Executive Summary

Libraries are important campus intellectual centers, offering facilities for collaborative research, the integration of digital resources in teaching and learning, the housing of rare and unpublished materials, and exhibitions and programs that bring the community closer to collections and resources that shape and inform societal issues and concerns. Superior research libraries in the twenty-first century must provide not only general collections, but also an integrated and innovative network of digital resources, and special and archival research materials that are the foundation for innovative teaching and scholarship.

In the past two decades, the Emory Libraries have built strong special collections, led collaborative digitization projects, and hosted programs and events that promote the vision of Emory University as a unique learning community. Emory students have the opportunity to use abundant primary materials, state-of-the-art digital resources, and growing general collections in the libraries. The libraries increase the value of these materials by partnering with faculty to instruct students how to identify, evaluate, and effectively apply information for scholarship and citizenship.

During this time, the Emory Libraries have distinguished themselves as leaders in two key areas. First, Emory has emerged as a leader in the development of tools for linking and providing access to digital collections and in building national digital library network. Second, Emory has acquired special collections in modern literature and African American culture that are among the most distinguished in the world.

The Emory Libraries aspire to continue to play a leadership role in building a national digital library network, supporting innovative technology initiatives, and developing premier research collections and instructional programs that make the library a destination for students and scholars. In the next five to ten years the Emory Libraries will focus on improvements in the following areas:

• Research collections                
• Humanities research center
• Digital library programs
• Teaching and learning
• Scholarly research and communication
• The Library as place
• The Library in the community

The goal for building research collections is far reaching and is at the very core of the mission of a research library: acquiring and providing access to the resources needed for research and teaching, supporting the growth of new knowledge, and assuring the preservation of old and new knowledge, carried out in a planned way in coordination with all university libraries and partner institutions.

The acquisition of new collections is a complex process, involving licensing electronic resources, adding new print and non-print published collections, negotiating for unique and rare materials in archives and rare book collections, developing new collections of digital materials from the library’s own print collections, and preserving and cataloging all of these materials. This goal focuses on the library’s general collections.

This goal focuses on the manuscripts, archives, and rare book collections (unique and rare research resources) as a center of excellence for the university and the foundation, with faculty and academic department partners, of a humanities research center at Emory.

A major strategic plan focus is the expansion of the library’s digital programs, building on the outstanding and nationally recognized digital research programs that are now a center of excellence at Emory. Digital initiatives have their core leadership and coordination in the Digital Programs and Systems Division, but are distributed throughout the library’s services and programs, in MARBL, Technical Services, Preservation, Beck Center, and Collection Management and coordinated with ITD and other Emory libraries. Digital programs truly involve the entire library but require strong leadership, direction, and coordination from Digital Programs and Systems.

The library’s User Services Division, MARBL, University Archives and Records Management, Goizueta Business Library, and Access Services Division, supported by Digital Programs and Systems, Technical Services, and the University’s AAIT (Academic and Administrative IT) division have collaborated on a range of important projects that support strategic plan initiatives for teaching and learning.

This goal looks toward a greater involvement of the libraries in partnering with faculty in research and scholarship in the digital environment, promoting active involvement of librarians in scholarship, and placing the library as a vehicle for communications with faculty about scholarly communications issues.

The library’s strategic plan calls for developing spaces that respond to user needs and requests, since we know that students and faculty use the library for many different purposes (study, classes, research, lectures, meetings, social environment), and for new program needs to support digital programs, scholarship, and projects. The library is a community space serving many different functions and is no longer simply a place to study and house collections. We made changes in the library spaces (internal and external during the year) and began planning for other major changes.

These changes reflect new library initiatives, responses to university needs and requests, and responses to opportunities. In every case, the library’s building administrator, security staff, and facilities staff were intimately involved and bore significant responsibilities for the outcomes of these changes. In all space projects involving collections and services , many areas of the library’s operations, other than those directly involved, were significantly engaged and affected (Technical Services, Access Services, User Services, EUCLID support, Preservation). Although it is impossible to mention all of the operational impact of space changes, it must be noted and remembered that all library operations are dependent on each other and that no change is made without the hard work and dedication of many.

The strategic plan calls attention to the importance of public programming for education and expansion of the support base for the library. Public programming, in its broadest sense, is a part of the overall development program of the library while also fulfilling the university’s mission for engaged scholars and the dissemination of knowledge. The library’s public programs engage students, faculty, librarians, and members of the general public in important exhibitions and conferences that highlight library collections and promote learning and research.