A Note from the Dean

The beginning of a new year offers the perfect opportunity to revisit several key initiatives that will advance our goal of providing the highest quality of service to UC students and faculty.

First, last February we launched a Strategic Plan for University Libraries – a plan created with the enthusiastic participation of library faculty and staff in a highly productive and interactive period of seven months. As we begin the new calendar year, we are moving full speed ahead on implementation of a key element of the plan, “organizational effectiveness,” which reflects our shared commitment to a team-based approach to our work with the goal of providing quality service throughout University Libraries. Staff have recommended new alignments of functions, personnel, and workspace for Technical Services (acquisitions, cataloging, and processing of all formats of library materials). Those changes are underway and will result in greater efficiency and better deployment of resources when completed in the next few months. Our Public Services group is also re-positioning itself to meet the instructional, reference, and technology support needs of our students and faculty in today’s ever-changing world of information. This February we will determine the next set of “action items” from our Strategic Plan to be tackled by a new group of task forces. From all indications, I expect “digital projects” to be at the top of that list!

Many readers will recall our efforts in Spring 2002 to explore user perceptions and expectations of library service through the LibQUAL survey. This was a Web-based survey, developed by the Association of Research Libraries, which yielded valuable insights from UC faculty, students, and staff. In the next several weeks, a group of our librarians will be arranging follow-up interviews with 50+ UC faculty to get specific ideas about ways we can improve library service for faculty themselves and the students in their courses.

Finally, your responses to “Chat with a Librarian” and “E-Reserves” have been extremely positive. In the next issue of Source we will provide reports on how often users have turned to these new services since their introduction in September.

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