Columbia University Reference Symposium: Doing More With Less

On Friday March 12 I went to the Columbia University Reference Symposium with the theme “Doing More with Less”. It is always nice to reconnect with colleagues from other universities and meet new people. This was their 8th annual symposium, but from what I was told it was the first time non ARL librarians like myself were invited. It has been 20 years since I left NYPL which of course is an ARL library. I certain envy the librarians with very large collections.

All libraries these days are faced with shortages of money, space, time and staff. The aim of this symposium was to see how our colleagues are coping with these situations and obtain ideas that we can bring back to our own institutions. The aim of this journal entry is to help me remember what I learned at this conference. It is not in any way to be an exhaustive review of the events of the day. Readers can see the conference web site for more information. The Powerpoint presentations are posted there. I like to us anecdotal and personal approaches to this work related blog and personal journal. Please feel free to check it out if you don’t know me.

The keynote address was: Fitness for Purpose: Aligning Resources in Changing Times by Wendy Lougee, University Librarian at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Some of the points she made:
· Money lost is not coming back
· External Funding for libraries in weak
· The cost of library expenditures is rising faster than the consumer price index

She mentioned 3 trends in higher education:
· Abundance of Resources through the Internet
· Just in time and found learning
· Cloud based and decentralized learning

She quoted from the Horizon Report and How Students Seek Information in the Digital Age by Head and Eisenberg.

She raised some questions:
Can institutions volunteer to take on a domain for permanent archiving? I think this is a substitute for the old concept of “Library of record.”
Do we understand student and faculty processes?
How do we enable transitions of old processes and methods to new?
What is our unique shareable expertise?
What are our distinctive, shareable assets?

The next speaker was Derik Badman who until recently was Digital Services Librarian at Temple University. He is beginning a new position at Sringshare. The title of his talk was “How I Swapped My Expensive Cobrowsing Software for Two Cheaper and Better Options: a picture Talk."

He talked about OS Ticket, which seamlessly integrates inquiries created via email, phone and web-based forms into a simple easy-to-use multi-user web interface. He suggested using e-mail widgets and widgets on the library home page.

John Hernandez, Coordinator for Social Sciences at Northwestern University continued the program with his talk “Doing Less with More” Using RSS feeds, podcasts, and other technologies to deliver more content via Libguides.”

Michigan State University actually uses 559 Libguides which is a content management system.

The final talk of the morning session was Refocusing Distinctive Capabilities: Strategic Shifts in Baker Library Services
Mallory Stark and Cynthia Churchwell, Baker Library, Harvard Business School

They discussed:
· Context for Strategic Shifts
· Developing New Capabilities

There were breakout sessions after lunch considering situations of:
· Less Space
· Less Time
· Less Staff
· Less Money
· More Technology

I attended the session on less money. It has always been difficult at the NJIT Library, but it is now worse. We have let go our weekend reference librarians which has compromised the level of service. The other librarians at this session were in similar predicaments. Other libraries had less professional staffing at the tradition reference desk. We also discussed the use of free resources on the internet to help replace tools that can no longer be retained due to budget restrictions.
I encountered David McMillan whom I’ve known since he worked as a temporary librarian at NJIT. I also met Amanda Bielskas and Song Yu who have attended the METRO Science Librarians SIG. Song is also active in the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Information.

I would like to thank the members of the planning committee whose hard work made this possible.
Kathleen Dreyer, chair
Cristina Ergunay
Kay Forbes, intern
Colleen Major
Mark Phillipson
Yasmin Saira