Materials Budget Purchase Plan Proposal FY 2002-2004

Key components in the support of the Honors College and the graduate programs which the University Libraries will focus on in the coming year include significant expansion of collections (both print and electronic)–especially in the sciences and in area studies--upgrades in interlibrary loan and document delivery service, an expansion and re-design of the library's Internship Program for graduate students to include also Honors students, and a greater leadership role in enhancing the cultural life of the campus and community. All of these goals are directed toward providing students and faculty with the resources they need for their research, with exciting educational opportunities, and with a stimulating environment to help retain good faculty, make students proud of the University and of Arkansas, and motivate graduates to consider life-long careers within the state. The outgrowth of these efforts will be to graduate a more educated pool of Arkansas leaders and citizens who will contribute to the economic development of the state.

Program Support

The Libraries will focus on building collections to provide adequate support for the University's graduate programs, particularly at the doctoral level, and on bringing the depth and scope of collections to within a general research level as defined by national guidelines. Beginning in fiscal year 2003, the Libraries will implement a systematic collection development plan which will focus on strengthening collections for graduate research and supporting area and interdisciplinary studies offered in the Honors College. The Libraries will also work with Honors faculty to provide tailored instruction to Honors students to ensure that they are able to locate and efficiently use the varied resources they will need for their classes and research.

Purchase Plan for Cooperative Memberships & Large Research Databases

The Libraries have developed a plan for obtaining membership in large national cooperative libraries as well as a purchase plan for acquiring large resource databases for fiscal year 2003 to help support the University's graduate programs and faculty research. These resources will be particularly useful for engineering, science, agricultural, and business researchers. High on the priority list is our recent cooperative membership in the Center for Research Libraries, which will provide interlibrary loan access to over 4 million items (particularly in the sciences and areas studies) that would otherwise be unobtainable by our students and faculty. These items include foreign dissertations, minutes and correspondence for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (1812-1924), Astronomers Royal Records (1675-1764), retrospective files of newspapers, archival material in microform that records the activities of national governments, and scholarly journals that are normally outside the core of high-demand journals commonly collected and retained by North American libraries (special emphasis is placed on Asian and Eastern European science and technology titles). A few of the full-text databases on the priority list include IEE/IEEE Digital Library (electrical engineering), Beilstein Crossfire (chemistry), JSTOR: Arts & Sciences II (ecology & general science), Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries (agriculture), and Market Researcher (business). Databases in the humanities include Black Drama, Bibliography of Asian Studies, and Early Encounters in North America (personal accounts, narratives, diaries, journals, and letters of the North American peoples from 1534 to1850). (See attached list for full list of proposed database purchases.)

Approval Plans and Growth of Book Collections

Although nearly 70 percent of the library materials budget will continue to be used for journals and journal databases, the Libraries will bolster the book collections as well. In April 2002, the Libraries initiated a book approval plan, which is a method used by many libraries to acquire needed books in a systematic and efficient manner. Subject profiles for book ordering have been developed by the Libraries' subject librarians to reflect the research and instructional needs of the University's programs, particularly those in the graduate programs and in area and interdisciplinary studies. This approval plan will bring in English language publications from all university presses in North America, Europe, Australia, and other English-speaking regions--in a systematic and efficient manner. During the coming year, the Libraries will be expanding this plan to include Association and commercial publishers as well. Doing this will increase significantly the number and quality of books with a minimal investment of faculty and library time. A major focus for the Libraries in fiscal year 2004 will be to expand foreign language and international materials.

Upgrades in Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery Services

The Libraries will be purchasing a new fast and efficient interlibrary loan Resource Sharing Management software (called "OCLC ILLiad"), which automates routine interlibrary loan functions within one seamless system. Students and faculty will be able to send and then track their interlibrary loan requests electronically through the Web. ILLiad automatically processes filled requests and then contacts the student or faculty requester when their materials are available for access–often within 24 hours. Students and faculty can thus receive the documents they need from wherever they have Internet Web access–anywhere in the world.

Graduate Assistant and Honors Internship Program

The Libraries will be expanding their internship program, which currently comprises the successful Graduate Assistant Internship Program (in partnership with the Graduate School) to include Honors undergraduates as well. In these programs, graduate and Honors students will be able to make choices as to the available library programs and activities they wish to be involved in. In the past year, each graduate assistant was assigned to work with the subject librarian in his or her own discipline. The subject areas included physics and chemistry, engineering, agriculture, education, computer science, business, and anthropology. However, in the coming year, the Libraries plan to expand the opportunities for both graduate and Honors interns to include perhaps peer-to-peer tutoring at the Enhanced Learning Center on campus to help students find and use library resources they need for their classes. Or, perhaps interns with good computer skills might have the opportunity to become involved in the library's Web-based instruction program, or those especially interested in the research process might choose to assist in reference services, or those interested in archival collections might have the opportunity to create finding aids for unprocessed manuscript collections (see attachment)--especially original collections related to Arkansas' historical, political, cultural, economic, or literary heritage.

The Libraries and interns will mutually benefit from this program. Students will gain valuable experience in honing their research and critical skills for their future careers and will have the opportunity to discover up close the rich and often unique research possibilities available to them for their own research.

Cultural Outreach

Exhibits

The Libraries plan to enhance efforts to broaden their mission by providing opportunities for cultural enrichment to undergraduate and graduate students in the form of more frequent exhibits and lectures. To accommodate an increasingly curious and bright student body, the Libraries will do their part to enrich the campus climate and create an aesthetically pleasing, intellectually provocative, stimulating, and welcoming environment for students and faculty. Rotating art exhibits by local and regional artists will continue to be shown in the public services area of the main library, and more frequent exhibits of materials from the Libraries' own collections will be shown in the Helen Robson Walton Reading Room and in the Special Collections Reading Room. Exhibits from the library's Arkansas-related collections will give students a real sense of the breadth and depth of Arkansas' historical, political, cultural, literary, and economic heritage, as well as a feeling for the range and wealth of materials available right here at their fingertips.

The Libraries also plan to explore options for showcasing University Press books through online exhibits, and to exhibit some of the Libraries' collections in partnership with the University Museum, the Walton Arts Center, the Shiloh Museum, and the Liberty Memorial Museum in Kansas City.

Lectures

The Libraries plan to undertake a program of lectures–some by nationally recognized speakers--geared to students on topics that emphasize the value of cultural diversity and that will give them a taste of the exciting channels of inquiry available to them in their course of study at the University.

Attachments: Materials Budget Purchase Plan Proposal FY 2002-2004