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 Instructional Multimedia production support to Texas A&M University-Commerce faculty in curricular activities and to other administrative units as may be appropriate.

Provide essential maintenance services via Campus Engineer in support of KETR 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, Alliance for Higher Education (AHE) and Phoenix Group cooperative purchase opportunities and resource sharing partnerships.

Infrastructure enhancements that provide opportunities to deliver information outside the confines of the Gee Library to campus 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. Services are further impacted by the initiation of weekend classes and the information support needs of the DEC programs taught by TAMU-Commerce faculty.

Continued inadequacy of staff at the Commerce Library for the new services provided, increased technical maintenance required by growth in staff and public workstations, printers, and networking.

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 1998/99 is predicted at 13%.

Lack of integration of costs of services and collections into standard Library budget, thereby creating dependencies on special funding initiatives and one-time grants.

Need to increase computer system 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.

Need to provide library system upgrade without special item funding for such changes in library system technology and long-range vendor goals for positioning the DRA system software.

Continuous monitoring of use 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 at lower cost 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, Texas A&M University System, and TexShare cooperative ventures to maintain access to a regional collection of adequate breadth to support curricular initiatives.

Incorporation of Media Services collections within the LION database, including booking capabilities linked to the files.

Completion of Serials Holdings updating within LION to encompass all past subscriptions as well as currently received titles.

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 review of facilities and services in anticipation of physical reconfiguration of the James G. Gee Library.

Collaborate with Northeast Partnership and other distance learning activities of faculty to identify scope of information requirement, and to provide equivalent library support to students and faculty not at the Commerce campus.

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

Achievements—Past Year: Submit no more than a one page summary report of goal achievement (by goal) for the past year (September 1996-August 1997).

 

Current (Updated): Current year (1997-98) goals, objectives, persons responsible, time line, effectiveness measures—format in Appendix C.

 

Projections: Submit department goals and objectives for next year (September 1998-August 1999). Include goals, objectives, persons responsible, time line, effectiveness measures as in format shown in Appendix C.

 

Initiatives (New): An estimation of department operating expense by category for the next year need not be submitted with this plan. However, any new initiative or program requiring additional funding should be described and justified using Appendix D format.

 

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

Capital Equipment Requests: A list of capital equipment (sometimes called PROP II or HEAF) for the next year (September 1998-August 1999) in priority order by name, cost of item, and rationale for purchase (format shown in Appendix E).

 

Lists by major functional area are appended as Appendix E.

Facility Needs: Needs for additional or renovated facilities will be described and justified.

 

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 would have three possible options:

1) Addition of a sixth floor extension to the new building to allow for stack relocations and reorganization of the public spaces then available to allow for a combined functional area, or,

2) Relocation of the technical services staff and reconfiguration of the existing first-floor space to include the three areas under consideration. A committee has been formed to analyze this possibility for implementation in 1998/99, or,

3) Expansion of old building to south for all three floors.

Considerable more internal discussion needs to occur, led by Ms. Carolyn Trezevant, Education Librarian, as to which option would serve the longer term needs of Gee Library. However, the Library intends to have a plan ready during 1997/98 fiscal year.