Dean's Blog Fall AY15

Welcome to our new academic year!  
And, as I have done in past years, I will organize this fall AY ‘15 blog post to update last year’s posts in order to more carefully track progress and completion of our projects.

This time last year we were holding our own with enrollment only slightly lower in some areas; however, this fall we can say that we have a slight increase in our enrollment which is great news. But – like last year – we continue to be busy in IRT/Library Services. And – also as usual – our students continue to use our research resources online and print resources (reserves, circulation and reference) to complete assignments as well as for lifelong learning and information and research for personal needs. 

It goes without saying that this last year was an incredibly busy one for us and each of you contributed immensely to our success! In reviewing last year’s “to do” list here’s where we stand/here’s what you’ve done (in italics.)

• Authentication of all IRT and library public service computers

We spent our first year “authenticated” and – I feel like a six-year-old here – IRT did it “all by ourselves” thanks to Melanie and Marc’s hard work! Both actual and anecdotal data show a decrease in guest/non-ACC student problems as well as access issues in problems in general and printing -although still incredibly high – shows signs of lessening. As of now, all IRT areas are authenticated and the college has chosen to use IRT’s solution in the Highland Accelerator. While I don’t know whether or not we are moving (or will ever move) to a complete profile-driven sign on, having a sign-on at all is critical for the delivery of our resources to our current ACC students, faculty and staff. 

• Completed Elgin – opened Monday, August 26th, 2013

Elgin is open, operating a full year and – at least for the moment - is bug and bat free. Well, not exactly – we’ve had a few bats but not as many as the 16 we had last year! Elgin staff are busy keeping the Elgin wildlife at bay, meeting the needs of Elgin students and working with area high school students who are also ACC students as well as those who want to come to ACC/need orientation to college research and resources. Don’t forget we have a different, temporary model of staffing at Elgin…in that we have a full time Head Librarian but all other librarians are Academic Hourly Librarians. Thanks to the IL team who are organizing a schedule of other fulltime ACC librarians to assist in meeting information literacy needs of Elgin classroom faculty. In addition, thanks to everyone who helped Elgin open with Shelf-a-palooza (sp?) and setting up public service desks, staff interviews and staff training. It takes a village!

• Completed Hays – opened January 13th, 2014

Hays is open, operating ½ of the year and has its own share of critter problems – rattling a few students and staff out there…but enrollment is good and growing! Like Elgin, Hays has a temporary, different model of staffing…with a full time Head Librarian and Academic Hourly Librarians. Thanks again to the IL team who are organizing a schedule of other fulltime ACC librarians to assist in meeting information literacy needs of Hays classroom faculty and staff. More thanks to everyone who helped Hays open with Shelf-a-palooza, setting up public service desks, staff interviews and staff training. It takes more of that village!

• Completed Highland Mall – opened August 25th, 2014

We are open and doing business at Highland. The library is busy and - in the midst of hiring staff - we are helping students, setting up staff training and LS staff are – as with Elgin and Hays – rallying to assist HLC! AND more thanks to the IL team who are organizing a schedule of other fulltime ACC librarians to assist in meeting information literacy needs of HLC classroom faculty and staff. In addition, thanks to everyone who helped HLC open with Shelf-a-palooza (fewer print and more online, though) and setting up public service desks, staff interviews and staff training. It takes yet another village!

• IRT/LS e-device pilot at reference desk with special apps for students

IPADS: After a great pilot, staff continue to use their IPADS to assist students. We also use them at the public service desks for – among other things – textbook day and Q and A and staff training. We will continue to upgrade them as needed. Thanks to Jonathan for his leadership and – of course – Marc the college’s expert on devices - for great work on the pilot and moving the service along. Supporting content includes the excellent IPAD information.
Apps: The app project should be viewed by itself for quality and good press…I hear wonderful things – unsolicited – from students, faculty and staff and a number of departments are requesting discipline-specific apps for their areas…nice and exactly how we want to support ACC’s educational vision. 

• Revising our information literacy program/tutorials

The IL team has accomplished a great deal this year! We have always had award-winning tutorials for students and were among the first institutions to have online interactive, graded content. In updating our tutorials, the IL Team’s goal was to break content apart into discrete units to allow for a wide variety of support for curriculum. These new learning “chunks” continue to assess “audience” progress and the completion of student learning objectives. While the basic tutorial link below sends users to the library tutorial webpage, ACC’s Blackboard pages allow faculty to send students to these chunks of content to meet diverse needs. Their new look is great so visit and take our tutorials for our students and faculty so that you can assist others.
Other great guides designed by librarians (in general, IL Team and SDT) for students, faculty and staff (this last year and over the past few years) include:

• Tech Toolbox– general audience
• Faculty Teaching Toolbox – faculty and staff
• Faculty and the Library Toolbox – faculty and staff
• Student Learning Success Toolbox - students

 
• Dealing with the college's hiring freeze

We continue to deal with the college’s hiring freeze by staffing with hourly employees and moving fulltime staff among locations both temporarily and permanently. The LLT will be reviewing and (possibly) reprioritizing open positions at their next meeting and VP Midgley has stated that we can begin to send positions forward for consideration.  

• Assisting Technical Services in transition

We have an open search for the HL for Technical Services (TS) and Automation. We are currently vetting our third round of applicants for consideration and – due to the workload and projects of TS – I named an interim, Toyya Cisneros. Toyya will manage both the Pinnacle Library and Technical Services at the Pinnacle location. 

• An e-reader check out pilot to highlight our 45k e-books with

Devices: After a great pilot, staff chose the new Dell Venue (100+) to check out at Highland. We purchased them when they became available in July and expanded checkout to students will begin in the next few weeks. Following a budget review, we will buy additional Venues for other campuses. Thanks to Jonathan for his leadership and – of course – Marc the college’s expert on devices - for great work on the pilot and moving the service along. Supporting content includes the excellent Tablet information.

• Implementing the college's choices of printing solutions (swipe card with rollout of Highland)

Try as we might, this didn’t happen. We continue to struggle with ways to be efficient, effective and green. The solution that was tested in the Accelerator did NOT meet needs, so it’s back to the drawing board. I will be following our authentication process model for continuing to look at this problem this AY ’15. Watch the skies.  

• Required leadership training for all LS employees who lead others or initiatives (librarians, SLA and LA's as appropriate)

We had our first leadership vs. management training for team leaders and facilitators... but who am I kidding? I can “say” it was last year, but August 20^th barely counts. That being said, the first session (communication) went well and the second date in October is being selected as we speak and the focus will be time management for leaders and time management for managers. We have our second training for SLA’s scheduled for January (and possibly earlier) if we can find a date and the emphasis will be on their roles of coordinating and leading circulation staff and functions. 


STRATEGIC PLANNING
Library Services Ad Hoc Strategic Planning Committee met once last year and will not meet again until after the bond election. Of course, your comment might be – shouldn’t we plan either way? Yes, but we have operating plans for our business continuity and will review both operating plans and any strategic plans once we have a direction on overall college activities. 

When we DO begin our planning process – as I stated last year - all library employees will have the opportunity to provide input through their managers. This input can include but will not be limited to either general information or ideas for campus libraries and – of course – will also include those ongoing projects including college-wide printing issues the e-device pilot and revised information literacy content. The Ad Hoc Committee we also provide general and specific content and will consolidate other input and then post drafts for LS employees to review. As we stated last spring – as a support service – we will have our existing ideas and new ideas, but will also be vetting ideas we will be gathering from college planning content.

ORGANIZATION
We continue to review the Library Services teams, facilitators and stewards and continue to both add and subtract. In addition, IRT has changed (Melanie to IT but still focus on us as well as other responsibilities and Marc Petrick to us) and there has been a committee formed to look at all computer tech support in the college.

For the AY' 15 year, we will continue to have Library Leadership Team meetings in the a.m., some online/Google Hangout and some in person. I’m sure the Head Librarian's meetings will continue, as well as the TLF meetings of Team leaders, Facilitators and Stewards. We will begin to schedule new librarian meetings again as we will have several new librarians and still have a few "Five or Fewer" (years of service) but these won’t happen until we get them hired! These groups continue to use a variety of ways to meet regularly with both in-person and Google Hangout methods. We encourage Library Services groups to explore alternatives to face-to-face only.

Other activities for this year include:

Police training – We will be providing training for police on our services and resources so that they may better support us in their safety and security endeavors. Specifically, we will begin by providing training for them on our e-devices and our collections for them to better understand theft, prevention and recovery issues which include: labeling, electronic designations, costs, acquisitions, our insurance, and our circulation policies and procedures. While this is designed to provide them with information, I will use this opportunity to seek feedback on our policies and procedures – along with working with Risk Management for security and safety report at campuses.

CAT projects – Our collection will be assessed this year – and while it is correct to say we have ongoing assessment, I am interested in: periodicals (print vs. online ;) e-books (do we have a complete LC range of resources?) and standing orders. In addition, we need to review what is being taught where and where target or focused curriculum opportunities in the college so that we may position our materials appropriately. These projects will be overseen by Toyya and Barbara in an ad hoc Collection Assessment Team.
Textbooks – If you stand very quietly and hold your breath, you will hear the Riverside staff exhaling as the textbooks moved to Highland as I promised two years ago. I charged Carrie and Jen to come up with ways to secure the collection at Highland since we had a number of thefts and lo and behold they came up with an attractive and appropriate set of measures to better manage the materials! I think they have a second career in their future. Great job on this!

Finally - I will send out an additional email when all staff are hired and in place for Highland but we are still within the process….one great hire though – and ironically – followed the textbook move…Riverside’s Rhonda…with us for over a decade as an hourly employee will begin a full time LA job at Highland….we just couldn’t let her let go of the textbooks!!!

Again, thanks for all you all do to make this work ….we just keep getting better!

Summer 2013 Dean's Blog

Welcome to Fall 2013…

 

We continued to be busy in IRT/Library Services this past spring and summer even with fewer ACC students enrolled and fewer guests. This continues to be the case because even though students are taking fewer classes, many of our students (in-person and remote users) still need our technology, online research resources and print resources (reserves, circulation and reference) to complete assignments as well as lifelong learning and information and research for personal needs. In addition, we provide some textbooks (our Student Services support for the federal grant program) AND facilities research data show how students come to "sticking" or "sticky" spaces" on campuses including libraries.

 

It goes without saying that Library Services staff members are hard at work on both college - wide general business AND on upcoming new facilities and services. Our challenges (still) continue to be to meet existing needs and assess what and how we are doing. Most of our time this past year included:

 

·         Authentication of all IRT and library public service computers

·         Completing Elgin – opens Monday, August 26th, 2013

·         Working on Hays – opens January 13th, 2014

·         Working on Highland Mall – opens August 25th, 2014

·         Our iPad pilot at reference desk with special apps for students

·         Revising our information literacy program/tutorials

·         Planning for and the Elgin Center closing

 

Our time this year will include

 

·         Authentication of ACC computers (Highland Mall rollout) to connect with IRT and library public service computers (single domain, etc.)

·         Completing Elgin – opens Monday, August 26th, 2013

·         Opening and completing Hays – opens January 13th, 2014

·         Opening Highland Mall – opens August 25th, 2014

·         Hiring employees for Elgin and Hays

·         Orienting and training new Elgin and Hays employees

·         Dealing with the college's freeze

·         Assisting Technical Services in transition including hiring a new Head Librarian (HL) for Technical Services and Automation; training the new HL

·         An e-reader check out pilot to highlight our 45k e-books with special apps and "how to" use e-readers and e-resources for ACC students (Fall RGC, RVS and CYP; Spring – more campus libraries)

·         Implementing the college's choices of printing solutions (swipe card with rollout of Highland Mall

·         Responding to the college's strategic plan and completing our strategic plan (November 2013)

·         Completing and implementing revised Library Services information literacy content

·         Required leadership training for all LS employees who lead others/lead initiatives (librarians, SLA and LA's as appropriate)

·         Required management training for all LS employees who managing both people and projects (librarians, SLA and LA's as appropriate)

·         Planning for RGC closing for renovation

 

 

STRATEGIC PLANNING

 

Library Services Ad Hoc Strategic Planning Committee will meet this fall when the ACC draft plan is distributed. Our goal is still to create a three year plan for Library Services with an immediate charge to address the Library Services content needed for the college's Academic Master Plan (AMP). (November 2013)

 

All library employees will have the opportunity to provide input through their managers. This input can include but will not be limited to either general information or ideas for campus libraries and – of course – will also include those ongoing projects including expanded authentication, the college-wide printing solution, the e-reader pilot and revised information literacy content. The Ad Hoc Committee we also provide general and specific content and will consolidate other input and then post drafts for LS employees to review. As we stated last spring – as a support service – we will have our existing ideas and new ideas, but will also be vetting ideas we will be gathering from the academic/discipline master plans to be completed this month.

 

ORGANIZATION

 

If you will remember, last year we formed an Ad hoc Head Librarian and Librarian Workload group. We reviewed the recommendations and have submitted requests justifying the reinstatement of the Head Librarian stipend AND we continued to review the Library Services teams, facilitators and stewards and we consolidated a few areas as well as ceased work on several where the work was either completed or best handled elsewhere.

For the FY' 14 year, we will have Library Leadership Team meetings but have moved them to and will continue to have them on Tuesday mornings. In addition, the Head Librarian's meetings will continue, as well as the TLF monthly meeting of Team leaders, Facilitators and Stewards. We will begin to schedule new librarian meetings again as we will have several new librarians and still have a few "Five or Fewer" (years of service.) These groups have used a variety of ways to meet regularly with both in-person and Google Hang-out methods. We encourage Library Services groups to explore alternatives to face-to-face only.

 

We will continue our Opening Day Collection team and projects for Hays and Highland Mall libraries and will be calling our Rio Grande activities the Closing Day Collection team. Other college-wide projects will include an assessment of Accessibility presence and needs in all libraries.

 

COMMUNICATION

 

Library Services completed the transition of one wiki environment to another. We met our goal early and the wiki was – as we say – on time and under budget…literally! In addition, we moved to the new environment with streamlined, current content.

 

FACILITIES

 

Existing Campuses

 

We replaced and upgraded the NRG Project Enable resources including a wonderful new whiteboard! In addition, we altered the shelving on the west wall/area of NRG to create a better use of space. In addition, RGC also completed the reference area shelving changes.

 

New Campuses

 

Elgin Campus Library is a beautiful space with a new service for us – a huge deck and there are – so far – over 300 students enrolled at this new location! We had a challenging installation of equipment but all should be resolved mid-fall.

 

Hays Campus plans are almost completed and we have a wonderful space there for students, faculty and staff similar in size to Elgin. Hays will be open in January of 2014.

Plans for library space at Highland Mall are almost completed and will be a smaller space with @7,000 square feet and – more than likely – will have many of RGC's materials moved into the space along with the textbook collection (moving from Riverside to Highland Mall.

 

STAFFING

 

Given our openings and the ongoing freeze on filling jobs, we have made additional changes for Library Services for FY ' 14. They include:

 

Shaula and Rosemary will continue to split time for supporting Head Librarians at Cypress, Northridge and Rio Grande. Shaula will also assist in Technical Services when Francine is away for six – eight weeks this fall. Bridgette Barr has left the college and hourly AA's will be hired to replace her supporting work for PIN and SAC.

 

Cheri will be full time SLA at NRG. Evan will be interim SLA at RRC and Sara is interim SLA at RVS. Joe has been assisting at circulation RVS this summer as we have many/most of our circulation desk openings at RVS. Nathaniel is ½ time LA at RRC and ½ time LA at Elgin but because the other .5 ELG position has not been filled and the hourly LA has quit, Nathaniel will be working more hours at ELG than at RRC for the first of the fall term.

 

New employees include:

 

Elgin HL – Courtney Mlinar (most recently a manager/Health Sciences Librarian at Nova in Florida)

Elgin SLA - Allen De La Cruz (most recently in a similiar SLA position in Brownsville)

 

Hays HL – Toyya Cisneros (most recently the Head Librarian/Director for the library (public, academic) at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene)

 

We have also hired 63 hours of academic librarian, hourly at Elgin and will do the same for Hays as we won't have – initially – full time reference librarians. In addition, the managers are recommending a higher level academic librarian, hourly position for an Hourly Coordinator for Elgin and one for Hays. Until the final recommendation is made, Jordan Forbes (a reference librarian at Riverside) is serving in a coordinator role and is managing the orientation and training of the Elgin librarians. Watch for a follow up email introducing new staff with more information about both individuals and the newer processes.

 

Employees gone include:

 

Cherry Luedtke retired as Head Librarian for Technical Services and Automation. Please see previous emails! I will be serving as Interim HL for TSLA in her absence. Bridgette Barr – AA for South Austin and for Pinnacle Libraries has left the college as well.

 

$TATE FUNDING

 

Librarians across the state are relieved to see that 7.5 million dollars in state funding as been restored to the Tex Share database program. Wonderful news for our constituents!

 

Finally….

 

Although I could spend many hours thanking people and we WILL thank them during the all LS Tuesday meeting …I want to take a few minutes to thank non-Library Services/IRT staff…Melanie Dickerman and Marc Petrick worked tirelessly to bring authentication to life! What a wonderful process and we have seen marked drops in wasteful printing and in guest problems at all locations but certainly at the Riverside Campus. In addition, Marc was instrumental in assisting LS librarians in implementing the iPad reference desk app roll out AND is instrumental in our upcoming pilot for e-reader checkout.

Julie

Dr. Julie Beth Todaro

Dean, Library Services

Austin Community College

 

Dean's Blog Spring 2013

Welcome to Spring 2013!

 

As we move into the spring semester (January 2013) we continue to be busy serving ACC students, faculty and staff. Why do we seem to be busier even though ACC enrollments are down @ 9-10%? This is due to many things including two primary reasons…we often have the same number of students who have used us before (they just take fewer classes) AND our students (or ANYone right now!) can't afford all of the tech needed to be successful in school so they use our resources. Other issues include students check out and/or use our textbooks instead of buying them and the smaller things – gas and parking is always difficult so students come to campus and stay rather than coming and going. And when they stay at school, they come to "sticking" or "sticky" spaces" including libraries. Our challenges continue to be to meet existing needs, assess what and how we are doing and  continue to keep an eye on our rapidly approaching future campuses (Elgin, Hays), our upcoming future (Highland Mall) and beyond into our new taxing districts and renovation, new construction and – as needed – shifting resources and people to meet needs.

 

SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS (SACS)

 

SACS visited ACC the last week of October, 2012. IRT staff members created a myriad of documents prior to the team coming and then during their visit met with a variety of visiting team members for a number of different reasons. IRT had no recommendations for improvement in the summative document and kudos from team members onsite. The final report was received by ACC on 1/3 and will be posted to the college's website next week. While our next SACS project is to define Elgin as a substantive change item (new campus opening and Elgin center closing) that document isn't due until mid spring 2013.

 

ADMINISTRATION

 

We continue to get to know the new ACC administration and have continued to find them receptive and inclusive – which has been wonderful. As you know, we are now under the academic side of the house and during the fall Vice President Mike Midgley was wonderful in working with me while Richard Smith was away from the college. I can't tell you how happy I am Richard is back on Monday, January 7th.

 

STRATEGIC PLANNING

 

Library Services Ad Hoc Strategic Planning Committee will continue to meet this spring. Our goal is still to create a three year plan for Library Services with an immediate charge to address the Library Services content needed for the college's Academic Master Plan (AMP). The basic AMP template can be found at http://irt.austincc.edu/masterplan/amp/ and support services pieces for the AMP process are to be completed at the end of April.

 

All library employees will have the opportunity to provide input through their managers. This input can include but will not be limited to either general information or ideas for campus libraries. The Ad Hoc Committee we also provide general and specific content and will consolidate other input and then post drafts for LS employees to review. Of course – as a support service – we will have our new ideas but are also vetting ideas we will be gathering from the academic/discipline master plans to be completed this month.

 

ORGANIZATION

 

The Ad hoc Head Librarian and Librarian Workload group was established last year to look at equity of workload in Library Services and provide recommendations in areas such as team work, facilitator work, reference hours, and collection responsibilities - to name just a few areas. This group's recommendations are being reviewed by LLT and – as appropriate – LLT ad hoc groups are established to further investigate specific areas. Although we will continue to review content, an example of the success of this group is: beginning with the FY '13 contract, Head Librarians off contract time was confirmed to be identical with faculty librarians through the group's work with Human Resources.  Additional changes may include balancing work responsibilities.

For the remainder of this FY' 13, we will continue to have Library Leadership Team meetings, Head Librarian's meetings, a meeting of Team leaders, Facilitators and Stewards and will call a "Five or Fewer" (years of service) meeting of "newer" librarians as well as a "More than Five" meeting with similar questions, discussions, etc. to get input from senior staff. LLT meetings in the morning proved to be successful and will be continued with every other meeting a conference call. Other groups have used a variety of ways to meet regularly as well and are still encouraged to explore alternatives to face-to-face only.

 

We will continue our Opening Day Collection team and projects for Hays Campus, Elgin Campus and Highland Mall libraries. Our Emergency Management Facilitator was very successful this past fall and we will continue to entertain suggestions of other focuses for our services and resources AND continue to review the successes or needs for changes for existing positions that might need to morph or go away.

 

TEACHING AND LEARNING

 

The IL Team continues to assess our own IL products, refine what we need and seek integration of student learning outcomes (SLO's).

 

I am a member of VP Midgley's committee tasked with a review of ACC's teaching and learning to support faculty professional development. The team is knee-deep in identifying what ACC had, has and needs to support faculty in maintaining and growing development content. I will share ideas from the committee as we move through the process. Mike sees the process as an evolving one with interim decisions for HBC space and management and then both short term and long term decisions in looking at management and organization and Highland Mall space.

 

COMMUNICATION

 

Library Services is making significant process in the transition of one wiki environment to another. Our original timeline is still in place and we will complete the process within this academic year. Remember our goals include not only transitioning to the newer product but also beginning use of the product with streamlined, current content.

 

FACILITIES

Existing Campuses

During this winter holiday ACC facilities re-carpeted Eastview, re-carpeted and tiled Northridge, re-carpeted and replaced the cork with vinyl tile at Cypress and removed the film from the Pinnacle windows in Technical Services and in the Library. While we had challenges at primarily Cypress and Northridge, all locations will be open by the first day of the semester.

New Campuses

Elgin Campus colors and materials have been chosen and we will have a stunning library for students, faculty and staff. The campus is on time to open August, 2013 and ODC is selecting materials.

Hays Campus plans are also completed and we have a wonderful space there for students, faculty and staff similar in size to Elgin. Hays will probably open by summer 2014.

Plans for library space at Highland Mall are almost completed and will be a smaller space with @7,000 square feet and reduced print materials. Our plans include moving the textbook collection from Riverside to Highland Mall. Library Services goals still also include moving Technical Services to mall space.

STAFFING

 

Given our openings and the ongoing freeze on filling jobs, we have made additional changes for Library Services for spring 2013. They include:

 

·       Shaula and Rosemary will continue to split time for supporting Head Librarians at Cypress, Northridge and Rio Grande and they will work with Northridge library staff to interview hourly applicants to select and train a 19 hours a week for Administrative assistant support for Northridge.

·       Cheri will split her time as Senior Library Assistant between Round Rock and Northridge Libraries.

·       Eddie will continue to split his time by providing Administrative Assistant support for Eastview and Riverside.

·       Bridgette will continue to support Pinnacle (Library) and the South Austin Library, so she will split her time as Administrative Assistant between South Austin Campus library and Pinnacle Library locations.

·       Francine will continue to serve as a 19 hour a week Administrative Assistant for Tech Services and when we determine that we need to step up support to assist with Elgin and Hays activities, we will increase her hours for Technical Services within legal limits.  When the freeze is over NRG will continue with 19 hour a week Administrative Assistant support and Tech Services will receive the fulltime open LS AA position.

·       Riverside (without a full time Senior Library Assistant AND a fulltime Library Assistant) is assessing their circulation desk support needed and are submitting a request to me for additional hourly support for spring/summer.

·       Nathaniel will be working at Round Rock circulation temporarily to assist us while Cheri splits her time between Round Rock and Northridge.

$TATE FUNDING

Given the continued uncertainty of state and college funding we will continue to follow the Texas legislature this spring. Current plans for the statewide database program continue through August 2013 and we are continuing to explore costs and membership in other consortia. As before – at this point in time, the database core for the FY'13 year will NOT change.

OTHER…

·       We continue to refine the statistics/recordkeeping with our new data gathering software.

·       We continue to focus our all-LS staff development days and the spring 2013 focus is "emergency management training."

 

Finally, as everyone knows our IRT AVP Richard Smith has been out this past fall. I have prepared a document for him that outlines some specific activities I have handled this past fall as acting AVP for IRT. I had big shoes to fill…the AVP for IRT has numerous and diverse areas of responsibility. His position requires a large and broad knowledge base and his work touches everyone in the college. I thought I would outline a little of what I did to – in small part – explain what Richard does and assist in his absence. Richard supervises support areas for teaching and learning that include Blackboard and he is in charge of the design of the Highland Mall Emporium. Additional IRT areas include:

 

·        Distance Learning – delivery of hundreds of credit classes online and management of Channel 19

·       Instructional Technology - all media production and instructional technology services which provides staff and resources to help faculty and staff design and develop instructional activities and course materials with technology tools to match discipline-specific student learning outcomes.

·       Virtual College of Texas (VCT) - a collaborative of Texas community and technical colleges that deliver distance learning classes (Although this is not ACC's activity specifically, the ED of VCT reports to Richard.)

·       Instructional Computing and Technology - includes open access computer centers, media centers, faculty resource centers and classroom technology

·       Network Services - provides server administration for instructional network applications and network support for the computers supporting all IRT functions.

And of course

·         Library Services.

Just a few IRT activities from this past fall include:

 

Academic Master Plan (AMP)

 

Suzie Thomason - in her role as Director of Instructional Technology - has worked with Dr. Solis' office – specifically with Stephanie Hawley who is in charge of the AMP process. The academic side of the house is finishing their AMP content WITH budget content estimates by the end of this past fall semester. Administrators' jobs include reviewing content, standardizing as needed, consolidating budget content, eliminating redundancy, etc.  While support areas (Kathleen, Business Services, us, etc.) could create drafts in the fall - our timeline begins after the winter holidays or now. That is, we are to receive academic plans from Mike, then create plans that include what we want to do and also what is do-able from the AMP plans we have reviewed. Our IRT deadlines are this spring. This past spring I was contacted by a number of departments who needed help finding dollar amounts for elements of their AMPs.

 

Blackboard (BB)

 

I worked with Seth – the Blackboard administrator - on a few things. They included the use and cost of existing SafeAssign software on BB; the use and cost of Turnitin - a competing software; request for cost for AMP re: Turnitin by English and by History and an email for the spring semester advertising SafeAssign to ACC full and part time faculty.

 

Distance Learning/E-Texts

 

I was asked by Mike to meet with a vendor who was in Austin to meet with educators on delivering e-textbooks.  I prepared an assessment of the vendor product for IRT managers and VP Midgley's.

 

Network Services

 

Following a meeting – this past fall where we worked with the ACC project manager for Highland Mall on the Emporium and for IRT services and resources, I attended a meeting on authentication software. The current status is that Melanie Dickerman is ready to go with testing the authentication software that IRT has purchased against the ACC IT LDAP server, when IT can insure that the server is back under warranty, etc. IRT has tested it as much as we can without being on a live LDAP server and rolling out a test campus. Our IRT software should be ready to be tested before the end of January.

 

Distance Learning

 

I worked with Robert on a number of things this last fall including our IRT SACS meetings, Q and A on the use of BB SafeAssign, the vendor e-book questions and completing an answer for a student forum question on TV/RTF internships for students….Channel 19, etc.

 

Instructional Development

 

IDS staff were busy during SACS week and late in the fall assisting sabbatical applicants with designing projects. Suzie and I will be discussing a need for a process required for applicants to go through when consulting with IDS staff AND integrating IDS staff into the sabbatical process.

 

The current Faculty Senate president requested a workgroup to discuss faculty development Teaching and Learning Center. I have been working with Suzie Thomson to draft comments to correspond to the Senate President two documents proposing using IDS staff to support a faculty development process.

 

ICT

 

Tech trade out has been moving along AND on top of that project, Tom and Bruce's staff have had to weigh in and assist LS managers on support for the re-carpeting projects.

Welcome to Fall 2012/FY ‘13

Welcome to Fall 2012/FY ‘13

As we move into the fall semester we continue to be busy, maintain our services and resources AND plan for new opportunities for our constituents. Our challenges are always to stay ahead of the “game” while meeting existing needs and assessing our worth and value to students, faculty and staff throughout all of our educational settings. I continue to be amazed at Library Services staff expertise and energy!

SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND SCHOOLS (SACS)

SACS is scheduled to visit ACC the last week of October. I will send out emails introducing the SACS visiting team and providing any schedule information we know. I have gathered and submitted extensive content this last year and continue to provide content to ACC’s Office of Institutional Effectiveness and the ACC SACS team. I still don’t have a final document to share with LS but will do so when the document becomes the official SACs report.

NOT-SO-NEW ADMINISTRATION

We continue to get to know the new ACC administration and have found them receptive and inclusive – which has been wonderful. The first step of the college reorganization included us – Instructional Resources and Technology – and placed us under the academic side of the house. This change means that my boss – Dr. Richard Smith – now reports to Vice President Mike Midgley. While this doesn’t change our day-to-day operation, we continue to attend our usual meetings and also new meetings for newly formed groups. It’s always rejuvenating to get to know new leadership! We understand that there will be a phase II reorganization early this fall. Watch the skies!

CONSTITUENT/PATRON BEHAVIORS AND EXPECTATIONS

As you know, handbooks for faculty, staff and students are available both in print and online. For the past few years, Student Services and Human Resources have been working toward discontinuing print versions and updating only online versions. In addition, Dr. Hensley’s campus managers have been working toward standardizing signage on campuses and I have asked for all signs to include the “helper dogs only” information as we have a number of students who are bringing in a variety of animals to campuses and to libraries. I am hopeful all signs will be standardized during this fall semester.

STRATEGIC PLANNING

Library Services Ad Hoc Strategic Planning Committee will continue to meet this last fall. Our goal is still to create a three year plan for Library Services. While it is possible to complete LS goals quickly, the college is revisiting it’s existing goals during FY’ 13. LS will not complete our process until we can compare and integrate ACC’s revised goals into our goals and strategic planning.

ORGANIZATION

The Ad hoc Head Librarian and Librarian Workload group was established last year to look at equity of workload in Library Services and provide recommendations in areas such as team work, facilitator work, reference hours, and collection responsibilities - to name just a few areas. This group's recommendations will be used to determine any need for balancing work responsibilities. The group completed their work this summer and has submitted recommendations. The Library Leadership Team Is reviewing the recommendations and identifying what is appropriate and possible to implement in Library Services.

We will continue to have Library Leadership Team meetings, Head Librarian’s meetings, a meeting of Team leaders, Facilitators and Stewards and will call a "Five or Fewer" (years of service) meeting of ”newer” librarians this fall as well as a "More than Five" meeting with similar questions, discussions, etc. to get input from senior staff. We are moving LLT meetings – at the request of the HL’s – to a morning time and intend to have every other meeting a conference call. Other groups have used a variety of ways to meet regularly as well and are encouraged to explore alternatives to face-to-face only. I will be asking for a wiki page for suggestions for ALL agendas so that any LS staff member can suggest issues and topics for discussions and problems to solve for any/all groups.

We will continue to have an Opening Day Collection subgroup of CDT for Hayes, Elgin Campus and Highland Mall library. In addition we now have an Emergency Management Facilitator and are bringing more attention to grant/soft monies and I hope to name a grants position this year as well as someone to focus on alumni and parents of our students.

TEACHING AND LEARNING

Following our successful pedagogy workshop for librarians last year, the IL Facilitator and her designees continued to expand our program. This expansion included the review of products to assist us in revising our tutorials and integrated instruction assignments and integrating student learning outcomes (SLO’s). These SLO’s assist in providing our online presence and support for all classes including all distance learning classes as well as in the definition and assignation of value and worth to the services we provide. Following a review of products, the IL group recommended Credo’s Literati and the team is fast at work implementing what we can implement immediately and building the structure for the design of content for our next two years.

FACILITIES

Existing Campuses

Northridge is making changes to shelving, individual student seating and small group work seating. This summer’s duct cleaning has necessitated a major cleanup of shelves as well as an assessment of condition of materials for replacement. This will continue throughout the fall. Riverside lighting was assessed and replaced August 2012. The change is phenomenal and was financed in part by ACC’s Sustainability Office based on the choice of lighting. Pinnacle will be adding student chairs and rearranging furniture. Rio Grande is changing the reference shelving and student seating behind reference.

New Campuses

Elgin Campus plans are completed and we have a wonderful space for students, faculty and staff in the library. The campus will open August, 2013 and ODC plans for collection will begin the selection process early this fall. Hays Campus plans are also completed and we have a wonderful space there for students, faculty and staff similar in size to Elgin. Hays will open in FY 2014 - probably by summer 2014.

Highland Mall Penney's space floor plans will be finalized early in fall 2012. The academic space will still be: space for approximately 5,500 student; campuses swinging in while they are renovated; student learning areas; and workforce curriculum such as mathematics delivered in teaching and learning spaces. Library space will be adjacent to the emporium with @7,000 square feet, reduced print materials and more seating. Library Services goals include moving Technical Services to the mall. The Technical Services space needs assessment has been updated and distributed to Facilities.

Staffing

Given our openings and our current freeze on job openings (we have an AA position frozen) I have decided to reassign Administrative Assistants. Beginning this week the following changes will take place:

• Shaula will return to splitting her time by supporting Round Rock and Cypress.
• Eddie will return to splitting his time by supporting Eastview and Riverside.
• Rosemary will return to supporting me and the Rio Grande Campus library and coordinating the activities of all AA's both full & part time.
• Bridgette will return to supporting Pinnacle (Library) and begin supporting the South Austin Library, so she will split her time between South Austin Campus library and Pinnacle Library locations.
• I am taking money from my administrative hourly account and Northridge will hire a 19 hour a week AA and Tech Services will hire a 19 hour a week AA. When the freeze is over (hopefully this fiscal year) NRG will continue with their 19 hour a week AA support and Tech Services will receive the open LS AA position.

As you all know from college-wide emails, we have two other frozen positions, one SLA position at NRG and one SLA position at RVS.

$tate Funding

• Funding for FY'14 continues to be uncertain for the state in general and for the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Current plans for the statewide database program continue through August 2013. It is our expectation that - given the lost of 6 million dollars and the database funding for the aggregated subscription program, we need to expand our base of possible membership partners. To that end, the ACC LD E-Resources Facilitator has been exploring costs and membership in other consortia. Given data and outcomes , we have joined Lyrasis and will be subscribing to Discovery service through the Abilene Library Consortium
• At this point in time, the database core for the FY’13 year will NOT change.

What’s sort-of-new and what’s new…

• We continue to record statistics, however, we have a wonderful software Lola (Assessment Facilitator) and the IL team have customized to meet our needs. Watch as the StatBat reminds you and then changes personas throughout the year. A contest is in the air…I can just feel it.
• We are investing time in formalizing our student learning outcomes (discussed above) so there will be more rollout and use of our technology, software and expertise to integrate activities and platforms into our information literacy – again led by our IL Facilitator and her group.
• We continue to refine our staff development processes as does the college. Watch for new exciting online spaces created by our Staff Development Team. In addition, we continue to focus our all-LS staff development days and “emergency management” training is on the horizon planned by our new Emergency Management Facilitator.
• I am excited that we are migrating from one wiki to another. Throughout this year we will assess our current wiki content, delete and add as needed and move what’s critical to our new wiki.
• We have some great new looks and pages on our online web environment thanks to the Web Team and Web Content Team and our Web Master. Check out our new information pages for students.
• Our reference processes continue to meet our constituent needs and – under the leadership of our Reference group led by Sylvia – we explore the best platforms for delivering virtual reference. Great work here as we strive to deliver to our patrons anywhere and anytime AND create a structure that is easy to use.
• Under the direction of the Web Team, a social media group was formed. LS launched three social media channels this fall -- Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Staff are invited to suggest post topics to the social media group by completing the online Social Media Suggestion Form.
• Don’t miss the Northridge celebration of Disability Awareness Month when Project Enable – NRG’s unique focus on enabling hardware and software technology - hosts two Open Houses spotlighting what is possible for all information seekers, researchers and students, faculty and staff. Join them on Thursday, October 25, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., and October 26, 2012, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. in the Northridge Campus Library. These two open houses will provide a general overview of Project Enable, an assistive technology zoo, and its resources as part of ACC Library Services. Participants:
  
  • Can explore a variety of assistive technology devices and tools useful for addressing research, information, and learning needs of community college students;
  • Will learn about assistive technology and related software and resources that comprise Project Enable;
  • Will experience - through hands-on use - how to use the devices and assistive technology available through Project Enable; and,
  • Will learn about advocacy for Universal Design and Learning in academic libraries and college classrooms.
  • >Come ready to play! Continuing education credits are available for Library Services participants!