102 · Survey Results: Survey Questions And Responses
Resources, time, small staff and large campus.
Space and budgetary constraints.
Special collections units meet barriers due to limitations around staffing and space. Units would prefer to have
designated areas in which to meet with faculty and classes. The addition of staff members would also help to increase
instructional initiatives around special collections.
Staffing and dedicated funding. Although we have an active public relations department in the library, we would greatly
benefit from an exhibits and publications coordinator. And, of course, from more publications, both in traditional paper
form and online. Online publications are more expensive, but they create lasting and distributed records (and reminders)
of what we have in our collections.
Sure: staff time and relevant expertise funds to support direct costs (paper, publication, postage, use of designers
or printers). As always, there is competition among a number of priorities that need to be addressed with limited
resources.
The biggest barrier we face is engaging with our own faculty. If they tend not to be interested in what we have or don’t
know about us, they tend not to emphasize our resources to their students. The other barrier we face is our location in
the building. We are on the top floor of the library, far away from the most heavily used library locations on floors 1–3
of the building.
The chief barrier in providing effective outreach is overcoming the high level of other, competing activities on campus
and how to claim attention of the University community. As a “state-related” university, we strive to engage the entire
community while being responsive to the special needs of those whose needs we are aware of. But sorting all this out in
the context of so many other university units striving to accomplish the same ends is very challenging.
The lack of a single individual charged with coordinating outreach efforts.
The last 12–18 months have been devoted to a series of moves involving the relocation of special collections from a
branch library to the main library. Current classes are taught and current relationships are maintained but little has been
done to promote additional use at this time. Publicity has been directed towards our new more centrally located reading
room. Better outreach, including a lecture series, is an issue I will be addressing in the next year or so.
The majority of our materials are not in the OPAC we have recently begun a short-title cataloging process to boost
visibility. Additionally, understaffing restricts our ability to conduct outreach.
The only barrier is the very large and decentralized environment in which we work.
The staff is small and must keep reading rooms open. In the past year, renovation has caused rooms to close at times.
Dispersion of staff at Smithsonian makes contact difficult.
Time involved in successful planning of exhibits, events, and instruction modules. However, we consider this an
important activity and two of our staff have a particular interest in the area (the Head of ASC and another professional
librarian), so we are able to motivate other staff members to contribute to research and selection required to
successfully carry out the outreach activities.
Trying to find adequate means of reaching busy faculty.
Visibility on campus. CTASC is located on the third floor of the social sciences and humanities library and we are aware
that many of our communications and promotion are key elements to remedying this and with the recent filling of the
new Digital Projects and Outreach Archivist position we expect to see huge gains in this area. We’ve concentrated on
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