Creating a New Thread

I think that if you go to blogger.com and log in with whatever password you established when you "joined" the blog, you should be able to start a new thread. I don't know the software well enough to know for sure!

Hoped for Outcomes

It might be useful for us to think a bit about the outcomes we'd like to see as a result of our work. I'd like to see the Libraries receive more indirect cost recovery money; I'd like to see a new seamless service model which is less collections/place-based and more reflective of the interdisciplinarity of research; and I'd like to see the development of new services designed to better meet the needs of off-campus researchers.

Questions for Us to Consider

Here are some of the questions I'd like us to consider as we go about our work; they are in no particular order; some were mentioned by others this morning.

1. Who is doing work in the Biosciences?
2. Where are they located physically, administratively, intellectually?
3. Where do they publish?
4. What types of information resources are most important to their work--print? Electronic?
5. How is their research funded?
6. How well do we meet their information needs--what are we doing well?
7. What should we be doing for them that we are not already doing?
8. Are our collections adequate to their needs (reliance on ILL/doc delivery)?
9. How heavily/often do they use the physical library and why?
10. Are our collection development choices/spending reflecting research emphases?
11. How heavily do UW-affiliated, off-campus researchers use Libraries' resources? Can this be used to justify the Libraries' receiving indirects for off-campus research?
12. What Libraries services do / would they use in addition to the collections?


More later.

Measures/Metrics

Some of the metrics I'd like to see include:

Acquisitions budgets by discipline
ILL / Doc Delivery use by discipline
Number and percent of core journals available electronically
Use of print collections by discipline
Number of research consultations
Number of reference questions and their path (live, phone, e-mail, chat)

This is quick and dirty--what would others like to see?

For Our First Meeting

In preparation for our first meeting, please think about how we can best define "Biosciences" at the UW. To that end, we would like you to each describe or list what "Biosciences" includes; this may be akin to listing programs that are in the sphere of bioscience. We can then collate our lists/descriptions at the first meeting and come up with something resembling a definition for our purposes. As a starting point, why not try attaching your lists as comments to this posting?

Could you all also think about any data that would address bioscience faculty/student/staff use of library resources? It would also be helpful if you could begin to think about how we can best apply metrics and assessment to our process. Post your thoughts as comments.