Spring Tech Circles

The Web Team’s 2018 Documentation Report recommended development of a “tech” culture that supports more peer-to-peer support of learning about collaborative tools. These monthly Tech Circles, co-sponsored by the Fondren Library Web Team and Library Travel, Training and Development Committee, will provide training on topics of value to staff and will promote, support, and leverage new tools to improve and enhance workflows, communication, and project effectiveness.

Upcoming topics include:

Excel Tips for Library Staff

Wednesday, February 6, 10:00-11:00, Fondren Collaboration Space

DMC Virtual Reality Lab

Friday, March 15, 10:00-12:00, DMC Multipurpose Room

Presentation Software Tips & Tricks (PowerPoint, Canva, Beautiful.AI, Google Slides)

Monday, April 8, 10:00-12:00, Fondren Collaboration Space                                                                                             

Additional Sessions TBD

Executive Committee Meeting Summary, November 8, 2018

Sara Lowman and Sandi Edwards reported on the study on expanding the LSC. A recent kickoff meeting included perhaps 25 stakeholders, including representatives from Facilities, Engineering & Planning and campus IT. Mark Boone of Shepley Bulfinch will serve as architecture lead. The group will explore any existing options for expanding LSC storage space plus resolve questions regarding building life, desired capacity, etc. A new unit need not be exactly the same size as the existing LSC module. Dec. 31 is the target date for the report on planning LSC expansion.

Led by Sara Lowman in an annual exercise, the group reviewed a spreadsheet showing the fees Fondren pays to belong to membership organizations such as ARL, GWLA and the like. Group members will check on the usefulness of a few memberships, but no cuts were recommended this year. Campus interest persists in having Fondren join the Hathi Trust. A membership may be considered following completion of Fondren’s reclamation project, which will align all our historical holdings on OCLC and locally.

The group then discussed the topic of the library’s participation in open access (OA) publishing initiatives. Rice pays article processing charges (APCs) for authors publishing in journals operated by BioMed Central and PLOS (Public Library of Science). Fondren has also participated in OA efforts through Knowledge Unlatched (http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org). The library has more recently become involved in monograph OA publishing ventures Punctum and TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem, associated with the Association of Research Libraries). The price for publishing a single OA monograph through TOME is $15,000. Obviously, these prices prompt questions of budget, fair access and scale. Both the California Digital Library and MIT have campus plans for their libraries’ support for open access publishing. The group discussed the possibility of setting up an advisory group that would include faculty and/or supporting OA-published works via an award system. Sandi Edwards is currently working with a small, informal group: Joe Goetz, Shannon Kipphut-Smith and Lisa Spiro. Fondren’s LibGuide on Open Access Fees will be revised and expanded.

Due to time constraints, the SWOT analysis exercise was again postponed. Sara Lowman clarified that, in a future meeting, she wants the group to identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats for each of Fondren’s large strategic goals.

Sara Lowman noted that Gillis Award nominations are due November 30. She also noted the status of several new or pending library endowments, and that the Friends’ gala proceeds this year are being directed toward a University Librarian’s Discretionary Fund. She further noted that the Friends have approved the expenditure of $250,000 from last year’s gala towards short-term refurbishing (e.g. furniture, paint) of the Brown Fine Arts space on the third floor.

Executive Committee Summary, March 29, 2018

Executive Committee Summary, March 29, 2018

The Executive Committee discussed the roll-out of the Careers at Rice program.

You can learn more about Careers at Rice at the President’s Town Hall on Wednesday, April 4, 2018 from 9:00 – 10:30 am in the Grand Hall and Sammy’s in the RMC/Student Center.

Please also attend ONE of the Library Town Hall meetings about Careers at Rice:

  • April 17 at 10:00 in the KMR or
  • April 24 at 10:00 in the KMR

Executive Committee Meeting Summaries, January 25 and February 1, 2018

January 25, 2018

1) The Executive Committee met with Debra Kolah, Jeff Koffler and Scott Vieira to discuss the Web Team’s Documentation report. It approved the report’s recommendation that Fondren develop a web portal that makes available information from library departments and committees.  The Web Team hopes to have the portal live sometime this summer

2) Exec discussed the schedule for a visiting Japanese delegation set to come to Rice in June. Mary Lowery will be the point person.

3) Sara Lowman provided an update on the budget and requested input on raises and bonuses by February 9.

4) ARL plans to revive its library management training workshops. Fondren volunteered to host a workshop in Houston.

February 1, 2018

The Executive Committee divided up responsibilities for writing Fondren’s budget document.

Black History Month display in Kelley Center

The Kelley Center staff invite you to see a selection of federal government publications in our new exhibit for Black History Month. The national theme for 2018 is African Americans in Times of War.

The exhibit case is in the elevator lobby between the GDC and DMC.

 

 

 

C-MACS: Who Are Our Customers?

February C-MACS

It is a great thing to watch a committee work out solutions to big questions. The C-MACS committee is doing that now as we study Fondren Library’s customer service.  In the last month members looked at the customers served by their departments.  The committee has members covering almost every aspect of Fondren.

They analyzed the Customer Persona: Who are they?  What do they want?  What do they need?  What are the challenges?  What is unique about them?

At the February meeting the committee analyzed the Undergraduate and Graduate Persona. The committee will next build a Fondren-wide persona from the findings.  It is a time consuming process that requires C-MAC to hold a special two-hour session this month to finish with persona such as Faculty, Staff and others.

This analysis will then be used to determine what customer service training the staff can use to do an even greater job that we already do.

We so appreciate the guidance from Melinda English of Rice HR.


Last month I missed writing about the good work Joe Goetz and Debra Kolah did finding stories of great customer service. Sometimes we may have doubts about our customer service but the 2017 Survey of All Students gave us high marks.  Every department has stories to tell from customers at all levels.  I especially enjoy the words used over and over to describe us:  tenacity, focused, knowledge of job, getting things done, proficiency, dedication, optimism, enthusiasm, flexible and responsive.

It is important to keep gathering these stories of success. The DMC and Kelly Center gather feedback from their sessions.  Fondren 101 includes a feedback survey.  Did you know we even have reviews on Yelp?

Keep sharing stories of good work by the staff.

—-Bill Coxsey

 

C-MACS Concentrates on Customer Service

 

C-MACS is concentrating on issues and plans for Customer Service training.

The committee is working with Melinda English, a member of HR’s professional development staff, to guide us in the process.

 

The committee was given assignments to begin the process:

Norie & Sue looked at Peer Libraries. They contacted 10 and found a wide range of information.  Some say nothing about customer service while others mention it prominently.

Mary & Bill drew up a business case based on established material about library customer service. The case can be a basis of planning customer service training.

Michael & Jeff looked at Existing Service Standards. Like the Peer Library findings, they are all different.  They found in some cases the standards are built into procedures for a department.

Jean & Scott studied Recommendations for Project Communication: There are lots of good customer service stories that should be told.  Sometimes librarians are shy and don’t share them.

Melinda looked at Survey Data for both Undergraduate and Graduate students and reviewed other customer service information from different departments. Often customer services issues are actually Policy/Procedure issues.  They are issues that need clarification/discussion to enhance customer service effectiveness.

 

Some of the results are being forwarded to other committees for action.

C-MACS will next look at Customer Service Profiles for Fondren.

Keeping Current – Part 1

As part of Keeping Current, staff members share the latest library developments gained from professional meetings in the previous year.

Linda Spiro

Among the benefits of attending an ALA Conference are specialized talks associated with new vendor tools. Given the highly controversial Presidential election this year, of particular interest at ALA Annual in July in Orlando was a Readex-sponsored talk given by Professor Mark Wahlgren Summers entitled “Politics is just War without the Bayonets: Dirty Politics in a Genteel Age, 1868,1892.” The talk was recorded, so you can see it at http://www.readex.com/videos/politics-just-war-without-bayonets-dirty-politics-genteel-age-1868-1892.


A highly energetic speaker, Dr. Summers called elections the most popular sport at the end of the 19th century with 70 to 90 percent of the electorate showing up to vote. The whole town turned out when candidates came through town and spoke for two or three hours at the fairgrounds where parties hosted barbeques. Campaigns were virulent, violent, nasty and dirty. A good day was when only five people were killed in a particular town. A nonpartisan press did not exist. There were two sets of papers for every town, one Democratic and one Republican with completely different headlines after an election. Ballot boxes were burned and dead people voted. The South, with its one party (Democrat) system was particularly violent with potential black voters and fair-minded officials killed and threats made against white men who planned to vote Republican. The British and Chinese were accused of meddling in our elections. Third party candidates were bankrolled by the Democrats or Republicans to draw voters from the other side. The main qualification for being a Presidential candidate was that you didn’t want to run.

Although many are disgusted with the most recent election contest, let’s hope the outcome remains more peaceful and above board than those of the late 19th century.

Shannon Kipphut-Smith

In Spring 2016, I attended two conferences that had sessions on supporting researcher compliance with new funder public access policies—an area that Digital Scholarship Services is actively engaged. At the American Chemical Society Annual Meeting’s CINF symposium “Driving Change: Impact of Funders on the Research Data & Publications Landscape,” I presented (with colleagues from Utah State University) the results of a study conducted to better understand how academic libraries are leveraging existing services and resources when addressing the new public access policies (our slides can be found at http://hdl.handle.net/1911/88651). Other presentations included speakers from the National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy, publishers, initiatives such as SHARE, and services such as Figshare. The conversation about public access support continued a few weeks later at the SPARC MORE Conference. Participants heard from a representative at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation about their unique open access policy, and members of the Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI)–Fondren is a member–discussed ways to leverage institutional OA policies to support public access compliance.

Norie Guthrie

In October, I presented at the Houston History Conference’s “The History of Houston’s Musical Soul”; the link can be found at https://www.houstonhistoryalliance.org/houston-history-conference/2016-houston-history-conference/ As part of a panel covering music archives in Houston, I talked about the Houston Folk Music Archive’s collections and our current and future plans. Not only was the conference incredibly interesting, it was a great way to reach out to the Houston community. An audience member from the Houston Folklore and Music Society contacted us after the conference and donated the society’s newsletters dating back to the 1960s. You can follow the Houston Folk Music Archive on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/houstonfolkmusicarchive/


Mary Brower

The Texas chapter of the Music Library Association held their fall meeting October 7-8 at the Richardson Library of Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene. A total of eight presentations were given during the two half-days. One of the most interesting was University of Houston Music Librarian Stephanie Lewin-Lane’s presentation “Creating a Beta-Space in an Academic Music Library.” A Beta-space is similar to a Makerspace, but with less emphasis on technology and more emphasis on creativity and inspiration. She repurposed an office into a group study room in the music library that is open to all UH students, but is specifically geared to the performing arts students. It can also be used for skype/phone interviews, viewing webinars and MOOCs, tutoring sessions, and small information literacy classes and workshops hosted by the music library. Previously there was no similar space anywhere in the building. The music library staff repainted the room in blues, greens and purples (associated with stimulating creativity in color psychology), and added stimulating art and comfortable furniture. They also outfitted it with a USB enabled keyboard and microphone for recording; TV and speakers; a laptop equipped with recording, arranging and mixing software, a large whiteboard, and a resource center with relevant handouts and books to check out. Since the room opened in September 2016, there have been 20 reservations–79 people total, including four nonmusic majors.

For further information about the Beta-Space and how it is used: http://guides.lib.uh.edu/music/betaspace

For more photos of the room: https://www.facebook.com/uhlibraries/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10155137584224838