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MIT Libraries
Annual Report FY 2000-2001

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Libraries by Ann Wolpert
Public Services by Virginia Steel
Collection Services by Carol Fleishauer
Administrative Services by James Mullins
Technology Planning and Administration by Eric Celeste
The MIT Press by Frank Urbanowski

Director, Libraries

Research universities operate in the world of ideas, concepts, and knowledge. These intellectual intangibles are both an essential raw material of the educational process, and a fundamental outcome of university research. The new knowledge that emerges from institutions such as MIT has traditionally been reviewed, structured, and shared across disciplines and institutions in the form of "packages" of information. These packages, which historically took the familiar form of books and journals, have been critical to the university’s ability to organize and use knowledge in a comprehensible, efficient framework. It is the mission of university libraries to acquire, organize, and maintain these information packages, whatever form they take, for the benefit of current and future faculty and students.

Like its peers, MIT is both a consumer and a producer of packaged information. The Institute relies heavily on the ready availability of such organized information as a fundamental building block of education and research. Needless to say, MIT also contributes significantly to the stream of publications that flows from universities. MIT faculty take for granted, and well they should, the ability of their Libraries to capture and preserve their intellectual contributions and to collaborate with them to select and manage the many other diverse forms of information that contribute daily to MIT’s excellence in teaching and research.

Equally important but somewhat less visible are the Libraries’ additional responsibilities for instructing students in the effective use of these information resources, and of preserving important information resources from one generation to the next. No other aspect of the academy or of society attends to this particular set of responsibilities. Across disciplines and over time, libraries have captured, made available, and preserved advances in knowledge for the benefit of their faculty and society, and they have instructed each subsequent generation of students in the productive use of information resources. Indeed, the magnitude of this traditional value is manifested in the ubiquitous and familiar presence of research libraries across the landscape of higher education.

As electronic analogs of print publications began to emerge in significant numbers in the mid to late 1990’s, this underlying framework for efficient, persistent knowledge management faded from view, and libraries’ traditional values of selection, organization, instruction, and preservation became increasingly disconnected from the digitized items that libraries served over campus networks. Not surprisingly, speculation concerning the future of academic research libraries arose as faculty learned to appreciate the convenience of networked digital resources. Despite libraries’ preeminent status as early, enthusiastic adopters of information technology and computer applications, libraries found to their dismay that they had become the symbol of an academic business model many wished to change.

The more popular scenarios of those years assumed that print books and journals would become first obsolete, then irrelevant, as all useful information would be rapidly digitized. Scholars would communicate with one another directly through the Internet, eliminating the middlemen of publishers and libraries. The need for faculty and students to physically visit any educational facilities, including classrooms and libraries, would disappear; replaced by web-based services and door to door (or desktop to desktop) delivery of needed information. Rank and position would no longer apply within academic disciplines, as traditional scholarly publishing went the way of the typewriter and the mimeograph.

Today the obstacles to change appear far more serious, and the opportunities for rapid transformation far more limited. The collapse of digital-only publishing reminds us that underlying value propositions still apply to the creation, communication, and preservation of new knowledge. The growing burden of email brings home the impracticality of one-on-one communication strategies and reinforces the efficiencies of "packaged" scholarly communication. The relentless pressure to extend the legal status of tangible property to intangible ideas forebodes a future based on ubiquitous transaction fees, and threatens the very notion of "fair use" in higher education. Long-term digital archiving remains a hugely complicated and expensive alternative to traditional print on paper, and no political/economic system for archiving has yet emerged that inspires sufficient confidence or trust.

While we remain optimistic that the system can and will change for the better, we are now far wiser about speed with which change might occur. We appreciate the enduring efficiencies of packaged information (despite the flaws), the complexity of the environment in which change must occur, and the strength and determination of the forces that stand in opposition to a vision of more freely accessible information. And with the full promise of digital information still poised tantalizingly on the horizon, the MIT Libraries now have five years of practical experience with the best the electronic environment has to offer.

In the "doing" of digital information the Libraries have a far more realistic understanding of the advantages, costs and obstacles associated with fulfilling the digital promise. For example, the MIT Libraries now "rent" access to some 8,000 electronic journals and well over 200 databases. Reluctantly, we have begun to rely on information packages for which there is no guaranteed archive, at MIT or anywhere, and which will disappear completely the moment MIT stops paying. Meanwhile, walk-in visits to the Libraries increased, the cost of library material continues to rise at a rate higher than that of inflation, and the MIT Libraries’ physical collections continue to grow by about 40,000 linear shelf feet per year.

On the other hand, the ground-breaking DSpace project made significant progress during FY2001. DSpace is an innovative research partnership between Hewlett Packard and the MIT Libraries to build a durable digital repository for MIT faculty intellectual output. The project hold the promise of enabling faculty to manage their own material in the furtherance of education and research, and has vastly increased our understanding of the challenges of developing a digital repository that can begin to approach to the advantages of paper archives.

Progress Toward Master Plan Objectives

In these times of challenge and uncertainty, the MIT Libraries 5 year Master Plan, developed with broad participation and considerable care in 1999, has continued to be an effective blueprint for innovation and change. Progress was made in FY2001 in virtually every strategic direction identified in the Plan.

Direction I: Excel at providing rapid, easy, and precise access to high quality information for education and research at MIT.

FY01 Progress:

• Network-based access to the Libraries’ core collections was expanded again in 2001.
• Access to materials was enhanced through expanded use of the web and via on-going classification and collection management projects.
• Service to students and faculty was improved through new training programs and innovative service models.

Direction II: Ensure that library spaces and operations facilitate intellectual life on campus.

FY01 Progress:

• Group study rooms were introduced in several facilities.
• Wireless network access was introduced in many locations.
• Planning for a new Preservation Services Center was initiated.

Direction III: Be a leader among academic research institutions in the use of applied library technology.

FY01 Progress:

• The DSpace project continued to break new ground in the development of digital repositories.
• The integrated library management system selected for implementation provides for robust self-service and resource linking functionality.

Both the E-Reserves project and Ask Us – Live reference service were innovative experiments in network-based information service.

These accomplishments reflect an extraordinary level of focus on the part of the MIT Libraries’ staff, and speak to the continued relevance of the Libraries’ 5-year plan. Yet these were not the only efforts and initiatives of the MIT Libraries during FY01. As the attached directorate reports attest, the year was exhilarating, challenging, and occasionally nerve-wracking.

Strategic Priorities for the Year

The overall goals for the year were set at the Libraries’ annual planning retreat in June 2000, at which time the expanded leadership team of the Libraries agreed upon the strategic priorities the Libraries would collectively pursue during FY2001. Commitments were made to implement a new, more functional Barton integrated library system, to employ the principles of usability testing systematically across the Libraries’ web pages, to continue to work toward upgraded, contemporary Libraries’ facilities, to continue the important experimental work of the DSpace project, to explore tools for enhanced navigation of information resources, and (with Academic Computing and Information Systems) to increase delivery of Libraries’ services over MIT’s network.

The staff of the Libraries were Herculean in their commitment to achieving these goals. As daunting as the commitments list may appear, the staff accomplished all this and more. Among the highlights of the year were the following successes:

• Installation of a new integrated library system on an accelerated schedule,
• Unveiling of the Libraries’ completely new, redesigned, and usability-tested web site
• Introduction of a pilot project to test web-based reference services, "Ask Us –Live"
• Launching of BELL: Buried E-Journal Locator List, a service that allows users to find full-text articles within journals that are only accessible within aggregated databases
• Restructuring the roster of Public Services positions to create two new forward-looking positions
  • A GIS Specialist, to support MIT’s growing need for geo-spatial expertise
  • A Data Services Librarian, to enhance student and faculty access to numeric social sciences data
• Development of a new Document Services capability to deliver electronic articles directly to requestors’ desktops
• Increasing electronic resources to the level of nearly 25% of both titles and serial expenditures
• Continuation (year 3 of 5) of a multi-year project to make records of important historical library material available in the Barton online catalog
• Initiation of a preservation survey and of a plan to catalog two of the Institute’s most important special collections.
• Introduction of a table-of-contents service within Barton to link bibliographic records to the table of contents of many recently published books.
• Implementation of cost-recovery printing in Libraries’ reading rooms
• Planning for compact shelving to be installed in the Basement of Building 14
• Grateful acceptance of an anonymous gift to establish a badly-needed, long-desired Preservation Services Laboratory
• Grateful acknowledgement of numerous large and small gifts in furtherance of the Libraries mission and capital campaign goals.

Notable Activities

In April 2001 the Libraries were pleased to welcome the MIT Libraries Visiting Committee for their biannual meeting. The meeting convened for two full days, rather than the customary day and a half, because of the rich and full agenda. Special attention was paid to providing the Committee with opportunities to interact with Libraries staff, to talk directly with faculty, especially the Faculty Committee on the Library System, and to engage one-on-one with graduate and undergraduate students of the Institute. Attendance was strong, and the discussions were energetic and stimulating for staff and committee members alike. As always, the Libraries benefited greatly from the knowledgeable insights of this committed group of leaders.

Throughout the year, the Faculty Committee on the Library System continued to provide strong leadership within the Institute for improved Libraries finances and facilities. The Chairman of the Faculty Committee, Professor John Lienhard, worked diligently to focus the work of the Committee on a targeted set of needs, and to keep the value of the Libraries, and the challenges they face, in the forefront of the academic agenda of the Institute.

The MIT Libraries were also very pleased to continue their individual and collective involvement with a number of the Institute’s important planning initiatives. Staff were active in such Institute undertakings as the Council on Educational Technology, planning for the OpenCourseware Initiative, the Information Technology Architecture Group, and in discussions with the Open Knowledge Infrastructure planning effort. The Director of Libraries was honored to have been invited to join the SHASS Ad Hoc Committee on the Humanities Library.

Senior Staff Additions

A number of important staff positions were filled during FY 2001. The Libraries celebrated the hiring of MJ Miller, the first full-time Director of Resource Development in the history of the MIT Libraries. In short order her enthusiastic professionalism and early successes reinforced the merits of this decision. The subsequent rise in interest in the Libraries’ giving opportunities has been most welcome, and her skills and experience greatly appreciated.

Also warmly welcomed in FY2001 were the considerable experience and depth provided by James L. Mullins. Jim joined the Libraries mid-year as Assistant Director for Administrative Services. Jim’s prior experience included a wide range of contemporary library management challenges. His in-depth understanding of facilities improvements proved critical to the Libraries’ ability to keep their space planning and building improvement projects on schedule.

The DSpace Project, an initiative of MIT’s partnership with Hewlett-Packard, was successful in its goal to hire its full contingent of key staff. A prototype version of the repository was developed and project staff began work toward the early adopter phase of the project. Once DSpace was on schedule for early adopters, two Sloan School graduates, Mary Barton and Julie Harford, were retained to conduct related business model research proposed to and funded by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation.

Conclusion

The full measure of the accomplishments of FY01 will be found in the directorate reports attached to this brief overview. The exceptional achievements of the MIT Libraries during FY 2001 are a true reflection of the commitment and professionalism of the staff of these legendary libraries. MIT is fortunate indeed to benefit from the teamwork, dedication, and enthusiasm of so many accomplished individuals. Individually and collectively, it is they who have made the Libraries the exciting, forward-looking organization it is today. MIT Libraries staff are a splendid example of the capacity of intelligent and committed individuals to pursue a worthy goal and, even in a year as busy as FY2001, manage to have fun along the way.

As always, the MIT Libraries are deeply indebted to many groups and individuals for their achievements. This is particularly true of the year just past. The Faculty Committee on the Library System, chaired by Professor John Lienhard, worked tirelessly to improve the finances and facilities of the Libraries. The MIT Libraries Visiting Committee provided invaluable insights to our work and mission. The Information Systems Department and the Academic Computing group were essential in their support for our initiatives. At one time or another, every member of Academic Council provided a helping hand when needed. For these friends and the many others not named specifically, the MIT Libraries extend their thanks and sincere appreciation.

More information about the MIT Libraries can be found on the World Wide Web at http://libraries.mit.edu/.

—Ann J. Wolpert

Public Services

The MIT Libraries have long provided a wealth of services in support of MIT’s educational and research programs. Inherent in this role has been the need to continuously add and adjust services to ensure that they meet the information needs of faculty, students, researchers, and staff as their needs evolve over time and as technology changes the ways information is delivered. Now that a significant amount of information is available on the web in the form of electronic journals and books, members of the MIT community are beginning to expect that library services themselves will be modified to provide enhanced assistance to users who rarely or never physically visit the library facilities. During FY01 much of the focus of the MIT Libraries’ Public Service units has been on ways to add new services while retaining and enhancing the most important traditional in-person services for our user community.

We are now in the second year of operation under the set of Strategic Directions identified in FY00, with significant progress to report in many areas. The staff have done an admirable job carrying out a number of high-visibility systemwide initiatives while also paying close attention to the needs of their local units. In some instances this dichotomy of system needs competing with local needs has created some tension, but through careful discussion and management, the issues have been resolved with the Libraries overall and the individual units having made major steps forward. Many of the projects the Public Services units have carried out have included use of new systems and digital tools, and the staff are to be commended for learning how to use these most effectively to deliver the highest quality services to the MIT community.

Across the Library System

This year's most impressive achievement has been the planning, development, and implementation of the Ex Libris Aleph integrated library system to replace the GEAC Advance system. Circulation, reference, and processing staff across the libraries dedicated substantial portions of their time and energy to this task and were successful in getting the new system is now ready to be turned on shortly after the start of FY02. Public Services staff took leadership roles in fleshing out new functionality in the circulation system, developing an online catalog that is easy to understand and navigate, and creating a web tutorial and other instructional aids to help members of the MIT community learn the new system. All Public Services staff contributed to this major undertaking either by participating in one of the working groups or by staying in their units to fill in behind the staff working on Aleph. The timeframe for implementing Aleph was ambitious, but the staff used all of their skills to create a new system that will provide users with improved, easier access to both primary and secondary scholarly resources and to personal information about their own use of library materials. Work will continue in the coming year to expand the range of features offered and to implement functionality that was not deemed essential for day one.

A second major project in which Public Services staff played a lead role was the complete redesign of the MIT Libraries' website. Work on this began in FY00 and continued throughout FY01. The goals of the project were

• to select and present quality resources
• to organize information in ways that are useful to the MIT community
• to educate the MIT community in the effective use of information
• to promote the MIT Libraries and our services
• to promote user self-sufficiency
• to promote user feedback and communication with the Libraries

The overall organization of the website changed substantially from the earlier version. Instead of presenting a virtual presence that mimics the physical realities of the disparate units within the MIT Libraries, the web content was reorganized to make it easier for users to find information regardless of location. New categories were established for the homepage, and usability tests were conducted at each stage of the design development to be sure the new site would be logical and intuitive for users. A graphic design firm was engaged to create a new look for the reworked content, and the new user-centered site was put up in test mode early in the spring. After receiving feedback from users, the design was finalized and the new website officially launched in June 2001. It was listed as a spotlight on the MIT homepage (web.mit.edu) shortly after its debut and has received positive comments from faculty, students, and staff. There is more still to be done to expand the information available from the divisional and branch libraries and other departments, but we are very proud of the new design and functionality.

A third high visibility undertaking during FY01 has been the establishment of a pilot project to deliver real-time reference assistance over the web. As earlier annual reports have documented, in the past decade, the MIT Libraries have licensed access to a wide array of resources in electronic formats that can be accessed from offices, laboratories, and dormitories as well as in the various libraries. However, until this year, there has been no electronic counterpart to the expert research assistance available from trained librarians. As an experiment in providing digital reference service, during FY01 the Libraries negotiated an agreement with LSSI, Inc., a vendor of library products and services, to test a new reference product. Using this software, librarians are able to "co-browse" the web alongside remote users to help them refine their searches and locate databases and e-journals of interest to them, and librarians can also "push" webpages out to a user's computer. The pilot digital reference service, "Ask Us Live," was offered for 10 hours each week for the second half of the year and has been very well received by the MIT community. Planning is underway to expand on the pilot project during FY02, and we have also begun discussions about how this kind of electronic reference assistance will impact our traditional in-person reference and information services in the long run.

On the Local Scene

Progress on Strategic Direction 1—Providing Easy Access to High Quality Information

In addition to the sometimes-overwhelming systemwide projects described above and in other sections of this report, each of the individual library units within the Public Services directorate took real strides to enhance access to information. The Institute Archives received a sizable and important collection of records from the MIT Planning Office including files, maps, and blueprints. The Office of the Executive Vice President provided funding for expedited processing, and project staff were hired to sort and organize the materials. By the end of the year the Planning Office records had been organized into 37 different collections, which have now been placed in preservation quality containers to preserve them for the future, and the contents have been listed and described so that they will be easily accessible. The Institute Archives also collaborated with staff in Bibliographic Access Services to prepare a plan for cataloging the rare books owned by the Libraries so that there will be records for these materials in the Barton catalog. For some time these valuable resources have been somewhat invisible to members of the community, but work has now begun to enhance access to the items in this collection.

In Document Services the focus was on delivering more materials to users' desktops. Building on the popular electronic thesis delivery service established last year, the department implemented "Web-Docs," a fee-based electronic article desktop delivery service. Faculty in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science were the first to try the service, but after getting a favorable response, the service was quickly expanded to the entire MIT community and eventually to outside customers as well. Web-Docs usage has been smaller than hoped, so Document Services expects to promote its visibility in FY02.

In other areas, significant progress has been made in preparing the Libraries to enhance access to numeric social sciences data and geospatial data. Library staff members participated in the I/S Geospatial Data Discovery Project through which agreement was reached on a joint GIS service program with staffing coming from both the Libraries and I/S. We were successful in reallocating salary monies within Public Services to create a full-time Geographic Information Specialist headquartered in Rotch Library. A highly qualified individual has been recruited to fill this position, and she will assume her position early in FY02. A new Data Services Librarian has also been hired, and she will begin in August 2002. We are looking forward to having the staff in place at last to develop and promote widespread use of data and GIS services to faculty and students around the Institute.

Many staff in the Libraries devoted a portion of their attention to expanding our outreach and instructional activities. In particular, the user groups of librarians formed to focus on segments of the MIT population arranged new activities to help strengthen the ties to our user communities. One example of this new focus is the Undergraduate User Group, which visited students in one of the dormitories and arranged for a library presence on Registration Day. Another example is the Graduate Student User Group, which started a regular column on library news and topics in the Graduate Student Newsletter, hosted a welcoming reception for graduate students in the Barker Engineering Library at the beginning of fall semester, and engaged the Graduate Student Council in discussion about library space planning, programs, and services. The establishment of these mechanisms for communicating with students has planted seeds that will continue to bear fruit in coming years.

Progress on Strategic Direction II—Improving Library Spaces and Operations

This year saw the continuation of major space planning efforts across the Libraries as well as smaller modifications and improvements in individual units. Programmatic planning for a combined Engineering and Science Library was a primary focus, and a team of staff worked with an architectural consultant to develop a program statement. As this planning was underway, concerns surfaced about the future of the Humanities Library in Building 14. A committee comprised of several SHASS faculty, the Director of Libraries, and the Head of the Humanities Library was formed at the behest of the Chancellor. This group worked through the spring to better understand the information needs and expectations of humanists for a Humanities Library, and they expect to complete a report early in FY02. One positive by-product of this has been the renewed focus by Humanities faculty on the library, which will be very helpful as we plan for the future.

Planning also continued for the Libraries' Information Kiosk to be located on the Student Street in the Stata Center. Members of the Libraries staff participated in brainstorming sessions with representative students to get a clear sense of how this space could best be used to benefit the students. Working with I/S staff, plans have now been tentatively laid to use this space to experiment with a virtual presence system that would enable students in the Information Kiosk to see and interact with librarians at a remote location. We also hope to try such technology-enabled experiments as a flexible polymer video display fabric as a means of creating banners to promote resources, activities, and events on the street.

A third major planning project that emerged and gained energy during the year centered around the future location of the Sloan School and the possibility of either building a new Dewey Library as part of the Sloan complex or having Dewey take over additional space in the Hermann Building which would be renovated for this purpose. Several Dewey Library staff participated in Sloan planning meetings and conducted brainstorming sessions with the rest of the professional staff. A vision of Dewey Library as an intellectual crossroads for Sloan, Economics, and Political Science students and faculty has blossomed and will be carried forward in future planning discussions.
One of the highlights of the year was the September dedication of the new Aeronautics/Astronautics laboratory space in Building 33, which includes a new state-of-the-art Aero/Astro Library. As with any building project, some punch-list issues have taken time to resolve, but the Libraries are pleased to have this wonderful facility in such close proximity to student workspaces. Judging by the comments students have made, they are enjoying the new space and equipment as much as the library staff are.

The Dewey Library was the first library at MIT to receive a wireless communications infrastructure when the Sloan School installed a wireless communications infrastructure in all their facilities. Wireless access to the network is now available on the first and second floors in Dewey and will make it easier for students with laptops to connect while they do their library research and study. Rotch Library also added wireless capability on the entry level and look forward to its implementation and expansion to other floors in the coming year.

Although not as grand in scale as the projects just mentioned, several other achievements in the space category are worthy of note. One of the most frequently voiced requests the Libraries receive is for additional group study spaces that will allow small groups of students to work on joint projects and to prepare for presentations. During the past year, by repurposing other spaces, one group study space was created in the Barker Engineering Library, four group study spaces were created in Dewey Library, and four group study spaces were identified in Rotch Library. Individual study carrels were added in the Science Library and have already seen heavy use. These carrels provide more privacy than the large tables in the Science reading room and enhance the study environment for many students who seek peace and quiet and no distractions while they work.

Other projects to modify spaces in Building 14 were also planned and started, but these are described in other sections of the Libraries annual report and do not need to be repeated here.

Service Evolution

As the year progressed, a number of significant changes and trends occurred in services the Libraries have provided. Foremost among these was the decision to phase out the Computerized Literature Search Services. This service had been very valuable to a small, loyal cadre of users, but the costs of continuing to provide the service in light of demands for other new programs resulted in a plan to close the service. After the initial decision was made in September, the CLSS librarian announced her impending retirement, and the service closed officially in February 2001. Since then there have been a handful of requests for in-depth database searching, but these have been referred to existing fee-based services in other academic research libraries when appropriate.

The Libraries continue to be used as placed to study, user materials, and get assistance, although these use patterns are changing. Doorcount statistics dropped several years ago, but this year they rebounded. Circulation continues to hold fairly steady, but in-house use has dropped off, probably due to the growth in the number of materials available in digital formats. The trends in reference transactions vary depending on location--in the Archives, reference activity increased 14 percent while many of the other libraries showed a slight decline in the number of reference queries. On the other hand, email ("Ask Us") and digital reference ("Ask Us Live") services grew substantially and now account for roughly 10 percent of all reference transactions. Interlibrary borrowing requests to obtain items needed by MIT faculty, students, and researchers, plateaued, but we have grown concerned that the number of items requested through ILB but owned at MIT increased dramatically from less than 5 percent to 14 percent. Reasons for this change will be explored in the next several months.

One other significant change in service philosophy was the introduction of fee-based printing from public computers. Over the past several years the Libraries have witnessed a decline in the number of photocopies made (in FY01 copy activity has decreased by 25 percent) while the number of pages printed has steadily increased. With no charging mechanism in place, there was no incentive for users to exercise any restraint, and, as a result, costs to the Libraries were rising rapidly. Rather than risking further expenditures from the Libraries’ tight budget, we decided to implement the UnipriNT management system, which uses the copy-card system to charge users for each page printed from electronic databases and other web resources. The system was installed first in Dewey Library as a test and then throughout the other library locations. After a two-month break-in period in which the system was operational but printing continued to be free, charging was turned on in late February. A thorough PR campaign was launched to educate the community about the reasons for taking this step, and we have been pleased that there have been few complaints since the program began.

Notable Staff Accomplishments

Many of the staff in Public Services made contributions to the profession in a variety of ways too numerous to list. Among the highlights are the following:

• Pat Flanagan, Deborah Helman, Lisa Horowitz, and Sarah Wenzel made a presentation on digital reference services at the 2001 ACRL national conference.
• Catherine Friedman has served a one-year term as President of the Reference and User Services Association, a division of the American Library Association.
• Steven Gass was one of two U.S. librarians invited to make presentations at a Japanese XML workshop for electronic journals sponsored by the Japan Science and Technology Corporation in March 2001.
• Nicole Hennig published an article entitled "Card sorting usability tests of the MIT Libraries’ web site: categories from the users’ point of view" in
• Megan Sniffin-Marinoff was elected to the Council of the Society of American Archivists.
• Theresa Tobin has served a one-year term as Chair of the Women’s Studies Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries.

Looking Forward: Challenges for the Future

One of the serious problems that continues to plague Public Service units is the high rate of staff turnover. During the past year more than 20 staff left their positions, and nearly the same number of new staff were hired. While we are pleased at our ability to attract excellent people, this level of turnover creates problems in moving new initiatives forward and handling the routine work in each of the units. Dewey Library has been particularly hard hit; over the past 2 years 70 percent of their staff have turned over. The turnover problem has been compounded in FY01 by a number of staff going on extended sick leaves that kept them out of work for months. The staffing situation is one that will bear further discussion and scrutiny in the next year.

Overall, the Public Services units have accomplished a great deal in meeting the information needs of the MIT community. They have pressed forward and made laudable progress on large systemwide projects, and they have continued to mold and shape local services as user needs have evolved. MIT is fortunate to have such an able staff. Without the contributions of each and every staff member, we could not have accomplished all that we have. To our users, thank you for your support, and, to the staff, bravo!

—Virginia Steel

Collection Services

Fiscal year 2001 was dominated by efforts related to implementing a new library management system, Ex Libris’ ALEPH. Significant progress in many other initiatives was also realized. Acquisition and cataloging of digital resources continued to challenge our staff, as did the management of print and other physical collections.

3rd Barton Implementation

The implementation of a new library management system is a major endeavor. This year’s processes required significant time, attention, critical thinking, and planning skill from a broad cross-section of Libraries’ staff. Almost all Collections Services staff were involved, some spending over 50% of their time in related activities. Library management systems are highly integrated. The ALEPH system will facilitate functions related to acquisition, receipt and check-in of materials, fund account management, cataloging of materials and database management, circulation of materials, and the generation of the on-line public catalog. It will enable workflow connections between these functions, as well as on-line user services based on the nearly one million bibliographic records and associated authorities records that were migrated. In addition, it will mesh with external records systems, such as those of commercial vendors of library materials, vendors of bibliographic data, MIT central accounting, and MIT student information services.

The inventory of activities listed below paints only the broadest picture of the effort required:

• Selection of system: The Information Technology Librarian was instrumental in the coordination of the vendor demonstrations during the summer months. Many staff participated in follow-up analysis of system functionality in relation to defined requirements.
• Negotiation of contract terms: A short seven-month implementation timeline after contract completion added a significant stress factor.
• Preparatory database cleanup: This included deletion of records for materials no longer held, correction of irregularities in call numbers and dates, review and deletion of orders and invoices that were no longer active, clean-up of vendor records, and resolution of data conflicts to ensure system number matching.
• System configuration: This included determination of indexing tables and logical bases, character sorting and equivalencies, basic system settings and mapping data. Mapping serials data was especially complex since it was the first time that data has been migrated.
• Data migration: The Database Management Librarian assisted the Systems Manager in monitoring the data migration processes, which required round-the-clock vigilance.
• Testing: Iterative testing of data was required after initial migration and through a series of requested revisions. Testing was complicated by system instability and downtime at critical points, as well as delays in the vendor deliverables. Financial data migration was particularly "dirty" and required intense analysis and correction. The record loader had not yet been delivered at fiscal year-end; it is expected in early FY2002 and still requires testing.
• Training: Two monograph catalogers and one serials cataloger were three of a total of five instructors responsible for teaching beginning and advanced GUI OPAC searching to over 200 staff members. Specific work-related training continues in all work units and in cross-departmental sessions such as serials check-in.

Workflow and work process definition: Due to the accelerated implementation, delays in deliverables, and complexity of analyzing data migration issues, insufficient time was available for planning effective work flow and work processes. This planning will continue during the first months of FY2002 and will be informed by a growing working knowledge of the system. However, an effort was undertaken to work with ExLibris and our major book wholesale vendor to create a suitable record loader for ordering on the vendor’s system and loading vendor bibliographic records into our Library Management System. Since our staffing level is based on this automated record loading, it was critical to be able to extend it into the new environment.

Management of Digital Information Resources

Acquisition

The Libraries continue to provide access to digital information resources at an accelerating rate. This year we were able to make significant progress in our goal of providing a critical mass of relevant and significant electronic journals. Early in the year, we purchased access to Elsevier’s Science Direct, providing 560 full text e-journals. Later in the year, we purchased access to Kluwer Online, including almost 800 titles. Other major purchases in support of the Engineering and Science community included JSTOR General Science Collection, five full-text titles from Jane’s, Access Science (the web version of McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology), an upgrade to SciFinder Scholar (Chemical Abstracts online) to allow for more simultaneous users, 24-hour access, and substructure searching, and additional user permissions for Web of Science (the ISI databases). Major purchases in support of Humanities and the Social Sciences included the Oxford English Dictionary on the Web, the Euromonitor Global Market Information Database, Women’s Resources International, 300 full-text psychology journals from ProQuest, Grove’s Dictionary of Music, Index to Current Urban Documents, cq.com (to access congressional information), and BNA Environmental Library.

Between Fiscal Years 1997 and 2001, the percent of serial titles purchased (i.e. titles which require ongoing commitment of funds such as journal subscriptions) which were electronic resources increased from .7% to 24%; the percent of serial dollars spent on electronic resources increased from 4% to 25%. At the end of FY 00, the Libraries’ provided access to 2,046 electronic journals and 210 electronic databases. At the end of FY 01, these numbers were 3,295 and 274 respectively.

Managing this growing array of electronic resources requires additional staff time. This year we shifted a part-time position into the Digital Resources Unit to support activities related to the licensing of these products as well as problem resolution. There is an increasing need to monitor and resolve access problems, which may be related to the provider’s server, to IP filtering, or to something as mundane as an unresolved renewal problem. We reached a threshold this year, due to our growing list of supported products, where resolving access problems is as time-consuming as efforts related to licensing new products.

Cataloging

ERESCAT, an ad hoc group of staff from Collection Services as well as the Web Manager from Public Services, was created to grapple with policy issues related to extending limited cataloging staff resources to covering digital products as well as traditional information resources. An interim report will be shared within the Libraries during the summer months. The report recognizes the current necessity of continuing to maintain both Barton and Vera as tools to manage and provide access to digital resources. It defines the unique characteristics of digital resources that impact cataloging decisions, and the factors influencing whether a digital product will be included in Barton. It recognizes the current period as one of experimentation, during which the cataloging staff will aggressively pursue pragmatic strategies for cataloging e-resources on a product-by-product basis, as well as for managing and deleting records.

Several experimental efforts were undertaken during this year. For one product, Books 24 x 7, records provided by the vendor were loaded into our catalog. This required resolution of a few electronic data problems as well as creating a special loader script. For another product, the publications of the Association of Computing Machinery, staff utilized OCLC’s CORC metadata harvesting software to create brief records for all of the conference proceedings. In addition, we have subscribed to OCLC’s Bibliographic Notification Service so that we will receive full MARC records as they become available in the OCLC database. In the case of the IEEE Explore package of resources, we have undertaken a cooperative cataloging initiative with the University of California, San Diego. Within this agreement, MIT will contribute cataloging records for the IEE colloquia publications, and the records will be incorporated into the OCLC WorldCat Collection Set for use by other libraries. These flexible alternatives to traditional cataloging models are a credit to the creativity of catalog department managers and staff and signal a cultural shift that will increase success in providing effective bibliographic access in an environment of rapid change.

Provision of title level access to the contents of "aggregator databases", collections of information resources that do not have stable content, is still a challenge. At the end of the year, Serials Solutions, the best option to date, was purchased to provide access to approximately 8,000 fulltext titles in this category via Vera.

Preservation

One of the major unresolved issues related to electronic information resources is their preservation for use by future generations of scholars. D-Space, the joint MIT Libraries/Hewlett Packard initiative, will have an impact in this area. In addition, this year the Libraries presented a proposal to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to plan for a multi-year project to archive "dynamic e-journals", scholarly web sites such as the MIT Press’ Cognet. These sites represent the leading edge of changes in publishing no longer bound to conventions needed in the print environment. It is important to find a way to make these more fully realized e-journals available to future scholars. In January, the Mellon Foundation announced that it would fund this planning project, and in April, a Project Planner was hired. We expect to submit a proposal to Mellon in early calendar year 2002 for a multi-year implementation project.

MANAGEMENT OF PRINT INFORMATION RESOURCES

During this year of extremely intense systems planning and accelerated activity related to the management of digital information resources, considerable effort was also directed toward the management of our traditional library collections.

Collections Housing

In our continuing efforts to reduce the need to send collections to off-site storage, the spring months were devoted to planning for a CRSP funded compact shelving installation in the basement of Building 14. Engineering studies carried out as part of the Shepley Bulfinch feasibility study of Building 14 indicated which area of the basement has sufficient floor loading capacity for this installation. Early in the calendar year, the Institute assigned a project manager, and contracts for the work were awarded to Acme Office Systems and William B. Meyer, Inc., Library Relocation Division. With a goal of using this opportunity to improve the usability of collections throughout Building 14, a working group consisting of public services and collections staff was convened to plan collections arrangement. We plan to move all bound journals and bound theses from the Science Library to the basement, and to move all books classed in Q from the basement to the Science Library. Because of the juxtaposition of compact shelving with stationery shelving, it is necessary to rearrange the entire basement collection at the end of the project. The group has planned an arrangement that will improve the usability of the collections and provide adequate growth in each area. The collections and shelving will also be cleaned. The project began immediately after final exams in May. Journals from the compact shelving area were moved to the Humanities and Science reading rooms for the construction period.

The compact shelving planning group decided to try to move any materials that we would want to move from Hayden Basement to storage in the foreseeable future at this time, so that when the collections are rearranged they will be stable enough not to require significant shifts for several years. Staff spent many hours preparing volumes for moves to the Retrospective Collection and the Harvard Depository. Approximately 21,000 volumes will have been moved before the collections are rearranged. It will take at least six months to arrange and shelve these materials in the RSC; we anticipate being able to provide less than the usual level of service in the interim period.

Fiscal Year 2001 was the last year in a three-year project to accelerate moves of materials to storage in order to provide adequate on-site shelving for growing collections. Our goal for this year was to move 20,000 volumes from Barker Engineering Library. Over 17,000 volumes were moved before we had to temporarily suspend these moves in order to carry out the large Hayden basement moves. In addition, however over 40,000 other volumes were moved to storage from various locations in the library system, significantly surpassing our required standard of annually removing volumes equal to new acquisitions (45,000-50,000 volumes per year).

Significant Achievements Related to Improving Bibliographic Access

Dewey Decimal Collection

This was the third year of a five-year project to provide bibliographic access to the Dewey Decimal Collection, housed in the RSC. An additional 12,000 monograph titles (for a total to date of approximately 37,000 titles) were cataloged this year through contractual arrangement with OCLC. In addition, serials cataloging staff continued to provide in-house cataloging for serial and journal titles from the same DDC areas.

Rare Books

A staff shift in Bibliographic Access Services at the end of last year resulted in the reassignment of a cataloger to rare books cataloging. This individual attended two week-long classes at the Rare Book School of the University of Virginia and began to catalog materials from the Rotch Limited Access collection. An ad hoc group of cataloging, preservation, and archives staff was convened to recommend handling, marking, security and cataloging procedures. A report was approved by Steering Committee at the end of the year, and the cataloging of the rare book collections will begin in July 2001. The large collection formerly referred to as Rare is being renamed as two collections: MIT Founders Collection and MIT Legacy Collection. Survey data related to physical condition of volumes cataloged will be entered into a database for future reference.

Maps

In an effort to expand capacity to catalog maps, staff in the Copy Based Cataloging unit were trained to catalog maps with available cataloging copy. Lindgren Library’s remaining uncataloged maps were cataloged, with the exception of non-Roman language materials. Still needing cataloging is a large map collection in the Rotch Library.

MIT Theses

Review of processes to expedite supply of theses to Document Services customers resulted in identification and elimination of redundant efforts in the entire workflow chain. In order to be able to respond effectively to submission of electronic-only theses, Passport macros were created that streamline cataloging processes.

Table of Contents

We contracted with Blackwell North America to receive upgrades for Barton records from their Table of Contents Enrichment Service. This will provide a deeper level of access to our book collections.

Significant Achievements Related to Acquisitions

Acquisitions staff were happy to welcome a new Financial Administrator and Assistant Director for Administrative Services after several months of interim arrangements. After years of "desire," the Libraries and central accounting implemented a data feed of payment information, which will result in faster payment of invoices and closer synchronization of MIT payment information and the Libraries’ system (now ALEPH) payment information. Significant effort went into completing all year end ordering, receiving, and invoicing on Geac Advance before the end of the fiscal year, which was accelerated by the closing down of the Geac system.

The Head of Serials Acquisitions gave a well-attended and well-received presentation of the Federal Depository Library Program for distribution of government documents. The Dewey Library committed to a six-month time frame for completing its review of documents item selections, which will feed into our efforts to complete cataloging of government document serials.
The Head of Serials Acquisitions and two processing supervisors presented a claiming workshop for all check in and claiming staff.

Gifts-in-kind contributed about 10% of our monograph acquisitions and included a few very special additions to the collections: Pennyroyal Caxton Bible, illustrated by Barry Moser, Wenyuange siku quanshu dianzi ban, a complete library of four branches of literature on CD-Rom, and an epic Irish poem, The Tain, by Thomas Kinsella, translated into Spanish, which was delivered in person by the Mexican consulate.

Significant Achievements Related to Preservation and Collections Management

In December, the Libraries learned of a gift from an anonymous donor for the purpose of establishing a Preservation Center. In January, the Libraries submitted a successful CRSP proposal for a space change to accommodate this center. An architect and a project planner have been assigned, and the work will begin in January of 2002.

The Retrospective Collection staff prepared a proposal for A New Service Model for the Retrospective Collection. It was reviewed by Steering Committee in January and implementation planning is now underway to fulfill the following goals: develop an article delivery service, implement a notification service related to status of requests, limit the hours the RSC is open to the public, require a referral letter for non-MIT users, permit direct user access to the stacks only under limited conditions, develop a communications plan, and prepare a list of action items for facility improvements. A part-time position was moved from Serials and Acquisitions Services to the RSC to provide staffing for the document delivery initiative.

Summary

The staff responded to the many demands and uncertainties of this year with tremendous energy, commitment, and intelligence. The MIT Libraries, including Collection Services, have always been blessed with highly capable staff members. This year demonstrated a melding into a highly capable organization.

—Carol Fleishauer

Administrative Services

Administrative Services (AS) supports the MIT Libraries’ mission and goals in the areas of Budget and Financial, Delivery Services, Facilities/Operations and Procurement, Payroll and Staff Records, and Personnel. It would not be an overstatement to say that the services provided by AS are fundamental to the operation of the Libraries —recognizing its role in providing the infrastructure necessary to support the Libraries’ Staff in their provision of services and resources to the users of the Libraries and their responsibilities to the Institute. The goal of AS is to work behind the scenes to insure that staff are recruited, hired, retained, remunerated and provided growth opportunities consistent with MIT policies in well planned and maintained facilities, at present and in the future.

To integrate the services provided by Administrative Services more directly into the decision making processing of the Libraries, it was decided at the beginning of FY01 to create the position of Assistant Director for Administration who would administer AS and would serve on the Steering Committee of the Libraries. With the retirement of the Head of Administrative Services, a review of the role of Administrative Services was undertaken. It was determined that a department that included all administrative services would be logical, to this end, the human resources function that had been split between AS and the Director’s Office was integrated as one area within Administrative Services. It was also determined that the larger role of facility planning, short and long term, would become a responsibility of AS (with coordination and collaboration with Public and Collection Services).

To fill this new position a search was undertaken for a person to serve as Assistant Director for Administration. The Search Committee conducted a national search during Summer 2000. The search was successful and an appointment was made January 1, 2001.

Budget and Financial

A major transition took place during this past year. The retirement of the AS Department Head after many years of service, along with the resignation of the Business Services Administrator several months later, could have seriously hampered the efficiency and effectiveness of AS. However, on an interim basis, the Associate Director for Collections Services and a staff accountant on loan from the Controller’s Accounting Office provided able leadership for AS. During the Fall, a successful search was completed and the vacant Financial Administrator position was filled effective January 1, 2001.

Concurrent with this appointment came the implementation of the new integrated on-line library system. Not only does the new system integrate all facets of accessing research information for the MIT Libraries, it is also the financial procurement and auditing system for the acquisition of library resources, both print and digital products. The Financial Administrator worked closely with colleagues in SAS to insure that all present and historic records were correctly transferred and that an accurate and efficient process to procure and pay for library acquisitions is in place.

Delivery Services (DSO)

The work involved in moving materials throughout the MIT Libraries as well as distributing all mail and other delivery services requires not only coordination and cooperation of all involved, it requires strong backs. The amount of library materials moved throughout the Libraries’ has been steadily increasing. With the shift of more and more of the Libraries’ holdings into storage, either at RSC or the Harvard Depository, the requests and return of materials from these sites places additional demands upon DSO services. It can only be expected that as more materials are sent to storage these demands and expectations will increase.

Many factors come into play as materials are moved throughout the Libraries’ – not the least of which is renovation of facilities, creating difficulties in accessing loading docks or delivery sites. Coupled with this is the disruption caused by street repairs or right of way work, making it difficult to reach some delivery points. The DSO Staff has been resourceful and creative in adjusting to these challenges. This Spring, the DSO Staff began to record the number of materials distributed through its operations. In future annual reports, it will be possible to compare past and present use, as well as project demand for Delivery Services in upcoming years.

Facilities and Operations

FY01 saw significant steps taken on several critical facility issues, including: short term maintenance, building renovation and upgrades, and a major effort to identify long term facility planning.

During the Summer of 2000, construction of a fire pipeline into Building 14 was begun. Preliminary meetings were held to discuss the various phases and its impact on operations. Piping was brought through the basement of Building 14 into two newly cored penetrations to the exterior. This work affected various units of the Libraries, including Preservation Services, Document Services, Music Library, and Delivery Services.

Building 14 has long been subject to roof leaks, especially in 14S. After a particularly bad leak in February, an intensive effort undertaken by Facilities identified several problems with drainage and cracks in the roof and floor of the penthouse. Work was completed during Spring to correct the problems, and at the end of the FY01, the issues seem to have been resolved.

The Dewey Library Staff identified several safety issues with the basement of E53, including emergency signs and lighting. This was brought to the attention of Facilities who installed the necessary signs and lights. To freshen the appearance of the Dewey Library, new drapes were installed to replace ones hung when the building was built in the 1960s.

The installation of a series of panels depicting the history of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) caused a major refurbishing to take place along the corridor in 14N. This was accomplished by collaboration and coordination between the Libraries and SHASS. The result is a much brighter and attractive corridor in close proximity to the entrance to the Humanities and Science Libraries in Hayden.

Aeronautics and Astronautics Library

FY01 saw the completion of the work on the Aero/Astro Library. Begun during FY00, the complete re-thinking and re-designing of this library has enabled it to be more fully integrated into the teaching and learning processes of the departments it serves. Located adjacent to laboratories, it is easily accessible to students and faculty as their need for information arises. The space was designed to accommodate print materials, access to digital resources, study space and staff work areas. Although less square footage than the older facility, the use of compact shelving and excellent design has made the space more effective in meeting its mission.

CRSP FY01 Project

In order to house as many print materials as possible within Building 14, it was determined that installation of compact shelving (moveable shelving that reduces space dedicated to aisles), should be investigated for the basement of 14. After an engineering study determined that only a limited portion of the floor had the strength to support compact shelving, a CRSP proposal was funded in FY01 that provided for the installation of compact shelving in this section at the center of the basement. While the capacity was not what had been hoped, the new compact shelving is expected to extend the shelving capacity for up to five more years. The project began after the end of classes in May 2001 and is underway during the summer of 2001. For further discussion of this important project, especially the impact upon collection shelving and storage, please see the Annual Report of Collection Services.

A second project was also funded as part of the FY01 CRSP projects, which is the renovation of Hayden Libraries entrance. This project is expected to include the integration of the Reserve Book Room into the immediate area and to provide a 24-hour study room. Due to planning delays and the review being undertaken by Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson, and Abbot during FY01 of Building 14 (see below) that could have impinged on this project it was decided to delay this project until FY02.

CRSP Proposals FY02

The libraries responded to the call for FY02 CRSP proposals by submitting two projects. The MIT Libraries had been given an anonymous gift to support the creation of a Preservation Services Laboratory. The gift was to purchase the necessary equipment and cover some staff costs. The Preservation Services Laboratory will eventually become part of an integrated Preservation Services Center, which will house both the Preservation Services Laboratory as well as a new digital projects laboratory. Funding is now being sought for this companion Digital Projects Laboratory. In order to house the additional equipment and staff necessary for such a Center, the Libraries had to identify space adjacent to the site of the current Preservation unit. The concurrent impact required a juggling of space between the original Preservation unit, the Library Systems Office and the Institute Archives. In Spring 2001 the Libraries were informed that this project had received CRSP support. Planning will begin during Summer 2001, with the project to begin during IAP, January, 2002.

Long Term Facility Planning

During FY01 a major effort was begun to assess the long-term facility needs of the MIT Libraries. Since the MIT Libraries are housed in facilities that basically have not changed since the 1960s with the completion of the Dewey Library, the ability of the Libraries to house collections and provide services consistent with the needs and expectations of students and faculty of MIT at the beginning of the 21st century is seriously compromised.

The FY 00 Libraries Master Plan, prepared with the assistance of Shepley Bulfinch (SBRA) architectural firm, called for combining the Engineering and Science Libraries into one facility. In FY 01, the Libraries again contracted with Shepley Bulfinch to assist with a Feasibility Study of Building 14 to discover its potential for housing a combined engineering and science library as well as the central services currently housed there. Their report was received in May, 2001. It concluded "that an expanded Building 14 would not effectively accommodate the programs for both the Science and Engineering Library and the Library Central Services".

The report includes the following components: analysis of existing building conditions, analysis of compliance with building codes, program for a Science and Engineering Library, program for the Libraries’ Central Services, proposed architectural diagram, preliminary phasing and project cost estimates. Even with the proposed aggressive and expensive expansion plan, the Building 14 library facilities would fall 20% short of program needs for a combined Science and Engineering Library and Central Library Services. However, the feasibility study illuminated a number of opportunities for improving library facilities in Building 14 and will continue to inform viable alternatives for functional program accommodation. It has already been of great use in planning the compact shelving project for the basement and in providing reliable data for continued space planning.

Payroll & Staff Records

At the invitation of Financial Systems Services, the Staff Administrator participated in the development and testing of an alternate platform on the Web for journal voucher preparation. Voucher employees hired for projects or unfilled positions increased from 12 in 1999/00 to 40 in 2000/01. In order for Library Council members to track voucher payroll expenditures, a form was created. To facilitate the links between Human Resources and the Libraries Payroll, the Staff Administrator assumed responsibility for correcting errors and/or resolving problems with payroll status.

Personnel

Recuitment

Recruitment and search activities in the MIT Libraries continued to receive a high level of energy and attention in FY01. The Libraries filled 13 administrative and professional staff positions as a result of serious searches. In addition to traditional librarian positions, these newly filled vacancies included a Library Technology Consultant, an Analyst/Programmer, a GIS and Statistics Specialist, a Financial Administrator, and several non-librarian supervisor positions. Also included in this total were the search to fill a Libraries’ Steering Committee position, Assistant Director for Administration, and a newly developed position in the Libraries, that of Director of Development. Two additional administrative staff level positions were filled through the waiving of the serious search process and internal promotions of highly qualified support staff (Library Technology Consultant and Supervisor, Dewey and Humanities Processing) and another was filled through the upgrade of a support staff position (to Facilities and Operations Administrator), again creating an opportunity for an internal promotion.

The Libraries also conducted a record number of serious searches to fill Sponsored Research Staff positions this year. Grants from Hewlett-Packard and the Mellon Foundation for the DSpace Project and for the E-Journals Archiving Project have provided funding to fill several "hot skill" positions. The Libraries now have four Sponsored Research Staff associated with these exciting projects, a Project Planner for E-Journals Archiving, and for the DSpace Project – a Systems Curator and two Senior Marketing Development Managers.

The largest number of positions filled throughout FY01, however, was among support staff. A total of 32 positions were filled this year, which represents approximately one-third of the Libraries’ support staff headcount. A competitive local job market has clearly taken its toll on the Libraries’ ability to attract and retain library assistants. Salary requirements for many of these incoming library assistants have created internal equity issues, which will require analysis and attention over the next year.

The recruitment of student assistants in the Libraries remains a challenge. There are many other jobs on and off campus that offer better wages and more meaningful career opportunities for students. In order for many library departments to carry out routine, basic services, it has become necessary to hire temporary hourly/casual employees. While this strategy has proven effective in some cases, it can only be for a limited period of time and does not allow the Libraries to establish valuable relationships with the student community.

Retention

The Libraries recorded 26 terminations this year – 9 from the administrative staff and 15 from the support staff. Of the 9 departing administrative staff members, 2 retired and 2 left the workforce for family reasons. Exit interviews with other departing staff members show salary still to be one factor impacting the decision to leave the MIT Libraries. Another of the factors cited for leaving the Libraries is the perception of a heavy burden on limited staff. A clear message from several of these departing staff members was that the Libraries do not have enough staff to accomplish the innovative things they want to do and still maintain effective patron services.

The Libraries have seen a significant impact of the special allocation provided in FY01 for market adjustments to librarian salaries. These salary increases have been noted by staff as recognition on the part of the Institute of their value to the teaching and research programs of MIT. These salary increases have also improved the MIT Libraries’ competitive position among our peers.

According to the Association of Research Libraries’ (ARL) recent salary survey (reporting 1999-2000 data), MIT ranked 23rd of 122 in Average Professional Salary. This figure is up from 39th last year. Among our true peer institutions (22) in this group, the MIT Libraries have risen in the standings from 16th to 12th. It is worth noting, however, that seven of the peer institutions out-ranking MIT are located in the northeast.

MIT has improved its standing in Beginning Professional Salary as well, up from 37th to 15th within the entire ARL group, and up from 14th to 8th among our true peer group. Again, a number of the peer institutions outranking MIT are New England institutions, including Harvard.

Statistics support that MIT’s ranking among its peer institutions, both for beginning and average professional salaries, has substantially improved as a result of the Institute’s attention to enhancing the MIT Libraries’ position in the competitive marketplace. These statistics also indicate that continued attention to librarian salaries will further improve MIT’s competitive edge against other academic library peers such as Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and the UC system.

Two of the fifteen support staff departures were due to retirement. While salary is an issue in attracting new support staff it does not appear to be a direct factor in support staff departures. A significant number of last year’s support staff terminations can be attributed to job advancement or career pursuit. It is worth noting that five (one-third) of the 15 positions vacated this year were by employees who had been with the Libraries for one year or less, however, several of these were attributable to performance issues.

Administrative Services’ staff has begun collaborating with the Compensation Office to analyze market data and assess salaries of both administrative and support staff in the Libraries. In addition to reviewing salary data, the Libraries’ have provided compensation staff with information regarding recruitment and retention challenges for library staff in the form of a "Strategic Workforce Planning" document.

Rewards and Recognition

By all accounts the Libraries’ implementation of the Institute’s Rewards and Recognition initiative was a success. Operating under a significant time constraint, the Libraries’ design team developed programs for both the Infinite Mile Award and the Spot Award during the first half of the year. On June 27 a luncheon was held for library staff to celebrate the contributions of all staff members during what has been a very demanding year. The luncheon was followed by a celebratory and even moving presentation of the Infinite Mile Awards. Within each of the award categories (Innovation and Creativity; Communication and Collaboration; Results, Productivity, and Outcome; and Community), four individuals and four teams — a total of 25 staff members — received a certificate of appreciation and a cash award.

Both programs were explicitly designed around peer-recognition. The impressive number of persuasive and heart-felt nominations received for the Infinite Mile Award was truly gratifying and reflected the great respect and appreciation library staff members have for one another. The Spot Award Program, a monthly drawing from a pool of submitted "thank you’s", kicked off at the June 27th award event. The program was well received and thank you’s have already begun rolling in.

Affirmative Action

It is discouraging to note the decrease in the Libraries’ minority representation among the administrative staff. With the departure of two Asian females since July 2000, the percentage of underrepresented minorities on the administrative staff is now at 3%. One of the librarians took a position at the Harvard Business School and the other elected to devote more time to her young family. In both cases the MIT Libraries developed and supported creative strategies to try to retain these individuals, including sponsorship in the Association of Research Libraries Leadership and Career Development Program for underrepresented minority librarians in the former case, and the creation of a job share arrangement in the latter. Though ultimately unsuccessful, both strategies enabled us to retain these librarians in our employ for a longer period of time.

Despite diligent recruitment efforts in the serious search process we have been able to identify only a very few minority applicants in our candidate pools. This is a trend experienced by academic and research libraries across the country, as the percentage of minority library school students remains low. Of that small portion of minority students, few are electing to pursue librarianship in the academic setting. The highly competitive job market for librarians in general as well as MIT’s need for librarians with sci/tech backgrounds are added complications.

Recruitment for the majority of librarian positions involves a full national search where positions are posted with various American Library Association minority groups. Full or limited local searches are conducted to fill non-librarian, professional positions and a local affirmative action source, such as The Bay State Banner, is used. Each applicant pool is diligently reviewed to identify any possible minority applicants, and to interview those applicants who meet the qualifications. Of the searches conducted this year, a total of six minority candidates were interviewed.

Minority representation on the support staff is much more encouraging. Of currently filled positions, 13% are from underrepresented minority groups.

Training

In order for library staff to keep up in the fast-paced, ever-changing world of technology, they must be proactive in seeking out and participating in skill development opportunities. The Libraries, in turn, must provide an environment that supports and encourages continuous learning.
Responsibility for providing technology training opportunities for library staff is shared by many groups and individuals in the Libraries outside of Administrative Services. For non-technology training, many library staff avail themselves of MIT’s Office for Organization and Employee Development offerings, which are convenient and receive good reviews. Several specific opportunities were organized this year for library staff members:

In an effort to develop strong presentation skills in our library professionals (for bibliographic instruction in the classrooms, demonstrations of library technologies and systems to the MIT community, presentations to Visiting Committee, donors, etc.) a workshop was scheduled last summer with a local trainer. Approximately 12 staff members learned how to present themselves and their material more effectively, through group exercises, videotaping, and critiquing.

In response to a request from some newer supervisors, a special session of "Giving Performance Appraisals" was scheduled with MIT Human Resources. With the many competing priorities in the Libraries at that time, only 4 supervisors were able to attend. In preparation for the 2001 support staff performance evaluation cycle, another special session is planned.

Complaint Handler’s Training, led by Prof. J. Samuel Keyser, was scheduled for 13 staff members in December 2001. It has been the Libraries’ goal to provide this training to all supervisors as well as all committee members of the Libraries’ Advisory Committee on Workplace Issues.

Participation in professional organizations and conferences is also an important way for librarian and other professional staff to receive training and keep up-to-date with current technologies and best practices in the library profession. The Libraries place a high value on professional development opportunities and provide financial support for travel, lodging, and registration fees. Despite the fact that this funding only represents partial funding of these important development activities, statistics show that the majority of the Libraries’ professional staff participates regularly in some type of funded professional activity. Professional associations include the American Library Association, Library and Information Technology Association, American Society of Information Science, Geological Society of America, and the American Chemical Society.

Procurement

The procurement of library supplies and equipment and the monitoring of all contracts with vendors are completed by the Facilities and Operations Administrator. Due to the illness since February 2001of the Facilities and Operations Administrator, members of the AS staff have shared many of the duties. The Staff Administrator assumed much of the day-to-day supervision of facilities, procurement, and parking.

Conclusion

This has been a year of great change for the staff of the Administrative Services Department. With significant personnel changes, the integration of other operations within the department, and a new department head, it has been a challenging time for all involved. However, it has been an opportunity for the AS staff to pull together and to learn more about each area within the department.

— James Mullins

Technology Planning and Administration

During this fiscal year the MIT Libraries has established itself as a committed player in the educational technology landscape of the Institute. The strong progress of our DSpace initiative, along with the creation of another Mellon-funded initiative, have helped draw vital attention and funding to the Libraries’ role in educational technology. Libraries managers have participated in planning groups from MITCET to OCW, and expect to continue their engagement with educational technology efforts across the campus. And within the Libraries new ideas continue to be nurtured, building out our limited research experience. Even as we take a place at the campuswide ed-tech table, we also continue to improve our own operational technology foundations. This year we made the transition to the third generation of our Barton library management system, a transition which demanded extraordinary effort from our whole staff. We also revised our public web and our printing architecture with an eye on the sustainability of these services.

Taking a Seat at the Educational Technology Table

Libraries have long been at the heart of education technology on the campus. In fact, books are a masterful piece of educational technology, and all that libraries do to manage these assets for MIT are expressions of earlier efforts to master this educational technology. But the world moves on and today the new expressions of educational technology are in the digital realm, where again the library is building a role and reputation for itself.

MIT Libraries administrators now sit on both the MIT Council on Education Technology and the Open CourseWare steering committee. We have also engaged deeply in our role on the campuswide Information Technology Architecture Group. Managers of the Open Knowledge Initiative and Stellar projects from Academic Computing have sought our expertise, and Libraries staff have participated in the "knowledge summit" sponsored by these efforts. We have begun regular formal strategic planning meeting between the highest levels of Academic Computing and Libraries management, so that our efforts may be well coordinated. This participation in the Institute's vision and planning for educational technology has seen vital growth this year, and sprouts from the Libraries’ mission and research agenda.

DSpace

The DSpace project, supported by the Hewlett-Packard Laboratories ($1.8M) and the Andew W. Mellon Foundation ($214,000) seeks to build a system which can capture, preserve, and communicate the research output of the Institute which is born in digital form (see http://web.mit.edu/dspace). The project is now fully staffed and has defined the core attributes of the system. This year we established a Faculty Advisory Board which has met twice and a Technical Review Board which has helped the team confront some sticky technical choices. We have also identified a set of "early adopters" within the Institute. These departments, labs, and centers will begin to use DSpace in the fall of 2001, while the rest of campus will await the formal release of the repository in the first few months of calendar year 2002.

The MIT Libraries have also begun active planning for the handoff of DSpace from the research team to our operational technology group. This handoff could take place as soon as the summer of 2002.

We have also hired two Sloan MBA's to take on the Mellon-funded challenge of building a business model for DSpace. We believe such a plan to be crucial to our ability to sustain DSpace for the long term called for in our commitment to faculty.

EJournal Archiving

This year the MIT Libraries were gratified to attract a second Mellon Foundation grant ($140,000), this time for the purpose of planning for an ejournal archiving project. We are interested in tackling the archiving of a specific subset of the new scholarly literature, a medium we think will constitute the next generation of ejournal publishing, a medium we will call "dynamic ejournals." Dynamic ejournals are scholarly web sites which aim to share discoveries and insights, but do not feel bound by the conventions of "issues" and "articles" that have become standard in print. We believe that the dynamic ejournals currently published represent the leading edge of a broad range of dynamic content which we must learn to capture for future scholars.

This effort builds on the close relationship between the MIT Libraries and the MIT Press. The Press produces CogNet, one of the premier examples of a "dynamic ejournal" present in the world today.

The goal of this planning grant is to develop a proposal for actually undertaking the archiving task proposed for submission to the Mellon Foundation for further funding. This project proposal should be ready to submit to Mellon before the end of FY2002.

Digital Reference

One of the most encouraging aspects of our new energy around research into educational technology issues is the fact that staff throughout the Libraries now feel empowered to investigate new service ideas on their own initiative. One of the most intriguing initiatives from our staff this year has been one to develop a service which would place the skills of the reference librarian out on the net. Libraries have always been more than the sum of their collections, they have also offered skilled guidance and research assistance to those who stop at the desk in a reading room and seek such aid. Digital libraries have been missing this essential component of library service, and the digital reference team has been exploring ways to bring this service to the web.

This year the team succeeded in mounting a small pilot "Ask Us" service on the MIT Libraries web page. The team worked closely with LSSI, a library vendor who in turn works with a high-end provider of web-based interactive customer support and service systems. They have learned the benefits and limitations of such software while providing the library vendor with insight into the real needs of academic research libraries and their patrons. We hope to expand this pilot project in the next academic year.

Tending to Operational Technology Foundations

Even as we reach for new horizons and investigate our role in the emerging digital delivery mechanisms of education, we also have to tend to the established technologies of our trade. Managing the physical (and electronic) assets of the Libraries is done with the help of an automated system we call the "Library Management System". After six years of service, the current library management system reached the end of its anticipated functionality on schedule in FY2000. The process of migrating to a new system was begun last year and reached the implementation stage this year. We also found that our web site had outgrown its original design and functionality, and it was redesigned with the benefit of significant user input this year. And, finally, we found that to sustain the growth in printing inspired by networked resources, we had to move to a cost-recovery architecture for public printing.

Third Barton

This year's task was to make a choice between the Sirsi Unicorn system and the Ex Libris Aleph 500 system and then to implement that choice. Aiming for both selection and implementation in a single year was an ambitious agenda, but we felt the process would be difficult no matter the pace, and so were determined to press ahead as quickly as possible. We reviewed the vendor responses to an RFP issued last summer, solicited information from and made site visits to various sites currently running these two systems, compiled information from various phone and email contacts with the vendors, and most importantly, obtained extensive feedback from our staff following week-long hands-on demonstrations from each vendor. Our RFP was relatively brief, with much of the emphasis of our process weighted toward the hands-on demonstrations provided to our staff. Our review led us to conclude that the Aleph 500 system from Ex Libris would be the best match for the MIT Libraries.

Contract negotiations took place in the fall of 2000. We promoted one of our staff to the position of Project Manager for the transition to the new system, and serious work on that transition began last December. The transition process has been difficult due both to the tight timeframe and to Ex Libris' decision to support our migration via a team operating in Israel. Our staff performed terrifically well planning for the transition, converting our data, and configuring the new system. We met our target of making the transition on the fiscal year boundary, missing our original forecast "switch-to-production" date by only one week. This target was met due to the extraordinary efforts of our staff over the past six months. We've documented that the effort required close to 5% of the total productivity of our staff during this period.

Public Web Redesign

When the MIT Libraries undertook its first professional design of its web pages four years ago, we developed a distinctive look which reflected our physical embodiment. Thanks in large part to usability studies by our Web Manager, we've learned that this reflection of our physical layout does not serve the MIT community very well. Our users, it turns out, would rather see a web page which emphasizes the services of the Libraries instead of their locations. And these services also need to be identified by names which are meaningful to the users themselves, rather than those which we in the libraries recognize. In retrospect, this all may seem self-evident, but diligent usability studies were the tool which unlocked our thinking and moved us toward a fresh solution.

These usability studies took place last summer and a redesign was embarked on this fall. The new design was unveiled to the community in June and has, to date, received warm reviews. Our Web Manager has worked with the campuswide web services team to pass along the techniques and strategy of usability studies and our web site redesign stands as tribute to their value.

Cost-Recovery Printing

The presence of meaningful quantities of relevant journal literature online has begun to change student and faculty collection utilization patterns. Photocopying journal articles has begun to give way to printing them from online collections. (Reading full articles online seems to await more advanced display technologies.) The MIT Libraries has noticed this shift as a decrease in photocopying and a corresponding increase in printing. While we charge for photocopies, which helps us recover the costs of the machines, service, and consumables involved, we were not charging for printing from computers. Given the shift underway, we realized we could not long continue to provide printing within the Libraries unless we found some way to recover the costs.

After some considerable investigation in 1999, we settled on a plan to add the same vend-a-cards to our public printing infrastructure as was already in place for photocopiers. Our cost analysis made it clear to us that even though we could expect a decline in online printing volume of as much as 75% once charging was in place, we would be able to recover the costs of the hardware, servers, and supplies required for public printing within three years.

We have been charging for public printing since February 2001 throughout the Libraries. Very few patrons need personal assistance to understand how the system works. We have begun to see the anticipated decline in online printing volume, but the experience of other libraries leads us to expect that volume will recover within four years. Perhaps most surprising of all, we have had only a very few complaints about the new charges.

New Opportunities

The opportunities for applying technology to the work of the Libraries never end. In the coming year we hope to implement a laptop loan program which takes advantage of the wonderful new wireless networking made available to the Libraries though MITCET's initiative. We also expect to focus on issues of staff training that will enhance our ability to support the digital technology we present to both the public and our own staff. And we will have to seek new technology leadership since our Assistant Director for Technology Planning and Administration will halt his weekly commute from Minnesota. These and the continuing challenges of participating in the Institutes own educational technology dreams will keep the MIT Libraries innovating.

-- Eric Celeste