The Library Strategy

1

• The Library Strategy
• Dr Paul Ayris
• Director of Library Services, UCL
• e-mail p.ayris_at_ucl.ac.uk

2
Contents

• Why have a Strategy?
• The present Library Strategy
• Areas for future development
• Road Map for implementation of the Strategy

3
Why Strategy?

• Institutions need a Strategy
• To provide a guide to inform their development
• Into which all their activities should be grafted
  
• To provide a document to inform their users what
  they are about
• To provide a baseline against which to assess the
  institutions performance

4
Present Strategy

• The present Library Strategy
• Represents the first attempt by the Library to
  provide a comprehensive strategic overview of its
  activities
• Available at http//www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/libstrat
  .shtml
• In place since October 2001
• Designed for a 5-year period

5
Evaluation

• The present Library Strategy had an Action Plan
  of 6 development points
• Estate strategy
• Storage for Special Collections
• National activity in retrospective conversion
• Digitisation of content
• National funding for collection development
• National funding to support external use of UCL
  Library Services

6
Evaluation

• Library Services has made significant progress in
  three of these six areas
• Estates Strategy
• Special Collections
• National funding to support external use of
  Library Services

7
New Strategy

• Builds on the former Library Strategy, but needs
  to
• Take account of a raft of new developments inside
  and outside UCL
• Be articulated at a much finer level of
  granularity at Faculty and Department level
• Stand alongside a raft of UCL strategies and
  policies

8
Areas for development

• Other UCL Strategies
• Provosts White Paper
• Emerging International Strategy
• Teaching and Learning and Research Strategies
• Information Strategy
• Academic Strategy
• Estates Strategy
• Widening Participation

9
New developments

• More support for Teaching and Learning
• Online Reading List Module
• Study Pack Service
• Use of Virtual/Managed Learning Environments
• Does TLSS need more support to deliver these
  goals?

10
Support for research

• Several factors here
• University of London Information Strategy
• Retrospective conversion
• Authority Control
• Script-based cataloguing for non-Roman scripts
• Innovation to support the dissemination of
  research outputs through the Librarys E-Print
  repository
• E-Science/E-Research agendas

11
Other new emphases

• There are other emphases which need to be
  reflected
• Information Literacy
• Fundraising, to support the Librarys targets in
  Advancing London's Global University - the
  Campaign for UCL
• A renewed emphasis on estates with plans for the
  refurbishment of the library spaces in the
  Wilkins building new buildings for SSEES and the
  Bartlett

12
Archive?

• A major question for the next 5 years
• Do all UK research universities need to store
  back runs of paper journals?
• Is collaborative storage the way forward?
• Should UCL be e-only for delivery of research
  materials in STM
• Should UCL de-acquire scores of paper journal
  runs?
• and
• What is the Librarys responsibility for digital
  archiving of content?
• Is this a collaborative activity?
• Who will do it/how much will it cost?

13
New areas

• Widening Participation/Social Inclusion
• New national partnerships, particularly with the
  emerging RLN (Research Libraries Network)
• A need to define UCLs relationship with the
  British Library to support research

14
To support this

• Support Structures within Library Services
• A growing emphasis on Continuing Professional
  Development
• Operational Planning at Library and Group level
  to deliver the Library Strategys Vision

15
Road Map

• Presentation at Current Awareness Session today
• To be discussed at Library Committee on 11
  November 2004
• Each Library Group discusses Strategy and
  presents report by Christmas 2004
• FIRST REVISION OF STRATEGY AVAILABLE JANUARY 2005
• Discussions in each Faculty Library Committee by
  Easter 2005 with report
• Discussions with individual Champions in UCL by
  Easter 2005

16
Road Map

• Chair of Library Committee
• Director of EISD
• Head of the Graduate School
• Sabbatical Officers in UCL Union
• Revised Library Strategy by May 2005
• Ratified by Library Committee in June 2005

17
And now

• Questions and, perhaps, some Answers