In the last issue of Connections, I wrote about the Libraries’ mission to develop innovative new tools to connect our users with our content. These tools will allow us to develop an information environment that is easy to navigate, provides robust discovery options, and gives our students and faculty advanced information management functionality.
Another equally important aspect of our mission is to provide new and innovative services to our users. In the past, our primary services-based focus was on developing rich and unique collections and maintaining our physical spaces, while academic support centered on providing access to these collections. The Libraries continue to develop our services including traditional library services, such as physical collections, but now we are also investing in new services to provide additional access to our librarians’ expertise (subjects and collections) as well as other tasks relating to information and research.
The Libraries continue to enhance our services because our students and faculty are faced with an increasingly complex information environment that provides them with new functionality but also more choices. Start of pull quote: (skip pull quote) The academic research library is also now a center for services, both academic and intellectual, and we continue to strive to provide services so that our users have no need to go elsewhere to satisfy their information needs. End of pull quote. For many of our users, the reason they continue to use the Libraries is because of our high quality personalized services, whether those are in person, on the phone, or via email and chat. In addition, many will continue to leverage the Libraries’ services, because of the increased functionality we offer, that are unavailable from other information providers. The library has always been viewed as the intellectual center of the academic campus and the academy, which is why the library is almost always located in the physical center of a campus. The academic research library is also now a center for services, both academic and intellectual, and we continue to strive to provide services so that our users have no need to go elsewhere to satisfy their information needs.
I’d like to outline a number of those innovations, some of which the Libraries initiated based on perceived user needs and others that were developed due to requests by our students and faculty. The newest services that we have been able to provide are focused on the physical space in the Libraries, on technology, collections, resource discovery, user support, and expertise.
The Libraries, in response to a student survey in Fall 2007, provided a number of upgrades to our physical services. We relaxed the food and drink policy for the Honnold/Mudd building to allow covered drink containers and snack items. We extended hours during the Finals period and found that hundreds of students used the building during these late study hours. We have also provided lockers for students to use for short term storage of items while they go to dinner or take a break from studying. Indications are that more than half are in use at any point.
Library users are also reliant on Internet access while in our buildings. The Libraries recently upgraded and extended wireless coverage and also labeled active Ethernet ports for easier identification. In the future, we hope to integrate our network with The Colleges’ networks to provide access to each user’s home campus network for file storage and retrieval.
The reconfigured “living room” in Honnold/Mudd Library, across from the Services Desk. You’ll find newspapers, magazines, puzzles, and a comfortable place to sit.
We’ve also been able to reconfigure some of our collections to provide easy access to leisure reading material (books, magazines, and newspapers) on the 2nd floor of Honnold/Mudd Library. We continue to add digital content to the Claremont Colleges Digital Library, which provides our students with access to unique primary collections from both the Libraries and The Colleges.
Some of our most important services are direct services to The Colleges’ faculty. Start of pull quote: (skip pull quote) We are now embarking on a project to get our librarians onto each campus to provide support at the point of need for faculty. End of pull quote. We are now embarking on a project to get our librarians onto each campus to provide support at the point of need for faculty. They will be able to provide research assistance to students and faculty through their subject expertise, research process knowledge, and ability to utilize resources like Sakai to assist faculty in developing their courses. The overall breadth of our librarians’ expertise is highlighted in “Libraries Staff News & Notes” in this issue of Connections, where you can read about their recent research and presentations.
In the future, we will continue the dialogue about what services are needed by our faculty and students, and we will revise our current service offerings to ensure that we are meeting their needs. For example, one potential area of collaboration between the Libraries and our users could be through student or faculty advisory groups that can give us ideas for new services and improvements on our existing services. It’s for this reason that we always want to hear about additional services that our faculty and students want from their Libraries.
