Esta Tovstiadi: Alright, it's a couple minutes past 10. So we'll go ahead and get started. Thanks everyone for joining me today. This is the third webinar in a series
Esta Tovstiadi: On collections renewal and cancellation strategies. Today we're going to hear from Elena Knuth head of collection management at SUNY Geneseo
Esta Tovstiadi: And Tim Arnold director library director at Jamestown Community College. They're going to share their local campus perspectives on how they've been managing
Esta Tovstiadi: renewals and cancellations at their campus. So I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Elena
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Thanks. So
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Yeah, share real quick.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Alright, so thank you, everyone. I'm really glad that you're all here for this, um,
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: relevant topic. So for the next 20 minutes or so I'm going to talk about the strategy that we've been using at SUNY Geneseo to evaluate our electronic subscriptions.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So we've opted to use a scorecard to evaluate our electronic resources. So basically we came up with a set of criteria we assign points to each criteria.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And then run ran each of our resources through the scorecard to come up with a score for each resource so we can prioritize our subscriptions. When we have to think about
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Which subscriptions, we want to really protect in which we are willing to let go of on in response to anticipated budget reductions.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So,
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Why are we even using the scorecard. I thought it was kind of helpful to give this context. So cancellation decisions can be tricky. I think we all know this already, but they can become political
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Some of our faculty are really passionate about the resources that they use. So the scorecard is just a nice mechanism to kind of very objectively and very consistently apply
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Just an evaluation to each resource so that there's no question about personal bias or anything else that may come into play.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: The scorecard is also a helpful way to really
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Communicate the reasoning and the rationale behind our decision. So a lot of times when we opt to renew or cancel a subscription, we're using our professional judgment.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And that's not always easy to articulate, especially to someone who may be outside the library, who isn't familiar with collection development or
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Some of the constraints in which we work. So the scorecard is a way to kind of capture those elements, what we're thinking about and why so that way we can communicate that to a stakeholder in our outside the library.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And finally, the scorecard is a way to document. Why a decision was made. I know I'm, you know, we're really good at making decisions, but not always so good at documenting them, especially if it's something that you know
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Becomes a question years down the road. It's nice to be able to say, yeah, this is the method that we use. This is why we made the decision and
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: The scorecard kind of enables us to do that.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So,
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Kind of the workflow. This is the steps that we took. And then if you are, you know, maybe considering doing this for your library. I'd imagine you probably follow a similar set of steps. So essentially we had to first decide which criteria to use in a scorecard so
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: If you have an up to date collection development policy, hopefully you can rely on that and maybe you have a really nice set of criteria that you already use when you're evaluating your subscriptions.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: If you don't on this is a great opportunity to start thinking about that and kind of what
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: What what values are the most important to your library. So do you care a lot about usage and you want to make sure that you're protecting resources that are used.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: On in high frequency. Do you want to make sure that you're subscribing to resources that don't have a lot of overlap.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Maybe you're going to be relying heavily on feedback from your subject liaison to your faculty. This is really kind of a local decision and it's going to reflect your local values.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So once you set up your criteria, then you want to assign a point value to each of those items on and I'm going to pause for one second.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: I'm sorry, my daughter screaming in the other room. Um, so essentially you want to assign points to each of those criteria on and then consider some weighted values. So, for example, one of the
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: criteria that we used was feedback from our liaison or subject liaison. And I asked them to rank each resource in their subject area. On a scale of one to five.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: But I really I value their input and I wanted to assign more than five points to that particular value. So I signed a weighted score or weighted factor of two. So I take the
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Score or the rank the liaison I multiply it by two and that's the score for that particular value.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And in a couple slides will actually see I have screenshots, or the scorecard. So this might make a little bit more sense. I realize it's a little abstract when I'm trying to describe right now.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So once you have your criteria, you've assigned your points, you've decided assigned any weighted values that you may want to use you'll be able to determine, you know, what is the maximum point value that I given resource can score.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So once you basically have built your scorecard that essentially the hard part. You built your scorecard. You kind of set that all up.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Then the next step is to go out and gather the data that you're using. So that's going to be harvesting usage data.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: That might be if you're using if you're considering content overlap is one of your criteria or criteria, then you'll need to conduct those overlap analyses and all mom.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: If you are getting feedback from your ladies ons. I'll show you the worksheet that we use, you may want to use that or some other method. So that's
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: That's going to take a little bit of time. But once you have all that data collected, you can basically populate the scorecard and calculate the score for each of your resources and then you can use that score to prioritize them.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Okay, so this might make a little bit more sense. I've been kind of talking about how this works without showing you what it is I'm hopeful. Hopefully this is going to become a little bit more clear.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: But we created two different score cards we created one for databases and then one for journal subscriptions and journal packages. Just because what we're using to evaluate
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Databases is different than what we're using to evaluate journals. So essentially Geneseo. We kept it really simple and I just picked three criteria to use
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So the first is usage statistics. So we looked at how often are resources used we relied on feedback from our library and liaisons and I'll show you the worksheet that we used.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: For each liaison to use for their resources. And then we also analyze for content overlap. So basically at involved as going into Alma and running the overlap analysis tool.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: This is probably a little bit confusing for the content overlap. You'll notice the total possible points are zero and it says, Those are negative point value.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So this was a little bit awkward to do but we we only can do an overlap analyses on resources without with full text right so we didn't want to
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Penalize in any way or resource that did not have full text you know my car and I databases or maybe like a streaming
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: streaming video database or an image database. Those are not resources that we checked for overlap so
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: We didn't want to penalize those resources or penalized resources that just didn't have any overlap. So what we opted to do is actually take points away if we found a resource did have overlap and if it didn't, or we didn't check it. We did nothing. So it didn't harm the score at all.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And I'll show you. As I mentioned, I'll show you screenshots.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And that might make it clear again.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So this is a scorecard that we used for our journals and journal packages. So you'll notice the first two criteria are the same, then there's two different different values here. So we also
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Looked at cost per download simply because we have some journal packages in particular.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Where they're getting a ton of us. It's great. It's clearly in demand, but the cost of the package is so high that it's driving up that cost per download, so we really want to make sure that
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: We're licensing journals and journal packages that are more cost effective to license or to subscribe to rather than simply use interlibrary loan.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And then we also check for alternative access options. So for any of our individual journal subscriptions.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: We checked to see if there was access available in one of our databases or maybe NJ store or if the journal had open access content available.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And similar to the overlap analysis, we took away points if we found that there was access available, but if there was not. We didn't alter the score at all.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And once again, I'll show you the worksheet that we use and that will probably become a little bit more clear so journals have one extra
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Criteria Christiane so they actually are evaluated out of 25 points instead of 20 okay
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Okay, so here's some of the worksheets that kind of run behind the scenes to make these scorecards work. So for each of our resources we we looked at the
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: usage data. Right. So ideally, we were looking at counter. But sometimes we had to deal with.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Statistics that were not counter compliance, but we looked at what the resource type is so is it a full text aggregator database.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: You know that we would expect to have really robust usage. Is it an AI database. Is it an online reference work. Is it a journal package. What is it that we're looking at.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So we can kind of evaluate it's fairly as possible that given resource. We also consider the audience. So thinking about resources that are maybe I'm really multi-disciplinary we would expect high use versus a resource that is maybe only used by a select department or major
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And then we kind of looked at the different disciplines as well. So we considered those factors and then we determined to the best of our judgment.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: If the resource had high, moderate low or very low usage. So it's not an exact science on. We did not set thresholds, you know, to say okay hi us
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: As any resource that was used. I don't know 500 or more times or whatever number. We didn't set those thresholds, because it just seemed to nuance considering resource types and different audience sizes, but we did include a factor for
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And I databases and online reference works because we're anticipating that usage would be a little bit lower. For those resource types.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So we're kind of giving them a little bit of a handicap here and we're multiplying it their score by a factor of two. So that way, we're not inadvertently kind of hurting their score.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: For liaison feedback. This is the worksheet that I handed to each liaison.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: For each resource and their subject area. So I completed this top portion the resource information portion with a title other resource the provider. The type of resource and the cost
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And then I gave them to basically primer questions to consider the audience and the perceived benefits and then
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: This is the actually one page. But for the slides I cut it into two. And then I asked them to score or to rank each resource on a scale of one to five provide comments if they'd like to. And then I multiply their score by a factor of two, because I want the liaison my grants.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Score to be worth 10 points, rather than five.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: This is an example of a worksheet, the one of our liaison is completed. He did a really good job of giving us very detailed information. So that's why I'm using this worksheet as my example.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: You can see that he's identifying like number of courses number of faculty and and so when he gave this resource a rank of five, it made a lot of sense, right, because he backed up his rank with really good evidence. So this was, you know, a good example of a really good worksheet here.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And then for content overlap. Like I said, we did analyze resources for full text. I will tell you, I did not analyze everything. This is really time consuming.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: I only analyzed are really big like full text aggregators so I focused on like our resources, our resources.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: From Gail EPS go pro cast on and just ran an overlap analysis and Alma, and if there wasn't much overlap or there were zero overlap didn't change the score at all. But if we did find overlap. We took points away.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Finally, for journals. We did look for alternative access. So, we look to see if maybe there was an embargo, but otherwise access available. And if we did find alternative access. We took points away if there was no alternative access to score remain the same.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And then here is the worksheet that we use for cost per download, so I'm going to brag for a little bit, our journal under the packages tenants. You get a lot of use.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So initially, when I was putting together the squad card. I was going to rank it, you know, anything that was more cost effective to subscribe to would get
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: I don't know, five points and anything that was more cost effective to do Interlibrary Loan would get on a one point or something. But I thought a lot of our journals were getting very high you so that's why I use these values.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: For us, we were using. We had to kind of have an estimate of a cost for interlibrary loan. So I use $17 is my average you may opt to use a different average for your Interlibrary Loan cost per journal
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: But that's something to consider. Because obviously, if it's going to be more cost effective to get access via interlibrary loan, you know, you're going to want to assign low points for that.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Okay, so, um,
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: If you opted to do this your library. There's some other ways you can customize the scorecard. I kept ours. A Geneseo pretty simple.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: But you could consider other factors that might be a value to your library. So if you have resources that support multiple departments or programs. Those are resources that you might want to really prioritize
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Perhaps you have resources that support new faculty or new academic programs. Those might be resources that you want to protect or prioritize, especially if it's a program that's just gotten off the ground. The usage may not really be very high, just yet.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: You also may want to prioritize resources that replace print volumes. So for example, if your licensing a journal package that allows you to, you know, not hold on to bound print that might be a value to your library.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And then also, you may want to prioritize resources that are more likely to be used during a period of remote learning, considering that that might be something that we are considering again for the fall
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So there are some challenges to the scorecard. I kind of mentioned this earlier, but the usage data is particularly
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: It's tricky and involves a lot of kind of thought and consideration. Just because you're dealing with, you know, different types of data for different resource types with a transition from release for to release five with counter for some of our resources we had
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: You know, we were using like record views and results clicks. For some, you know, older years you know past two years of usage. But the most recent year we were looking at like total item investigations. So that's a little hairy.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: It's also a challenge is to get meaningful feedback. We have a great set of librarian liaison librarians, but we had to kind of make sure they were up to speed with usage metrics and just kind of
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: I guess it's more of awareness building like helping them understand that we're anticipating some really difficult budget, a
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Scenarios in the future. So we have to make some very difficult decisions and, you know, a given resource might be awesome. And it might be a great resource.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And might be, you know, it might be terrific. But if it's not being used, or if it's not directly supporting a program or a major. We can't afford a license anymore. So it was just kind of that awareness building
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And finally, you've probably figured this out already. But this does take a lot of time and effort.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: I kept on saying we because I worked very closely with our digital resources and systems librarian. So the two of us were able to kind of share this workload.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: But this does take a lot of work, especially coordinating with liaison librarians and making sure that they have time to kind of go through those worksheets and do a good job.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: On I know for us. We have a lot of renewals that are have July one renewal dates.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So we're kind of scrambling to make decisions be as quick as possible so that way we can notify vendors, if we are not going to renew any of those July renewals by June 1 so it's it's it's it's a lot of effort.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: You know, that's probably the biggest shortcoming of this method.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: But some other local considerations.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: If you did go this route or you're considering at some things. Do you want to think about is how and when to involve your faculty
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And whether you want to have scores to use this threshold. So what I mean by that is that my previous institution.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: I use the scorecard there as well. And I actually sat threshold where any resource above X number of points was automatically renewed
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And any resource under that number of points was either cancelled or kind of went into like a probation period where we
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Gave it like one year to to perform better. And if it didn't we canceled it so having those thresholds on definitely makes it more objective and is helpful on that way, but it also was a challenge to really
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: To set those thresholds and make sure that they're really effective. And so my final slide here. And then I'm going to take questions and I saw that there were some activity in the chat and it's just a list of resources. So this link here is a Google Drive.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And then I'll show it to you in a second. But it's a Google Drive of on of the scorecard and a spreadsheet that I use, which I'll show you in one second.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: I also have a link to Tuesday's overlap analysis webinar that SLS is hosted so if you do need to do an overlap analysis, you may want to look at that.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Um, I have a citation to an article that I wrote a couple years ago.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: I included it because, as I said, I did the scorecard of a past and I used it a little bit differently. So if you want to kind of think of an alternative way to use it.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: It's worth looking at the article, and then this is an article that's a few years old but I found to be helpful from Jerry foodie.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And Alicia. I think it's Alicia McManus from Maryland, and I found this article helpful. Um, so I'm running out of time so I'm speeding up a little bit here. But let me show you.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: In this Google Drive. This is what you will find this is kind of a stripped down version of the scorecard that you can download and, you know, modify
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: For your needs. So we have the scorecard for databases for journals and then all of these worksheets, including the library and liaison worksheet so feel free to download it as a Word doc and run with it. I also included a
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Spreadsheet so I use this as well on for each of our databases and then each of our journals.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So kind of basic information about the database. Each of the values for each criteria on and then. Whoops. And then what the final score was so then you can kind of
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: What is the word. You can sort in Excel or you can you can sort by a score if if that's helpful to you or if you want to look at all of your resources by renewal date to see which is coming up the first coming up, you know, the closest you can do all that, as well.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: So I want to save some time for questions. And for the next presentations. I'm going to stop here. I'm going to look in the chat to see what that was all about. And if anyone has questions, I'm happy to respond to them.
jennifer.parker: This is Jen I put a comment. And I guess could you talk maybe we were looking at something so not i'd love your spreadsheet. It's fantastic. I wish I thought of that myself.
jennifer.parker: But that's why we're here. I'm so have an A and I database that doesn't have a lot of usage. Yeah, well it's a cost. It gets us, but not as much as you'd like. And so would you wait one search, find stability as an overlap, maybe going forward.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: I mean, that would be, you know, you know, you know how hindsight 2020 we did think about um hopefully this is answering your question, but we did think about like
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Waiting are valuing are heading criterion for like discover ability. You're right. Because if things get really tough. We're going to probably value resources that provide that discovery, like an and I
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Rather than worrying about a journal data, they are on a journal package because we can always get that through IDs are in the library alone not ideal that we can do it. So I think that would be a really good recommendation Jen is to have, you know, when you're doing um
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: You know, you know, when you're looking at something like this, having another
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Row here for discover ability and maybe that means a and I databases, get an additional I don't know three points or five points.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Just because they do offer that value and they're probably going to score lower for usage.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And they may just not be really I don't know on everyone's radar, they may just kind of be
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Yeah.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: I think that's a good idea.
jennifer.parker: Thanks. Yeah, you're welcome.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Oh, sorry. That wasn't by accident, um,
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Does anyone else have other questions that I can answer.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: And you're always welcome. If you think of something after this after this, this presentation, you're welcome to email me. My email is just knew that geneseo.edu you're welcome to shoot me an email if you if you do think of something
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Yeah. So Katie has another really good point about
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Department size as well as accreditation. That's also that's also a really good
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: A really good something to think about. I know. Like for our American Chemical Society journals. We know that regardless of how much they cost or how much they're used, we have to hold on to them for accreditation, so that's
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Once again hindsight 2020 that would be another really good value to include in the scorecard.
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: Alright then. We'll notice questions. I'm going to stop sharing and hand off on hand off this presentation. Thank you all so much for coming this morning.
Esta Tovstiadi: Thanks so much, Elena, I will share that Google Drive link, along with the slides and the recording later today. So I'm just going to get
Esta Tovstiadi: So next we're going to hear from Tim Arnold. I'm going to make you host co host him so that you can share your screen.
JCC Libraries: Okay, thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you alone. I really learned a lot. I should just scrap my presentation.
JCC Libraries: So let's see. I'm going to try to share my screen. This is always feels like stepping off into the void see
JCC Libraries: You can see that now.
Esta Tovstiadi: Yes, we can.
JCC Libraries: Yes. Okay, great.
JCC Libraries: Well, good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the time to join us today.
JCC Libraries: I know everyone has a lot on their plates right now with the pandemic and planning to reopening or giving curbside pickup or things like that. So I appreciate you taking the time.
JCC Libraries: I'm taking a little bit more of an overview of how I sort of dealt with this kind of problem. Now, as well as the past you know Jamestown, I've been
JCC Libraries: Director, about five years, little over five years and we've had sort of a steady decline of students. So, therefore, that hits our budget. So we sort of had been a constant in looking at looking at budgets and cutting resources and the previous place I worked at at
JCC Libraries: Hawaii Pacific University. We're in kind of the same sort of situation. So I have a little bit of experience. And this is just kind of some ideas I have some
JCC Libraries: Just some theories of of helping out in these kind of situations. So just to give you a little overview
JCC Libraries: You know, our budget has shrunk our collection Belen budget is strong quite a bit in the last five years.
JCC Libraries: And you know we've had to make, as I said, to annual reductions. We're always looking at what we have what we can get rid of what we can adjust. So, you know, it's sort of a
JCC Libraries: An ongoing issue that you know you can't really count on things. Staying staying forever. I mean, we obviously the sort of Sunni connect to pass against pass good packages. We keep those, but anything, sort of, in addition to those kind of things. We're always looking at
JCC Libraries: And given you know the current state of where we are right now.
JCC Libraries: I think you know this is obviously going to continue, just as Ilana mentioned, you know, a lot of lot of campuses are struggling with them.
JCC Libraries: With their budgets with what next year's budget is going to look like and how to deal with that. So, you know, there's, there is this sort of constant pressure to make wise balanced choices and you try not to make mistakes with things you're collecting so
JCC Libraries: And I should mention you know if folks have questions at all, just please, you know, unmute yourself. I don't, there's not so many people that we can't manage it that way, but just I'm happy to take questions.
JCC Libraries: So are you know, just to give you an overview just kind of how our, our budget looks like. Now we have automation budget, which has, you know, databases journals and all that kind of support that. That keeps all that stuff going
JCC Libraries: books, periodicals construction materials instructions of lies memberships and things like that. So we have all these different
JCC Libraries: You know, different budget lines. And you know what I've learned is
JCC Libraries: Is a lot of times. Your business office is very much concerned about the bottom line, you know, so it's more like a balance between these
JCC Libraries: These, these budget lines as opposed to just focusing on one and reducing wine, you can, you know, hopefully, if you have to cut back on one, you can
JCC Libraries: You can support another one. And we've really tried to continue supporting you know the automation budget line, trying to keep that as steady as possible because, you know, especially during time like now and digital resources are so important.
JCC Libraries: That that's
JCC Libraries: You know what, what we need to maintain and things like print books are not quite so important when when of course nobody can get to them so
JCC Libraries: So a lot of talked a lot about usage and, you know, I wanted to emphasize that's that's what we use a lot for our criteria, you know, we
JCC Libraries: Sort of monthly have statistics sheets that we look at. It's kind of gives us a benchmark of where we are. And we've, you know, seen an uptick in usage recently, which is, you know,
JCC Libraries: To be expected, which is it's good to know that we've done done our work and students are learning these resources and are using them.
JCC Libraries: You know we meet regularly and, you know, talk a little bit more about meetings later but we try to have these sort of collection development meetings to look at our resources and just be prepared, you know,
JCC Libraries: Because this has been sort of happening ongoing and it's and we're probably going to have to look at more resources to come
JCC Libraries: So, you know, and in this process. You have to be open to suggestions, you know, and when you know faculty want to add a resource, you know, being able to equally that those suggestions and take a look at them. So
JCC Libraries: And you know, I guess something I'll probably repeat during this this presentation is
JCC Libraries: It's we're, we're not really in an environment where we can just keep things just just to keep them, we need to we need to be constantly looking at them and making sure that they're using that's you know what that you know the usage data will will hopefully tell you
JCC Libraries: You know, and sort of continuing with that, you know, oftentimes we subscribe to things and we keep them and we just keep keep rolling them over.
JCC Libraries: And you know that's not always a good thing to do, we should we should be, you know, constantly looking at them embedding them and looking at the usage and things like that.
JCC Libraries: You know there are things that can change the stat usage. If you have one database that say you know your your English classes are using
JCC Libraries: You know, you got to keep that in mind we're pushing it out to the students all the time that that could be problematic in in your results and, you know, you've got to keep keep things in mind, like, you know,
JCC Libraries: Could, could you spend these funds better elsewhere is there somewhere else that can be used. You know, we've been looking at our print periodicals.
JCC Libraries: And I know there's a discussion few months ago, maybe six months ago where a lot of
JCC Libraries: Community colleges were talking about their, their print periodicals and getting rid of them. And so, you know, cutting those budget lines, as I said, to help support that the digital line. And so if you've got overlap there.
JCC Libraries: Yeah, so, you know, as I said, Not trying not to hang on to things that aren't being used and, you know, generally, doing, doing our part to to keep costs down
JCC Libraries: So a little bit of what I've learned about, you know, just being prepared for this sort of thing is really understanding your institutions budget cycle and you know when your renewals hit and things like that Ilana spoke about that also
JCC Libraries: But
JCC Libraries: You know we depending on your institution. When you know, ours is starts September one. And so, you know, we know every year what its gonna look like. We know, sort of, when
JCC Libraries: College starts preparing its budget when they typically will start asking for cuts, you know, so, so really trying to clue in on that is
JCC Libraries: What's happening, what's happening on your campus, you know, there's always clues that things are going on, obviously right now, but in the past, you know, when see positions are frozen. You know where it's coming out from the business office time to spend money. So you need to
JCC Libraries: You need to anticipate that kind of thing. And no, you know, will you, will you be asked for cuts and be prepared for that. So, you know, plan ahead and make sure you've got options, things like that.
JCC Libraries: One of the things
JCC Libraries: We've looked at two is trying to keep our budget, simple, and you know, sort of helps
JCC Libraries: You know, we had some point had a sort of complex
JCC Libraries: Between two campuses, we would we would divide up costs between two campuses because we've got a main campus and kind of a branch campus.
JCC Libraries: But we ended up saying, you know, especially with digital resources were like, Well, why does that make sense you know everyone's using the same resources, no matter where they are. So we sort of tried to make it into one central
JCC Libraries: Library automation budget so that that sort of helped us in it and it helped our business office, too. And as I mentioned before, you know, I think a lot of
JCC Libraries: You know, from the business perspective, they're looking at the bottom line. So you can balance things from one way to the other.
JCC Libraries: You know, you're, you're not there. They're just looking at, as I said, the bottom line. They're looking at what are you spending in total. So if you can bolster your electronic resources by cutting other things that maybe are not used so much then
JCC Libraries: You'll, you'll, you'll be in better shape.
JCC Libraries: So yeah, we we organize sort of collection development meetings and try to keep in with this cycle of the budget and renewals and things like that.
JCC Libraries: You know, as we're a smaller community college, we don't have liaisons at some full time librarians and, you know, more, more agile part time librarian. So
JCC Libraries: You know, it's something you know I would like to have. But I really, it's kind of difficult to do with the with the staffing, we have
JCC Libraries: So yeah, you know, kind of building these meetings so that you can get together, you can discuss, you know what, what you have, what options you have
JCC Libraries: Grab the data and usage and share that so everyone knows these databases, how much they're being used, how much they're not being used, you know, cost per download and things like that and then
JCC Libraries: You know, keep that in mind when you get together. It's also good to keep a wish list of things. Maybe there's an option of switching something out or bringing in something in you know an improvement.
JCC Libraries: You might, you know, might be a new resource or an updated resource that you'd like to include in your earlier list but and then maybe, you know, get rid of something else as it as an exchange so
JCC Libraries: You know, just keeping in mind, you know, supporting all your programs. And that's important. First, you know, sometimes libraries will try to try to keep everything and try to
JCC Libraries: You know, maybe cover a lot of leisure reading and things like that which you know sometimes is not not really supporting your mission and you know. So as I said, kind of keeping an eye on the on the bottom line.
JCC Libraries: So, you know, when you get together, you've got obviously or achieve some sort of consensus about what you're keeping what you're not
JCC Libraries: You know, we
JCC Libraries: We tend to break up our meetings, a little bit, you know, we'll, we'll focus on periodicals or databases, sort of, depending on on on how many you have. And what we're looking at.
JCC Libraries: So that, that's sometimes helpful.
JCC Libraries: So that you're not sort of overwhelmed with with decisions in one one meeting.
JCC Libraries: You know, you've got a
JCC Libraries: You know, a lot of sort of related to that about you know with faculty and the sometimes that's political and so the sort of the communication part is very important to
JCC Libraries: letting people know you know and I find that a lot of faculty teaching faculty are not aware so at the costs of these resources and then sort of pressures to keep those costs down. And so if you have good conversations with people about
JCC Libraries: What's happening, what's happening to you or your budget. You know, sometimes they find, oh, I didn't, you know, oftentimes these things are many, many thousands of dollars a year, and they're completely unaware of that and you know if these environments with
JCC Libraries: With the budget constraints. It's certainly hitting them to you're not, you're not the only ones on campus. So there were
JCC Libraries: Of course, you know, things like, you know, using professional reviews to support you know if you're changing something adding a new adding a new resources, bringing that into the discussion. I mean, I think one of
JCC Libraries: The main things I've learned is, you know, librarians are really good about, you know, understanding these resources, knowing how good they are, knowing the, you know, they interact all the time with our students. They know our students, they know
JCC Libraries: What they struggle with what databases, they have to help them with all the time and things like that. So they, you know, I trust them to to really make good decisions on these things.
JCC Libraries: And, you know, so I tend to weigh that a lot more than than sometimes teaching faculty will suggest things and and think, oh, yeah, we need to get this and they may not understand, you know, the cost and the server usage and things like that.
JCC Libraries: So, you know, just sort of reiterate things, you know, when you add new resources, you go, you don't have to keep them forever and you can
JCC Libraries: You know, bring things on and try it out. As I said, keep an eye on usage and, you know, if somebody supported and maybe a faculty member in
JCC Libraries: Really wanted it, and then promoted a lot to their students. And then maybe they've left. So, you know, things like that. You've got to make sure that those are continuing to be used and we tried various
JCC Libraries: And resources temporarily, you know, we had canopy and had a lot of problems with that. So we didn't keep it. We had language learning pronunciation. That was very popular with a with
JCC Libraries: A
JCC Libraries: Teaching faculty member who end up leaving. And so then that stopped using, you know, so just various things we've we've we've tried them or perhaps we've gotten say grant money to start using something and then that's dried up so we we haven't continued. And so, you know,
JCC Libraries: Just in general of course using using trials trying them out having your library and look them over.
JCC Libraries: To definitely get them and I you know the other thing I always find is a
JCC Libraries: Library librarians are very good and very resourceful and finding different resources. So if something goes away.
JCC Libraries: They may be able to find overlap or something. And in one of your other one of your other databases or something that's free or something that's out there. Anyway, so they they're
JCC Libraries: They're always always looking at new, new resources.
JCC Libraries: You know, kind of some things that I think we could do better and that I would like to do
JCC Libraries: Is sort of keep it kind of a history of these things because I was, as I was preparing for this. I was trying to think of all the resources we say we had and we didn't have
JCC Libraries: That we've lost over time. And I think it'd be good to keep it kind of a live guide updated with those changes. And I've seen some examples of some libraries that have done a really good job with that.
JCC Libraries: And you know, I think that's useful for us to go back and and to
JCC Libraries: And to see, you know, where we tried things. So, and that we've been really flexible.
JCC Libraries: You know costs is important, sharing those costs with your, your faculty as said they sometimes they're not. Not clued into that. And so, you know, being really like to be more transparent about that. Perhaps you know with those kind of things on these
JCC Libraries: We don't have a, you know, have like a form a suggestion for mostly it's through word of mouth or through librarians talking to people. So I think, you know, having a more formal method like that.
JCC Libraries: And, you know, in general, you know, I said, we have these collection development meetings I should probably put them much farther in advance so that we know that we're, we're on this cycle and give people more time to prepare to look over data and things like that.
JCC Libraries: Especially when we're considering new resources.
JCC Libraries: You know, using usability testing. It's not something we've done, but I think it's probably a good thing to explore
JCC Libraries: You know i think that's that's very important because as I said librarians, I think, have a good understanding of what students struggle with, and having spending a little bit of time with students.
JCC Libraries: Working on resources, even if they're your student employees would probably be very useful. And, you know, more surveys of the faculty previous director Denis Minamata. You did a really good
JCC Libraries: Survey. He did of our faculty. So we're going through all of our resources like that people get to know that the more kind of feedback we get from from faculty
JCC Libraries: Is is very useful.
JCC Libraries: You know, then there's a we always struggle with the kind of the marketing side of of databases and resources we have, how much you know we should be communicating that directly to students to faculty. We've tried various different things over the years, obviously, social media.
JCC Libraries: Things like that.
JCC Libraries: And, you know, being more we know, working more closely with say Student Affairs to to get students so they know more about our resources, something
JCC Libraries: Would, would be useful, but it's always one of those hard things to figure out, you know how much time should we spend on marketing. What are the results. So it's kind of their return on investment and that kind of thing. So
JCC Libraries: I think that's pretty much all and I probably went through this quicker than I anticipated, but hopefully there are questions at the moment. I can't see the chat. So I'm going to
JCC Libraries: Just
JCC Libraries: Okay, and
JCC Libraries: So I don't know if there are questions in the chat. I'm not seeing
JCC Libraries: Going to stop sharing my screen. Maybe that will help
Alana Nuth (Geneseo: There are any questions, Tim. Not yet.
JCC Libraries: Okay. Okay, good. Yeah. Now I pulled it up. Now I can see. So I appreciate your, your time and listening to my spiel, you know, is that we're all kind of busy with a lot of projects right now. And so I hope this was helpful and if I can answer any questions. You know, feel free to reach out
Esta Tovstiadi: Alright, well I'm not seeing any questions. Thank you so much. Tim anna-lena I think that this, these were two really helpful perspectives and thank you so much for taking the time to share them today.
Esta Tovstiadi: I'm going to go ahead and stop the recording.