of a series of that featured Auburn
University faculty members and graduate students discussing various aspects of the
Civil War, in part to mark the sesquicentennial of that conflict.
Play a leading role in setting up a distributed digital preservation network for Alabama.
Work with other campus units to promote open-source scholarly-communication software.
Work with other campus units to set up an institutional repository for Auburn University,
starting with a database of electronic theses and dissertations.
Measures
Measure use, service quality and user satisfaction with technology services including the
Digital Resource Lab (e.g. LibQual+).
Benchmark technology with similar institutions.
Capture systems data to analyze use and effectiveness of information technology systems.
Build and sustain collections that support the university mission and provide convenient,
seamless access to information resources in optimal formats.
Goals
Identify research needs of scholarly programs at Auburn University and provide access to
supporting materials.
Build strong budgetary support for all library collections.
Improve access to resources through electronic description.
Provide access to unique local materials through innovative and ongoing digitization and
description initiatives.
Encourage partnering between Auburn University instructors, professors, students, and book
stores to promote student access to required texts and readings.
Create a preservation strategy for library collections.
Collect unique and rare materials that distinguish our Libraries and support the research and
teaching missions of Auburn University.
Special Collections & Archives added several noteworthy collections to the holdings of
the department, some with gift funds and some by direct donation. These included a
1600 Rheims New Testament, donated by an Auburn graduate; additions to the papers
of Auburn graduate and combat historian Eugene B. Sledge, donated by the Sledge
family; additions to the papers of Alabama writer Mary Ward Brown, donated by the
author; several items written by the nineteenth-century British naturalist Philip Henry
Gosse, who spent time in Alabama during the 1830s, purchased with gift funds;
donations and purchases of Civil War diaries and letters; additions to the papers of
World War I air combat ace Eddie Rickenbacker, acquired with the assistance of an
Auburn faculty member; several seventeenth and eighteenth-century volumes related
to natural history, donated by an Auburn faculty member; several recorded oral history
interviews and transcripts with Auburn faculty members, administrators, and alumni;
and a valuable original manuscript regarding the territorial stage in Alabama history,
donated by an Auburn graduate who serves on the University Libraries’ Development
Board.
Objectives
Increase faculty involvement in planning for Library support and funding for academic
programs and research needs.
Identify, evaluate and implement technology to move toward seamless access to electronic
resources.
Identify preservation needs in the collections and develop strategies to address them.
The University Libraries identified and addressed several preservation needs,
particularly in Special Collections & Archives. By monitoring temperature and
humidity levels in Special Collections & Archives, we documented the need for a more
stable environment and formulated several strategies for improvement. These included
a complete HVAC replacement and improving upon the existing system. The libraries
found a complete replacement cost-prohibitive for the time being, but gained the ear on
facilities regarding the issue. To address the storage practices for large volumes in
Special Collections & Archives, we installed additional shelving and adopted horizontal
storage in some cases. We choose shrink wrapping as a tactic to maintain degraded
volumes in the circulating collections and custom boxing for fragile rare items in Special
Collections & Archives. Finally, case studies in disaster response identified a need to
improve the libraries’ preparedness. We adopted a strategy of increased training and
diversified access for disaster response and recovery training. The University Libraries
disaster response and recovery plan is now available online.
Work with faculty to augment use of traditional and e-reserves to improve student access to
required readings and texts.
Identify collections needing enhanced access through digitization or electronic description.
Special Collections & Archives identified a number of rare or unique collections that
deserve enhanced access through digitization. These include a collection of letters
written by Confederate refugees who migrated to Brazil following the Civil War; the
papers of Nathan Bryan Whitfield, who during the 1830s migrated from South Carolina
to the Alabama Black Belt, where he built an empire of land, cotton, and slaves; sound
recordings and transcripts that document the National Democratic Party of Alabama, a
largely African-American organization active during the 1960s and 1970s; and the
papers of William LeRoy Broun, who served as president of what is now Auburn
University from the mid-1880s into the early twentieth century. Broun became a
regional and even national figure due to his advocacy of applied science education as a
component in rebuilding the South following the Civil War. We plan to digitize these
collections during the coming five years.
Assess, define and build multi-media services.
Measures
Measure user satisfaction with collections (e.g. LibQual+).
Benchmark collections with peer Libraries.
Capture systems data to analyze the use of electronic resources.
Analyze growth and use of collections including digital content.
Assess preservation strategy implementation progress.
Track level of resources available to the Subject Specialists for responding to user needs.
Redesign the Libraries’ space to provide a dynamic, comfortable learning environment that is
conducive to productivity, yet flexible enough to meet the varied needs of our staff and users.
Goals
Adapt the Library space to changing information needs by discerning trends, exploring
potential uses, and integrating new technologies for collaboration, learning and reflection.
In the wake of re-carpeting and painting, Special Collections & Archives rearranged its
public areas to make them more attractive, to improve access to exhibits, and to
improve access to printed materials related to the state of Alabama.
Plan for continued collection growth and services.
Develop a library space use plan with input from users and staff that makes the library the
destination of choice as the academic "third place."
Objectives
Update infrastructure to meet the changing needs of all library users.
Create an adaptable assembly and presentation space.
Create a comfortable and inviting environment conducive to collaboration and studying.
Build a presentation practice space.
Provide study areas for both group and individual study.
Re-evaluate the individual study carrel policy to optimize use.
Evaluate the possibility of providing secure temporary storage for use by patrons.
Examine signage and navigability throughout the library.
Evaluate and expand storage capacity.
Efficiently manage the collection as it affects physical space.
Re-evaluate workflow and physical space requirements of library departments to determine
optimum resource placement and utilization.
Measures
Measure use, quality and user satisfaction with facilities (e.g. LibQual+, formal user studies
and informal user survey activities).
Benchmark facilities with similar institutions.
Assess use and growth of space.
Recruit and retain well-trained, diverse and talented staff who are dedicated to the mission of
Auburn University and Auburn University Libraries and to the service of the Libraries’ users.
Goals
Promote the active participation of library faculty and staff in professional organizations and
programs.
During the past five years, a faculty member in Special Collections & Archives served as
president of the Society of Alabama Archives.
Maintain a positive work environment that supports and rewards faculty and staff originality,
development, commitment, diversity and achievement.
During the past five years, a faculty member in Special Collections & Archives won the
David B. Gracy Award of the Society of Georgia Archivists, a recognition given for the
best article published in the SGA’s refereed journal, Provenance.
Actively employ and train a student assistant workforce that is an asset to the AU Libraries.
Create an environment that encourages and supports professional development for both
faculty and staff.
Objectives
Provide appropriate information through e-mail and print about local, regional, and national
programs and professional organizations.
Provide job enhancement opportunities for faculty and staff.
Promote funding for appropriate ongoing learning, research, professional travel and
developmental activities.
Create an internal self-check on goals.
Assess user and staff feedback regarding student assistants.
Continuously improve student assistant training.
Provide all library employees with library career information.
Conduct and assess exit interviews.
Actively recruit for diversity and create programs that support the University’s diversity
strategic plan.
Measures
Measure use, service quality and user satisfaction with facilities and services (e.g. LibQual+).
Track diversity-related programs and outreach.
Measure employee satisfaction and morale via climate surveys.
Analyze hiring and staff retention.
Track attendance at leadership and supervisory programs and courses.
Track and evaluate programs and job enhancement opportunities offered to faculty and staff.