August 10, 2017
Sara reported on her trip to North Carolina academic libraries, accompanied by President Leebron, Provost Miranda and Matt Taylor, Associate Vice-Provost for Academic Affairs. The Rice group visited the libraries at Duke University, North Carolina State University (NC State) and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Duke’s $160 million renovation and addition by Shepley-Bulfinch included a classroom shared with IT, a pavilion, a GIS center and a conference center. NC State has a new Engineering/Agriculture library with high-density storage and interesting furniture and a very creative renovation of their main library, including faculty and graduate school commons spaces. UNC had done some renovations but not as major as the other two. Back at Rice, both President Leebron and Provost Miranda took extensive walking tours of Fondren. The net impact of the trips and the tours was heightened interest at the highest administrative levels in more investment in the library.
Sara also shared that the Sewell staff temporarily housed in Fondren study rooms this summer should be moving to the BRC.
Kerry reported she is still working on the requested study of possible alternatives to building a new LSC bay. She reminded the group that there has been campus interest in storage of art and archival records in addition to library materials.
Sara reported on a meeting of the Texas ARL library directors, held at Fondren on August 9. The group discussed possible future collaborations, including group action with respect to broad or narrowly targeted deals with vendors, archiving/access rights, APCs (article processing charges), author rights and sharing online special collections exhibits and OERs (open educational resources). Any group negotiations with vendors are likely to be narrowly focused.
Melinda shared a summary of the latest report from the Linked Data Working Group. Executive Committee members showed appreciation for the group’s experiment showing that “sharing our collections via Google” is a complex and partial process governed by Google’s primary interest in revenue-generating information. The report is available at: https://wiki.rice.edu/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?title=Reports+-+Library-wide&spaceKey=FONDREN (login required).
Kerry is moving forward on collections budget allocations for FY18.
Sara is working on summarizing input from Fondren committee chairs as followup to the Communications Task Force recommendation that all committees be reviewed.
Sara will start working shortly on the new round of ROARs (Rice Outcome Assessment Reports)/SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) documentation. She will ask Executive Committee members where she needs help.
Lee reminded the group of Fondren’s participation in the upcoming Houston Archives Bazaar on September 10.
Kerry and Sandi Edwards will be participating in an O-Week (Orientation Week) event on Sunday, August 13, the first of many O-week appearances by Fondren staff.
August 24, 2017
Sara led the group in a discussion of the presentation on which she has been asked to work with Matt Taylor in connection with the University’s planning process. The topic is Central Quad 4.0 (the quad west of Fondren and space use in the buildings which border it) and the 15-minute presentation is one of four that will be made to the Rice Board of Trustees on September 13.
Discussion of Central Quad 4.0 included the role of cloisters as connection/protection when traveling among buildings, graduate student needs for offices and commons, undergraduate needs for classrooms and study spaces and faculty needs for a mid-sized event space and possibly a conference center. A central question is: what functions work best in which building? Twenty-four hour functions are likely best located in Fondren.
Other agenda items were postponed:
Review of Fondren committees
Progress toward migration to a new library service platform (LSP)
Proposal to digitize remaining masters theses and dissertations
