Library Summary of Progress - Annual Progress in Instutional Effectiveness

Through strategic planning and a culture of assessment and improvement, the Library performed dozens of assessment activities throughout the year to make improvements in operations. Below are representative samples with project descriptions.

The Library’s Continuous Quality Improvement Committee rotated members representing all departments to seek feedback from the rest of the Library on how the Library could improve. The open-ended questions answered were: How is the Library doing? What are we doing right? What is not going well? What should be changed? The responses this year ranged from specific (an additional copier is needed on the 2nd floor) to more general (communication problems). The Library Administrative Advisory Group assigned responsibility for improvement to appropriate faculty and staff in January. Most issues have been addressed or are in the process of change.

Library Faculty provided instruction in the effective use of Library resources, including many that were customized to meet specialized needs. A total of 115 educational sessions were held for 1260 people in 168.50 hours of active (hands-on) learning. Library faculty taught nine different open enrollment courses, including 49 sessions to 225 students, faculty and staff for a total of 69.5 hours of instruction (see Chart on next page for breakdown by type of course, school and type of participant).

Implementation of the UC/UB beta testing phase
In preparation for implementation of seamless University System of Georgia (USG) borrowing through Galileo Interconnected Libraries (GIL), many in-house and statewide meetings were held to develop procedures. Local processes were established to process incoming and outgoing UB requests through the Interlibrary Loan unit. Successful implementation in FY02 will mean better access to information for MCG students, faculty and staff and those of the USG.

Workflow change to preserve circulation statistics
Browse and circulation statistics for unbound journal titles were lost because individual holdings were deleted in the bindery process and Endeavor system did not archive the information. An intradepartmental team met and determined that the items initially could be masked from the public catalog rather than deleted, the information pasted to an Excel database, and the unnecessary item holdings records deleted quarterly. The team concluded that the unbound journals could be left in the Acquisition Module, taken off display in the public catalog and removed at a later time. While more labor intensive, the new process preserved critically needed usage statistics for current journals.

Expanded access to Special Collections services and facilities
The following data represents the results of the efforts to expand access:

The Special Collections Librarian regularly supports 40 hours per week of access and research/reference assistance to Special Collections resources.
Electronic access to Special Collections was enhanced and visibility increased, as evidenced through a 107% increase in research requests over fiscal year 2000
Reorganization and classification of artifacts within the Special Collections workroom reclaimed approximately 20 feet of space and resulted in sound storage and easier retrieval of more than 300 objects within the collection.
The entire photograph collection (approximately 700 items) in Special Collections was re-housed into preservationally sound storage (acid/lignin‑free inert encapsulation).
Over 150 oversized documents were re‑housed into acid/lignin‑free enclosures to help protect from light, dust, moisture, and mold damage
Hardware and software were procured in support of furthering digital initiatives for building web‑based virtual exhibits and on‑line finding aids.

Molecular Biology Resources Seminar
The Greenblatt Library, in conjunction with the Office of Vice President of Research, hosted a Field Guide to GenBank and NCBI Molecular Biology Resources on Jun 26, 2001 for those who work with biological sequence mapping and structure data. Taught by scientists from the National Center for Biotechnology Information, this course consisted of a morning lecture and three optional hands-on afternoon sessions to teach effective use of the Entrez text search service and the BLAST similarity search engine.

Advertised primarily via e-mail on campus, 85 people registered for the course and 75 attended the lecture. Registrants included 30 faculty, 10 postdoctoral fellows, 20 research assistants, and 20 students. Fifty-five attended the afternoon hands-on sessions.

The morning session, although primarily lecture, was peppered with questions from the audience. The afternoon sessions provided the participants with the opportunity to choose sequences to search in a hands-on environment. Although no official evaluation form was provided, many positive comments were given for providing the workshop opportunity. The instructors commented on the strong turnout for the afternoon sessions and excellent teaching accommodations.

De-Selecting books from the collection
Outdated material needed to be withdrawn for shifting purposes. Over 12,000 volumes were pulled from the circulating shelves strictly on the basis of a copyright date from 1950 to 1986, leaving the material from the WWII era of medical advances and older semi‑historical materials for later examination. Classification sections were reviewed by the Head, Collection Services for such items as atlases, MCG authors, and historical value. A reference librarian weeded the collection by year and classification after also reviewing the items. Records were removed from GIL and the OCLC utility which had MCG holdings attached to those records. MCG's Library was reimbursed by OCLC for helping to assure the integrity of their worldwide holdings catalog. Needed replacement materials were identified to maintain the strength of the collection.

Increase shelving for new journals
Review of serials purchasing plans revealed that over 100 new titles needed to be added to the current display shelving area to accommodate the new journal subscriptions for calendar year 2001. To ensure adequate spaces for all unbound journals, three new shelving sections were added in the unbound journal area. A written title-by-title list was created for proper placing of each title. Title labels were made for the end panels to assist patrons in locating journals. All current journal titles were shifted on a Saturday, creating less disruption for users. Attractive and workable spaces for all unbound journals created better access for users.

Provision of resources to rural health practitioners
The Statewide AHEC annual retreat in October 2000 provided the AHEC Learning Resource Center (LRC) librarians the opportunity to evaluate their mission and determine implementation. At each quarterly meeting, the LRC group followed the agenda set at the annual retreat, evaluated needs and modified as required. A need was identified to provide interlibrary loans to rural health practitioners via the AHEC centers. Partnering with the Greenblatt Library allowed the AHEC centers to provide interlibrary loans at a reduced cost. Another need met was the increase in Ovid usage; statistics showed increase in usage after LRC training sessions.

Assessment of Operations