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MIT Libraries
Annual Report FY 1998-1999

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Libraries by Ann Wolpert
Public Services by Virginia Steel
Collection Services by Carol Fleishauer
Technology Planning and Administration by Eric Celeste

Libraries

"The MIT Libraries are creative partners in the research and learning process. We select, organize, present, and preserve information resources relevant to education and research at MIT. We sustain these world-class resources and provide quality services on behalf of the present and future research and scholarly community. We build intellectual connections among these resources and educate the MIT community in the effective use of information. We want to be the place people in the MIT community think of first when they need information."

The MIT Libraries’ new mission statement, revised, reviewed, and affirmed during 1998/1999, speaks to the abiding, high-value contributions that the MIT Libraries make to MIT’s educational and research mission. In an era of rapidly expanding, but costly, unpredictable, and unstable digital possibilities, the Libraries’ mission statement provides a framework for focusing our own work, and for deploying institutional resources in support of MIT’s educational and research priorities.

In April 1999 the Libraries welcomed the MIT Libraries Visiting Committee. The Committee was interested, engaged, and supportive of the accomplishments and strategic directions of the Libraries. Singled out as especially notable were the student usage study and the report on space needs. The committee commended the staff of the Libraries for conducting the studies, and for taking action based on the results of the studies. Also noted were the work of the Public Services Redefinition Process, the new Communications Manager position, improvements in the stewardship of older materials, the increased availability of networked resources, and the new, innovative approach to computer services support taken by the Technical Planning directorate. The Committee endorsed the inclusion of the MIT Libraries as a line item in the upcoming Capital Campaign.

Perhaps the most strategic development in 1998/1999 was the transfer of Institute responsibility for the MIT Press from the Vice President for Finance to the Director of Libraries. The resulting closer working relationship is already paying dividends in computing decisions and digital projects, and in the sharing of expertise.

Progress Toward the Digital Library

The year 1998/1999 found the MIT Libraries straddling two worlds. With one foot on the shoreline of traditional library services and resources, and one foot in the dinghy of digital resources and network-based services, the MIT Libraries experienced daily the tensions and uncertainties of the current state of academic library service. Nevertheless, the educational experience of MIT’s current and future students depends on the MIT Libraries’ ability to reconcile the competing demands of the digital and print environments. As much as the MIT Libraries might like to push off in the digital dinghy, the boat is still too small, too expensive, and too unstable to support a world-class teaching and research mission of the scope of MIT’s. And as much as the MIT community appreciates and intensively uses traditional library resources and services, it is clear that the digital tide is rising—albeit far more slowly and much more unevenly than once predicted.

Integrating new technologies into a mature and complex system, such as scholarly communication, takes time. The individual academic disciplines represented at MIT are, not surprisingly, approaching digital solutions from different research traditions, and with differing scholarly objectives. These differences, and the absence of norms and standards equal to those in the print environment, have lead to a variety of discipline-specific solutions to which the Libraries must adapt—at least in the short run. Fortunately, as faculty became more familiar with the strengths and limitations of digital technology as it applies to their own disciplines, they also begin to understand why the strategies that work for one discipline might not map perfectly to the research traditions and behaviors of their colleagues in other fields.

Additional challenges of the digital environment became more visible in 1998/1999 as well. Issues such as the impact of database licensing and IP ownership on faculty teaching options were illuminated by MIT’s distance education initiatives and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The high cost of digital versions of familiar research tools became more obvious as the MIT Libraries celebrated the availability of 100 databases and 500 electronic journals. The significant difficulty of keeping digital learning and research resources persistently and affordably available to students and faculty were topics of national discussion in which MIT and its Libraries participated.

Progress in Core Responsibilities

In furtherance of their mission within the Institute, the MIT Libraries continued to support the educational and research needs of the MIT community by focusing on five particular responsibilities of the Libraries at MIT. These were certainly not the only areas of interest and activity for the MIT Libraries, but they are essential responsibilities that the Libraries can and must address across the Institute. It is worth noting that they also reflect and reinforce the educational triad articulated by the Task Force on Student Life and Learning.

Information Resources and Information Technology

The MIT Libraries manage significant Institute resources, on behalf of the MIT community, in the acquisition of information resources and information technology. The attention that surrounds electronic resources may well give the impression that print has become less important to education and research in general, and to students and faculty at MIT in particular. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth, both in publishing and in libraries. The MIT Libraries continue to focus significant resources on print publications; first, because print is still the most pervasive and stable medium of production for the vast majority of disciplines at MIT, and second, because students and faculty continue to produce and need material published on paper.

At the same time, by June 1999 the Libraries were providing access to over 100 databases (many of which include full text) and over 500 individual e-journals. The Libraries continued to improve license agreements, expand communication with readers, strengthen consortial purchasing relationships, and enhance access and control with regard to these new formats. In May 1999, the Libraries made a commitment to archive three electronic MIT Press journals.

Also during 1998/1999, the Task Force on Student Life and Learning issued its report to the President and faculty of MIT. The Task Force urged the Institute to "focus information technology resources around the library system." The report further recommended that "the Library, which has historically been the heart of the university, is the ideal place to ensure that the institution makes the appropriate investment in educational content as well as providing affordable and user-friendly access to information resources."

Support to Education and Research at MIT

Both the virtual library and the physical library received intense attention during 1998/1999. The Public Services Redefinition Process, begun in 1997/1998, moved through the planning phase and into implementation. An interlocking series of task forces reinforced the Libraries’ tradition of excellence in service, and recommended structural and service adjustments that are intended, in our rapidly changing environment, to enable Libraries’ staff to be more responsive to the MIT community.

Clickable links, enhanced authorities control, and link-checking software improved overall quality control in the Libraries’ heavily-used electronic catalog. Customer feedback and usability testing were introduced into the design of the Libraries’ increasingly popular website. A web version of the Barton online catalog was adapted and introduced, and URL checking was implemented.

Innovative programs were launched to make the Libraries’ oldest and more unique materials more visible to the research community. Approximately 200,000 commercial, society, and government publications dating from 1780 to 1963, but not incorporated in the Libraries on-campus holdings, were identified for a five-year reclassification project that will produce records for inclusion in the Libraries web-accessible online catalog. A separate task force was created to review and report on the status of some 50,000 volumes in the Libraries’ special collections.

A number of staff positions were redesigned to provide the MIT Libraries with important contemporary capabilities in the skills associated with locating and using information. An Information Technology Librarian for Collection Services joined the Libraries’ Computer Coordinating Committee. A Special Formats Cataloger position was added to address the need to incorporate information about non-traditional resources in the Libraries’ online catalog. The position of Preservation Librarian was established to give focus to this important, specialized responsibility. A Communication Coordinator assumed responsibility for the Libraries’ communications strategy and program for faculty, students, and alumni, and a new Web Manager brought a high-level professional focus to our presence on the Internet.

In addition, traditional MIT Libraries’ patron services were extended in time (reference service hours were expanded into the evening to reflect changing student needs), in form (electronic versions of required reading reserves were developed as a pilot project) and in space (borrowers were offered a variety of network-based electronic self-service transaction options). Just as importantly, the MIT Libraries continued to work with IS to encourage a resolution of such increasingly urgent problems as off-campus access to network-based information resources, and network printing.

Documenting Advances in Knowledge in Disciplines of Interest to MIT

Careful management of information resources funds gave the Institute its second year in a row without print journal cancellations. New electronic, network-accessible subscriptions of major significance to the MIT community added during the year include IEEE/IEE Electronic Library Online, Chemical Abstracts (SciFinder Scholar), ACS Web Editions electronic journals, Disclosure Global Access (annual reports and filings of US and international public companies), Dow Jones Interactive (full-text news and business information) and Psychological Abstracts online.

With February 1999 thesis submissions, the option of submitting theses electronically was made available to MIT graduates. At about the same time, the Collection Services group completed its multi-year project to catalog all MIT theses and dissertations. Records are now available in Barton, the MIT Libraries’ online catalog.

The redesign of the Aeronautics and Astronautics Library was the most recent example of the way the Libraries can collaborate with an academic department to participate directly in the academic life of MIT. Following a major strategic review and redirection of the educational focus of the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department, the Aero/Astro Library was invited to participate in an exciting new educational (and physical) vision for the Department. The Libraries accepted the Department’s offer to relocate to a central location within a redesigned and renovated Building 33. The new Aero/Astro Library will be a showpiece; a contemporary example of a university branch library, designed explicitly for service and convenience in the digital environment, and capable of supporting a variety of media.

The Libraries’ cataloging staff was invited to participate in a national research project (the Cooperative Online Resource Catalog Project) which grew out of the Dublin Core metadata project and is intended to develop a uniform methodology for managing access to web-based resources. As scholarly communication migrates to the Web, this research project will be of increasing importance.

The Libraries also continued to participate in the Institute’s planning for educational technology. The Assistant Director for Technology Planning and Administration co-supervised an LCS graduate student on a thesis project to develop a prototype design for an MIT publications database. Subject selectors continued to expand and improve the information selected for inclusion on their discipline-specific websites.

Guaranteeing the Survival of Knowledge Beyond One Generation

In 1998/1999 the Libraries initiated a major collection review and storage project to improve managerial and logistical control over the Libraries’ collections. An accelerated off-campus storage program was designed and launched to address significant overcrowding in on-campus facilities. Overcrowding of collections has become a serious problem; with adverse implications for retrieval reliability, staff and reader confidence, and responsible materials management.

Megan Sniffin-Marinoff was persuaded to leave Simmons College to join the MIT Libraries as the new Institute Archivist. A number of new programs were launched, and other programs were developed in conjunction with STS faculty and Jane Pickering, the new Director of the MIT Museum.

Compliance with Y2K was addressed to assure a smooth computing transition to the next millennium. The Libraries’ Computer Coordinating Committee was also charged with developing a plan to upgrade the Libraries’ resources management system by 2001.

Contributing to the Culture of Intellectual Pursuit at MIT

The year 1998/999 brought an opportunity for the Libraries to rethink the ways in which their physical spaces reinforce the educational, research, and cultural life of MIT. The goal is to give systematic attention to the ways in which the Libraries’ physical organization and study/work spaces reinforce learning and support student and faculty needs. Architectural consultants were retained to work with the Libraries to develop a long-term vision for the Libraries’ spaces and to integrate those space goals into the Institute’s space planning initiatives. Alternative scenarios for the Libraries’ future space and functional requirements and options will address specific recommendations of the Task Force on Student Life and Learning, and will incorporate the larger concepts of the "educational triad" .

The authors@MIT book and author series had its most successful year yet. One program was videotaped for broadcast on CSPAN2. The program organizers had many more requests for slots than there were dates available, and number of programs were standing room only. The series culminated in a lecture by and reception in honor of Howard Johnson in celebration of his book, Holding the Center: Memoirs of a Life in Higher Education.

More information about the Libraries can be found on the World Wide Web:

"http://libraries.mit.edu/".

Once again, this report has but skimmed the surface of an incredibly busy and productive year for the MIT Libraries. The fact that numerous, time-consuming administrative and operational projects received scant attention in these paragraphs is no reflection on their value and importance to the Libraries. The MIT Libraries are privileged in their exceptional staff, and deeply appreciative of the extraordinary commitment that this staff brings to their work. We are likewise honored by the support we continue to receive from our academic and administrative colleagues at MIT.

—Ann J. Wolpert

Public Services

The evolution from providing information in traditional print formats, such as journals and books, to providing access to information in electronic formats, such as networked databases and the web, has changed the demands and expectations for library services among MIT faculty, students, and staff. The ability to find text, data, and other information 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with minimal lead-time, is a request heard more and more frequently. The MIT Libraries have committed themselves to providing world-class customer service, and in 1998/1999, significant progress was made on initiatives to tailor existing services and to offer new services that will enable library users to find information easily and efficiently where and when they need it.

Meeting the Information Needs of the MIT Community

Library Hours

Building on the survey of undergraduates carried out in 1997/1998 and in response to comments and suggestions from other library users, the hours at a number of libraries were changed and extended. In Barker Library, two librarians collaborated to offer evening reference assistance two days per week during Spring Semester. At the Dewey and Humanities Libraries, reference hours were shifted one hour later each day to better correspond to the usage patterns of students. And, in Rotch Library, an hours survey conducted in the previous year led to changes in the summer hours and a schedule shift in the academic-year reference hours.

Electronic Services

The ubiquitous presence of the web has made it possible to offer traditional library services in new ways. During the past year members of the Libraries’ staff worked on four major projects to enhance existing programs:

• Electronic reserves: Early in the academic year, library staff members collaborated with IS on the evaluation and selection of the Docutek e-Res software as the best package available for providing electronic course reserves. Once the software was purchased, a DUSP course was chosen as a pilot project for offering electronic versions of course reserve materials. Carrying out this pilot project proved valuable in identifying a number of problems. The most difficult one, and one that makes offering campus-wide electronic reserves challenging, is handling the demand for printing. The Libraries continue to work with IS to solve this and other problems and will test the software again in the fall with several other classes.
  
  
• Electronic theses: With the February 1999 round of thesis submissions, the Libraries and IS introduced the capability for students to have their dissertations mounted electronically. Three departments—EECS, Brain and Cognitive Science, and Chemical Engineering—were invited to participate in the pilot project. The results of the first round of electronic thesis submittals revealed that students are so busy at submission time that they tend not to find this an attractive option, so the Libraries/IS team has now agreed to accept theses submitted after graduation. The team also found that the speed with which theses could be made public caused problems with holds (for patent or company proprietary reasons). After consultation with the Technology Licensing Office and the Graduate Education Office, mechanisms have been established to ensure that theses on hold are not made available. In the coming year the team will work on developing electronic delivery options for those who prefer to view or print an entire thesis document from their computer workstations instead of ordering a paper copy from Document Services.
  
  
• Libraries’ website redesign: The successful recruitment of a new Web Manager in January 1999 allowed the Libraries to begin the process of redesigning our public website to make it more user-centered. One of the first steps in this process was the evaluation of the current website. To help with this, volunteer faculty, students, and staff were asked to find answers on the Libraries’ website to a set of questions. While they were looking for the answers, the steps they took were written down by observers, and they were timed. The data gathered through this type of exercise enabled members of the Libraries’ Web Advisory Group to better understand the way users search for information and the stumbling blocks they encounter when information is not organized in the way they expect. Over the coming months the Web Advisory Group will study websites at other libraries across the country to come up with a new model for the Libraries’ site. Volunteers will again be solicited to help select the terminology used, and they will also be asked to help pretest the new design.
  
  
• Electronic hold and recall notices: Members of the Circulation Committee continued their efforts to make it possible for library users to operate in a self-service environment as much as possible. In spring 1999, library borrowers were offered the capability of looking at their own circulation records. They were also given the option of receiving hold and recall notices electronically, which means that the information reaches them more quickly and efficiently.

In addition to the projects just described, other electronic services were developed and continued throughout the Libraries. In the Humanities Library a machine dedicated to the electronic Shakespeare Archive was added courtesy of Peter Donaldson. Subject selectors refined and enlarged webpages for their various disciplines, and a number of them began to include new book lists as regular features. The Dewey Library used the web in new ways to publicize library instructional programs and to allow students to sign up for classes that interested them.

Revitalizing Our Facilities

With the growing amount of information available through the network and the need to have sufficient workstations for library users, renovation and updating of library facilities has become an increasingly pressing issue. During 1998/1999 several minor remodeling projects were carried out:

• In the Science Library, a new NT server and five workstations were installed to provide access to the variety of databases used by science researchers. The Lindgren and Schering-Plough Libraries also added new machines for use by their clientele.
  
  
• Due to the Libraries’ subscription to IEEE/IEE Electronic Library Online, more equipment and workspace was needed in the reference area of the Barker Engineering Library. To accomplish this, the photocopiers were moved from their space adjacent to the reference desk, and counters were installed in that area and behind the reference desk. Four new computers were added, and the older machines were upgraded. Additional room is available, so we hope to add more machines next year.
  
  
• The temporary storage area in the Institute Archives was remodeled to make it a more useful space. The shelving configuration was modified to create a better traffic flow, and improvements were made to address health and safety concerns.

As part of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ plan for an innovative lab space for students, work began on detailed plans for an exciting new Aeronautics and Astronautics Library. The Aero/Astro Library will move from its current location to a spot on the first floor across from the design lab. Although it will occupy a smaller footprint, the emphasis will be on providing as much electronic information and as many workstations as possible. Some less frequently used portions of the collection will be moved to remote storage, and the rest will be housed in compact shelving. The Aero/Astro Library staff look forward to the day when they will occupy a 21st century space that is fully wired and located in close proximity to other areas where students spend time.

Communications and Collaborations

In order to inform members of the MIT community about new and enhanced library services, the year 1998/1999 brought greater emphasis on outreach and publicity. Ruth Seidman, the Libraries’ new Communications Coordinator, wrote and helped spread the word about some of the resources added. Individual librarians also created email lists of faculty and graduate students that they used to share news about changes in the Libraries. These were all positive steps to inform MIT about the Libraries that will be extended and continued in the coming year.

The work of the public services units extended beyond the Libraries to other parts of MIT. The Institute Archives worked closely with staff of the MIT Museum on a project to make photographs of MIT available electronically, and they also cooperated on an exhibit commemorating the Mid-Century Convocation (on display in the Compton Gallery during summer 1999). The Associate Director for Public Services was a member of a Graduate Education Office (GEO) team that created a communications strategy for the GEO. This effort proved very valuable to the Libraries by creating closer ties and greater understanding between staff of the GEO and the Libraries. Our hope is to grow this relationship in the coming year with the idea of improving services to the graduate student population, the largest customer group for the Libraries.

Building an Innovative, Customer-Oriented, Flexible Staff

The Public Services Redefinition Initiative begun in January 1998 ended its first phase in December 1998 with a series of reports and recommendations. The goal of the Redefinition was to create a structure and culture in public services that would enable all staff to participate in the design and delivery of world-class services suitable to an institution of MIT’s caliber. As part of the process, the public services management model moved from one of transactional leadership that was more suited to a less complex, more stable environment to one of transformational leadership that fits a constantly changing, uncertain environment. Creation of a dynamic climate that emphasizes creativity, flexibility, risk-taking, tolerance for ambiguity, and innovation was an essential element of the new management model. All public services’ staff were encouraged to become active in the Redefinition, and approximately 70 percent of the staff ended up working on one of the six task forces that were appointed.

A number of innovative ideas came out of the Redefinition including:

• enhanced communications within the Libraries through the use of a biweekly electronic newsletter and websites that gathered opinions and feedback,
  
  
• the concept of an Integrated Service Point for the divisional libraries which would combine circulation, directional, and reference assistance and promote unified, complementary, enhanced services similar to the concept of the Student Services Center,
  
  
• establishment of a performance measurement program that will help gather quantitative and qualitative data to enhance services and increase customer satisfaction,
  
  
• a new communications model to provide public services’ staff with both formal and informal channels for information sharing through the use of multiple communication formats,
  
  
• a new organizational structure in which each divisional library has its own department head, and each department head chairs a committee of librarians that focuses on one of the major customer segments (e.g., undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, researchers, administrators, alumni, outside users). Cross-library functional groups were also recommended as a means of improving communication and productivity.

At the end of the first phase of the Redefinition in December, many of the recommendations were moved to the Implementation Phase, which began in January 1999 and is expected to last for the calendar year. The changes in the organizational structure resulted in the recruitments for a number of new department heads, and the Libraries have been fortunate enough to attract an outstanding group of experienced managers. Catherine Friedman has been hired as the new Head of the Dewey Library, Steve Gass, an MIT alumnus, has been hired as the new Head of the Barker Engineering Library, and Megan Sniffin-Marinoff has been hired as the new Institute Archivist.

An Implementation Team was appointed to lead Phase II, and that group has focused the first months of their work on making sure all public services’ staff understand how and why the organization is changing. The Team is also advocating the concept of customer service and is seeing that the most important recommendations from Phase I are acted upon.

A key component of the first phases of the Redefinition has been the emphasis on constant learning and professional development. Many public services’ staff have taken advantage of opportunities provided by MIT’s Performance Consulting and Training Team to acquire skills in meeting management, facilitation, creative thinking, project planning, and living with change. We expect that there will be a third phase of the Redefinition during which we will build on these new skills to operationalize the new model.

In Conclusion

The past year has been another productive one that has brought many changes and enhancements in library services. The public services’ staff are indebted to the members of the MIT community who have suggested improvements that could be made, and the staff are to be congratulated on their significant list of accomplishments. This report only captures a few of the most significant achievements, but there are many more of which we are very proud.

—Virginia Steel

Collection Services

Collection Services’ most significant accomplishments for the year are those which are the least dramatic: the continuing fulfillment and improvement of the steady, regular processes to acquire, catalog, and preserve new resources, as well as ongoing attention to cataloging and preservation of materials added to the collections in previous years. The efficiency and effectiveness of these processes is a credit to all Collection Services’ staff. Highlights this year included the completion of a multi-year project to create cataloging records for all MIT theses from 1868 to present, the reduction of turn-around time in monograph acquisitions to one week from receipt of materials in the Libraries, and the transfer of the gifts’ donor database and the serials commitment database to FileMaker Pro.

In addition to the significant accomplishments resulting from the daily activities of our staff, this was a year of maturation of our efforts to provide access to pertinent electronic resources for the MIT community and a year of refocused attention to our print collections and our library catalog. In almost all of these efforts, we worked with many partners throughout the Libraries in established matrix relationships: Networked Electronic Resources Domain (NERD), Collection Management Group (CMG), subject specialists, processing staff, and others.

Electronic Resources—Finding Our Way

This year we realized a stable level of activity regarding the acquisition processes for electronic resources. Much has been accomplished and learned in the last three years. In 1996, the Libraries were providing access to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Oxford English Dictionary, about a dozen databases through OCLC’s (Online Computer Library Center) FirstSearch, and about a half-dozen electronic journals. Today we provide access to 100+ databases (many of which include full text) and 500+ individual e-journals. Along the way, we have learned how to negotiate licenses, facilitate compliance with license terms, seek pricing advantages through consortial buying, and produce catalog records for this new format.

Our negotiation goals are several: to protect MIT against liability charges, to ensure that all members of the MIT community may use the products, and to ensure that they may use them in accordance with the customary standards of scholarship. We have also undertaken several initiatives to educate users regarding use of the products, including a message about user responsibilities on our product screens and "clickable" access to use restrictions or the licenses themselves. In several instances we have provided advice to vendors on their pricing models, marketing options, and license language which they adopted as part of their product roll-out. We take great satisfaction in the progress and success in this area over the last three years. Most important, we are providing online products with great relevance to the community. Additions of note in the last year include the following: IEEE/IEE Electronic Library Online, SciFinder Scholar (Chemical Abstracts), ACS Web Editions (electronic journals), Disclosure Global Access (annual reports and filings of U.S. and global public companies), Dow Jones Interactive (a full text news and business database), and Psycinfo (Psychological Abstracts online).

This year we also realized the benefits of the work of the Electronic Resources Cataloging Task Force over the previous two years to define standards and protocols for cataloging electronic resources. We have now cataloged over 500 electronic journals and 25 electronic monographs, plus 53 scores and sound recordings from the Lewis Music Library’s Inventions of Note website. We have added "clickable" URL’s to 500 records for print serials with electronic versions available, and we are utilizing link-checking software to flag dysfunctional links. Finally, several staff members are participating in the Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC) Project, a research project, managed by OCLC, designed to provide a methodology for managing access to web-based resources. Participation in the project has given MIT catalogers valuable experience working with automated processing tools and with various kinds of metadata.

We continue efforts to create and manage our own database: Barton, the online catalog of the Libraries’ collections. This year we realized the final step in acquiring automated services that will enable us to maintain controlled vocabulary searching, consistent name-forms, and cross references. Two years ago, we contracted with a vendor to match our database against the Library of Congress National Authority File in order to provide standardized name and subject forms, and cross-references from non-standard forms. Since that time, we have been seeking a supplier to provide this service on an ongoing basis. This spring we contracted with LTI (Library Technologies Inc.) to process all records added to the catalog since the first match and then to process new records on a daily basis. We look forward to providing a continually updated, consistent database by the beginning of the academic year.

Print Resources—Fulfilling Our Commitment

After two years of concentrated attention to the new processes required to acquire and catalog electronic resources, this third year of stability allowed us to turn our attention to dominant issues related to management of our print collections. Significant space shortages for housing our collections have focused our attention on three related projects: the acceleration of moves of collections to storage facilities, the retrospective cataloging of the Dewey Decimal Collection (DDC) which is housed in the RetroSpective Collection (RSC) in Building N57, and the development of a Master Plan for the Libraries’ space. In addition, we took initial steps this year toward improving management of our Special Collections (Rare Books) and our Depository Documents collections.

Storage

With a goal of moving as many volumes to storage as we acquire every year, we implemented phase one of a three-year cycle. While most of our libraries continue the ongoing storage moves they have been carrying out for the last several years, our three most crowded facilities—Science, Humanities, and Barker Engineering—will, in three successive years, move out a number equivalent to three years of acquisitions. The Science Library was the pilot library in 1998/1999 and has selected approximately 30,000 volumes which will be moved to storage this summer.

The Libraries’ RSC is also at full capacity, and for several years the Libraries have been utilizing the Harvard Depository (HD), a state-of-the-art storage facility in Southboro. As we move materials from our libraries, some of them go directly to HD, others are preferably housed in the RSC, requiring, in turn, moves from the RSC to HD. This year, we moved approximately 60,000 volumes to HD (either from RSC or directly from the various libraries), and we have moved about 30,000 volumes from the libraries to RSC. This amount of movement has a very significant impact on all areas of the Libraries, requiring a substantial staff effort for selection, packing and moving of materials, shifting materials remaining on the shelves, bibliographic record changes, and accelerated recalls and deliveries.

Retrospective Cataloging of the Dewey Decimal System

Over 200,000 volumes of the 500,000 housed in the RetroSpective Collection at the end of 1997/1998 were the items remaining in the DDC, those which had not previously been reclassified and cataloged in the online catalog. Included are some of the Libraries’ oldest materials—commercial publications, society publications, and government documents—published between 1780 and 1963. The need to move materials from RSC to HD, and the need to have online records so that barcode access could be provided, prompted a project to create electronic catalog records for these materials. In July 1998, we initiated a project to provide records for the monographs by scanning and electronically transmitting title page information to OCLC, where cataloging is provided and transmitted back to the Libraries for loading into the online catalog. In addition, we initiated an in-house project to catalog the serials. This year was the first of a planned five-year effort, which will enable an orderly movement of materials. While the impetus of this project was the need to free up space in Building N57, the most significant benefit will be the increased knowledge of these collections among MIT faculty and students.

Master Space Plan

To seek long-term solutions to the Libraries’ space issues, this year we selected consultants from Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott to work with us through the summer and fall of 1999 to define a master plan for the Libraries’ space. While collections’ housing issues were again the urgent influence, the Libraries are experiencing significant user, service, and technology space issues as well, which the project will address. The goals are the following: to provide a long-term vision for the Libraries’ space which will facilitate improved services, enhance the technical infrastructure, and resolve collections’ housing issues; to integrate the Libraries’ space needs into Institute space planning; and to ensure that short-term space changes support the strategic vision.

Special Collections (Rare Books)

The Libraries’ rare books collections of approximately 50,000 volumes have been housed and managed within the Institute Archives and Special Collections for many years. They have been used selectively by scholars for research and by faculty members in class sessions. However, they have never been the primary focus of the department or very well-known among librarians in other departments. With significant staff turn-over in recent years, very few staff remained who had any knowledge of these collections. In January 1999, as an initial step toward more fully utilizing these collections, the Libraries established a Special Collections (Rare Books) Task Force with the following charge:

• to establish an understanding of the value and potential of the Libraries’ rare books collections
  
  
• to establish an understanding of the relationships of these collections to other collections in the Libraries and at the Institute
  
  
• to create a statement of purpose which will guide the development of a rare books program.

The report of the Task Force will be presented during the summer.

Management of Government Documents Collection

In response to the Public Services Priorities Task Force recommendation that the government documents program be reviewed as an area for potential reduction of staff effort, we undertook several processes toward this end. First, a subgroup of DLG (Divisional Librarians Group)/TSAC (Technical Services and Collections) reviewed the literature of costs and benefits of the Depository Documents Program in libraries. As a result of that review, and its discussion in DLG/TSAC, we concluded that while there are major benefits from the program, significant improvements should be sought through a selection review and through implementation of automated loading of government documents cataloging records. To that end, CMG is currently in the process of reviewing selection decisions, and an ad-hoc cataloging group is in the process of investigating options for tape-loading cataloging records.

Shifting Staff Assignments in Support of Changing Goals

While Public Services undergoes a more explicit change process, Collection Services continues to implement and manage evolutionary change. Shifts in staff assignments in the last year demonstrate and support those changes.

The position of Information Technology Librarian for Collection Services was filled in August. We are realizing the anticipated benefits: direct technical assistance on several projects, as well as the more indirect influence on technical skill levels, understanding and consciousness among other staff.

Three years ago we created the position of Acquisitions Librarian for Digital Resources, which has been critical to our success in providing access to the rich array of products we now have. This year marked another step in the transition when we assigned support staff hours to this activity.

We created and posted a position of Special Formats Cataloger in Bibliographic Access Services. The incumbent will join our staff in early July and will provide dedicated attention and skill to the cataloging of video, maps, and electronic resources.

In addition, another position was refocused and renamed MARC Database Manager to reflect the special attention required to maintain our significant Barton database.

In order to manage the significant scale-up of storage activity, as well as the DDC scanning project, we moved a Library Assistant IV position to the RSC last summer. In addition, we allocated 1/2 of a Library Assistant V cataloging position to the serials work.

When the position of Head of Binding and Repair was vacated in the fall, we defined it more broadly and hired a Preservation Librarian, who joined the staff in May.

—Carol Fleishauer

Technology Planning and Administration

With our primary eye on patron needs and expectations, we spent the last year consolidating our new technology staffing and decision making structure. After two years of transition from a highly centralized information systems staff to one which is distributed throughout the organization, the MIT Libraries this year began to see the benefits of the changes we had made. We are excited about the improved services we put in place, including making our Barton catalog available on the web, installing network drops for public use, and upgrading our public access workstations. Meanwhile, we improved our own underlying skills and technology, growing our NT domain, orienting our staff to MIT's technology environment, and joining in the SAP rollout. Our Computer Coordinating Committee (C3) began to plan for our technological future, kicking off a project to upgrade our library management system by 2001, agreeing to work with the MIT Press on an e-journal access project, and developing plans for enabling off-campus access to our academic information resources.

The year was a busy one for the many new faces on our technology staff. We are particularly excited, though, about the future. As we gain confidence in our understanding of the needs of the MIT community we are beginning to build a technological infrastructure for the Libraries that will meet those needs. The MIT community deserves world-class library resources, and we have been laying the groundwork for the computing environment those resources require today and tomorrow.

Improving Services

We have focused our year on meeting and exceeding the growing expectations of the MIT community. Our users expect to find our services on the web now more than ever. To that end, we created WebBarton to bring our catalog to the web. We also conducted a pilot Electronic Reserves project and began accepting graduate theses via the web. Our public access workstations enjoyed an upgrade to accommodate the greater demands of web browsing software. We also installed ZoomText software in each of our five divisional libraries to help those with poor vision use our electronic resources.

Of course, not all information, even electronic information, is available on the web. We continued to support some locally mounted CD-ROM databases including a new installation of Chemical Abstracts and a local copy of the Philosopher’s Index. The Humanities Library was also proud to install a copy of the electronic Shakespeare Archive being developed at MIT.

Following up on the success of our program to email notices to patrons three days before their books are due back at the library, we added email notices of items available on hold and items being recalled. These email notices have been immensely popular, and the proof of their success was a 37% decline in overdue fines collected by the Libraries.

We have noted that more and more users of the library now bring along their laptop computers. We activated MITnet drops for patron use in three of our divisional libraries so that these users can browse electronic resources alongside the physical collections.

Improving Skills

As our services become more electronically mediated, we also must update our staff skills so that we can better respond to new demands. This year we introduced a Technology Orientation package for new staff. This orientation included brief printed descriptions of MIT's technology environment and policy as well as face to face sessions to demystify Athena and describe the Libraries' technology context. Our training room, used for many of these sessions, also received an upgrade this year and will now begin a cycle of annual upgrades to maintain it as a showcase for both MIT community and library staff training.

Our Systems Office staff and Local Technology Experts received additional training in the management of Microsoft Windows NT domains. While our public services are aimed at the web, much of the back office work of the Libraries depends on an increasingly complex NT network. This year we added shared file services for some workgroups and projects to our MITLIBRARIES domain. Our newly mounted local editions of Chemical Abstracts and Philosopher’s index also rely on this NT infrastructure.

Libraries’ staff continued the rollover to SAP this year; devoting considerable training and adding new machines and upgrades facilitated the implementation of SAP within the Libraries.

Improving Technology

The state-of-the-art in the realm of computing is always a moving target. This year we converted staff to Host Explorer so they could take advantage of Kerberized telnet. Our major provider of bibliographic records for our catalog, OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), stopped supporting X.25 connections with its service in Ohio, so that service was moved onto the regular Internet. We added automated link checking to verify URL’s in our growing collection of catalog records for electronic resources. And we moved the processing of our "authority records" (which facilitate the "see" and "see also" references in our catalog) to a new outside vendor. These large efforts and a host of less heralded changes benefited from the dedicated work of our revitalized Systems Office.

Planning for Our Future

Most of our efforts take many years to come to fruition. This year witnessed the initiation of a number of projects that we believe will lead to exciting results over the next few years.

We assigned a three person project management team to shepherd us toward our "Third Barton" system. The host-based Geac Advance system at the heart of the current "second-generation" Barton does not adequately meet many staff processing needs. We have high hopes that the new generation of client-server based library management systems will be able to increase the productivity and facilitate the creative ideas of our staff. We aim to install this "third-generation" of the Barton system in the Spring of 2001.

The library management system, which once was the heart of all automation in the library, has now been joined by a host of new automated systems. Our web servers, electronic reserves system, electronic theses and technical reports, databases licensed from various vendors, and many other resources also vie for our attention. More importantly this rich assortment of electronic services can bewilder our customers. We began, this year, to search for a tool which can help us weave this diversity into a consistent and seamless whole for the MIT community.

We have heard a great demand from the community for off-campus access to our licensed databases. Everyone from faculty on sabbatical to students running a MediaOne connection at home find it frustrating that they cannot access the same resources upon which they rely on-campus. We have been developing an off-campus solution that should satisfy most users in the near future.

We have also been working with the MIT Press to develop long-term storage and access solutions for their electronic journals; with the Laboratory for Computer Science to develop a prototype publication server to hold the intellectual output of the campus; with Information Systems to develop methods of making URL's more persistent and "digital shelfspace" more routinely available; and even with the Dibner Institute to prepare for a new library management system for their Burndy Library. We value the relationships, skills, and systems we build through these joint projects.

Organizing Ourselves

Our high-level technology positions were finally all filled during the course of the year. Joan Kolias joined us as our Information Technology Librarian for Collection Services, helping us analyze and plan for technology applications in our back offices. Our new Web Manager, Nicole Hennig, formed the Web Advisory Group and began plotting our course to a new and more usable website. A new Barton Advisory Group was formed to help guide the development of services on our library management system.

We developed guidelines to help our department heads know what to expect of our Local Technology Expert positions. These included a way to estimate whether enough hours were being devoted to the task of managing and troubleshooting the computers installed in each department. Our distribution of computer support to these positions within each department, with consulting support from our centralized Systems Office, has met with wide approval among our staff.

Our Computer-Related Capital Equipment Request process was put onto a quarterly cycle affording our staff three opportunities per year to request new equipment. The increased frequency of these requests has allowed us to be more responsive to changing needs and to take advantage of falling equipment prices.

And finally, our Systems Office has received high praise from our staff for dealing quickly and effectively with technology support issues. In addition to serving others, the office has prepared for a renovation that will improve its workspace and efficiency considerably and has reorganized the Libraries’ server room to better secure the machines we manage.

More information about the MIT Libraries Technology Planning and Administration can be found on the World Wide Web at the following URL: "http://macfadden.mit.edu/c3/".

—Eric Celeste