TST Strategic Framework for 2007/2008
TST Environmental Scan
November 5th, 2007
Surveys, Information Gathering and Data Analysis:
TST made the decision not to do a Needs Assessment survey this year due to the fact that those items identified as strategic processes continue to be our focus.
- Accurate Electronic Holdings
- Accurate Links
- Maintenance of Electronic Subscriptions
- Accurate Print Holdings
Trends in Needs Assessment:
Trends identified in the last Needs Assessment continue to be current and addressed by TST Quality Standards.
- All activities connected with electronic resources continue to rise to the top in importance. Accurate links, electronic holdings and maintenance of electronic subscriptions need further attention in TST’s strategic planning. These areas rely heavily on accurate information provided by vendors and third party aggregators.
- Accurate print holdings are an ongoing concern to our customers. TST needs to ascertain the importance of this process during our next needs assessment survey to determine the impact of current de-selection projects.
Trends in Workflow:
- An informal analysis of the TST workflow continues to identify a decrease in the acquisition of print materials which follows the strategic direction of the University library. This is reflected in our ARL statistical category for monographs purchased. The number of monographs purchased in 2005-06 dropped slightly from 2004-05 once the purchase of large collections like NetLibrary are removed from the stats. In 2004-05 there were 37,821 monographs purchased through regular means (firm orders, etc.) and 10,236 monographs purchased through large purchases like Springer and NetLibrary. During 2005-06 36,370 books were purchased through regular means and 972 were purchased through Wiley. Journal cancellation projects and the current trend to electronic have reduced the monthly journal receipts from approximately 3,000 receipts to 1,500 per month. We believe this trend will continue progressively through the fiscal years. TST continually needs to look at internal reallocation of existing resources.
- Outsourcing materials in those languages that we don’t have expertise (Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew) has enabled us to meet our quality standard turn-around time of materials that we do receive in-house. TST has eliminated sending current receipts to TechPro for processing. TST is experiencing reduced receipts for South American materials as a result of a consolidation by IR managers through the vendor Latin American Books. With the cancellation of the Irish approval books we have reduced some duplication with Blackwell UK. TST needs to continue to investigate getting more pre-processed materials. TST needs to identify existing vendors and their capabilities to provide said pre-processed materials as well as more electronic books.
- TST needs to continue to re-examine the Staffing Model in regards to internal resources, identified trends in workflow, and potential new work.
Cutting Edge/Experiments/Pilots:
A Strategic Opportunities Proposal was put forth by Tom Marshall (TST, Electronic Resource Team) to purchase an Innovative Interfaces product called AirPAC which would enable library patrons to search the library catalog from personal hand-held devices such as internet enabled mobile phones and PDA’s.
Future Work:
- Metadata support for streaming materials
- Minisis
- Quality Control for digitization project
- CONTENTdm