Research and Scholarly Communication: Summary of Discussion

Summary of Strategic Reports Discussion: Thursday, May 24, 2007

Research and Scholarly Communication: (http://www.bu.edu/library/about/strategic-plan-9-06.html)

Strategy Reports #1-7 (http://www.bu.edu/library/planning/2007/reports/index.html)

Convener: Linda Plunket

Notes: Gretchen Walsh

The goal of the meeting was to discuss the status of each strategy, articulate the issues and challenges, and outline the support needed to succeed. Following the lead of President Bob Brown, who over the last several months has been presenting the “One Boston University” strategic plan to all of the university’s constituencies while narrowing and sharpening the focus, we will use this forum to look at ways to streamline our own strategic plan.

Linda Carr summarized her report on Strategy 1, developing a collection policy for electronic resources, and making the eresources want list more open to selectors. (http://www.bu.edu/library/planning/2007/reports/s1-5-07.html), There has been substantial progress; a draft has been posted to a wiki, which will be made accessible first to selectors for comments and input, then to all library staff as it becomes a more final product. Several formats have been tried for the eresouces list, with a Word document (to be posted to the library Intranet at a future date) ending up as the most effective for the several uses for the list. Besides serving as a basis for selection decisions, the list can be excerpted for budget and other funding meetings, and thus must contain information specific to that venue, and be in a format that can easily be manipulated for effective use in presentations.

Bob felt that Strategy 4, the institutional repository, had an impact on decisions and budgeting for electronic resources, so reported on this next. (http://www.bu.edu/library/planning/2007/reports/s4-5-07.html) An open access institutional repository for Boston University is a high priority for Bob Brown. Bob Hudson has taken responsibility for drafting a resolution for the Council of Deans outlining the University’s commitment to an institutional repository. Brown has designated the library as leader in this commitment.

This leadership role will carry with it funding for necessary hardware and software; increased staff could be another issue. Bob will begin by convening an interlibrary group on the model of the EZProxy group (e.g., representatives from Mugar, Law, Theology, and Medicine, with representatives from IT and other constituencies involved).

The lengthy and detailed discussion can best be summarized by the main issues:  

President Brown is moving BU in the direction of open access to scholarly production and communication. This could affect decisions and funding for library resources in several ways, simultaneously reducing dependence on expensive publishers while expanding access to research and scholarship through open source, but potentially affecting access to resources that are not open source.

The faculty have mixed reactions to this commitment

The commitment and the responsibility vested in the library considerably raises our profile on campus. At the same time it puts in a vulnerable position: we have to succeed.

We need to begin to develop staff skills and knowledge to meet this challenge. Gretchen Walsh is putting up an assortment of material types on the DSpace server run by the Theology Library. In an ironic demonstration of the problems that can be encountered, that server has been down all day and the site could not be viewed. Try it at http://digilib.bu.edu/dspace. There are only four documents up at this time.

Numerous other issues pertaining to implementation were raised. Bob emphasized that while these issues are important, we are not yet at the stage to discuss them. Experience of other libraries in the BLC and elsewhere will help guide our planning.

Tim reported briefly on Strategy 2, commitment to long-term archival access to electronic resources. BU has joined Portico, and since there is considerable overlap of this strategy with Strategy 1, he suggested that they be combined. Bob declared Strategy 2 a success, and agreed that it made sense to consider remaining issues and concerns as part of the electronic resources policy.

Linda Carr reported on Strategy 3, using statistics to assess the collection. Her report (http://www.bu.edu/library/planning/2007/reports/s3-5-07.html) outlines efforts already underway, along with some of the problems encountered in collecting accurate statistics. She would like to have more guidance about what is specifically needed, what purpose statistics and other data could serve. The Steering Committee will articulate their ideas for assessment using statistics and data. The skills and technology needed to extract the data needed sometimes present real challenges to staff.

Gretchen Walsh reported on the two strategies involving publicity and public relations: Strategies 5 and 6. (http://www.bu.edu/library/planning/2007/reports/s5-5-07.html and http://www.bu.edu/library/planning/2007/reports/s6-5-07.html) It seems logical that the two could be combined into one strategy, although simply combining them will not reduce the inherent challenges. The library needs a strategic marketing plan, but must not lose sight of the fact that we are a component of an academic institution, and cannot market ourselves using the methods that soft drinks or cartoon networks employ to capture attention. We looked at various technologies available. Later discussion via email seems to be leaning toward using BU/IT’s News CMS over some other alternatives. We should set up a working group to articulate policy and philosophy issues, particularly in terms of how the news features of branches interrelate with news on the top BU Libraries page. A prototype of a staff news letter on open source blog software seems an interesting avenue to explore.