Curriculum & Certificate Review

We received our first request last month as part of the newly formalized process to include the Library in the approval for new academic programs or certificates. As you may recall, this is a result of our advocacy through the Senate to allow us to provide input on the availability of resources prior to approval. In this case, the liaisons responsible for the area were given the opportunity to comment in which they were able to offer their support of the program while at the same time raising concerns about our ability to support deeper research needs in the current environment. I have also received approval to be included on updates the University makes to the academic programs and provides to the State’s Office of Higher Education. This information will be very helpful for many things, most notably for our collection development strategies.

Fiscal Year 2017

As we begin a new fiscal year, we, along with other academic departments, have not seen an additional cut to the already known 3% for the year. We will need to remain vigilant in how we spend our funds to achieve the 3% cut this year so I encourage you all to continue to think of ways to do things differently with less. One such change that has recently been instituted is to our binding services.  As you may recall the Graduate School no longer requires a bound copy of thesis and dissertations so as of July we no longer provide the service to departments or individuals who do still want a paper copy. I have sent individual notes to each of the departments that were identified as frequent users and received notes back of understanding from many of them. We have created a new webpage that offers alternatives to users who would like binding services so if you get any questions from patrons, please refer them to the site.

Master Plan Updates

For those of you who were able to attend last week’s VPC meeting, you heard that we have a new lead architect working with Antoaneta Fedeles.  We are pleased that Robert Corbett will be working with us as we already have an established and professional relationship with him through his work on the Hartford campus library within Hartford Public. VPC met with both Robert and Antoaneta this morning for what they call a “reset” of the Master Plan. It was incredibly helpful for all of us to recap where we are now in the process and take a look at some of the changes that have been made since we first began these conversations over a year ago. We are working at rethinking some of our temporary strategies in light of new timelines and budget numbers as well as continuing the focus groups for the 1st floor. Many of you have also been asking about the floor number changes and at this juncture we will not be changing them in the immediate future but will continue to advocate for that change when most appropriate.