Strategic principles and objectives for
The Library budget planning process
January 24, 1995

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Introduction

In preparation for development of a strategic plan, this statement is intended to define interim strategic principles and objectives to guide the development of The Library's budget for collections, programs and services for the next three years. The L ibrary recognizes that the environment for Berkeley's library (and research libraries in general) is being redefined by fundamental changes: budget cuts and fiscal constraints combined with rising information costs; changes in the composition of the fac ulty, academic programs, research methodologies and the curriculum; and the rise of new forms of technology based information and communication resources which require funding. Yet even in the midst of restructuring due to fiscal constraints, The Library 's goal is to lay a foundation for becoming the finest research library in the world in the next decade. This foundation is built upon the following principles:

1. The Library's mission is to provide faculty, students and the public with access to collections, information resources and services which enable world class research, teaching and service. National rankings such as the Association of Research Libra ries statistics are based on budget inputs, such as collection size, budgets for books, serials and personnel, and rates of change; these are useful as comparative norms, but do not measure library quality from a user's point of view. To evaluate succes s in terms of research and instruction, The Library must be guided by the closest possible consultation with the faculty, and measurements of faculty and student satisfaction. For example, excellence will be measured not merely by the size of the collect ion, but also by its usefulness to research and teaching programs, condition and accessibility when needed.

2. Berkeley will continue to build and preserve one of the great research collections in the world as the primary means of enabling world class research, teaching and service. Information technology budgets and programs will be shaped by collection p riorities, which are in turn to be shaped by research and instructional programs and needs. Berkeley's priorities for academic programs and faculty research will directly shape The Library's priorities for ownership of information resources; The Librar y will use information technology and cooperative agreements to provide timely and cost effective access to information we do not own. Because the Berkeley collection has historically served as the research library for other educational institutions and the public of the State of California, The Library will use information technology and cooperative agreements to enable academic and public libraries throughout the state to provide primary services to their communities through electronic access to Berke ley's collections.

3. Berkeley must develop a viable long term funding strategy for excellent research collections and services through effective management, fundraising to build endowments, and the development of revenue producing enterprises consistent with our academic mission.

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Goal 1. Collections.

The Library's collections and information resources are the principal means by which we support the campus's goals to recruit and retain a superior faculty, attract the finest graduate students, and improve undergraduate education. Berkeley's commitment to develop a strategic academic plan and rebuild the faculty with nearly 100 new appointments in the next year presents an historic opportunity for The Library to refocus and build the research collections. The goal is simple to describe but the tasks -- the transformation -- Berkeley and The Library need to accomplish are complex. The Library must listen carefully to the faculty and the campus academic planning process, select appropriate information resources in the most cost-effective and accessible formats, and, given the constraints on the collection budget, manage our fiscal resource base through reallocation and increased development of non-State funding sources. Accomplishing these strategic initiatives will ensure that The Library of 2001 is more current, responsive and useful than the library of 1995, and that it will be a research library second to none and that it will continue to constitute a solid foundation to support the work of future generations of scholars and students. To realize this aspiration, we propose the following objectives.

A. Information Resources

1. Collections and information resources will be closely aligned with the campus's academic priorities.

• Assess the needs of newly-appointed faculty, including the 109 positions approved for recruitment in 1995-96.

• Prepare library impact statements for new academic programs and changes in existing academic programs.

• Strengthen communication among librarians, faculty and administrators through librarian participation in faculty committees, program reviews and recruitments, and greater involvement of librarians in the teaching programs of the campus.

• Provide collection management information through use and user studies and GLADIS circulation data.

2. Collections will be selected in the formats most appropriate for their use and accessibility.

• Acquire all appropriate titles of reference works, reserves, abstracting/indexing services, and high-use journals in electronic formats (mounted locally, accessed through gateways).

• Increase funding for fulltext and numerical databases.

• Increase funding for demand-driven acquisitions and high-use duplicates.

• Increase funding for primary source materials.

3. Berkeley's secondary needs will be met through consortial resource-sharing agreements and commercial document delivery services.

• Maintain and extend UC/Stanford cooperative acquisition and document delivery agreements.

• Participate in national initiatives such as the Association of Research Libraries' acquisitions, digitization and resource sharing pilot projects for Latin American, German and Japanese materials.

• Do not duplicate materials in the collections of the Center for Research Libraries.

B. Accessibility of Information Resources

1. Preserve and maintain the collections.

• Increase funding for demand-driven and high-use/abuse materials (binding, repair, replacement, reformatting, duplication budgets).

• Increase support for preservation (including digitization) of primary research materials.

• Provide adequate support for stack security and maintenance.

• Participate in consortial programs (such as the Digital Preservation Consortium of the Commission on Preservation and Access) designed to foster preservation of and electronic delivery of library research resources.

2. Build technological infrastructure for patron access to digital collections.

• Increase funding for information technology/access (equipment, software, site licenses).

• Increase funding for public service workstations and access to networked resources.

3. Provide funding to support services and technological infrastructure required to realize and maintain timely delivery of needed materials to faculty and graduate students.

• Extend direct (library-to-library, vendor-to-user) document delivery services.

• Provide library users with electronic document requesting services, for example to materials housed at the NRLF, delivering articles and books by electronic or manual means to libraries/offices/homes.

C. Funding Information Resources.

1. Annual collections budget increases of 10-12% are required to maintain Berkeley's present collecting policies -- much more than we expect the campus to receive from state-funded sources. Unless the campus can fully fund inflationary increases to t he materials budget, annual cuts and reallocations must be part of a realistic funding strategy.

• Keep faculty, librarians and administrators informed of trends in information costs and their impact on Berkeley's collections and budget.

• Calculate annual reduction targets to reflect factors such as growth and decline in academic programs and high cost increase differentials for electronic sources and scientific/technical literature.

• Plan to reduce collections expenditures in the range of $500,000 to $750,000 in 1995-96, in the event there is no budget increase for collections and inflation.

2. Develop new funding sources for collections.

• Develop library enterprises (alliance with a commercial document delivery vendor) and seek cost recovery fees from non-primary clientele (extension students, alumni, general public, and commercial firms).

• Assign fundraising responsibilities and targets to more librarians and administrators.

• Increase the Development Office staff to support Campaign 2001 objectives.

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Goal 2. Enabling World Class Research.

Berkeley's eminence is a direct result of the creativity and productivity of its faculty's research and the success of its students, which, in turn, are supported by an environment rich in library and information resources. Creativity, productivity and s uccess depend on having the right tools, at the right time, in the right hands. Ownership does not suffice, the item must be available for use; availability is not enough, the potential user must identify and locate the item without wasting valuable wor king time. Together these factors make up access, and the ideal library would provide perfect access. Our goal is to become the best research library of the 21st Century by providing the demonstrably best access; we propose the following three-year obj ectives as means to that end.

A. Program Elements and Requirements

1. Increase the hours that The Library is open to ensure that campus' research needs (particularly of graduate students) and availability of resources and study services to undergraduates are met.

2. Guarantee that essential access services are available during all open hours.

• Reorganize the library workforce to enable academic employees to provide academic services full-time.

• Develop technologies that enable small numbers of staff to offer patrons all essential access services during evening and weekend hours in all library locations.

3. Increase patron self-sufficiency and effectiveness in identifying and locating useful materials.

• Increase the number of on-line abstracting and indexing tools available on the campus network, whenever possible providing a common user interface and links to local holdings information.

• Develop online, preferably interactive, tutorials and other teaching tools for both online and print collections; provide library services online as well as in person.

• Develop and incorporate technologies that supplement the current capabilities of on-line catalogs and Abstracting & Indexing databases.

• Complete retrospective conversion of records for the East Asian Library collections.

• Add the holdings of all campus Affiliated Libraries to the GLADIS database; offer online circulation services to their clientele.

4. Guarantee that 90% of wanted materials are available for immediate use.

• Develop mechanisms and procedures for measuring collection use, and incorporate into the collection development strategy acquisitions intended to maximize on-shelf availability.

• Whenever possible, adopt electronic alternatives to reduce or eliminate competition for both print items in constant circulation and non-circulating items in high demand.

• Dramatically improve stack maintenance to increase on-shelf availability (reducing reshelving backlogs, misplaced items, and missing items).

• Install security systems in all units and tag all unsecured volumes to reduce theft.

• Adopt loan periods and policies that maximize use and availability.

5. Halve the average time required to deliver items not available for immediate use.

• Implement GLADIS e-mail notification to speed the return of recalled items and to notify next borrower when desired item is available.

• When possible and appropriate, provide electronic delivery of stored materials directly to borrowing library units or, preferably, to the borrower's departmental office.

• Reduce reliance on traditional interlibrary borrowing, and increase use of more efficient decentralized and electronic alternatives.

• Contract with commercial firms to provide document delivery service equal to that available to private sector researchers.

6. Eliminate long lines and other hindrances that waste patrons' time.

• Increase use of technology to provide user-initiated services that are instantly available at the patron's convenience (e.g., GLADIS-based paging features and user-initiated checkout, inventories, renewal, and recalls).

• Implement "three's a crowd" policies at circulation, reference, information, and privileges desks to reduce waiting.

• Establish a centralized phone operation to provide callers with a friendly, reliable interface to the Library as a whole.

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Goal 3. The Moffitt Teaching Library.

The Library proposes to dedicate Moffitt Library to be a campus center for excellence in undergraduate teaching and learning. The Moffitt Teaching Library's mission would be:

• to provide the library and information resources and services needed by lower division students;
• to help create a sense of undergraduate intellectual community on campus;
• in partnership with IS&T, Undergraduate Affairs, and other campus partners, to provide access to information technology learning resources, and to support faculty who wish to learn about, develop, or use technology-based teaching resources.
The Goal of the Moffitt Library should be to prepare lower division undergraduate students with the skills needed to use and enjoy the vast intellectual resources available at Berkeley, in the classroom, in the library and within their own community.

This goal would require special funding, and a new cooperative relationship among a number of campus agencies already working for undergraduates in a variety of ways. The list of potential partners is long and includes: Undergraduate and Interdisciplinar y Studies, Student Learning Center, Residential Academic Centers, Athletic Study Center, the Reentry Project, the Disabled Students Program, College Writing, the Instructional Technology Program, Office of Media Services, Career and Graduate School Servic es, IS&T, the School of Information Management and Systems, Undergraduate Honors Program, and others.

In order for Moffitt Library to become the campus' intellectual center for undergraduates, and the gateway to the Library's research collections and services, a multi-year funding and program design effort would need to be initiated to accomplish the fo llowing objectives:

1. Every Berkeley undergraduate must become skilled in selecting and using information, whether print or digital.

• Work closely with faculty to integrate library assignments with the coursework being assigned.

• Add an "information resource lab" session to all lower division undergraduate courses, beginning with the core feeder courses for undergraduate majors.

• Provide expert info-navigation tutorials and seminars to individuals and groups.

• Develop online tutorials for specific tools or groups of tools, and for particular courses.

2. Focus Moffitt print and digital collections on lower division teaching and learning.

• With the research collection ready at hand in the new stacks, the Moffitt print collection can focus upon lower division instructional needs.

• Circulation and collection policies should guarantee accessibility and on-shelf availability of high-use materials to undergraduates; increased duplication of high-use items should be considered.

• Convert manual paper reserves to on-line electronic reserves available campuswide.

3. Multimedia Resources for Instruction

• Strengthen multimedia collections through increased funding.

• Increase reference and research support services for media.

• Consolidate the management of audiovisual collections with audiovisual classroom support.

• Expand Moffitt space for use of audio/visual and other mixed-media collections.

• Build a multimedia demonstration and production laboratory which students and instructors can use to create integrated audio and visual works through instructional computing technology.

• Create facilities and services to help faculty integrate multimedia and electronic technologies into their teaching and course assignments.

4. A center for undergraduate learning activities.

• The Library proposes to operate Moffitt Library 24 hours a day during the regular semesters, so that undergraduates will always have a place to study in peace and safety. Because Moffitt Library also attracts thousands of library users who are no t UC Berkeley students, the Library proposes to restrict Moffitt Library access to UC Berkeley students only between six p.m. and eight a.m. during regular semesters.

• Group Study. The Library proposes to complete the build-out and furnishing of the corner spaces created by the recent seismic renovation of Moffitt Library to provide additional space for undergraduate group study.

• The Library proposes to create a 24 hr. cafe near the entrance of Moffitt to provide students with amenities including food and an attractive social space during their study and research.

5. Teaching Library.

• The Library proposes that large lower division courses include an "information resource laboratory," or training session. Library staff will conduct the training in cooperation with the instructors and teaching assistants responsible for the cour se.

• The Library proposes to focus information literacy training in Moffitt Library. Information literacy training will focus on helping undergraduates to gain expertise in finding, evaluating, and using information of all types -- digital, print, and me dia.

• The Teaching Library will take primary responsibility for conducting faculty seminars designed to ensure that scholars are kept informed of the latest resources in their fields.

• The Teaching Library will serve as the center for The Library's user research programs. The research findings will form the basis for collection and service development.

6. A cultural center for undergraduate life.

• The Library Fellows Program will organize and promote a continuous series of para-curricular "events," such as lectures, demonstrations, and performances which present various facets of university intellectual life and accomplishment in the humani ties, social sciences and physical sciences.

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Copyright © 1998 by the Library, University of California, Berkeley. All rights reserved.
Authored by: Peter Lyman, University Librarian, January 24, 1995.
Document maintained by: A. Moen
Last update 1/22/98. Server manager: Contact