Currents

Funding Approved for Branch Library and MARBL Feasibility Studies

Photo: Charles Forrest reviews MARBL documents.

The University has approved plans to study the feasibility of two library projects: building a new freestanding Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL) on Emory’s central campus, and building a Library Branch at Emory’s Briarcliff campus.

The study will examine the possibility of putting a new MARBL facility on the site of the Hospital Annex across Asbury Circle from the Robert W. Woodruff Library, previously the site of the Nursing School, says Charles Forrest, Emory Libraries’ director of planning and assessment. MARBL, which has been housed on the 10th floor of the Woodruff Library since 1969, is bursting at the seams, Forrest said.

“A new facility will provide spaces where students, scholars and visitors from Emory and around the world can study handwritten manuscripts of literary luminaries such as Nobel Prize-winner Seamus Heaney, British writer Salman Rushdie, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Alice Walker,” Forrest said. “MARBL’s new home will be an intersection for community, technology and groundbreaking use of rare materials, combining space for growth and exhibition of world-class collections with public programming, research and teaching.”

The proposed Library Branch will be modular and expandable, incorporating a high-density system to house physical collection resources in an environment appropriately conditioned for long-term retention, Forrest said.

“The Library Branch also will include digital production services, a digital curation center, space for selected offsite library staff operations, and necessary swing space for library expansion and renovation projects such as Woodruff Library Stack Tower renovation, and construction of a new library at Oxford College,” he noted.

Both studies are scheduled to conclude this spring, positioning the Library for fundraising and progress into the next phases of architectural design. It is hoped that the Library Branch can be built within the next two years, with construction of MARBL to follow a couple of years later, Forrest said

So after the feasibility studies are completed, what’s next?

“For MARBL, fundraising; it’s the centerpiece of the library’s campaign,” Forrest said. “For the Library Branch, I hope we can move quickly into architectural design, which could conceivably take the rest of the calendar year. The fast track schedule calls for construction during calendar 2009, with occupancy in early 2010.”

Beginning in Fall 2008, all Emory University graduate students will submit their doctoral dissertations and masters theses in electronic form for the university’s Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) database. ETD is an online, searchable repository of Emory University graduates’ research. Undergraduates completing honors theses will contribute to the online repository beginning in 2009.

The Graduate School and the Libraries teamed up two years ago to begin developing ETD. Creating such university-wide repositories of student research is a national trend that has been gaining momentum among top research universities for the last decade, says Lisa A. Tedesco, dean of the Graduate School.

“Theses and dissertations are among the most important intellectual works of the university. Sharing them can raise the profile of the university in the United States and abroad,” Tedesco said. “Putting our scholarship online is a strategic way to maximize and extend Emory’s reputation for producing leading-edge research.”

The Emory campus benefits from ETD in numerous other ways, as well. In the past, students and their advisers often waited months after graduation for theses and dissertations to reach library shelves and the ProQuest repository. With ETD, many students will find their work online just a few weeks after they leave the Emory campus as graduates. Through ETD, they will find it much easier to include audio, video, computer animation, data sets and other materials with their submissions.

From the Graduate School’s perspective, processing theses and dissertations will become more efficient since the new submission system provides automated management tools for academic tracking. And in the libraries, ETD will free shelf space for storing other materials that are not available digitally, said Rick Luce, vice provost and director of libraries.

“The ETD will be the University’s copy of record of student research, and will be carefully preserved by the libraries,” Luce said. “This will make theses and dissertations more easily accessible, allowing researchers broader and more timely access to Emory scholarship.”

Submitting research for inclusion in ETD is easy, said Paul O’Grady, project manager for the ETD program.

“Students will simply submit their work as a PDF file, along with some basic information about their research,” he said. “This information will be displayed in the ETD repository, and also transmitted to ProQuest/UMI for their database.”

O’Grady and other colleagues from the libraries will be holding information and training sessions throughout spring semester and again during fall to prepare students to submit their work, and to introduce staff to the new procedures. Sessions for students will include training from Lisa Macklin, the head of the libraries’ Office of Intellectual Property Rights, on copyright, trademark and publishing issues in the digital age.

The Graduate School offers students choices on access restriction for those who may not want their work available online immediately upon graduation. Basic information on all theses and dissertations will be listed in the ETD index. However, access to full-text can be set for immediate release or withheld for one, two or six years following graduation. Research on which patents are pending will be kept out of the repository until the necessary filings are completed.

The ETD program and related software were developed during 2006 with input from faculty members, librarians, university administrators and graduate students. A pilot program began in March 2007 among doctoral students from anthropology, art history, chemistry and epidemiology, with favorable results. The ETD repository is currently home to 30 theses and dissertations, 14 of which are available in full-text form.

Goizueta Business Library Adds Space, Computing Power

Photo: Students work on a group project in the Goizueta Business Library.

If you’ve stopped by the Goizueta Business Library (GBL) lately, you know it is almost always packed to the gills with busy students studying and completing group projects.

The upcoming comprehensive campaign for Emory University will offer the business library team the chance to renovate its space and enhance its services -- donors will sign on to name the library, as well as two multimedia rooms inside it. But in the meantime, the business library team has created opportunities to make some small enhancements that will pave the way for the larger ones, said Susan Klopper, director of the GBL.

“All of these smaller activities support the long-term naming opportunities for the library. When those are funded and the time for large-scale renovation comes, we will have tested our ideas and we’ll have data to support our theories about how the GBL should be configured to best serve our users,” she said.

Smartboard Was Smart Move for Goizueta Business Library

Photo: Students use the Smartboard in the business library.

When Susan Klopper, director of the Goizueta Business Library (GBL), heard that Academic Computing needed to dispose of two Smartboards which were being removed from Woodruff Hall, she got a bright idea: Use one in GBL.

Alan Cattier, head of academic computing, was willing to offer the board to GBL for the cost of set-up and installation, which was about $1,000. That was a real bargain, considering that the orginal cost of a Smartboard, including installation, is usually $20,000, Klopper said.

“It was a deal we couldn’t pass up,” Klopper said. “Alan was incredibly gracious in offering the Smartboard to us for such a minimal investment.”

The Smartboard is quite large (12 ft. wide x 16.75 ft. high x 6.4 ft. deep) and the GBL space is limited, but the GBL team managed to fit one into the space. With help from Kim Braxton, manager of the Centers for Educational Technology, the Smartboard was installed and functioning by early August 2007, just in time for the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year. The board has been marketed to undergraduate and graduate students through the group conferences on First Class.

Intended not only to relieve some of the pressure on multi-media presentation rooms at the Goizueta Business School but also as a carrot to draw more MBA students into the library, the Smartboard has been a success, Klopper said.

“The students are using it. Not every day, all the time, but we have definitely seen in the crunch period before projects are due, it’s being used,” she said.

The board also seems to be used by the BBAs more than the MBAs, Susan noted. It’s possible that MBA student prefer more privacy, but that’s just a guess, she said.

The GBL team is evaluating use of the board and collecting student feedback as it plans for eventual renovation of the business library, Klopper noted.