Author(s): Bart Ragon, MLIS; Megan Nunemaker, MLIS; VP Nagraj
Objectives: Health sciences libraries support organizational missions related to clinical care, research, education, and outreach. The University of Virginia Health Sciences Library developed a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system allowing services to be tracked to the four core missions. This paper will discuss the process of migrating to the CRM and the benefits gained from new data mining capabilities.
Methods: During the fall of 2013 a review of CRM software was conducted by the library to determine the best solution for gathering and reporting statistics. A functional requirements list was created to assist in software evaluation and included criteria like the ability to capture liaison activities, linking service interactions to the four core missions, report generation, and ease of use. After a 6 months pilot period descriptive statistics were generated using SPSS for individual liaisons, departments, and the library as a whole. The system was then re-evaluated for functionality and adjustments were made based on user feedback and the need for data standardization. Once this was achieved, generation of descriptive statistics was migrated to the R programming language to increase the ability to produce on demand reports.
Author(s): Kristine Alpi & Elizabeth Morris
Objective:We hypothesize that as librarian profiles come to parallel institutional researcher profiles, it be will easier for researchers to recognize librarians’ expertise. The purpose of this preliminary research was to understand how libraries promote their librarians’ subject matter and scholarly communication expertise online for discovery by potential clients/collaborators.
Methods: Library staff web pages from 29 peer institutions, five in the Southeastern United States, were identified. We visited those pages seeking listings for subject specialists, liaison librarians, and reference librarians. Information on 1206 librarians was captured from listings and individual staff pages between July and December 2014. We documented whether they included photos or listed academic degrees and majors, publications, professional organizations outside of LIS associations, and other activities that provide insight into librarian experience, interests, and expertise.
Results: Library staff pages provide little information that signifies subject matter expertise to help researchers recognize the depth of their subject engagement. The level of information varies tremendously across individual librarian pages. Of the five institutions in the MAC region, only one staff roster indicated advanced graduate degrees by listing PhDs in the alphabetical list while two universities’ individual staff pages included degrees. Photos were included on 21% of individual pages. Individual staff page links to additional profile information vary considerably, but when they are present, they consist of links to publication lists (12%), CVs/resumes (8%) or memberships in professional organizations; only 1% had Google Scholar Citations or LinkedIn links.
Conclusions: Libraries’ efforts to expose library staff expertise to potential clients and collaborators through their online presence on libraries’ websites could be more extensive and consistent. Modeling library staff pages on existing researcher profiles commonly used by clients could help researchers discover the expertise of their subject librarians.
Author(s): Marlena Barber, MLIS & Roger Russell, MLS
Objective: During the summer of 2014, Laupus Library at East Carolina University began investigating an increase in the number of items that were being reported as being “not on shelf” by staff and patrons. Due to a previous incident of organized theft, we decided to act quickly and determine the cause of these reports. Our project objectives were to assess the extent of loss, to look for correlations between areas of high loss and specific topics or disciplines, to implement measures to reduce the amount of loss, to uncover library book collection control practices at other libraries, and to conduct a follow-up assessment to measure the success of our efforts.
Methods: An inventory was conducted of the entire library circulating collection in 2014 with an analysis of the percentage of books lost, the percentage of loss of the book collection value and patterns of loss across the subject areas of the collection. Based on the results of the inventory various interventions were implemented to minimize loss. A follow up inventory is presently being conducted to assess the effectiveness of all interventions. A survey of the AAHSL libraries will also be conducted to assess collection control practices and explore best practices.
Results/Conclusion: By analyzing the loss-rate percentages of the first inventory and through analyzing both the statistical data and anecdotal patron and staff reports on the now current collection, we see a reduction already in book loss. Reviewing the data from other AAHSL libraries will illustrate common practices among other health sciences libraries to help determine successful loss prevention measures.
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