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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

About Us > Annual Reports

MIT Libraries
Annual Report FY 2000-2001

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