A Semester Draws to a Close
As another semester comes to an end, I wanted to acknowledge and thank you for the work you have all done to help our students and faculty. For three straight days this week we have had over 35,000 people come through the doors, including 100 patrons shy of a 12,000 day. The stress of the semester, both with our patrons and our own staff, seem to be highlighted during finals weeks. Over the past few weeks I have given multiple year-end presentations where I have answered some hard questions from our community about the viability of our collections and other policy changes and I have also sensed and confirmed similar tension within our own organization. It is important during these times that we take a moment to reflect that no matter how difficult the situation or conversation is, respecting each other is the greatest priority. The push for civility on campus has been a topic for some time and was recently highlighted by the awarding of a multi-million dollar grant to the Humanities Institute to promote healthier discourse around contentious topics. So as we roll forward with the work of the library we will raise the dialogue needed to foster a collegial and productive environment. In line with this conversation, I encourage you to attend the University’s Employee Appreciation Event. This is an effort University-wide to celebrate the staff through what has been and will continue to be difficult budget challenges. The program is Wednesday, May 11, between 11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m and RSVPs are due today.
Vice Provost’s Council
The agenda for Wednesday’s meeting can be found here. Please remember to RSVP to Kristen if you are able to attend.
Donor Updates
Over the past month we have had an opportunity to meet with a range of donors as we continue to pursue engagement in this area. Greg, Kristin Eshelman and I gave a presentation to the American Book Collectors (ABC) organization regarding what was happening in the library and the vision for the archives. Made up of members interested in our children’s literature collection, this group has been a constant supporter for years and we look forward to their continued interest. As many of you know from our Winter newsletter, Len Morris and his wife Georgia donated the U. Roberto Romano papers to the archives last fall. Len was on campus for the film screening of “The Same Heart” which he worked on with Romano before his passing. I was quite touched throughout the documentary and how he was able to frame his experiences in filming such a heart wrenching topic. And just last week Holly and Jean had the opportunity to meet with Rhode Island Supreme Court Justice William Robinson III while he was on campus. Justice Robinson has been a supporter of the Libraries and CLAS for many years and during this visit we had the opportunity to talk about libraries with him and gave him a quick tour.
Copyright & Fair Use Committee
The committee has firmed up our purpose and mission and have begun to get to work on our next steps. One of those steps of note is the committee has agreed to use our ereserves migration as a use case in the process faculty will use to determine fair use. More information about how our ereserves migration will progress is on the upcoming VPC agenda.