Library Policies and Operations Committee, 2008-09 In 2003, the Faculty Senate approved the creation of a new standing committee of the Senate - the Committee on Library Policies and Operations. Its scope and charge was approved by the Senate as: The Committee will consist of seven faculty from across the University who collectively utilize the range of Library resources and services. In addition, the Dean and Director of the University Libraries shall serve as an ex officio member. To facilitate continuity of policies and responsiveness to faculty needs with respect to information resources, delivery, and utilization across the University, the Committee shall also establish continuing liaison with the Senate's Standing Academic Policy, Information Systems Policy, and Research Policy Oversight Committees. This Committee shall be concerned with policy issues involving libraries' strategic planning, infrastructures and resource adequacy, collections development and maintenance, program and service development, and other matters of concern to the faculty as the institution strives to achieve and retain status as a top one hundred teaching and research university. This Committee shall also act as a forum for discussion on matters related to the Libraries and may act as an advocate for the University Libraries. The charge of the 2008-09 Senate Committee for Library Policies and Operations was as follows: Implications of the introduction of RCM; Implementing the Academic Plan; Scholarly communication and latest developments in the Open Access movement; and Methods for assessing faculty library needs, including improvement of feedback loops, via the best tools and methods. General Library Overview As part of its standing charge, the Committee reviewed the general budget and current operational priorities of the library. It was unanimous in welcoming the appointment in December 2008 of Will Wakeling as Dean of Libraries, after what had turned out to be an extended period of interim leadership. It noted that the Library had, as requested by the Provost, implemented a 2% cut in its current year budget, and had achieved this primarily with savings from lapsing salaries and reductions in operating costs. The Committee noted that the Library’s FY09 collections budget included a special provision, on a recurring basis, to cover the additional costs of the newly acquired Web of Science, a key multi-discipline research database for which many faculty had long been advocating. It also observed that the collections budget contained $333,000 in one-time money as an inflation-proofing supplement to offset the 2009 increases in journal subscription prices. While this served to fend off the need for yet another journals cancellation exercise in the current year, the Committee expressed concern that more cuts will certainly be necessary if some renewal of the one-time supplement, together with some additional protection for next year’s inflation, is not put in place for FY10. The Dean of Libraries indicated that an information-gathering journals review will indeed need to go ahead in Spring 2009, in any case, as a precautionary measure in advance of any budget announcement for FY10. It was also noted that the Library’s article-related interlibrary loan borrowing had increased considerably in volume over the last few years. This was interpreted as both an indicator of increased research activity, and as a measure of the fact that the current collections were falling short of meeting faculty information needs. The Committee encouraged the Dean to continue the Library’s active investigation of alternative means of satisfying these needs, using document delivery and “pay-per- view” as supplements to the building of collections. Pilot projects in these areas were currently under way. The Committee confirmed that the extension of the Library’s opening hours to 24/7 during term time had been warmly welcomed by students across all colleges. It also noted that the Library had been engaged in the early planning phases of a new development on Snell Library’s 2nd Floor, provisionally named the Interdisciplinary Center for Creative Practice. This would offer a technology-rich venue for interdisciplinary teaching and learning. Implications of the introduction of RCM The Committee met with Judith Pitney, Vice Provost for Budget, Planning and Administration, in order to ascertain the implications of RCM (responsibility centered management) or, the new “hybrid” budgeting system that the University will be implementing on campus. The Provost has convened a special committee to review this budget process on campus, with anticipated implementation to occur as a shadow system in 2009-2010, and become full implemented in 2010-2011. Ms. Pitney provided the Committee with a copy of Edward Whalen’s book, Responsibility Center Budgeting, which many at the University are using to learn about this method of budgeting and planning. Under this new budget system, the Library is treated as a “cost center” that is integral to every facet of the university, and it is seen as the single largest public good on campus. While the concept of a “public good” is not explicit in the practical details of the new Northeastern budget model (in its draft form, at least), it is a standard characteristic of public goods within this general budgeting model that they tend not to generate a lot of revenue yet effect all students and faculty on campus. Thus, their costs are typically born proportionally across all campus units, schools and colleges, based upon some measure such as the campus units’ share of the overall costs of operation or their share of the total number of students and faculty FTEs. The Library must communicate with the various units in order to provide services that best respond to their areas of research and specialty, so that units will see that their share of the investment that is taking place on their behalf is being appropriately applied for their own good as well as the general good. What resources is the Library acquiring with the funding ultimately derived from the units? How does the Library grow with new areas of academic excellence? How can the trajectory of the Library operating budget grow with the demands on its resources and changing technologies? The gap between “taxes” collected from individual units in order to support the Library and its budgetary needs will be filled in by the Provost’s Office, in what often is called a subvention. Judith Pitney pointed out three main challenges that face the Library under the new budget system: 1. The need to build greater awareness and transparency of the Library’s resources base 2. The need to enhance the NU community validation for the need of the Library 3. The need to integrate into NU academic planning the Library’s role in interdisciplinary study At Northeastern, the Law Library has been operating in an RCM budget environment for several years. The NU Library can learn from some their best practices. However, there are also unresolved issues as to how licenses can or cannot be shared between the two libraries. In these difficult economic times, it is clear that the Provost views the Library as an important and crucial public good. In the recent presentation of the 2009-10 budget, SVP Jack McCarthy announced that the Library’s budget would be protected when other budgets may be cut. In addition, the Dean of Libraries has been a member of the new budget committee, and has clearly been involved in the decision-making process as the University moves into its next 10-year plan. The Library’s Implementation of the University Academic Plan The Library’s present three-year Strategic Plan covers the period 2006-2009, and expires June 30 2009. The Committee supplied extensive input to the Library as it went about compiling its new Strategic Plan for 2009-2011. Committee members reviewed draft documentation covering the Library’s proposals for implementing the University’s Academic Plan, and submitted additional suggestions. Members attended and contributed to the environmental scanning element of the Library’s planning retreat in February 2009, and reviewed a draft of the new Strategic Plan currently under construction. The following summary of the Plan is intended to highlight some of the key elements, and their connection with the Academic Plan. A primary goal of the Library’s Strategic Plan, speaking to several elements of the Academic Plan, is to improve discovery, that is, to enhance the ability of users to search and locate information. One of the first steps toward achieving this goal is the development of more intuitive, seamless processes so that users on their own can acquire information from all available sources. This requires procedures that are straightforward and powerful. Researchers should be able to search digitally from anywhere, through a variety of platforms such as laptop computers, and i- phones. The payoff for students and faculty will be significant. Students studying abroad and faculty conducting research in other locations, for example, will have an effective, user-friendly means of conducting off-site research. Of course, various costs will be incurred in the development and operation of an improved discovery system. Licensing costs for offsite access, for example, will increase. A second key goal of the Library’s Plan is to improve the delivery of information, and to provide data anytime, anywhere, from all sources. This might include, for instance, the ability of researchers to acquire immediately a copy of an article or book that is not available through Northeastern. There are significant costs to providing these kinds of services, however, and careful tradeoffs will have to be made, balancing such priorities as collections acquisition with the need of students and faculty for quick response times. It may be that some of the costs associated with these services will have to be born by departments and end users.