Strategic Planning 2007/2008 Accomplishments

Our accomplishments for our goals:

• Increasing the Awareness of Library Resources and Services to Enhance the Quality of Research at All Levels of the University
• Integrate Information Literacy Programs into the Curriculum and Learning Management Systems
• Improve and Modernize Facilities and Plan for Future Space Needs
• Develop New Collection Paradigms, including Open Access and Digital Initiatives
• Services-related Accomplishments

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Increasing the Awareness of Library Resources and Services to Enhance the Quality of Research at All Levels of the University

• The library co-sponsored the following authors as part of the Hyde Living Writers Series: Cecile Pineda on September 19th 2007; Lorna Dee Cervantes on November 8th 2007; and Galway Kinnell on November 14th 2007.
• Special Collections and University Archives created an exhibit featuring the activities of the Works Progress Administration on the SDSU campus during the Depression, called "Snapshot of an Era: Uncovering Our New Deal Past," which is displayed in the Donor Hall and in Special Collections November 27, 2007- May 30, 2008.
• Materials from the YWCA collection were exhibited on two occasions in celebration of the Centennial of the YWCA. In March, 2008 the collection was exhibited before 1,500 people at the San Diego Convention Center for the YWCA's "In the Company of Women" annual celebration.
• Monograph Cataloging, Serials Cataloging, Government Publications & Maps, and our Innovative System Analyst completed a tremendously complicated outsourcing project that brought approximately 90% of our 1.5 million bibliographic records up to current standards of authority control and indexing. The project also increased the number of authority records from 280,000 to 950,000. These allow for more automated quality control by our local catalog software, and provide an additional 1.9 million cross references in the catalogís public interface. The total enhancements from this database clean-up project provide patrons with much more comprehensive, accurate and reliable search results.
  
• After the completion of the database clean-up project, Monograph Cataloging instituted a monthly outsourcing service for authority control work for all new cataloging.
  
• Monograph Acquisitions and Monograph Cataloging expanded outsourcing of cataloging and book labeling work to include another 25% of the books purchased annually; this brings outsourcing coverage to approximately 50% of all newly published books added to the collections each year.
• Monograph Cataloging cataloged many of Special Collection's processed archival collections, and added this work to its routine workflow; the department also caught up with the entire backlog of published monographic materials, began work on manuscript materials, and completed work for Special Collectionsí reorganization of its stacks.
  
• Monograph Cataloging completed cataloging for approximately 5,000 music compact discs received as a gift during 2005-2007.
  
• Government Publications & Maps continued to make good progress with cataloging U.S. federal and California state publications that have been on our public shelves for years (in many cases, decades) but not in our catalog.
  
• American music expert Michael Lasser presented an evening of Depression-era music on March 13. Lasser is a co-author of the book Americas Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley, as well as the host of Fascinatin' Rhythm, a nationally syndicated public radio program.
  
• In conjunction with the unveiling of the "NRA Packages" mural in the Library, Special Collections and University Archives created a small display of materials detailing the history and restoration of this important artwork. Also on view are University Archives photos of four additional murals painted in 1936 under the direction of Everett Gee Jackson.
  
• Special Collections created a splendid exhibit showcasing items from its historic astronomy collection for the 41st California International Antiquarian Book Fair in Los Angeles, last month. The display was one of the more notable for the fair's special exhibit, Great Books from Great Institutions, which presented treasures from the special collections of Southern Californias university libraries. Special Collections at SDSU was the only CSU special collections department represented at the fair, one of the world's premier antiquarian book exhibitions.
• NRA Packages, a WPA-era mural by Genevieve Burgeson Bredo, has been returned to the university after having been professionally conserved and restored. This mural, formerly in the old campus library (now called Hardy Tower), joins the newly installed painting by Lowell Houser in Reference Services. The official unveiling of the mural will be on Friday, March 7.
• On November 27 2007, Special Collections unveiled Snapshot of an Era: Uncovering our New Deal Past, a major exhibit exploring the genesis of the university campus and the development of San Diego during the New Deal, a foundational time in the history of San Diego and San Diego State University. Using archival photographs, institutional records, memorabilia and other primary resources, the exhibit highlights the impact of various New Deal programs on the physical campus environment, and on student life during the 1930s.
• The library will again be co-sponsoring the Hugh Hyde Living Writers Series with English and Comparative Literature. The March readings will take place at 7pm in LA2203: March 4 poet Margo Berdeshevsky; March 12 Peter Pereira; March 18 Henri Cole; and March 26 Mary Duncan.
• Mark Stover became the new Assistant University Librarian for Research Services, as of August 1, 2007.
• Produced updated brochures and bookmarks about Library services for Fall 2007.
• Produced new Special Collections & University Archives brochure for Fall 2007.
• Revamped and expanded the Strategic Planning web pages on Infodome during the fall.
• During the fall, an article "Potter Perspectives: The Magical World of Children's Literature" which was featured on the SDSU home page for a number of weeks. It highlighted faculty from SDSU's National Center for the Study of Children's Literature and the division of Library and Information Access.
• Special Collections enjoyed another successful experience at the 38th annual Comic-Con International Convention held July 25-29 at the San Diego Convention Center. Over 125,000 attended the convention, the largest of its kind in the world. By generous donation, nearly 80 titles were added to the department's comics collection, which focuses on drawn books, independents, underground and small press publications. Highlights at the Special Collections booth included appearances and signings by comic artists Mary Fleener and the renowned Scott Shaw!
• Special Collections has acquired the historical records of the YWCA of San Diego County. The archives document the YWCA's 100-year history addressing the challenges of homelessness, domestic violence, childcare needs, poverty, fair housing and civil rights. The collection includes over 60 linear feet of administrative and financial records, organizational histories, newsletters and public relations materials, oral histories, photographs and other media. The YWCA has also donated $10,000 towards the processing and preservation of the collection.
• Special Collections recently received a wonderful donation of the 1949 Bibliotheque Francaise publication of Carmen, by Prosper Merimee, illustrated with 38 drypoint line engravings by Picasso. The 163-page folio is copy 200 of 320 and includes a title and justification page signed by Picasso. The San Diego donor commented that this remarkable work of art and letters reveals Òwhat Picasso could show with a single line.Ó
• The library hosted a reading by local author Steve Kowit on Thursday, October 4. Kowit is the author of several books of poetry and has published a guide to writing poetry. He has won numerous awards for his work and his poetry collection, The Dumbbell Nebula, was selected as a Notable Book of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle. This reading is part of the Hyde Living Writers Series co-sponsored with the English department.
• The library hosted a reading by William Luvaas on October 17. Luvaas is a creative writing lecturer and recent recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellowship grant to finish his forthcoming novel, Dead Weight, and a collection of short stores, A Working Man's Apocrypha. This reading is part of the Hyde Living Writers Series co-sponsored with the English department.
• The library announced the Adams Endowment Committee has recently approved their continued support for the "Oral History" project in the amount of $5,000 for the next fiscal year.
• An article featuring the work of Acting Director of Development Gloria Rhodes was posted on SDSUniverse. As the former outreach librarian, she led the charge in increasing awareness and support for libraries by organizing and providing tours and presentations, in an effort to highlight and market the importance and uniqueness of libraries. In her new position, Gloria continues those efforts by encouraging friends, supporters of the library and the community-at-large to donate funds which will be used to purchase materials that will offer our patrons a variety of research options.
• Special Collections has acquired a scrapbook of original drawings by the American early modernist painter Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1890-1973). The drawings are figure studies for Macdonald-Wright's extensive mural cycle, Invention and Imagination, executed in 1934-35 for the new Santa Monica Public Library. Invention and Imagination explores the two-fold artistic and technological development of humanity, and it summarized Macdonald-Wright's vision of art's function and future. He was hired to paint the mural cycle under the federal government's Public Works of Art Project, predecessor to the WPA's Federal Art Project. Selected drawings from the scrapbook will be on display in the near future.
• The library co-sponsored a presentation by poet Carolyne Wright on December 4. Ms. Wright has published eight books and chapbooks of poetry, a collection of essays, and three volumes of poetry translated from Bengali and Spanish. This reading is part of the Hyde Living Writers Series co-sponsored with the English department.
• The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation has awarded the library with a $10,000 grant to be used in the restoration/conservation process of the WPA era murals.
• The English faculty open house on April 10 was an outreach event to showcase the breadth and variety of the holdings of Special Collections, and to give faculty a chance to explore the many options for instruction using Special Collections materials. In conjunction with displays featuring the Elizabethans, the Romantics, the Victorians, the Realists, the Modernists, the Twentieth Century, Children's Literature, and Science Fiction, we demonstrated new collections and access tools, discussed collections relevant to faculty research, and built new relationships for collaboration.
• The Department of Special Collections held a Faculty Open House for the School of Art, Design and Art History on January 31. The displays focused in Art History, Printmaking, Book Arts, Graphic Design, History of Photography, and Painting and Illustrations.
• Through May 23, we are hosting the traveling exhibit “The Mind of Krishnamurti: World Citizen, World Teacher” in partnership with the Departments of Philosophy and Religious Studies, the Common Experience program, the Charles Wei-hsun Fu Foundation, and the Krishnamurti Foundation of America. The exhibit coincides with the class PHIL 575: Krishnamurti offered by the Philosophy Department and helps to highlight a significant Krishnamurti archive held by Special Collections. The exhibit is on display in the Reference Services area. We are also grateful to the Krishnamurti Foundation for donating a number of original materials.
• The President's Leadership Fund has generously given a grant of $28,000 to Special Collections and University Archives to process several significant collections related to well-known African Americans in San Diego. In addition, the grant will pay for oral histories, physical and virtual exhibits, and a culminating celebration during Black History Month in February 2009.

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Integrate Information Literacy Programs into the Curriculum and Learning Management Systems

• The Library Website was revised based on user feedback to include 100 research guides to help students conduct library research.
• A Quicktime tour of the Library was produced and released on YouTube August 24, 2007.
• Pamela Jackson has joined the Senate's Student Learning Outcomes committee and has had Information Literacy conversations with DUS' GE Curriculum committee.
• Library Educational Technology Chat (LETC) Brownbag Lunches were held in September, October and November.  They will resume Spring 2008.
• A newly adapted plagiarism tutorial is now available online at SDSU and we are beginning a soft roll-out for spring 2008 (http://infotutor.sdsu.edu/plagiarism/index.cfm?LINK=infotutor)
• We are using subject course pages to create custom guides (COM 103, RWS, JMS) with share/rss capability for easy posting in Blackboard. (http://infoguides.sdsu.edu/courses.php)
• Training sessions on the use of clickers have been offered for library faculty and staff.  Support guides and a question database have been created.
• Re-established contact with campus stakeholders--Communication 103 and University Seminar.
• A YouTube Channel for the library, announced in February 2008, will host library-related videos.
• Pamela Jackson received a 1.5 year grant to explore the library's role in the virtual world, Second Life.
• A new online sign up system for library instruction sessions was put into place in January 2008.
• Continued progress has been made on the screencasting tutorials (Captivate video tutorials that demonstrate the use of our online resources).
• A new library tab was added to all Blackboard courses.  This tab currently links to our 'students' page but we are working on customizing the content.
• Librarians Patrick Sullivan and Wil Weston have continued to work with Career Services to integrate the library.
• Multiple instructional handouts have been revised to make the information more current and relevant to students.  Standardized handouts are available to assist library liaisons in their teaching and outreach efforts.
• The library continues to maintain a presence on MySpace and added a presence on Facebook in January 2008.
• The Library and Information Access and the SDSU Course Design Institute will partner and send librarians Pamela Jackson, Carolyn Baber, Keven Jeffery, and Ellie Dworak to an intensive 4-day conference on developing faculty learning communities at The Claremont Colleges in June. Also attending are faculty and staff from Instructional Technology Services and academic departments. Our participation in this conference recognizes the important skills librarians bring to transforming teaching and learning at SDSU. In the coming year, these representatives will explore faculty learning communities as a new way of working together in more productive collaborations.

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Improve and Modernize Facilities and Plan for Future Space Needs

• The library began a new food and drink policy that allows patrons to eat and drink in specified areas.
• More outlets and tables for laptop users were added in the Reference Services area near the Maps section in August.
• New more effective signage was unveiled throughout the Library's two buildings September 4th, along with our Library brand on the entry doors of the dome.
• As part of the campus RITP2 Wireless project, the Library saw its wireless access points increased from 8 to 20, with some of them having the flexibility to handle A, B, and G wireless form factors, during September. This provided better wireless coverage throughout our buildings

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Develop New Collection Paradigms, including Open Access and Digital Initiatives

• In June 2007, the library purchased and installed Luna, a digital asset management software package.
• More than 11,000 photographs from the University Archives Photograph Collection have been digitized. As of mid-February, 1600 of these photographs have metadata which describe the photos and provide access. Creation of metadata for the remaining photographs is progressing.
• Thirty-eight Department of Geological Sciences theses and the associated maps have been digitized and are being prepared for a repository.
• Special Collections digitally recorded its first oral history as part of the "Oral History" project funded by the Adams Humanities Endowment. Access to this oral history has been greatly improved since it can be made available online via the Library's Digital Archives (Luna) project. Previously completed oral histories will be digitized with the same equipment and made easily accessible via the Luna project.
• Special Collections and University Archives launched the Finding Aid Database, making over 170 finding aids fully keyword-searchable.
• The library revised its policies and began adding more electronic books to the collection. This will allow patrons to access materials remotely.
• Monograph Cataloging and the Digital Collections Librarian began work on the metadata components of the new digitization program. This includes determining local standards for record structure and content, and production of metadata records to form catalogs for specific digitized collections.
• Keven Jeffery is the new digital technologies librarian, as of July 30, 2007.
• The Digital Initiatives Steering Committee (DISC) was formed in Fall 2007. This committee is charged with gathering information on possible digital projects, selecting and prioritizing digital projects, seeking funding, coordinating implementation groups, assessing progress, and reporting back to Library Council.

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Services-related Accomplishments

• Carol Phillips and Mark Figueroa have assumed more responsibility in Information Systems and Technology. Their work should improve communications with the library and help IST and the library move toward important strategic goals identified by both the Information Literacy and New Collection Paradigms strategic planning groups.

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