2006 Dykes Library Mission and Strategic Initiatives

Mission

The mission of the A.R. Dykes Library of the Health Sciences staff is to work collaboratively with individuals and organizations who are seeking high quality health information within the University of Kansas Medical Center and throughout the state of Kansas.

Instruction | Collections | Access | Collaboration | Quality Staff

= Completed
= In process or Ongoing
= Incomplete

Collection Initiative

Goal 2: We maintain a collection budget for and a collection of high-quality health care information in appropriate formats that supports the Medical Center's teaching, research, and patient care, being mindful of current trends in scholarly communications.

Collaboratively build & maintain a collection built around and balanced among educational programs at KU Med based on available enrollment and institution staff numbers as well as input from liaisons, library staff, and an annual assessment of usage trends and user needs.

Activities

• Collection managers shall maintain collection policies that cover the activities of building a collection--and all associated activities: selection, approvals, deselection, weeding, donations, stacks maintenance. Policy shall be reviewed annually.
• Collection managers shall develop policies covering: data collection and analysis, departmental relations, funding, and inventory by end of calendar year 2006.
• Collection managers shall review materials budget at least monthly to ensure that funds are being expended and liaisons stay within budget.
• One of the collection managers shall regularly participate in meetings of the Regents' Library Database Consortium, and the KU Libraries Sci-Tech Council.
• Collection managers shall develop guidelines for the development and management of departmental collections--by January 31, 2006.
• Liaisons shall maintain regular (at least once a semester) contact with each department in their collecting area, for purposes of soliciting input regarding collection needs.
• Liaisons shall select materials annually in accordance with the collection development policy.  Purchasing decisions must be finalized no later than February 15.
• Liaisons shall evaluate book reviews and other scholarly selection tools in their subject areas on a monthly basis.
• Liaisons shall perform weeding and deselection activities in accordance with the weeding policy. Weeding to be completed by Dec. 31 each year.
• License standards and procedures will be developed by a group including the Collection Managers, the Head of CDD and the Director, by the end of FY2006.
• Collection managers shall review ordering and receiving procedures by end of FY2006.

Achieve a funding level which puts A.R. Dykes Library at or above the median among peer institutions (UNCCH, Missouri, Iowa, Oregon, Colorado, Nebraska, and Oklahoma).

Activities

• Collection managers shall develop by Feb. 1 budget requests with supporting documentation for the Library's director. Budget data will be drawn from data listed above in the data warehouse, but will concentrate on cost and budget trends relative to peer institutions and KUMC's needs.
• By March 1, Library director shall present budget request to librarians in advance of presentation to university administration.

Collection managers shall collect, organize and distribute information to support the process of building and maintaining an appropriate collection in Dykes Library. All information shall be made available to liaisons and the university community through the data warehouse.

Activities

• Collection managers shall develop annual management reports by January 31 covering: annual increases in materials prices, budget trends at peer institutions, increased needs of KUMC (new programs, research). These reports shall be distributed through the data warehouse. Data sources shall include vendor reports, AAHSL and ARL stats, Office of Planning and Analysis stats.
• Collection managers shall arrange for annual reports by September 1 to each liaison on the following areas: usage, age of materials, lost materials, spending, core collection coverage, and descriptive and statistical information on KUMC.
• Collection managers shall organize a bibliometric analysis of the collection every three years. This shall be a descriptive and comparative analysis of the collection. It shall include comparisons of KUMC to its peer institutions. Collection managers shall solicit vendor assistance when possible.  A proposal shall be presented to the librarians by the April 2006 librarians' meeting.

Dykes Library staff shall manage the physical collection of resources by maintaining these materials in good physical condition and readily accessible to the clientele.

Activities

• Assistant Librarians shall undertake monthly shelf reading of the reference and ready reference stacks.
• Evening supervisor shall organize regular shelf reading of the remainder of the physical collections, to be completed twice a year.
• Collection managers shall initiate an inventory of the library's physical collection at least biannually.  The first inventory shall be organized and conducted in 2006.
• Collection managers shall collaborate with Clendening staff to develop and organize local shareable storage space.  Discussions will begin in Spring 2006.  Outline of storage plans to be presented to librarians by August 2006 librarians' meeting.
• Collection managers shall develop a revised search procedure for lost and missing items by May 30, 2006.