University Library Committee
Minutes of the Meeting of the University of Texas Libraries Committee, March 10, 2006
Attending: Lisa Griffin, Ken Ralls, George Sylvie, Michael Winship; Linda Brown, Noah Mass; Janine Henri, Peggy Mueller; Jo Anne Hawkins, Fred Heath, Dennis Dillon, Sue Phillips; Damon Jaggars, Molly White; Jocelyn Duffy (recording)
The next meeting of the committee will be on March 22 at noon in the Tom Lea Room in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. Professor Thomas F. Staley, Director of the HRC, will give a presentation. Damon Jaggars will give a short presentation about the LibQUAL+ survey and how the Libraries use the survey results. Dr. Richard W. Oram, Associate Director, will conduct a tour after the meeting.
Professor Ralls convened the meeting.
Molly White, head of the Kuehne Physics Mathematics Astronomy Library (PMA) gave a presentation [The powerpoint presentation can be obtained
here] about the PMA's collections and user community.
PMA opened in 1972 and the library serves the physics and mathematics needs for entire campus. Graduate students are the primary users of the library's resources. Undergraduate research is focused on PMA's textbook collection.
Mathematicians use the library in a manner similar to the humanities. Mathematicians study older problems and use older literature. They prefer to use printed journals rather than electronic and like to have older issues in the library, not in storage. In physics there is a lot of national and international collaboration. Physics is a large field with large projects and it produces and uses some of the most expensive science literature. Astronomy is a smaller, more contained field of study. Astronomers do not do much star gazing; instead they analyze the spectral data collected by telescopes. In addition to the resources in PMA, astronomers have their own departmental library and a library at the McDonald Observatory.
Getting an article published in the sciences can be a very protracted process. In order to communicate study results to their peers, researchers and scientists submit their papers for publication and then send pre-print copies to colleagues all over the world. Many in these fields are early adopters of information technology and several developed searchable databases that track and store pre-prints. One of the largest and most popular examples is arXiv (
http://arxiv.org/). Participation in arXiv and similar databases varies across disciplines and sub-disciplines.
Molly also discussed the creation of a study area within PMA. The library originally opened with an open-air balcony, but the balcony became a haven for pigeons and was not used by the library. Four years ago the physics department appropriated some of PMA's floor space to create a conference room. In exchange, the department helped PMA get permission to convert the balcony into study space. The University Co-op funded the construction. The College of Natural Sciences purchased the furniture and the Libraries provided the computer equipment. The space is now in constant use.
Professor George Sylvie asked about the staffing and resources at PMA. Molly described PMA as one of the smaller libraries on campus, similar to Chemistry. She said that current staffing levels are adequate.
Professor Sylvie then asked about the progress of the Libraries Annual Giving program. Fred Heath stated that the Libraries have already exceeded the goal set for this year's campaign. This prompted Professor Ralls to ask for a development update at a future meeting of the committee.
