BUSWELL MEMORIAL LIBRARY
ANNUAL REPORT
30 JUNE 2014
Wendy Adams, Project Cataloger
Lavonne Albert, Acq./Processing Assistant
Magda Bonny, Resource Description Associate
Kara Burkett, Interlibrary Loan Assistant
Keith Call, Special Collections Assistant
Cheryl Grubb, Circulation Services Supervisor
Keith Eiten, Assistant Prof. Library Science
Adebola Fabiku, Interlibrary Loan Coordinator
Nancy Falciani-White, Assist. Prof. Library Science
Ron Fordham, Library I.T. Support Specialist
Nincy George, Resource Description Associate
Bethany Goodwin, E-Resources Assistant
Terry Huttenlock, Associate Prof. Library Science
Linda Joiner, Circulation Assistant Supervisor
David Malone, Associate Prof. Library Science
Connie Mead, Operations Group Leader
Jeffrey Mudge, Digital Initiatives Coordinator
Gregory Morrison, Assistant Prof. Library Science
Steve Oberg, Assistant Prof. Library Science
David Osielski, Special Collections Coordinator
Lisa Richmond, Director of Library and Archives
Becky Shields, Acquisitions/Gov. Doc. Assistant
Christa Strickler, Assistant Prof. Library Science
Laura Tomcik, Assistant Prof. Library Science
Oleg Tsymbalyuk, Library Systems Administrator
MISSION
As the shared center of intellectual inquiry at Wheaton College, Buswell Library’s mission is to build,
preserve, and promote the use of physical and virtual academic resources, foster skilled and confident
users of these resources, and promote community on the Wheaton campus.
HIGHLIGHTS & ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The library faculty and staff have completed another year of excellent contribution to the academic lives
of our students and faculty. This report includes only the most strategic of the many accomplishments
this year.
Advancing the Teaching Library
In keeping with our mission to foster skilled and confident library researchers, for the third consecutive
year we increased the number of instruction sessions we taught, in partnership this year with eighteen
academic departments. We also increased the number of reference transactions (one-on-one
assistance) by ten percent over last year.
A primary goal of the library faculty this coming year is to write and launch a “curriculum” that can be
used in conjunction with departments’ existing credit-based courses or separately via online modules.
We are basing our curriculum on the new “Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education”
project of the Association of College and Research Libraries.
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The scope of this curriculum will extend beyond finding information only; it will be designed to equip
students holistically with the knowledge and skills they need to engage in scholarship appropriate to
their level. Our planning is in the initial stages, but we have provisionally adopted the following learning
outcomes:
Wheaton College graduates will:
 Understand and navigate the diversity and complexity of the contemporary information
environment
 Engage in scholarship as a conversation
 Practice research as inquiry
 Understand that human authority is contextual, and evaluate sources accordingly
 Demonstrate that searching is exploratory
 Understand and demonstrate the ethical use of information
Advancing Collections and Access
This has been a very strong year for collection access. Buswell Library continues to undergo rapid
changes as we move into an increasingly digital environment, and the behind-the-scenes work involved
in making digital resources accessible continues to increase. As we shift attention to digital resources,
we have completed the process of transferring much of our routine cataloging of print materials to an
outside vendor. We will continue to dedicate attention to cataloging research-level collections and
special collections.
The trajectory of our annual usage statistics demonstrates that our campus community continues to
slowly decrease the use of print material and rapidly increase the use of material delivered
electronically. This year we completed the transition of journal subscriptions to online format where
available and desired; we now supply over 6,000 journals online and only about 500 in print. We greatly
increased our e-books holdings. We implemented numerous improvements to making e-resources much
more findable.
Our faculty and students continue to receive great benefit from Buswell’s participation in the
Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries of Illinois. A primary benefit is I-Share, the joint catalog
of print holdings, and the resource-sharing it enables. Fully thirty percent of Buswell’s print holdings are
unique to I-Share, meaning that none of the other eighty-six participating institutions own a copy of the
item.
Another significant accomplishment this year was the creation of a new library website, which aligns
more closely with the college site and provides valuable new features and information. We brought
numerous improvements to interlibrary loan, which continues to be a heavily used service. We assisted
Honey Rock in greatly improving the Honey Rock library space.
Promoting Community
Part of our mission is to help promote community on the Wheaton campus. In addition to continuing
our faculty book discussions in the library café, we partnered with other units on campus to host a
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poetry reading, a graduate school poster session, and senior art exhibitions. We hosted a “research
package” show-and-tell, at which graduate students demonstrated to one another how they use various
free or low-cost digital tools to organize their academic work. We revised our annual presentation to
new faculty, and the accompanying coffee break / “meet your subject librarian” session was particularly
well received.
Assessment and Marketing
We have established a new assessment program for the library, so that we can base our planning and
decision-making on the best available evidence. We are actively assessing the data provided by the
student survey that we conducted in the spring. We are making collection-development decisions based
on how our resources are being used. We have also moved forward significantly in the area of library
promotion and marketing. We have settled on three messages or themes that we are communicating.
We want our faculty and students to associate Buswell with being 1) friendly and approachable, 2) a
place of knowledge and expertise, and 3) a place where people can discover, create, and innovate.
GOALS
The library faculty and staff have established the following priorities for the 2014–15 year:

Teaching Library Identity and Promoting Student Success
o Write and launch an information literacy curriculum
o Explore ways to better understand and serve graduate student needs
o Explore ways, perhaps in collaboration with other campus units, to enhance
undergraduate students’ academic and computer skills
o Explore partnership with Academic & Media Technology re Blackboard
o Explore library contribution to the Institute for Faith and Vocation

Building Enhancement and Planning
o Write provisional program statement for future library facility
o Create ad hoc team to explore and recommend improvements to existing facility
(lighting, temperature, power outlets, noise zoning)

Technological and/or Process Enhancements
o Complete the implementation of the YBP shelf-ready project
o Prepare for transition to WorldCat Discovery
o Explore options for institutional repository and/or digital publishing platform
o Explore demand-driven acquisitions and approval plans
o Integrate Special Collections content into main library web site; clearly communicate the
relationship between Buswell and SC, Wade, and BGC Archives
CONCERNS
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The library is experiencing a continued increase in the use of pay-per-view journal article delivery, with
more than 7,000 articles downloaded this year. (According to this model, the library pays for each article
that a user downloads, rather than subscribing to the journal itself.) We began experimenting with this
model of delivery several years ago, as a means of saving money while greatly increasing access to
journal content. We are uncertain how the increasing usage and thus increasing cost will affect our
acquisitions budget in the coming year.
One effect of the increasing technology and digitization of the academic library is that more and more of
our acquisitions budget is dedicated to subscriptions or other large commitments, sometimes extending
across multiple-year contracts. This reduces the flexibility of our budget and our ability to absorb annual
changes in funding that may be less than we requested from the college.
Another effect of technology is that almost all staff positions now require fairly sophisticated technology
skills. As positions come open, we are making these skills a hiring priority and in some cases are finding
that we do not have an adequate pool of applicants. For similar reasons, our historical reliance on
student workers is becoming more problematic. There are few tasks that remain purely clerical or
physical in nature. The recruitment and training effort is considerable. Federal work-study funding was
greatly reduced this past year, adding to our staffing challenge.
Lack of growth space for physical collections remains a concern. Both last year and this year we selected
about as many volumes to withdraw as we added. We continue to plan for a full implementation of a
Learning Commons as part of a new or expanded building.
STAFF DEVELOPMENTS
The library faculty and staff engaged in numerous professional development activities this year, making
them more knowledgeable and capable contributors to the library’s mission. The librarians continue to
strengthen their faculty identity both on and off campus. Two librarians served on Faculty Council this
year. We contributed to the library profession in these ways:
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Terry Huttenlock and David Malone published an article, “Proving Value and Improving Practice:
Using System Data to Analyze User Behaviors.” College & Undergraduate Libraries, 20:3–4 (Sept.
2013), 366–85.
Terry Huttenlock and Nancy Falciani-White co-presented a paper at the New Directions in
Information Fluency conference at Augustana College in April: “Letting the Data Speak:
Unintended Correlation of Two Studies.”
Lisa Richmond presented a paper at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of
Professional Academic Librarians, held at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in
May: “Information as a Problem for Human Freedom: Jacques Ellul’s Contribution to Library
Science.”
Gregory Morrison presented a paper with a colleague from Calvin College at the American
Theological Library Association annual conference in June, on the history of faith and learning at
Wheaton and Calvin.
David Malone served as president of LIBRAS, the consortium of liberal-arts college libraries in
the Chicago area.
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