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Caucus 4 Reports

Final Report Appendix to Final Report

March 1, 2001

REPORT: CAUCUS 4, TECHNOLOGY, TEACHING, LIBRARY

Caucus Four was divided into three sub-committees to deal with strategic planning matters related to a) technology, b) teaching, and the c) library. Below are the reports for each of these sub-caucuses.

Prologue:  The Technology sub-caucus of Caucus 4 is comprised of John Plummer, English; Mark Sapir, Math; and John Ayers, Geology. Despite the differences in our teaching and research activities and needs, we discovered early in our discussions that we shared a number of perspectives on technological issues. We agree above all that there is an urgent need to improve and increase technological support for faculty. It is impossible to predict the nature of creative changes in teaching and research that would flow from the enhanced level of support we call for, but we are absolutely persuaded that the changes would be striking and positive. We also agree that technology can increase the effectiveness of communication between students and instructors through such things as interactive Web pages, chat rooms, mailing lists, and e-mail. Our opinion is that while the technology (computers, means of communication, software packages) have become more powerful and more user friendly, technology is currently not adequately used in the classrooms of Vanderbilt, primarily for two reasons.. First, education is (naturally) very conservative; faculty do not in general desire to change teaching techniques which they have been using for many years merely for the sake of change. If faculty had enough information about and the assurance of support for available new software and hardware, they will be in a position to determine the real benefits of change. The level of knowledge among faculty about the availability of technology that could change the way we teach is frustratingly low and fragmented. Below we will propose the creation of a knowledge-base on this question and a mechanism for disseminating that knowledge. A related problem is a lack of knowledge of and easy access to software tools for teaching, and support for faculty use of them once they are discovered. For example, in order to make a Web page more interactive, an instructor might like to use Java scripts and Java applets but gaining the necessary security permissions to run scripts on the general server (Helios) has proven to be effectively impossible.

Proposals:

  1. Computers and support.

    In order to find information about software packages for education available on the market, and in order to educate the faculty about these packages, we propose establishing several new positions of software support personnel in Microcomputer Laboratories, Learning Resource Center, or the Teaching Center (or all three). The job description should include

    1. Support of hardware and software for computerized, e.g. web-based, courses.
    2. Searching for software which can be used by instructors.
    3. Educating instructors about how to use the software and hardware.


    In order to provide instructors with more tools to use in their classes, we propose to designate special Web servers which will be used exclusively (or at least primarily) for the Web support of courses. To avoid security problems, the servers should be localized as much as possible and should not contain information which is vital for the functioning of the University. One server could support several courses. Each instructor should have all necessary permissions to build, maintain, and revise his or her Web sites. All necessary Web authoring software should be installed on these servers. After consulting with Bill Longwell we have have decided that while the initial price of a PC as server is attractive, the subsequent "system administrative" costs wipe out any savings. Multiple small systems require more aggregate time to set up, back-up, and administer than fewer, larger servers. Longwell recommends and the sub-caucus proposes that we build on a "collection" of server class systems that include such features as dual processors, dual power supplies, and RAID5 multiple drive configuration. The key ingredient is RAID5 drive array, which ports data across the drives and has a built-in algorithm that will reconstruct to data of any one drive that fails and redirect it to the other drives. Thus, in a RAID5 configuration, one's maximum capacity is to fill all but one of the hard disks. Since 1990, we have used servers with RAID hard drive configurations in the Microcomputer Laboratories, and we have found them to be very robust. When a drive fails, an alarm goes off but the system recovers within a few minutes and continues to operate.

    Today, a Dell server with dual 933mhz processors, 1GB RAM, and four 36GB hard disk with RAID5 is priced at about $5,300. Moreover, this system's warranty provides for next day on-site service. We have purchased such a system to create a CAS1one server to support images and web pages in the College. This was done to support Biological Science images, as well as the full motion video that is currently being used by Professor Pantelides. As use needs grow, we either add additional hard disk units or add another server, depending on the needs. This server will be configured as a web server with Novell. Additional servers may be configured as UNIX/Linus servers, or as Windows2000 operating systems, depending on the applications/software that will be used. We believe three such servers should be purchased initially. Each server will cost about $5600 plus $5000 for an expansion module for an additional $5000. The purchase of the expansion module could be deferred until usage was determined. A centralized location, within the College, may ease network administration. While we will require additional space to support such enhanced services, it will be easier to find a space of approximately 200 square feet than to find suitable space within each department.

    We recommend 4 new support positions, two focussed on network support and two on web development. The projection of usage and costs at this point is difficult without more information as to what people wish to do. It seems to us highly likely that with the advent of the support levels proposed the number of faculty seeking to use this support will grow quickly. It is important to say that we do not advocate hiring support staff to create web-based course material, but rather to help faculty to do so.

    Based on the above assumptions, we estimate personnel costs as follows: Two network administrators/managers: $106,680 (with benefits for the first year) plus space, based on an initial salaries of $42,000. Two applications/scripting support staff: $86,360 (with benefits for the first year) plus space, based on an initial salary of $34,000.

    The total first year salaries for the four additional support personnel as delineated above will be $193,040, plus office space.

  2. Permanent Seminar

    We propose the creation of a permanent seminar at the Teaching Center or at the Microcomputer Labs whose sole purpose would be to find and advertise new software which can be used in classes. The seminar should include the software support personnel and representatives of the departments from A&S. The seminar should invite representatives of software corporations to give presentations. The seminar should have some money for purchasing the software.

  3. Instructional Research Support in the Central Library.

    We recommend the creation of a walk-in instructional/research facility in the General Library Building initially staffed by two full-time computer-savvy, people-friendly support staff. We suggest a reference librarian and a librarian or other person who is well grounded in statistical methods, statistical software, and data sources. While one can argue that such a facility can placed anywhere, the thrust of my proposal is to integrate methodologies and the full range information sources (digital, paper, and film).

    We recommend that the facility start with a total of four public systems, a server, and two staff offices. In all, the facility will require a total of 500 square feet of space. The equipment costs are delineated here:

    6 Desktop systems (4 public and 2 for staff) @$230013,800
    1 Server for LAN w/70GB of disk storage7,000
    3-4 printers (incl. a color laser printer)5,300
    1-3 scanners, including a slide scanner with slide magazine2,000
    Software, including a video editing, scanning, publishing, and a variety of statistical packages running off the server.8,000
    Furniture, including 30"x 72" tables for each public system7,500
    Initial remodeling of space20,000
    Physical set-up cost:$64,100
    2 staff, including benefits:$116,850
    TOTAL ESTIMATED FIRST YEAR COST:$180,950
    Annual cost with 3 year equip. amortization and staff raises:$145,000


    Putting this facility in the Library will make it a library function staffed and managed by Paul Gherman, who will need to integrate this unit into his organization. Bill Longwell's Computer Lab staff will need to work with the library to compliment and follow up on the support that is provided. It is important to the Microcomputer Labs and the Deans Office to know what directions our faculty are headed so as to explore ways of supporting these activities in staff development and in planning the technology infrastructure in our labs, the LRC, and classrooms.

  4. Analytical Facilities in the Natural Sciences

    We asked department chairs in the Natural Sciences to identify technological needs that are not computing-related, including scientific instruments that are not currently available in the college. The idea was to identify needs common to multiple programs that might be candidates for strategic investments. For example, instruments used in many disciplines (e.g., SEM, x-ray diffractometers) may have a user base in one program that is too small to justify a purchase; use of that instrument by multiple programs is more cost-effective. Identifying potential users across programs will also improve the odds for obtaining external funding. However, sharing of resources such as analytical instruments will require sharing of associated costs including initial purchase and maintenance (service contracts or support technician salaries). Furthermore, open space must be set aside for the instruments; this space can be negotiated between programs or schools on a per-instrument basis, or the University could build a centralized analytical facility to house instruments and support staff. A centralized analytical facility with support staff may be significantly more expensive in the short run, but is more cost effective in the long term due to:

    1. economies of scale
    2. sharing of support staff
    3. proper maintenance that will extend operating life
    4. increased number of users paying user fees to defray costs
    5. elimination of duplicate facilities


    It will also make more instruments available to more Vanderbilt users, making them more productive. There is strong support for centralized analytical facilities in the Natural Sciences (the chairs of Physics, Chemistry and Geology all independently voiced their support for this). Not only is this model successfully followed at other Universities, it has recently started spontaneously here on campus. First, two years ago the School of Engineering initiated the purchase of a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and user needs were identified in the School and in the College of Arts and Science (all departments in the Natural Sciences contributed to the proposal). Once funded by NSF, the Deans of Engineering and CAS agreed to split the matching funds to purchase the instrument. The Instrument is housed in Engineering and has been a very successful facility, but lack of a support technician has resulted in a heavy support burden for one faculty member (Jim Wittig), has possibly discouraged new users, and in the long term may decrease the useable life of the instrument. Two more examples of successful centralized analytical facilities at Vanderbilt are the Free Electron Laser used by faculty in CAS and the Medical School and the new inter-school NMR facility for Structural Biology.
         Several technologies were identified as needs common to multiple programs:

    1. Software and expertise in image analysis (Molecular Biology and Geology)
    2. ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Emission Spectrometer) for analysis of liquids and solids (Civil and Environmental Engineering, Geology)
    3. Software, hardware and expertise in Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Addressed in next section.


    We believe that a more comprehensive poll of faculty in CAS, the School of Engineering, and the Medical School could identify many more common needs.
    * Here add concrete plan: amount of space, # of technicians, matching funds and service contracts for specific instruments, overall budget.

  5. Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

    Many programs have a demonstrated need for GIS for teaching and research: Anthropology, Geology, Biology, Sociology, Mathematics, VIPPS, Owen School of Management, and the School of Engineering. There is a GIS facility in the Science and Engineering Library, and a GIS laboratory containing ~ 7 workstations in the School of Engineering (a GIS class taught by Mark Abkowitz is using that laboratory this semester). We believe GIS use in the College and University will continue to grow, so we need a coherent plan for implementing this technology on campus. Until recently the GIS facility in the Science and Engineering library was not fully utilized, partly due to hardware problems and inadequate support. GIS systems can be expensive because GIS software is demanding and certain applications require expensive peripherals (large format plotters, scanners, and digitizers). There are many GIS software titles available, and all require significant amounts of training before they become useful. It makes sense to set up shared facilities with software and hardware identified by potential users as most useful. These observations point to the necessity of identifying common hardware and software needs and the commitment to provide trained technical support. This process may result in a proposal to set up a college-wide or university-wide facility with multiple workstations for instruction and research. However, given the above criteria, the current proposal to set up a college-based GIS lab (see attached) is inadequate because it duplicates resources already available in the college and in the School of Engineering, and because it is based on non-standard software that few faculty or students will take the time to learn (ENVI is actually remote sensing software that currently has < 1% market share in the GIS Academic and Research segment, as opposed to ESRI, whose software commands a 72% share that continues to grow).

  6. Learning Resource Center

    Both the Garland Microcomputer Laboratory and the Learning Resource Center are in serious need of additional space, for people as well as machinery, if they are to fulfill the currently defined missions well, and ever more so if, as we anticipate, their missions grow.
         Penelope Peirce, Director of the LRC has outlined the needs of her facility, and we forward them with our recommendation that they be met:

    The LRC will require a central office large enough for the secretary and check out counter; four offices for director and technicians; a general work area for assembling, cleaning and repairing equipment, as well as space for two individual preview carrels and two to three racks of duplication equipment; a suite of ten to twelve editing rooms (Avid, $15,000 per room);a small studio ($50,000); three multimedia production rooms (computers, scanners, cd and dvd writers, $10,000 per room); and storage. In addition to this basic LRC space we should include a room for teleconferencing ($50,000), two sixty seat screening rooms and two one hundred seat screening rooms ($45,000 per room). (Costs are for equipment and do not include room construction or renovation or furniture.)

    If the College is to extend its focus on film, expanded editing facilities and more screening rooms are certainly needed. We anticipate a continually increasing number of courses in every department to make use of our digital video recording equipment, our editing equipment and our computer multimedia production equipment. A separate facility for these would be a possibility, but we feel it would be more cost effective to have the equipment consolidated, eliminating dual costs for such things as facilities and technical personnel to control and maintain the equipment.

    We anticipate that over the next five years every large and medium classroom will need to be equipped with some version of the package that will include computer with cd/dvd and internet connection, switcher, sound equipment including voice amplification, screen and LCD projector, and possibly a document camera and/or writing screen, and for a while equipment for VHS tapes, slides and overhead transparencies. We believe we should equip the small classrooms with TV/VCR/DVD combination sets. We can move in on carts computers and projectors for anyone needing them in these small rooms. The large and medium classrooms not yet equipped would cost about $30,000 each for about 30 rooms. The small rooms (about 20 not yet equipped) would cost about $1000 per room.

    Because the technology is evolving, some of the systems which are already installed need modification. Our goal is to make the systems as consistent as possible from room to room so that the operation of the systems will be as easy as possible. We anticipate that we will need to modify the 15 existing systems at a cost of about $8,000 per room. Other equipment costs required to provide audio-visual services would include the LRC yearly operating budget, the $50-75,000 annual expenditure for equipment (that which we move in and out of classrooms and that which we check out to students and faculty).

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Part B: Teaching

Subcaucus members: Cathy Jrade, Tim McNamara, Russell McIntire (ex-officio), David Weintraub (Chair)

The charge to Subcaucus 4b is to review or create over-arching proposals pertaining to teaching.
Summary Report of SAPCAS Caucus 4b

Cathy Jrade, Spanish and Portuguese Tim McNamara, Psychology Rusty McIntire, Office of the Dean of Arts & Science, ex officio David Weintraub, Physics and Astronomy, Chair

Executive Summary

This committee makes the following recommendations, that 1) Department Chairs should be given more latitude in using their best, advanced graduate students in teaching, 2) Lectureships be professionalized, 3) no significant effort should be devoted to increasing the number of postdoctoral scholars employed in teaching roles, and 4) the Masters in Teaching (MAT) program should be better supported and promoted. All these recommendations are designed to contribute to better classroom teaching in 100-level classes and raise the research profile of the College of Arts & Science by improving the stature of our PhD candidates at the time of their graduation and permitting our postdoctoral scholars to focus nearly exclusively on their research.

Introduction

Caucus 4b was charged with reviewing or creating overarching proposals related to teaching. In large part, the task of Caucus 4b was to discuss the following:

  • most proposals under consideration by SAPCAS will generate increase responsibilities for faculty in research, teaching, and service as we create new initiatives, centers, and programs; - the SAPCAS proposals in large part are responding to the Chancellor's imperative that graduate programs in the College of Arts & Science must improve. Meeting this challenge will require transferring some effort by existing faculty to graduate programs including graduate teaching. Thus, enhancing our graduate programs could come at a price -- teaching fewer or bigger undergraduate classes. Thus, we may be putting at risk the excellence in undergraduate education that is one of the greatest virtues of Vanderbilt; - we therefore must ask, How do we support the SAPCAS initiatives, including enhancing the graduate programs, without sacrificing the undergraduate educational experience? - in addition, we must ask, Would the graduate and postdoctoral programs at Vanderbilt be enhanced by encouraging more teaching by one or both of these groups of scholars?

In reference to the above issues, Caucus 4b discussed and evaluated the following:

  1. the appropriate use of graduate students in teaching at Vanderbilt;
  2. the appropriate use of lecturers in teaching at Vanderbilt;
  3. the appropriate use of postdoctoral appointees in teaching at Vanderbilt;
  4. the utility and robustness of the MAT program.

The rest of this report contains our conclusions and recommendations. Details of our discussions are found in the minutes of meetings of 2, 8 and 22 February, 2001.

  1. What is appropriate, in the matter of graduate students doing classroom teaching, at Vanderbilt?

    RECOMMENDATION 1: Department Chairs should be given more latitude in using their best, advanced graduate students in teaching 100-level and even selected low 200-level courses (the latter especially in foreign languages). First and foremost, we must recognize that the use of graduate students in teaching undergraduates is not a desirable mechanism for reducing faculty teaching loads or permitting tenure and tenure-track faculty to focus more exclusively on teaching upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses. It is, however, an appropriate means to introduce graduate students to classroom activities and to train them to meet the demands of the profession that they will encounter in the future. In many disciplines, this is an important and integral part of the training of the best graduate students, if they are to be competitive for the best appointments in academia, after receipt of a PhD from Vanderbilt. We therefore strongly advocate the position that graduate students have increased opportunities to teach a selection or range of courses. We emphasize that giving the best graduate students the opportunity to teach real courses needs to be done in many areas as a vital and necessary part of the training of our graduate students. This is best for these students; in addition, placement of our graduate students in the best post-PhD appointments will enhance the image and reputation of the graduate programs at Vanderbilt.

    As part of this effort, we must strengthen our TA training and mentoring in all programs to model that done in those of our own programs that already do outstanding jobs in this regard.

    The following, based on the program for Teaching Preparation in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, is a model for the effective use and placement of graduate student instructors into the classroom: 1. All new instructors (TA's and Lecturers) are required to attend an orientation, which begins a week before classes. They are given syllabi and other materials and are told about classroom, grading, and language laboratory procedures. They also are informed about the way the course is run, what their ongoing responsibilities will be, and how the work is divided among all those teaching sections of the multi-section course. Other issues are also raised such as use of classroom time, preparation of quizzes, and rules about consistency across sections. 2. All new TA's are required to take the course on foreign language pedagogy during the first semester that they are teaching. The pedagogy course is a "theory and practice" course and serves the three modern language departments. 3. Each multi-section course has a "coordinator," who is in charge of running the course and supervising the instructors. Each instructor is observed twice during the semester by the coordinator. If there is a conflict because of overlapping teaching assignments, the instructor might be videotaped instead. The video tape is then reviewed with the coordinator. Feedback is offered after each observation. If serious problems are noted, the instructor is asked to consult with the Center for Teaching. Additional observations are made as required. 4. Each instructor is asked to carry out a small group analysis at mid-semester with an expert from the Center for Teaching. 5. As much as possible, we try to move the TA's along the basic classes in order to provide them with the widest possible experience. 6. These procedures are carried out every semester. For the most part, by the time our TA's have completed their four years of study with us, they have been well trained and are capable of teaching on all levels. The placement of additional graduate students into the classroom must be done in a manner that is consistent with Vanderbilt's proud tradition of having ALL tenure and tenure-track faculty teach undergraduates and of having more undergraduates taught more often by regular faculty than at any peer research university. We believe that these two goals are compatible. We do note that Recommendation 1 does offer the potential to mitigate some of the increased pressure on tenured and tenure-track faculty for teaching more graduate courses -- to improve our graduate programs -- and for running the many centers and programs proposed to SAPCAS. This recommendation therefore is important in multiple ways in helping the College of Arts & Science move toward the future, as envisioned in the SAPCAS plans.

  2. What is the appropriate use of Lecturers at Vanderbilt?

    RECOMMENDATION 2a: Lectureships should be professionalized. The health of Vanderbilt's undergraduate educational programs depends to a significant extent on non-tenured and non-tenure track, instructors, especially in the foreign languages and English. Some of our best teachers are Lecturers, but we have no career track for these teaching professionals.

    RECOMMENDATION 2b: Lecturers should be hired with the understanding that the Lecturer track begins with a one-year contract. Upon demonstration of satisfactory performance, a Lecturer would then be offered a once-renewable three-year contract, followed by renewable five-year contracts. Recommendation 2b produces a career track for Lecturers that would mimic the tenure track but would not create tenured faculty in lecturer roles. This career track would introduce stability and a systematic review process for Lecturers.

    RECOMMENDATION 2c: The College should consider a change in title for faculty who are and will be employed as lecturers, in order to give these faculty greater respect and stature. A title such as "University Teacher" should be considered. The committee recognizes that Vanderbilt must retain our historic and widely recognized commitment to teaching undergraduates by all our tenured and tenure-track faculty. We also recognize that this commitment does not require that all undergraduates be taught by this group of faculty in all courses.

    We expect that, with very few exceptions, Lecturers would be PhD recipients and that the best ones are likely to retain some interests in research.

    We believe that:

    • a parallel track for Lecturers is likely to improve the quality of teaching in many 100-level classes and, by putting other faculty in courses where they are at their best, instruction at all levels. - many faculty who are brought in to bolster the research status of Vanderbilt are or will be uninterested in, even quite poor at, teaching 100-level classes. These faculty should be permitted to focus their energies on what they were hired to do: work with upper level undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, and to do great research. - related to the above point, we reasonably can demand that all Vanderbilt faculty should be excellent teachers. However, Vanderbilt's traditional view that all faculty should be expected to teach -- and to be excellent teachers in -- courses at all levels should be discarded.


    • to rise from 30th to 10th in the ranks of research universities, we need the kind of faculty who, in fact, may not be good at teaching at all levels but who are excellent researchers and scholars. - thus, we will have to beef up our teaching program in other ways and the obvious, best way is to create a career path for excellent teachers who will be respected and esteemed for their teaching.


    • Vanderbilt can convince parents that it is to the advantage of their students to be taught by the best Lecturers in the country in many of their 100-level courses so that they will be well prepared when they encounter the best research-active faculty in their upper division courses. Vanderbilt undergraduates will still be taught in most of their courses by tenured and tenure-track faculty and all Vanderbilt faculty in Arts & Science will still teach undergraduates. - the lecturer track might contribute toward enabling more spousal accommodations in hiring, thereby helping Vanderbilt attract more of the very best scholars to tenure-track appointments.

  3. Should postdoctoral scholars teach more at Vanderbilt?

    RECOMMENDATION 3: No.
    The clear reason to have more postdoctoral scholars at Vanderbilt is to improve the research profile and image of the University. In the areas in which postdocs are abundant, i.e., the sciences, postdocs are rarely asked to teach and, in fact, teaching is largely considered detrimental to the training of postdoctoral scholars if the goal is to place such scholars in the best possible research position, either in a university or industrial setting. Thus, in the sciences, it would appear to be to Vanderbilt's disadvantage to establish a system in which postdocs teach more and thus become less competitive for the best positions. Of course, there are exceptions, but they merely prove the rule.

    In other areas of study, notably in most of the Humanities and Social Sciences, postdocs are uncommon. Based on our survey of program and department Chairs, postdocs would not be available in many areas; however, in those fields in which postdocs might be available, Chairs argued for light teaching loads to encourage furthering the scholarly efforts of the postdoc. Such an arrangement is an expensive way to obtain teaching faculty and is no guarantee that those hired will be excellent teachers. A Visiting Professor might well do a better job at raising the research profile or stimulating research interests among the local faculty, and likely would teach a comparable load, than would a postdoc, all at a comparable cost (assuming a Visiting Professor for a semester teachers two courses, vs. a postdoc for a full year teaching one course per semester).

    The committee concluded, unanimously and strongly, that having postdoctoral scholars teach would, in most situations, be to the disadvantage of the individual scholar and to our efforts at improving the scholarly reputation of Vanderbilt University. Furthermore, such a move is clearly not the best way to promote the best teaching.

  4. Should the MAT program be better supported and promoted?

    The Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program is a 36 hour master's degree, offered through the graduate school, in which students take at least 18 hours in a content area and at least 9 hours of teaching licensure courses from Peabody. For some, this leads to a teaching license, for others more advanced graduate work or some other career. Only 12 students have received this degree in the last decade, so it is very underused, and is barely known either within or outside of Vanderbilt.

    This committee, however, finds many reasons why enhancing the status of this program would be of great benefit both to students and to Vanderbilt. The advantages to Vanderbilt include

    • The Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program is a 36 hour master's degree, offered through the graduate school, in which students take at least 18 hours in a content area and at least 9 hours of teaching licensure courses from Peabody. For some, this leads to a teaching license, for others more advanced graduate work or some other career. Only 12 students have received this degree in the last decade, so it is very underused, and is barely known either within or outside of Vanderbilt.


    • This committee, however, finds many reasons why enhancing the status of this program would be of great benefit both to students and to Vanderbilt. The advantages to Vanderbilt include

    This proposal will recommend that, in order to help meet the pressing need for secondary teachers in Latin, French, and Spanish, Vanderbilt University institute a five-year program leading to a B.A. or B.S. plus a MAT in foreign languages.

    This program would have the advantages of enabling students interested in teaching to achieve a Masters degree (with much if not all their work toward licensure completed) in a five-year period, coordinating their undergraduate and graduate work in an efficient and productive manner. Brown University offers a similar five-year program. Combining the strong resources of both Peabody and the College of Arts and Science would offer an attractive degree program at Vanderbilt University, one that would also contribute significantly to the larger educational community.

    This forthcoming proposal will also suggest that the University could strengthen this new initiative by offering tuition discounts for the fifth year of the program.

    RECOMMENDATION 4: The MAT program should be supported and strengthened. We support the proposal for a five year B.A./B.S. plus MAT degree in foreign languages, including a tuition discount for students in the fifth year of such a program. SAPCAS and the College of Arts & Science should give this forthcoming proposal very serious attention.

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Part C: Library

Don H. Doyle, chair, and Don Hancock.

     Our task was to examine the needs of Vanderbilt's library system, particularly the Central Library and how it serves the research and instructional needs of the College faculty and student body. We have studied the Strategic Plan for the Library already submitted to Provost Burish (attached) and we have consulted at length with Paul Gherman, director of the Jean and Alexander Heard Library. This report addresses many of the concerns and future needs for library support of teaching and research in the College. We wish to endorse this plan wholeheartedly.

But we would go further to emphasize the need for a new central library facility. Since it was built in 1941 Central Library has witnessed revolutionary changes in the way libraries serve the research and instructional needs of the modern university. During the past two decades Vanderbilt has shunned even discussing a new facility to replace the Central Library. Operating on the premise that the modern library would become primarily a source of digital media that students and faculty could access from remote sites, the view has been that Vanderbilt should not invest in brick and mortar facilities but should channel its resources in the coming digital revolution.

Though new library facilities have been built or planned for the business, medical, law, and now the education libraries, the Central Library has remained what must be the most dated building on campus. What ought to be a major symbol of Vanderbilt's aspirations to academic excellence in its faculty and students, is instead a sorry symptom of the neglect this vital element of the university has received over the years. Undergraduate students shun the Central Library as a place to study in favor of the more modern facilities of other libraries on campus, places they are often not welcome. Faculty carrels in central library are rarely used. Most faculty and students take out books from the library to a place more conducive to study. The lack of such basic amenities as electric outlets for computers is a telling symptom of how out of date the Central Library has become. There may be ways to renovate and modernize the existing facility, but it will never be the kind of modern facility that Vanderbilt students and faculty deserve.

As an example of how the library is holding Vanderbilt back, during campus interviews prospective faculty are typically given a tour of the library. One need only look at their expression when they see the library to know that it is not serving us well. The collections, the staff, the electronic research aids, are excellent by most every standard, but the physical setting in which the Central Library is housed is what makes Vanderbilt look backward and poor.

This is all the more striking when the library building is set against the gleaming new facilities for other professional school libraries, student centers, recreational centers, and other academic buildings. The Central Library building seems to stand as a statement that this is not a priority.

Presently Vanderbilt's library is ranked 53rd among 115 university research libraries as measured by holdings. The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) ranks libraries by numerous other measures; in some Vanderbilt ranks much lower, in others higher. When compared to other institutions with which Vanderbilt likes to compare itself, Vanderbilt's library is ranked below our standing as an undergraduate college and below the rank of most of our departments in national rankings. Several universities that rank below us in academic reputation have libraries that rank much higher than Vanderbilt's does. For example immediately above Vanderbilt in the rankings by holdings are the universities of Colorado, Notre Dame, South Carolina, Kentucky, Connecticut, Georgetown, California at San Diego, Utah, Washington University, Emory, Kansas, Michigan State, Johns Hopkins, Maryland, California at Davis, Southern California. Universities we don't mind admitting to being superior in football are also beating Vanderbilt in library rankings.

Much of this ranking is based on the number of volumes, expenditures, staff, and other matters not directly linked to the investment in the physical facility. We believe the ranking per se is less important than the what it tells us about Vanderbilt's commitment to the library as an institution of central importance to its academic mission.

The question of a new library needs to be revisited in light of new developments in the multiple roles libraries have come to play in the modern university. "Rather than being simply a passive repository of books," the library strategic plan tells us, "the library is becoming a set of interactive physical and electronic services and collections that critically affect the entire enterprise of the University." The modern library has become an academic community center that brings faculty and students together in an exciting place they want to come to. In addition to housing books and providing reference services, the modern library provides space for small group study, seminar rooms, media centers, study carrels for faculty and graduate students, computer facilities, and even such amenities as cyber cafés and eating facilities. Vanderbilt has invested heavily in brilliant new facilities for sports and recreation, entertainment and shopping, but the main facility for undergraduate learning and faculty research in the College, the Central Library, remains a sad symbol of the neglect paid to this vital institution.

At nearby institutions such as the University of Kentucky, the University of Tennessee, Middle Tennessee State University, and University of Tennessee at Martin one can find examples of modern library facilities. The building at the University of Kentucky cost in the neighborhood of 55 million dollars, but this is nothing more than a rough estimate of the kind of expense required to meet Vanderbilt's needs. Paul Gherman has requested funds to employ a leading architectural firm to do a study of our library and consider the cost and benefit of renovation and new building. This we heartily endorse.

The plans for a new facility require more time and expertise than this caucus can offer. It is our purpose to put forth the library as a major priority in the coming capital fund drive and to encourage Vanderbilt to make its library equal to its aspirations as a university of the first rank.

The committee also gave special consideration to the needs of the Science and Engineering Library. Within the University library system the Science Library is considered one of the best equipped to meet the demands of the digital age, and the physical facilities are generally regarded as far more attractive and serviceable than those of the Central Library. Like the Central Library, the chronic problem is the shortage of space as new acquisitions force older publications into storage. Presently most periodicals published before 1970 are in storage. Though access to older periodicals is not considered as vital to many disciplines within the sciences, some feel this is a major deficit. At the same time there is strong feeling that the current proximity of the library to the offices and laboratories of the faculty is essential, so improvements to the present facility are regarded as preferable to a new building that might be at some distance from faculty offices. One solution to this problem is the introduction of compact shelving which can hold three times the number of volumes as the shelving now in use. Another solution might be to enclose the breezeway and courtyard to provide more shelving space. One rough estimate indicates that these improvements could be made for $2 million.

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APPENDIX TO CAUCUS 4 FINAL REPORT

Appendix A: Jean and Alexander Heard Library , Vanderbilt University, Strategic Plan
Appendix B: ARL Library Rankings, 1998-99    (Acrobat reader required)

Overview
The Jean and Alexander Heard Library's vital mission is to further the University's commitment to generate and disseminate knowledge through teaching, learning, research, and service. Although this mission will remain the same into the future, the library is undergoing a profound transformation. Rather than being simply a passive repository of books, the library is becoming a set of interactive physical and electronic services and collections that critically affect the entire enterprise of the University. The digital revolution has changed the nature of information as well as the very process of learning. Because the Internet influenced the nature of the library earlier and more thoroughly than other campus units, it can serve as a bellwether for the future of instruction and learning on campus. The library at this point must maintain two modes: one is the older, paper-based traditional library, and the other is the "any time, any place" interactive digital library of the future. This strategic plan outlines the core challenges facing the library as it makes this transition.

The library system is composed of eight divisional libraries, each funded by its school or college; other library units include Special Collections and University Archives, and the system's off-campus Annex storage facility. This divisional library system has the benefit of building collections and services that are especially responsive to the users in the various schools. However, the challenge of this structure is to ensure that the parts together create a cohesive research library that acknowledges scholarly interdependencies across divisional lines.

The library's collection numbers over 2.5 million volumes, and we subscribe to more than 22,000 serials. Using traditional measures of size, the Heard Library ranks 53rd among the 115 North American members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the major membership organization of large research libraries. Among our special collections are manuscripts and book collections from the Agrarian and Fugitive literary movements, which were centered at Vanderbilt; the Kelly Miller Smith papers, which chronicle the civil rights movement in Nashville; and a major archive of literature by and about French poet Charles Baudelaire. We have made a strategic commitment to acquire electronic information resources and currently subscribe to almost 4,000 electronic journals and over 150 research databases. Our expenditures for digital information are well above the median level of the top forty members of ARL.

Challenges The library faces three major challenges:

  1. to maintain our traditional collections and services as we build new Web-based ones and to transform the library to an interactive digital information commons;
  2. to expand the information riches of the collection to support the ambitious academic programs of the University while coping with information costs that increase at a pace well above the rate of general inflation;
  3. to convert library space from a repository for paper collections to a dynamic intellectual gathering place for our users and to accommodate growth of the collection into the foreseeable future.

Challenge 1

The Heard Library is reinventing and transforming itself at an increasingly rapid pace as digital information becomes the publishing norm. This shift affects every aspect of the library's operation, from our archival responsibility to our acquisitions policy, but our mission remains unchanged. Moreover, we must continue to fulfill many of our traditional roles well into the future. Thus the first challenge is to maintain our traditional collections and services as we build new Web-based ones and to transform the library to an interactive digital commons.

This dual effort will be costly unless we conceive of imaginative ways to maintain the traditional library while at the same time building the most effective parallel digital library. Many traditional commercial organizations are attempting to trade "bricks for clicks" as they develop Web-based business models. Libraries can to some degree trade "books for clicks," but significant educational and research value resides in parts of our paper collections that will likely never be converted into digital form. Because different disciplines have different informational needs, no single strategy will work across colleges or even within a single college. Users in the sciences typically want immediate access to current information, while users in the humanities need access to older materials, such as our outstanding collections in French literature or Colombian history and politics. Publication in the sciences is increasingly "born digital," and will need the advantages of the digital medium to communicate those findings that can only be expressed digitally, whereas in the humanities and social sciences scholarship will largely remain on paper for the near term.

Response

The library must, then, maintain and continue to build print-based collections, albeit on a reduced scale. But the most effective method of fulfilling our dual responsibilities is to acquire digital information as rapidly as possible. This strategy enables us to deal with our increasingly limited book storage space and to offer access to our resources beyond the physical limitations of our buildings. We have already built a substantial digital library, and we must expand it aggressively in the future.

We have promoted the creation and use of library consortia to expedite interlibrary loan service, to negotiate lower-cost license agreements for digital resources, and to facilitate shared storage of less-used materials. IRIS-the consortium of the libraries at the University of Kentucky, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and Vanderbilt-includes a joint electronic catalog of the three libraries' holdings, which enables us to pursue new forms of collaboration, including one cooperative endeavor that promises to help resolve our space crisis.

With our IRIS partners, we are currently developing cooperative acquisitions plans to reduce the duplication of low-demand titles among the three institutions. Bibliographers in several disciplines are already negotiating such plans. Sharing access to single copies of low-use titles will produce savings that can be used to develop a richer common collection.

We expect our Library Annex to be nearly at capacity within five years, depending on our rate of acquisition and transfer. Unless we can construct or purchase additional building space, our print collection will, of necessity, cease to grow once our library buildings and the storage facility are full. We would then be forced to discard a volume for every new volume we acquire, a labor-intensive and expensive solution. Paper-based publication shows no signs of abating in the near-term future. We will choose items to discard by determining whether our consortial partners hold them. In some cases, we may transfer volumes to the other IRIS libraries, which have far more available storage space. We will have the ability to borrow these materials and have them delivered rapidly via a courier service. All of these means of coping with our limited amount of book storage space will place heavy demands on our staff to make the added intellectual decisions of what to keep, what to discard, and what to share consortially.

We must also offer more of our services digitally. It is a priority to continue the aggressive development of our Web-based services as the entry point for both remote and internal use of the libraries' electronic resources. Electronic course reserves can be linked to various course management software packages now under consideration by some of the colleges and schools. We also plan to substantially increase reference services provided via the Web. Audio and video networking can create a rich, personal, two-way communication medium. Our consortial participation and new technology may permit us to create a joint remote reference service available after our conventional desks close, and possibly 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The same technology will support distributed library instruction, a major focus of both the traditional and the digital library.

As we move in these directions, we must also make more efficient and different use of staff to support new services that will be needed in the digital age. Rather than anticipate that new electronic services will necessarily always require additional positions, we will incorporate organizational models that will permit us to reassign staff to new responsibilities. But it will mean significant investment in retraining of staff, and they will need to renew their commitment to acquiring new skills and knowledge at an ever-increasing pace. We may find it advantageous to encourage more flexible structures that allow staff to work across divisional lines. We expect, for example, to assign more staff to work with faculty to help them accommodate new information formats and retrieval strategies in their teaching and research. The library can build new partnerships with the University Press and the Television News Archive as these organizations become digital. The expertise of the library's technology staff in archiving and database construction can be of use to both these organizations and to faculty who need to archive their digital research findings.

Through these and other efforts, the library will fulfill its traditional missions of information provision and service to users in an increasingly technological environment.

Challenge 2

The library is challenged to expand the information riches of the collection to support the ambitious academic programs of the University while coping with information costs that increase at a pace well above the rate of general inflation. For the library simply to maintain its current information buying power, its materials budget must grow at almost twice the rate of recent tuition increases. This reality forces an unenviable choice upon the deans: they must either reduce funding for other segments of their colleges' budgets to maintain their library collections at current levels, or they must acquiesce in a reduction of their libraries' quality.

Response

The core of a research library is its collection. The quality of our collection directly affects the University's ability to enrich students' educational experiences and sustain faculty research productivity. The collection also serves as a powerful tool in faculty recruitment.

The transition to the digital library has reinforced the centrality of the collection. Vanderbilt scholars can now create bibliographies, examine literary and historical texts, build chemical structures, survey fine art collections, and read journal articles from their homes, dormitories, or offices. We expect to accelerate the digital conversion of our collection, offering electronic books, and replacing print periodical backfiles with fulltext digital facsimiles. We will provide expanded access to documentary, statistical, and image resources, and we will digitize our own manuscript holdings. We will probably witness a change in the ways information is prepared and packaged; the monograph and the journal may be replaced by new forms as authors fully explore the creative potential of electronic publication.

Even as the collection is radically reshaped, it will remain a print-electronic hybrid. Print materials will continue to predominate in the humanities and social sciences. Area studies, which draw most of their resources from developing nations, will benefit from digital conversion more slowly still. The need to allocate substantial funding to acquire, store, and preserve print publications will continue. Cooperation with IRIS and other consortial partners will allow the development of shared print collections, reducing duplication of low-use titles and building broader holdings in the aggregate than we could build independently. We can also control costs by distributing the responsibility for archiving print materials among consortium members.

Our financial support has been stable enough to prevent serious erosion in collection quality, but it is insufficient if the library is to attain a status commensurate with Vanderbilt's current national standing among institutions of higher education. Vanderbilt ranks twentieth in the latest U. S. News & World Report list of Best National Universities. Yet its library ranks 42nd in collection expenditures among the members of the Association of Research Libraries. Libraries of peer institutions such as Duke, Stanford, Washington University, Emory, and Northwestern all spend more on library collections. Our funding will maintain an adequate research collection, but we do not have the resources to build a superior collection like those at many other major private institutions.

Our ability to hold our present position will be challenged if we hold our budget increases to the 4-5% growth rate of University tuition income. Over the past decade inflation has driven up our serials costs by almost 10% per year. Monograph costs increase 4-5% annually. Purchasing electronic materials through consortia reduces their cost, but they are routinely more expensive than their print counterparts. Digital collections offer enormous advantages, but economy is not among them.

The library's limited space for physical collection growth will also impact collections funding. We are rapidly replacing print with electronic materials (we rank 19th among ARL libraries in percentage of materials expenditures dedicated to electronic resources), and this conversion will enable us to eliminate extensive paper backfiles of journals and indexes. We will also eliminate duplicate monographs as well as items that our consortial partners agree to store for us. But these measures will alleviate, not eliminate, our space shortage. As we reach capacity, librarians will have to invest substantial additional time identifying print titles for removal, reducing the time they can spend carefully selecting new titles. A no-growth print collection is not cost-free. Ongoing shifts of materials from the libraries to the Annex, to other libraries, or to consignment will incur expenses that may reduce monies available for materials acquisition.

The library's endowment for building support and collections currently stands at $13.3 million, far below those of comparable private institutions. Last year, materials expenditures from endowed funds equaled only 1.3% of our base materials budget expenditures. An enlarged endowment to supplement base funding would help us cope with inflation and permit us to expand our collection to a level appropriate to Vanderbilt's national reputation and future aspirations. A collection endowment of $50 million would produce about $2.5 million in supplemental materials funds annually.

Challenge 3

The third challenge is to convert library space from a repository for paper collections to a dynamic intellectual gathering place for users and to accommodate growth of the physical collection into the foreseeable future. Every library in the Heard Library system is filled to capacity, and more than 600,000 volumes (25% of the library's non-Biomedical collection) are stored in the Library Annex. Given the University's budget structure, deans and their faculties have the option of dealing with the book storage limitations differently. At this time, for example, the dean of the Blair School has agreed to double the size of the Music Library, while the deans at Law and Peabody have indicated that the space occupied by their libraries will not increase. However, the other part of the space problem-user space-cannot simply be addressed by each division on its own. Students, undergraduates especially, tend to gravitate to the most desirable library space without regard to college affiliation. Thus, the Eskind Biomedical Library, the newest building in the system, recently became the most-used library in the system. At some of the other professional schools, library access at night and on weekends is limited to their students only, and Eskind has a regular policy of limiting access to medical students and personnel once capacity is reached. At the same time, the Central Library and the Peabody Library, which should be our primary venues for undergraduate study, are underutilized, primarily because of their uninviting condition.

Response

The emerging digital collections already under development will bring changes to the uses and mixture of spaces needed in the physical library building. While the "library without walls" is emerging as more and more resources are available in dorm rooms and faculty offices, there will still be, for some time to come, digital and paper resources which will only be available in the library building. Even though the number of times patrons must come to the library to borrow materials will likely decline, other reasons remain, and new ones will emerge for patrons to come to a location where resources and assistance are concentrated.

Our experience tells us that students prefer to use attractive library space for individual and group study. Attractive and functional study and research spaces, which we do not presently have, will need to be created. Group study rooms with network access will be an important element we need to be able to offer. Specialized workstations, able to access and/or display resources not readily available on computers typically owned by faculty and students, need to be available. As more and more of the publication universe becomes digital, the library will need to assure easy access to resources that are arcane and difficult to use, just as it does for arcane and little used material in other formats (print, microform, video).

Libraries, for many in the academic community, serve as the focal point for intellectual pursuits. The library has a "sense of place," unequalled by other discrete parts of the University. An academic commons, in which people from across the University can come together for work and intellectual exchange, over coffee or in group studies, would prove a desirable enhancement to the library's facilities. Vanderbilt has world-class recreational facilities and will soon have a newly remodeled student center. We now need comparable quality space devoted to academics where students can pursue their intellectual growth in a place conducive to contemplation and creative thought.

Network access will need to become widespread in all of the public use space in the buildings. Recent developments in wireless networking may assist in easing the expense to provide such access. However, the nature of library buildings (thick cement floors to support books, densely packed stacks) severely limits the penetration of wireless signals throughout the building. A mixture of wired and wireless connectivity seems necessary: wired connections for "big pipe" access with maximum throughput, wireless connections in study carrels and group study spaces for perhaps less throughput but more portability.

If remote storage continues to grow in importance as our collection grows, but stack space does not, short-term and long-term research spaces will need to be created. The serendipitous discovery of unexpected material when browsing the stacks is a significant element for many humanities scholars and a strong incentive for retaining as much "local access" for print volumes as possible. Yet the ability to browse collections in this way was not always possible-indeed the General Library Building was constructed originally as a closed stack library. Physical limitations may require the surrender of the accustomed ability to browse the shelves, but alternatives must be created to balance this loss.

Researchers will need a place to consult and evaluate perhaps dozens of titles recalled from storage or borrowed from consortial partners. If preliminary filtering and selection does not occur in the stacks, the number of books researchers will have to request for retrieval will grow substantially. Not all researchers have study carrels, so some "short-term" assigned study spaces will be needed for the review and evaluation of requested materials.

Public services space in the General Library Building will need to be reallocated and renovated to provide these new types of space. An overall redesign of the building is needed, rather than continued piece-meal renovations. Even if substantial components of the collections are moved to remote storage, the nature of the building and its construction limits the desirability of converting stack space to public or study spaces.

The building occupants are currently in a gridlock situation. Nothing substantial can be moved or reallocated to new uses without removing significant components from the building. The Central Library, Divinity Library, Special Collections unit and Resource Services all have severe space problems. University Archives collections will expand by 20% with the retirement of Chancellor Wyatt and Vice-Chancellor Carr. The Central Library is by far the largest tenant, and serves the largest constituency of the University. If alternative space can be created for one of the other units, the reallocation and reorganization of the space in Central would become much more feasible. We need to hire architectural consultants to study a reconfiguration of book storage and public service space throughout the library system. The probable solution will be a combination of additional remote storage space, remodeling of current open spaces in the Central Library for student study, and possibly the creation of a new Divinity Library connected to the Divinity School.

Conclusion

No unit on campus has seen a greater impact from the Internet and digital technology than the library. The very nature of what we do is challenged daily, and the pace of change is accelerating at an ever-increasing rate. We are, however, dedicated to changing in meaningful ways to continue our mission of service and support to the academic community at Vanderbilt. Our established roles must change, and library staff will need to work hard to help our constituencies understand our new roles and the value we can bring to their pursuits. This shift will take creativity, energy and financial resources. It will require risk-taking and a tolerance for occasional failure as we learn from our mistakes. Our goal is to reinvent the library to meet the information and research needs of the University community.

Our strategies for embracing the future are threefold:

  • We will move aggressively forward in developing new collections and services that incorporate exciting new digital technologies, while ensuring that we continue to pay attention to traditional collection and service needs. Digital preservation offers an alternative to conventional storage, and we need to explore these possibilities. We will build new relationships as well. We need to explore ways to work with faculty to gain skills in digital publishing, to join with the University Press as it becomes primarily digital, to find new means of scholarly communication in conjunction with scholarly societies, and to consider a joint project with the Television News Archive to digitize its collection so that it can become a rich content resource on the Internet. The library will be involved with faculty in new ways as digital media enhance and change teaching and learning.
  • Our collections must be enriched as the University attains a higher national stature among the leading universities of the country. At the same time we will build on our cooperative relationships with other institutions to ensure the greatest access to the widest variety of research material.
  • Finally, we need to provide a place, an academic commons, that invites individual intellectual pursuit as well as a gathering place for faculty and student interaction outside the classroom.

Funding the Future

Our strategies are clear, and we are making progress in several critical areas. To continue to move ahead, we need strong continuing financial support from the schools and from University resources. These funds can sustain our current operations and provide for technology enhancement. Special Reassessment funding has long played a vital part in our development of digital services and collections, and it must continue to do so in the future. To make real progress in some of our boldest initiatives, however, we will need external or additional University funding.

  • Collection Endowment

    A $50 million collection endowment would produce approximately $2.5 million in supplemental income each year for materials acquisitions. If we project materials cost inflation at 6% per year and the growth of the base budget at 4% per year, the supplement would close this inflationary gap and, even after five years, provide an additional $2.3 million to significantly strengthen our collections.

    To be optimally effective, the supplement should accrue to the Heard Library system's overall budget rather than directly to its divisional components, though in practice most of the money would likely be spent by divisional libraries. This arrangement would strengthen the Heard Library's role as an academic support unit by permitting us to offer resources equitably across the entire University, rather than in an uneven fashion segmented by schools or programs. It would also equip us with the flexibility to meet interdisciplinary needs, especially in the acquisition of electronic materials.

  • Renovation of the General Library Building

    Careful attention must be given to the General Library Building which houses the Central Library, Divinity Library, and Special Collections and University Archives, as well as a number of staff offices. To move toward our goal of creating an academic commons, while providing access to collections and services, we must undertake an extensive study of the existing building; we can then move forward with concrete proposals for refurbishing, additions and other alternatives.

    A major renovation of the GLB is required. The older section of the building was dedicated in 1941, and an addition was constructed in 1964. Several renovations of public spaces since then have improved portions of the building's appearance and utility, but even these renovated spaces now look worn. In some parts of the building, original furniture is still in use and clearly needs replacement. Much of the building was designed as book stacks and cannot easily be remodeled for other uses. We estimate that over one million dollars is needed for structural repairs alone.

    The first step must be the development of an overall plan for the GLB. We should start by hiring an architect to develop such a plan, from which more specific cost figures for renovation could be developed. However, at least 130,000 square feet needs remodeling, renovation, and new furniture. Such rehabilitation can cost as much as building new space (currently estimated at $160 per square foot). A major building enhancement project with careful attention to creating highly usable public spaces will enhance the quality of academic life within the University.

  • Storage Facility Enhancement

    Our off-site, accessible storage facility will be full within five to eight years. We expect to continue to need more storage space for ongoing growth in collections and archives. Construction costs for facilities for high-density storage of books are currently estimated at $3/volume. At our current growth rate of approximately 50,000 volumes per year, we would use $150,000 of new space annually.

  • Endowment for Positions

    Endowed library positions, relatively common at comparable research libraries, free up funds for other initiatives. Positions suitable for such endowments might include that of the University Librarian and the position of Head of Special Collections and University Archivist. Each plays a crucial role in the development of the library and the University, and each offers a donor a unique opportunity for recognition. Current estimates for endowed positions range from $1.5 to $2 million per position.

  • Endowment for the University Archives

    The library has the responsibility for preserving and supporting the University's history through the University Archives. Recording, understanding, and making accessible the documents and publications that have shaped the University's development are an essential part of the library's mission, and one that requires funding beyond what is currently allocated. Creating an endowment for the Archives would regularize its support and enhance its stability. We estimate that $2 million would provide a starting point.

Appendix B: ARL Library Rankings, 1998-99    (Acrobat reader required)


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