Gee Library Planning Documents

Provide quality library services to Texas A&M University-Commerce constituencies. This includes provision of access to print and electronic information resources, both directly and indirectly through partnerships with other libraries; instructional support on the use of library collections, owned and accessed; and collaborative collection development activities that support faculty and students in curricular areas and associated research areas.

Provide Media Services support within Commerce campus classrooms. This includes provision of presentation hardware and reserved items from the Media Services A/V collections to classrooms in timely manner. Where feasible, provide similar service to Metroplex campus faculty.

Provide essential maintenance services via Campus Engineer in support of KETR and KETV broadcast facilities and classroom equipment.

Existing cooperative ventures within state and regional library consortia, such as TexShare full-text database access, TAMU System electronic library resources projects, AMIGOS, and Phoenix Group cooperative purchase opportunities and resource sharing partnerships.

Existing Infrastructure enhancements that provide opportunities to deliver information outside the confines of the Gee Library to campus users and outside the campus confines to distance education users.

Weaknesses and threats to be addressed (including quality, enrollment trends, and student/faculty ratios)

Continued inadequacy of staffing at the Metroplex Library for the hours of service. Impact of increasing Metroplex instruction at Mesquite, the UCD, and various off-campus area sites grows on our extremely limited collections of newer materials. These instructional services increase the information support needs of the programs taught by A&M-Commerce faculty.

Continued inadequacy of numbers of staff at the Gee Library for the dispersed student demands, increased technical maintenance required by growth in staff and public workstations, printers, and networking; and limits to services offered outside the normal business week. Assessment of staffing levels against state and national standards indicate support at less than half that deemed appropriate for students and faculty served. Major renovation project required to consolidate existing services further to best capitalize on existing limited staff for hours of operation expected.

Continued extraordinary inflationary pressures from the publishing industry, particularly in relation to the periodicals subscription costs. Anticipated rate of increase for U.S. journals in 2000/2001 is predicted at 13%. Coupling special inflation impact to decreasing materials budgets results in deterioration of collections in support of curricular and research requirements. Demonstrable decrease in monographic as well as serials coverage for full range of academic programs to support.

Need to increase computer system functionality and computer maintenance costs, e.g. LION and Electronic Reserves systems, at higher than normal inflation within an operations budget that has received one increase in 10 years. Ongoing need to provide library system upgrade without special item funding for such changes in library system technology.

N/A directly in the library; see the section C notes on accomplishments with student and faculty use.

Continuous monitoring of usage data from current electronic services to identify and anticipate cost breaks and/or special partnership subscription opportunities.

Analysis of overlapping electronic and paper resources to determine when print (i.e., paper) versions can be eliminated from budget.

Analysis of journal collection use to assist in decisions on titles to cancel to remain within budget, including the consideration of electronic full-text options to substitute for subscriptions to print (paper) journals.

Analysis of subscription costs to see if there exist alternative procurement strategies that would provide some budget relief, e.g. corporate library membership in organization to get all publications rather than separate orders for titles published.

Enhancement of electronic access to full-text as well as index databases; maintenance of support to existing electronic resources. Ongoing collaboration within Phoenix Group, Texas A&M University System, and TexShare cooperative ventures to maintain access to a regional collection of adequate breadth to support curricular initiatives.

Completion of Serials Holdings updating within LION to encompass all past subscriptions as well as currently received titles. Provides direct online access to print holdings for both on-campus and off-campus students and faculty.

Exploration and support of digital access projects to improve access and preservation of items within the archival and other portions of the Gee Library collections.

Initiate fundraising activities to support renovations of facilities and consolidation of services within the James G. Gee Library.

Collaborate with Northeast Partnership and other distance learning activities of faculty to identify scope of information requirement. Improve provision of equivalent library support to students and faculty not at the Commerce campus. Review processes and procedures to best implement suggestions from the Phoenix Group Distance Learning Survey.

Continued efforts for maintenance of staff expertise through on and off-campus training, workshops, conferences and regional collaborations.

Several proposals for new initiatives are provided, in order of Gee Library priorities, for consideration.

Lists by major equipment category are appended as Appendix E for all reporting areas.

The main factor prohibiting combination of the current Curriculum Library, Media Services and Music Collections into an operational unit supporting in-house review of audio-visual library materials by students and faculty is the physical configurations and space limitations on the first and second floors.

We continue to seek a revised renovation plan to accommodate the necessary building adjustments:

1. Relocate the technical services staff and reconfigure the existing first-floor space to include the three areas noted above or some acceptable alternative plan.
2. Include compact shelving for public storage of bound periodicals to expand library user capacity. Assessment of feasibility of moving bound periodicals to traditional stacks with items replaced by JSTOR and other electronic systems moved to staff only access is ongoing.

The project remains under continuous review based on the outside consultant’s report. Structural engineering studies confirmed that the original proposals for renovation can be implemented.