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{ UCLA Librarian } Preserving knowledge ... providing access to the universe of ideas progress report 2008–09 { UCLA Librarian } progress report 2008-09 page 2 Organizations tend to use annual reports to trumpet significant accomplishments – major gifts, new buildings, innovative programs, and the like. The UCLA Library’s version is no different in that regard; in the following pages you’ll find our share of noteworthy acquisitions, generous donations, new initiatives. Yet note the subtitle of this publication for a moment before you proceed; we quite consciously call it a “progress report” rather than an annual report. The concept of “progress” as incremental movement toward a goal, development in a positive Letter direction, better captures the sense of a year’s accomplishments and activities at the UCLA Library, a year that contained as many seemingly minor actions that together from the add up to significant feats as it did major announcements. Take, for example, the research guides described in the collections section. One University guide, viewed on its own, may be very helpful to a certain group of users but is unremarkable to the world at large. Yet five – ten – dozens of guides seen in aggre - Librarian gate point to a redefinition and an enhancement of an entire aspect of library collections and service. Online chat reference offers a similar case in point. When the UCLA Library offered this service on our own, we were only able to provide it during certain days and times, the hours our staff was available. When the service became a joint project of all University of California libraries, hours were expanded, and it became more noteworthy. As you’ll see in the services article, we’ve now joined an international consortium that makes this service available twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. What began as a small step has progressed over time into a major accomplishment. When it comes to acquisitions, the following pages contain many headline-worthy names – those of John Fante and Aldous Huxley, just to name two. But don’t overlook the more routine acquisitions: new collecting areas launched to support expanded areas of teaching and research, a large collection of electronic books that can be used for any educational purpose, digitized rare books that are now accessible online to the pub - lic worldwide. Piece by piece, these “small” accomplishments add up to significant achievements offering long-term benefits. A similar assessment of incremental-approach-equals-accomplishment is evident even when it comes to major grants. The first project the Library announced that would be supported by our extraordinary five- million-dollar gift from the Arcadia Fund was “Collecting Los Angeles.” This new initiative doesn’t focus on the collections of local Hollywood stars or world-renowned authors or top-ranked athletes; it seeks out the hidden histories, the groups and individuals whose stories are lesser known and whose remarkable contributions to the life of this city will crumble into dust and vanish from the historical record without an organization stepping in to preserve it and make it accessible to current and future generations. In addition to Arcadia, we are fortunate to have many major donors to thank in these pages for their irreplaceable contributions to our success during this fiscal year. We also have a great many not-so-major donors whose contributions collectively are equally irreplaceable, and we want to honor and thank each of you as well. Together, your contributions both large and small have enabled us to progress, sometimes in leaps and sometimes by baby steps, toward our goal to support all aspects of UCLA’s mission of education, research, and service. Through the work produced by UCLA’s students, faculty, and staff, you help us serve the people of Southern California, the U.S., and the world. Gary E. Strong University Librarian { UCLA Librarian } progress report 2008-09 page 3 Finding Resources Using Information Creating Knowledge If you want to find information in a general area – not a specific subject, mind you, but a general area – how do you go about it? How do you identify what journals cover that area most comprehensively, what primary resources are available, whether there are digital or audio/visual resources that you’re not aware of? In the case of the UCLA Library, you might start with a research guide. UCLA Users and Library Collections Today’s increasingly complex, information-intensive academic world demands research guides that are adaptable, expandable, and easy to use. That can of course be a person, such as the collection development manager responsible for a given subject area or a reference librarian who’s familiar with resources in many disciplines. But since even the most dedicated and efficient librarian can’t be available to all of UCLA’s students, faculty, and staff 24/7, the electronic research guide offers a useful substitute. When looking at the various UCLA campus libraries’ individual progress reports for 2008-09, the near ubiquity of research guides stands out, particu- larly when compared with previous years. Nearly every librarian created one, and many created more than one, some for specific disciplines and others customized for individual courses. You can see them for yourself at <http:// www.library.ucla.edu/service/6428.cfm >. This could be attributed to the fact that the UCLA Library licensed a Web-hosted application that makes customized research guides easy to create. It could also be attributed to librarians wanting to move guides they had created in print format or as static Web pages into the new application. { UCLA Librarian } progress report 2008-09 page 4 But as usage statistics indicate, the primary motive appears to be user-driven. UCLA’s students, faculty, and staff are increasingly studying and doing research around the clock and around the world, and they rely on the Library – all aspects of the Library, collections-related services as well as many of the collections themselves – to be available when and where they’re working. The guides share certain commonalities; all contain the banner from the UCLA Library’s homepage so it’s easy to see that they’re official Library resources, and each contains contact information for the person or department that created it. But the contents are wildly diverse, reflecting the unique needs of and resources in the areas they cover. Take, for example, the guide for indigenous literatures and languages of the Americas (see upper left). The section labels near the top are familiar enough and appear on countless other guides: books, journals, primary sources, refer - ence sources. But what is featured in the center of page? A series of YouTube videos featuring indigenous poets reading in their own languages. And off to one side are links to audio of interviews with contemporary Native American authors. What better way to introduce users immediately to those indigenous languages and literatures? Many of the guides offer more than background on and links to useful resources; some also offer direct, real-time contact with the librarian who builds and provides services for the specific discipline. Stop by the guide to electrical engineering, and you’ll find a chat box in the right-hand column labeled “Contact Your Librarian” (see lower left). When the librarian is online, users can chat with him right then and there rather than sending an email and waiting for a reply. The approach taken in certain guides also anticipates the knowledge level of its potential users. One of the music guides, on popular music and bands, seems keenly aware before they even arrive on the page that its users may not be familiar with searching a library for information in this area. It cheerily greets visitors with tips to get started and a featured section on “Where to look • Frances Parthenope, Lady Verney; Life and Major Ac quisitions 2008-09 death of Athena, 1855? Limited-edition litho - graphed facsimile of a story about an owl Arts Library graphs, letters, and medical and political rescued by Florence Nightingale, which ephemera from this nearly forgotten figure became her pet and companion until it Catalogue raisonnés on Michelangelo, Joan in California medicine and politics; Young died; written and sent by her sister to cheer Miro, Edvard Munch, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, (b. 1828) participated in the temperance move - Nightingale up during a serious illness Diego Rivera, Auguste Rodin, ment, edited Bay Area journals, lectured on Alison Bunting Endowed Rare Books Fund: and Ed Ruscha public health topics, earned a medical degree, Lillian, and was active in founding the local branch Steven C. Daiber, 1995. An artist’s Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library of the Populist Party book responding to Marcello Malpighi’s Anatome plantarum, created for the 1995-96 Psychiatry Online Franklin E. Murphy, MD Fund exhibition “Science and the Artist’s Book” Radio-active Substances, at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries Psychiatry Legacy Collection • Susan Kae Grant, 1995. Limited-edition artist’s book juxtaposing Willard Lee Marmelzat, MD Collection Sage eReference Collection historic photographic images with text Endowment summarizing Curie’s experiments leading to Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library the discovery of radium; pages made out of Raymund Minderer, De calcantho seu vitriolo, History and Special Collections for lead sheeting 1617. First edition of an important book in the history of chemistry about the discovery the Sciences • Julius Arnold, Pathologische Anatomie, ca. 1880- of ammonium acetate 82. A detailed and perhaps unpublished Carrie F. Young Collection series of illustrated lecture notes on anato- Notebooks, ledgers, lecture notes, photo - mical and clinical pathology { UCLA Librarian } progress report 2008-09 page 5 first!” One of its tabs also offers the reminder that research is a process, not a destination: “To be thorough, look here too...” Any library guide, however, is only as good as the collections it supports, and in that regard, the UCLA Library made remarkable strides during 2008-09.