Vision, Mission, and Goals

Vision

The University Libraries are a strategic asset for the University, providing intellectual leadership and extraordinary information experiences toward the advancement of knowledge.

Mission

The University Libraries inspire learning and discovery through information resources, collaboration, and expertise.

Strategic Directions for 2011-2013

Over the course of the 2009-2010 academic year, the Libraries engaged in a planning process that began with the identification of strategic themes. Internationally recognized experts were then invited to consult in these areas and to engage the organization broadly through open presentations, focused discussions with staff working groups, and meetings with relevant University leadership.

Supplementary input was received via campus governance groups, collegiate meetings, and more focused formal assessments. This planning process identified the following areas of strategic importance for priority attention: read the full report in PDF form, or the strategic themes and goals below.

Content & Collections: Stewardship in a Global Context

The rapid evolution of digital publishing, coupled with trusted mechanisms for accessing and preserving digital content (e.g., the HathiTrust), offer significant opportunity to explore new and collaborative approaches to collection development and management. In the context of continued inflation and constrained budgets, the Libraries are challenged to refine collecting strategies, while providing cost-effective stewardship for legacy collections.

Goal

The Libraries will provide for contemporary and future research by developing collections that support campus programs and by collaborating with other institutions to manage, preserve, and share distinctive resources for a global community of scholars.

Strategies

• Refine collecting profiles to align with contemporary campus priorities and available funding. Develop, preserve, and provide enhanced access to collections of distinction.
• Leverage the Committee on Institutional Cooperation’s (CIC) cooperative licensing capacity to pursue deep discounts through consortium-wide contracts with major publishers.
• Increase Libraries’ capacity to preserve and manage print and digital collections to ensure enduring access by developing a program of preservation and conservation and collaborating with cultural organizations in the development of infrastructure to preserve digital collections.
• Pursue opportunities to collaborate with academic and commercial partners, including shared print storage and digital initiatives within the CIC.
• Contribute to the development of the HathiTrust digital preservation program.

Access: Enabling Robust Information Discovery and Delivery

The Libraries’ classic methods of providing information access through local catalogs and systems have undergone fundamental changes in the context of new models of distributing and accessing content. At the same time, the changing expectations for delivery among students and faculty have been profoundly influenced by prominent players such as Google, Amazon, and WorldCat. This has led the Libraries to recalibrate its critical and useful role in scholarly inquiry in the context of global information networks.

Goal

The Libraries will enhance online information discovery and delivery by providing services that are portable and personalized, open to the world’s information network, and integrated into the teaching, learning, and research environments of our users.

Strategies

• Systematically integrate University of Minnesota Libraries’ content and collections into global network discovery services, while “opening the door” of our local systems to the world’s information network.
• Implement identity management strategies that enable users to navigate seamlessly between campus and external services.
• Enhance information discovery systems so they can be tailored to support discipline-specific research methodologies.
• Streamline the path between the search for information (electronic and print) and its delivery.
• Provide low-barrier connections between content systems and tools that support personal information management and analysis.

Research and Scholarship: Enhancing Individual Productivity and Community Discourse

Methods of scholarship have changed in the context of greater interdisciplinarity, collaboration beyond institutional borders, and exploitation of technology. The Libraries are challenged to support emergent methodologies, working collaboratively with campus and institutional partners. With the rise of new models for creating, sharing, and managing scholarly materials comes increasing demand for support of both the processes and products of scholarship. The Libraries support the evolution of these processes and play a lead role in educating the campus about issues of copyright and publishing policy.

Goal

The Libraries will play an instrumental role in sparking discovery, creativity, and innovation by advancing research and scholarship processes that allow for the unfettered flow of knowledge creation and sharing.

Strategies

• Extend research consultation services to help researchers manage, preserve, and share publications and research assets and data.
• Leverage Libraries’ existing technology, expertise, and partnerships to develop digital content management and publishing solutions.
• Advocate for author publishing choices that align with academic values by expanding educational programs on copyright, authors’ rights, and scholarly publishing.
• Assist individuals and academic units in assessing impact and visibility of research and scholarship.
• Leverage successful programs like the UMN-developed AgEcon Search and EthicShare to advance models of discipline-focused repositories and online communities and services within the academy.

Teaching and Learning: Strengthening Campus Capacity and Enriching Student Experience

Libraries’ collections and campus-wide licenses for digital content provide critical course resources. The Libraries’ longstanding programs to build information literacy skills are expanding through partnerships with faculty in curriculum redesign in support of the University’s competency-based learning outcomes. Integrating content, learning tools, and course-specific resources within a mature campus learning infrastructure will support and enhance place-based and online learning.

Goal

The Libraries will support education through increased integration of critical content and tools in the curriculum and through programmatic investments in physical and virtual learning environments.

Strategies

• Partner with campus units to understand faculty workflow and needs in the development of courses.
• Assist faculty with incorporating evidence-based learning, essential inquiry, and problem-solving skills into the curriculum.
• Integrate Libraries’ content and staff expertise in course management systems such as Moodle, with attention to embedded mechanisms to develop student information literacy.
• Expand cost-effective online strategies to support courses through online tutorials and system-generated Library Course Web Pages.
• Leverage Libraries’ physical spaces for campus collaborations and learning support such as the SMART Learning Commons and Institute for Health Informatics.
• Collaborate with collegiate units to share Libraries’ resources beyond campus (e.g., History Day and College in the Schools) and leverage Minitex programs to support the information needs of Minnesotans.

Organization: Developing Agility and Advancing Efficiencies

As the Libraries’ roles expand through more active engagement with academic programs and development of infrastructure, the capacities required within the organization shift as well. These trends also require new types of expertise, strategies that are inherently collaborative (within the University and within the academy), and organizational agility to reconfigure resources to respond to changing demands and a changing economic context.

Goal

Invest in staff and organizational capacity for innovation, collaboration, risk taking, and assessment to meet emerging priorities and demands.

Strategies

• Strengthen the Libraries’ assessment expertise to support ongoing evaluation of services and functions and to further workflow efficiencies.
• Develop capacities and systems for data capture and evidence-based decision making.
• Focus staff development investments to support achievement of strategic initiatives, leveraging expertise in the Libraries and on campus.
• Prepare managers to develop and realign staff expertise for new initiatives, reassignments, and working across organizational boundaries.