This plan and report is based on the four areas outlined in the UC Merced Library Strategic Plan.
The Library's Annual Assessment Plan and Report for 2019-2020 was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in several ways. Most significantly, the closure of campus delayed not only the Library's strategic planning process, which was scheduled to be completed in June 2020, but also delayed both the related campus-wide Academic Planning process and the Library's second-ever Periodic Review. Information created and decisions reached as a result of all three of the above processes would have been incorporated into the Library's Annual Assessment Plan and Report had not the pandemic interfered.
The closure of campus and move to online instruction imposed, of course, unprecedented burdens on Library collections and services, including the disruption in-person consultation and instruction, public access to physical collections, the processing of interlibrary loan requests, work on archival collections, the hiring of new staff, the hosting of public events such as the Tenth Annual Central Valley Geosummit, and more. Faced with the closing of campus and the jump to online instruction, the UC Merced Library was able to respond quickly and effectively, in part because the digital nature of much of the Library's collections and services meant these resources could be provided remotely with little or no additional effort. Examples of how the UC Merced Library responded to the challenges raised by the pandemic include:
Access Services
Administration
Collection Services
Digital Curation and Scholarship
Research and Learning Services
SpARC
UC Merced Library as a Whole
Research Excellence & Academic Distinction
As an essential partner in UC Merced’s pursuit of research excellence and academic distinction, the Library will:
Outcomes:
Library Liaison Outreach to Faculty
Spatial Analysis and Research Center (SpARC)
Digital Curation & Scholarship
Engagement with UC Merced Academic Senate Committee on the Library and Scholarly Communication
Collections Statistics
Holdings
At the end of 2019-2020, the total holdings of the UC Merced Library numbered as follows:
Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
N.b.: The Interlibrary loan statistics for 2019-2020 reflect the complete shutdown of ILL services beginning in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The above numbers show all items loaned and borrowed, including returnables (books, etc.) and non-returnables (copies).
Student Success
UC Merced Library Research and Learning Services
As an active, engaged partner in student success, the Library will:
Open Educational Resources
Goal: Assess Zero Cost Course Materials program to support student learning.
During the 19-20 AY, the Library supported 6 courses, 2 single section courses and 4 multi-section courses, through the ZCCM grant program. Based on course enrollment numbers and course materials cost estimates, the transition to zero-cost materials for these 6 courses resulted in approximately $99,919.00 in student savings. Students and faculty in the ZCCM supported courses were invited to participate in a survey capturing feedback about the use of zero-cost materials.
Goal: Raise awareness of OER benefits with campus partners and faculty.
In February 2020, the Library hosted two representatives from the Open Textbook Network (OTN) for a day of workshops and meetings. During their time on campus, the OTN representatives offered two workshops, a faculty workshop and library staff/student success partners workshop, and met with campus leaders and ASUCM officers.
Outreach
Goal: Reach out to all SSHA academic department chairs requesting a conversation with the chair and/or department regarding how to increase students’ information literacy in their program. Work with a minimum of two departments to identify their priority information literacy outcomes and how these can be achieved through their curriculum with librarian support and expertise.
In October 2019, Sara Davidson Squibb (R&LS) reached out to all undergraduate department chairs in Social Sciences and Humanities (SSHA) to request an individual conversation or a time slot at a department meeting to discuss information literacy (IL) development for undergraduate students in their program. Of those ten departments, seven responses were received and Sara was able to make five visits (two individual visits; three visits to department meetings) in FY 2019-2020. For two of the departments, the timing wasn’t good for them and follow-up in 2020-2021 will be required. Though there was some good discussion and interest by some faculty members, there currently isn’t any work taking place at a program level to embed information literacy. Sara will plan to resume this work in 2020-2021, at some level, depending on faculty band-width. See: Sample handout of discussion points.
Student Success
Goal: Make research guides and instructional content more visible to library users.
This past year, we investigated ways in which to make our research guides and instructional content more visible to library users. Two key changes have been made to reach this goal, and the Research & Learning Services (R&LS) group continues to pursue this outcome into 2020-2021. 1) One of the most significant changes has been a revised landing page for the Library’s Research Guides (formerly Course & Subject Guides). This format with the tabs for Subjects Guides, Course Guides, Learn About, and Programs & Special Topics makes this categorization more visible to end-users and reduces the numbers of click to get to this content. Our group investigated how other libraries were displaying their research guide content as a means of informing our practice and highlighting what we might be able to do within the confines of the LibApps platform. 2) In summer 2020, R&LS also proposed and coordinated a revision to the Library Instruction Services landing page. This page has a dedicated column for Learning Materials intended for an instructor audience. Instructors interested in library resources in support of student learning can find links to available resources at this one-stop-shop page.
Goal: Demonstrate the reach of the library and its impact through thoughtful and systematic data collection and analysis.
We are in the infancy stages of trying to demonstrate the reach of the library and its impact. However, we did make some strides in setting up better data collection practices for this purpose. In summer 2019, we started to revise some of the workflows and processes for gathering information related to course instruction and workshop attendees. For course instruction, we started to retain specific class AND section number information in case we want to conduct a research study that would require knowing what students had attended library instruction. (This could be similar to the work of the Greater Western Library Alliance and its multi-institutional study of information literacy instruction impact on student success). In addition for workshops, we have started to capture attendee lists through iCatCard check-in other sign-in sheets. iCatCard information provides a limited amount of demographic information but can tell us more about what students (e.g. major, year of study) are attending library instruction and related events. In the past, we have had raw numbers -- but very little other information. We have yet to parse the iCatCard data from 2019-2020. We will continue to see if we can learn more about our library users. Our hope is to use this information to gain a better picture of who we are (or aren’t reaching) in order to help us target our outreach efforts and follow-up on library impact. Note: Gathering this data may present some challenges in the near future. For instance, in fall 2020 we will not be using iCatCard check-in due to remote instruction.
Digital Curation and Scholarship
Organizational Sustainability
As a learning organization committed to ongoing quality improvement, the Library will:
Outcomes:
Research and Learning Services
Goal: Make stats more easily accessible for planning, reporting, and analysis e.g. via Tableau.
Historical and current statistics capturing Research & Learning Services’ reference and instruction statistics are currently housed in a Tableau dashboard created on our behalf by Edmund Leung of the campus’ Institutional Research and Decision Support (IRDS) office. Kelli Abrescy prepared R&LS data for entry and provided feedback on dashboard iterations. Some statistics will be made fully available to the public while other stats will require a library staff member to login for viewing. Library staff will be able to easily pull stats for program reviews, analysis of trends, and other reporting purposes. The dashboard is still in draft form but will be available by the end of 2020 for embedding on our library website and for general use. Future R&LS stats will be added to a master spreadsheet, stored in Box. Tableau will be able to periodically pull in this new data for display. Stats made available in this way will not only improve our ability to provide accurate and timely stats but also will minimize the time needed to maintain ongoing stats.
Goal: Recruit and onboard Instruction & Outreach Librarian
In summer 2019, we launched a recruitment for our Instruction & Outreach Librarian position. Our search committee consisted of five library staff members: Jim Dooley; Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco; Joe Ameen; Kelli Abrescy; and Sara Davidson Squibb as chair. We proceeded with an initial set of Zoom interviews in October 2019 and then invited three candidates for an in-person visit in November 2019. We extended an offer in December to Olivia Olivares who started at UC Merced on February 3, 2020. Olivia joined us from St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. She brought extensive experience with liaison work, outreach, instruction, and business librarianship. As per our organization’s onboarding process, Olivia met with numerous members of the organization to learn more about the library’s services and resources. Additional onboarding included observing library sessions hosted by colleagues, attending local professional development workshops, and meeting regularly with individuals from Research & Learning Services.
Digital Curation and Scholarship
Spatial Analysis and Research Center (SpARC)
Community Engagement
As a research organization committed to building strategic collaborations, the Library will:
Outcomes:
UC Merced Library Research and Learning Services
Goal: Provide workshop offerings focused on helping researchers work with data.
During the 19-20 AY, the R&LS group offered a series of workshops introducing data resources, tools, and data literacy competencies, to support undergraduate and graduate student research. A number of these workshops complimented and were promoted alongside workshops offered by the Digital Scholarship & Curation unit. Over the 19-20 AY, the R&LS group offered a total of 16 individual workshops covering 8 different data focused topics, to 52 student, staff and faculty participants.
Goal: Build relationships and connections with faculty through targeted communications, department visits and event attendance.
This year has seen a continuation of our efforts to reach out to faculty as liaisons and in other capacities. All Research & Learning Services librarians serve as liaisons to various departments, providing information to both faculty and to graduate groups. Information has been provided in various forms including newsletters, informal emails, targeted email communications, and informal networking. We also collaborated with others on campus, including by participating in continued instruction and planning work with the Merritt Writing Program and the Carpentries. Though currently on hiatus, the Faculty Author Series partnered with various faculty members up through Fall of 2019 to showcase faculty scholarship and work.
Exhibits:
Talks:
Events:
1. Faculty Networking Hour in Celebration of Open Access Week, October 23, 2019.
Development Activities:
Digital Curation & Scholarship:
Copyright @ The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
