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Yesterday was ISU Day at the Capitol, ISU’s opportunity each year to visit with legislators, legislative staff, and visitors to the Capitol, to demonstrate what Iowa State has to offer students, communities, and Iowans. Units from campus set up table displays in the rotunda and it is most definitely cardinal and gold all around! Cy was all over the place, sitting in important seats around the Capitol building. At our University Library table I had the opportunity to visit with many people, including legislators and staff, high school students on a tour of the Capitol building, an Iowa librarian now working for one of the legislators, and most enjoyable, a pair of ISU alums who lived in Pammel Court in the early 1970s. Of course I did not miss the opportunity to mention our Special Collections & University Archives exhibit, “For Married Students”: Building a Community in Pammel Court, 1946-1978, and encouraged them to come to campus soon.

After ISU Day at the Capitol wrapped up I attended an ISU reception for area alums and legislators in downtown Des Moines. At the reception President Leath spoke about ISU’s growth in enrollment, research funding, and impact on our state. He thanked our legislators for their support and talked about the importance of higher education and the land grant tradition. He then introduced Dr. Cathann Kress, Vice President for Extension and Outreach, who spoke about ISU’s Land Grant Legacy project. With this project Iowa is the first state in the nation to identify the land that would fund a college…the Iowa Agricultural College which eventually become Iowa State University of Science and Technology. What an exciting project for our state! Extension staff did research for this project in Special Collections & University Archives and at the State Historical Society.  During the reception I had the great fortune to speak with a woman who farms with her family on one of the original Iowa land grant farms. She was so taken with the Land Grant Legacy project that she is now involved in gathering stories from other land grant farms.  Her family’s story, and that of other land grant farm families, is being collected on ISU’s Extension and Outreach website. I encourage you to visit the Land Grant Legacy.

So many reminders of the great work we do here at ISU and the important land grant tradition. What an enjoyable day!

#landgrantlegacy @cathannkress #ISUCapitolDay

How time flies when it’s nice outside and a new academic year is getting underway. As some of you know I’ve been reluctant to call this a blog. Somehow blogging or being a blogger just didn’t set well with me. But that’s what it really is. So, here goes: I haven’t blogged lately, not because there is nothing to say, but work and life and family and activities happen and the next thing you know our basement floods, we deal with a skateboard accident and lost teeth, and here on campus we’re a month into the semester. September has been busy!

Did you know that the word blog is a combination of two words – Web and log. As the name implies, a blog is a record of information posted on the Web. There are millions of blogs out there that cover millions of topics, including Looking out my window. I’d like to introduce you – if you aren’t following already, the blogs presented by our colleagues who write about what is going on in departments around the library and in the larger library community.

Cardinal Tales: The Blog of Special Collections and University Archives at Iowa State University covers all things SCUA including a look back at the 1975-76 Cyclones men’s basketball team, World Soil Day, popcorn hybridization, the 1900 Old Main fire and Stephens Auditorium. Not only is the auditorium an architectural icon, but many noteworthy names have performed there.

Scholarly Communication @ ISU Library is a blog on scholarly communication topics written by colleagues around the library. Posts cover all-things open access, copyright, fair use and open data, to name a few. Understanding Predatory Publishers is a recent post that, as the name implies, discusses predatory publishers, how to spot scams and how to avoid them.

Parks Library Preservation is a blog about the activities in the Preservation lab and department. Staff write about preservation techniques, digital initiatives, visitors to the lab and even RAGBRAI (Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa).

Follow these blogs and let the post writers know what you like.

For the next couple of months we’ll host an open meeting each week about the Library Space Feasibility Study, or LSFS2016 as I like to call it. Attendance is optional, but anyone who is interested is welcome!  At the first of these sessions last Friday we covered the goals, overall schedule, recent updates, and rumors and myths, and wrapped up with Q&A. I expect the next couple of sessions will be similar, with some time for a focused conversation on a particular related topic. We’ll post the PowerPoint, probably on CyPoint. In the meantime, here are questions raised during Q&A at Friday’s session, with some answers:

1.More study space means less space for collections, right? Maybe, but not necessarily. It could mean other locations for our collections outside of Parks, or more efficient use of our current study space and collection space.

2.Are Design RR and VetMed library included and what about other spaces on campus? We are having conversations with Dean Nolan and Dean Rico-Guttierez about Design and VM library spaces, and those efforts are related to but separate from this project. As for other places on campus – we continue to seek additional space for shelving/storing library collections.

3.If we have such a space concern why are we inviting other campus units and staff into Parks? All of campus is feeling the space crunch. Sharing space in Parks with ITS and with the Provost office (for the 3 advisors) provides our campus community with two important services in the Library. Partnering and collaborating with others to meet campus needs positions us well for the future.

4.What is our current use of space vs ideal use vs what P+W firm knows of other university libraries? Good question!   We’ll ask P+W this question. Currently, FP&M’s space survey allocates Parks’ spaces like this:  38.2% Collections; 29.0% Public Spaces; 16.1% Staff Spaces; 15.4% Utilities, hallways, bathrooms, stairwells, etc., and 1.4% Partners

5.Will P+W do the actual plans as well as the space feasibility study?  Possibly, but not necessarily. This is a feasibility project. Developing actual plans would be a new project and a new/separate RFP, etc. We have asked P+W to provide a report or proposal that we can implement in phases, as we have funding. It is possible that P+W could be a firm that we work with again on one or more of the phases but that is unknown at this time.

6.What will be the location of the Student Innovation Center?  The Student Innovation Center will be located North-West of the water tower and south of Sweeney, where the Nuclear Engineering lab is located.

7.Is expanding Parks a possibility? What about expanding up?  Expanding beyond our current footprint is unlikely. The possibility of expanding up is being investigated.

8.Do we really have a bathroom shortage?  Not exactly a shortage, but we do have a bathroom problem. Our restrooms need to be updated to meet current standards and code.  According to building occupancy calculations we actually have enough of them, they just aren’t in the most ideal locations and they need to be updated.

Parks Library is a beautiful building and a popular location for ISU students. Our staff provide consistently excellent assistance to students, faculty, and the visitors who walk through our doors and visit our website each day. And this puts us in a good position to consider what’s next – what else we may want to do meet the library information and research needs of our campus. This feasibility study affords us the opportunity to ask questions, study spaces, and gain an external, professional opinion – through the report – on what Parks Library could be.

The LSFS Steering Committee wants this to be as transparent a process and project as possible, which is partially the reason for the information/input sessions. So, I hope you will let me know if you have any questions about anything I said or didn’t say last Friday.  E-mail or ask me this week – Thursday, July 21, at 11am, when we’ll do this again.

 

Summer and travel

I can tell it’s summer by the thermometer and all the students on campus for #IowaStateORI! I hope you are able to enjoy some vacation and time with friends and family. Our schedule at home is relaxing a bit, as our boys finished soccer last week and will be finished with baseball by this Friday. Both are looking forward to swimming and fun with their friends in our neighborhood.

Here on campus, though, summer is turning out to be a busier time than I had expected. I plan to attend ALA later this month, in July I’ll travel to Charlottesville, VA for the SHARE Community meeting, and then in August I’m heading to UCLA for the National Diversity in Libraries conference. I am hoping to fit in some visits with our library supporters during these trips. I’m especially looking forward to some family touring time with Wes and the boys when we visit Rocky Mountain National Park in July. Thank you to everyone who has recommended places for us to visit during that adventure.

P+W and library space

The University Library has partnered with Perkins + Will, an architecture firm located in Chicago, Ill. A large firm with 23 offices around the US and the world, they have a lot of experience and have helped numerous clients execute successful projects like what we are asking them to do for us. Libraries they have worked with include those at Stanford, Clemson, Duke, and Wake Forest. Also of note, a number of P+W interns, designers, architects and principals are alumni of the Iowa State architecture program.

In the coming weeks, there will be opportunities to meet and exchange ideas with members of the P+W team when they visit campus. An open meeting with all interested library staff is being planned for their mid-July campus visit. And, in between their visits I will host discussions for interested staff on a variety of space-related topics. Please watch for announcements about the upcoming meetings and open sessions. After our people and collections, library buildings and spaces are our most valuable asset. The University Library and our spaces around campus are vitally important to student success, and the goal of this project is to assess how we utilize our space and then seek ways to make improvements for everyone. As I’ve said from the day I arrived, I appreciate and welcome your input. Our success depends on you!