November was another very busy month. The Libraries participated in the University’s Career Fair on November 1 and our librarians had a most successful experience. Several hundred students were interested in our vacancies and information related to library and information studies.
On November 2, I chaired the KYVL Steering Committee meeting in Frankfort. We were briefed about the funding decreases for databases and decided to have participants take care of the anticipated shortfall using percentages of use combined with FTEs. We were given a report of KYVL statistics from 12/1999-7/2001. These statistics were most impressive: more than 55,000 searches a month of online databases and more than 72,000 uses of web pages were recorded , and more than 6,000 articles were delivered through the Ariel system per month. Fourteen libraries are now on the Endeavor system, 122 research questions are answered monthly, and more than 6,000 books are delivered monthly by the courier service. These are but a few of very impressive statistics.
In addition we were given the 2001-2006 Action Agenda from the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, including how each state university addresses the five measurements for progress:
On November 5, I attended the meeting of the Association of Research Libraries in Atlanta. The agenda included digital initiatives, updates on the KUDZU project (see under Featured Services http://library.louisville.edu), virtual storage options, virtual reference opportunities, information literacy training, ASERL membership criteria, possible internship options and most importantly, ASERL’s new Competencies for Research Librarians. These competencies will be presented to the membership of ALISE (Association of Library and Information Science Educators) in New Orleans in January 2002.
Jim Nelson, the State Librarian, and I are exploring joint continuing education opportunities for librarians and library staffs in the Kentucky area.
On November 13, I addressed Student Government briefly. I showed them our videotape and gave them updated information about our major library issues. They appreciated this very much.
At the Metroversity Library Council meeting on November 15, we discussed the new faculty development series sponsored by the Metroversity libraries, slated to begin in the summer of 2002 and to end sometime in 2003. The series will address “pedagogical implications of employing information technology in classroom instruction.”
In the early part of January I will be the keynote speaker on information literacy in Northern China. In March I will be a keynote speaker at the first international conference on Information Technology and Information Literacy and in April I will give a major paper on information literacy as an emerging global priority at the first international conference on information literacy sponsored by UNESCO and others in Prague. As you can see, it will be a busy year and UofL will be very visible globally.
--Hannelore Rader, University Librarian