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Message from the Dean: Re-Imagining Academic Librarianship | |
 In July 2010, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) launched its Red Balloon Project: Re-Imagining Undergraduate Education. The inspiration for the Red Balloon moniker came from a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contest that challenged any individual or team to be the first to locate ten red weather balloons placed in random locations throughout the United States. The $40,000 reward was won by a team from MIT in 8 hours and 52 minutes using the Internet, social networking, shared expertise, and team work. In his white paper introducing the Red Balloon initiative, George L. Mehaffy, AASCU's Vice President for Academic Leadership and Change, argues that this experiment captures the essence of his thesis that higher education is in crisis and must use its collective wisdom to reinvent institutional structures in order to meet the demands of teaching and learning in the information age.
At IPFW, the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs began the fall 2010 semester with a challenge to faculty, librarians, deans, and academic administrators to envision new models of institutional organization, enrollment management, faculty work, curriculum requirements, and course and instructional design. Librarians at IPFW recognized the challenges identified in the Red Balloon project and felt particularly qualified to join the debate. In spring 2011, IPFW Helmke librarians drafted a response to AASCU's white paper on re-imagining undergraduate education adding the academic librarian perspective to the debate on the future of higher education in the United States.
Our response focused on maximizing campus resources through effective use of library facilities and resources, e.g. developing the Learning Commons as a significant teaching and learning space outside the classroom, and working with faculty to deploy new technology effectively in teaching and learning, especially as it relates to information literacy. A re-defined academic library is vital to a re-imagined undergraduate education.
Over 600,000 people visited the virtual and physical IPFW Helmke Library in 2011. In the year ahead the library will continue its efforts to re-imagine and re-tool the academic library in support of IPFW's academic mission and the academic success of its students and faculty.
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| IPFW Learning Commons | |
 The year 2011 was marked by new services for students, faculty and staff, new resources, new library faculty and new collaborations across the campus. Notably, the Learning Commons was opened for operation in August 2011 and the entire Student Services Complex, including the stunning Learning Commons skybridge, opened November 15, 2011. The new Learning Commons environment on the library's second floor is being designed to foster social scholarship. During summer 2011, the Writing Center and the librarian's research consulting service moved into residence in the Learning Commons. The proximity of the Writing Center and the library's Information and Instructional Services librarians has sparked a new synergy and a convenient melding of complementary services for students and faculty. The integration of the Writing Center services with the library's information literacy initiatives creates a continuum of building blocks towards academic success. Information Literacy (the ability to find, evaluate and use information) is one of the key factors that contributes to academic achievement, retention and degree attainment. Refined assessment tools will reflect the successes of this collaboration in the Learning Commons.
One of the cornerstones in building the Learning Commons is its facilitation of successful student-student, student-staff, and student-faculty interaction. Additionally, the new cross-trained student staff added in the Learning Commons -- the Learning Commons consultants --augment the group of student employees in the library as a knowledgeable, in-house 'advisory' group which can give us a window into student needs and priorities and the impact of interactions on student success.
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| Information Literacy |
 The academic program of the library is information literacy. Based on the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, the library's goal for every information user -- students, faculty, staff and community members -- is to foster the information literacy which will carry through college, the work place and daily life decisions.
As stated by the ACRL: "Information literacy forms the basis for lifelong learning. It is common to all disciplines, to all learning environments, and to all levels of education. It enables learners to master content and extend their investigations, become more self-directed, and assume greater control over their own learning."
In all librarian classroom teaching, reference consultations, orientations and outreach, the components of information literacy include determining the extent of information needed and accessing it effectively, evaluating the information and its sources critically, and using information ethically and legally.
The library continues to target information literacy programs for both first 30-hour students and students at all stages. Librarians launched new online research guides, created new online tutorials and tailored classroom presentations for departments.
Improved technologies such as streamlined navigation on the library's Web site (under development), mobile reference, IM chat, and use of social media are among the library's outreach efforts. Find us on Twitter @IPFWlibrary or on Facebook.
We look forward to continued collaboration with faculty to insure academic success for all IPFW students.
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| Collaborations and Partnerships |
 The library continued its efforts to collaborate across the campus and northeast Indiana community to provide increased exposure and access to IPFW's academic assets. The library partnered with the Office of Student Affairs to purchase soft furniture for the second floor and laptops for checkout, to staff the library 24/7 during the last two weeks of the semester, and to provide coffee and nutritious snacks during finals week. The Featured Faculty lectures, Supplemental Instruction sessions, and the Undergraduate History Conference were hosted in the library. With its community partners, the library supported the re-location of the northeast Indiana's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transexual Library and Archives into Helmke Library space, hosted the Foundation for Art and Music in Education (FAME) exhibit, and continued its partnership with the Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Society for digitizing local history materials. |
| Movers and Shakers |
 The library's five-year strategic plan ended in 2011; the past five years have been filled with improvements and moves, both physical and virtual. The university archives are now in residence in the basement of the library. The library's collections have also been moving, off the second floor to clear space for the Learning Commons, and onto floors three and four as a multi-year weeding and shifting project draws to a successful close. The library collection, increasingly electronic, matches academic programs and priorities. Through consortial agreements with other academic libraries IPFW now has access to over 60,000 electronic journals and databases and over 150,000 e-books. When materials not in Helmke's collection are needed by students or faculty, the stellar Document Delivery Service locates and delivers materials from other Indiana, national or international libraries to the user's hands within days. In 2011, over 32,000 items were obtained from other libraries and institutions for IPFW students and faculty. 
In a virtual move comparable in scope to the collection weeding and moving, the library's Web site begins its migration to the campus dotCMS platform. The web re-design offers an opportunity to streamline website navigation and content.
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| Spotlight on Expanded Student-Centered Resources and Services | |
- Adopted IM information service after successful pilot
- Added new online platform, LibGuides, for creating course-specific and subject research guides that include Web 2.0 features to enhance interaction with students
- Added online tutorials for FIND IT, IUCAT Request Delivery, and Is Your Book Scholarly?
- Increased contact hours with students through:
- New library orientation for Residence Halls Assistants
- New library orientation for international students
- New library orientation, Helmke@Warsaw, for Warsaw students and faculty
- New library orientation for Upward Bound Bridge and Summer Bridge Connection
- Library Mastodon Minute produced for IPFW Cribs video aired during Freshmen Fest
- Partnered with IPSGA, Academic Affairs and Student Affairs in the first Speeding Ticket, Graduation: Your First Lane to Success program
- Highlighted student research accomplishments by adding to Opus: Research & Creativity at IPFW:
- 2010 & 2011 ORES Student Research and Creative Endeavor Symposium
- 2010 & 2011 IPFW Department of History Undergraduate Conference
- School of Engineering, Technology and Computer Science Capstone Projects, 1987-2007
- Provided mobile information services in Writing Center and Nursing classroom lab
- Added laptop checkout program
- Added two group study rooms equipped with white board and student open-access workstation
- QR codes placed around campus provide quick mobile access to library hours and computer/study room availability
- Added modular furniture selected by students and purchased by IPSGA to provide individual, comfortable, ergonomic study places
- Designed and designated entire third floor as a Quiet Study Zone
- Expanded library hours to 24/7 during study and finals weeks and offered coffee and healthy snacks during finals week
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| Spotlight on Expanded Resources and Services for Faculty | |
- Implemented IPFW's institutional repository, Opus: Research & Creativity at IPFW, in support of the university's mission to raise IPFW's national profile through open access to the academic and creative accomplishments of its faculty and students
- Added first online journal to Opus. The scholarlypartnershipsedu is a scholarly peer-reviewed journal supported by the Scholar-Practitioner Center for the Advancement of Educational Leadership and Learning Organizations in the IPFW School of Education.
- Sponsored and hosted first IPFW Faculty Author Series
- Added new online platform for creating course-specific and subject research guides (LibGuides) that include Web 2.0 features to enhance interaction with students and faculty
- Added librarian liaison for College of Engineering, Technology and Computer Science
- Provided training for EndNote and Zotero software
- Offered citation searching workshops as part of campus promotion & tenure workshops
- Worked with Nursing faculty to develop an online informatics module for graduate students
- Provided support for accreditation reviews in Engineering, College of ETCS, Nursing graduate program, and Theatre
- Provided library orientation for graduate teaching assistants
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| Spotlight on Expanded Resources and Services for Campus and Community | |
The library's historic engagement with departments, individuals, and the community was singled out as one of fifteen examples highlighted in IPFW's successful Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Community Engagement Classification application.
In 2011, the library:
- Hosted Featured Faculty lecture series
- Hosted University Religious Forum
- Hosted Career Services Assistance
- Hosted Supplemental Instruction sessions
- Supported re-location of northeast Indiana's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transsexual Library and Archives on IPFW campus. The Northeast Indiana Diversity Library, located in the basement level of the library building.
- Continued partnership with Allen County - Fort Wayne Historical Society to digitize historical materials
- Hosted Foundation for Art and Music in Education (FAME) exhibit
- Added over 40,000 items and four new collections to mDON, the university's digital library. Among the new items in mDON are:
- College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Lecture Series: The series began in 1982 and spans all disciplines in the College of Arts and Sciences. The collection includes video and print material from many of the presentations dating back to 1989
- Omnibus Lecture Series Collection:a compilation of print material -- brochures, speaker programs and posters dating back to 1995, with video from the majority of Omnibus lectures beginning with the 2007-2008 season
- Political Memorabilia Collection: Indiana campaign materials as donated to and collected by the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics
- Fort Wayne Area History Collection: Publications pertaining to Fort Wayne area history from earliest encounters between European settlers and the Miami Indians to industrialization during the first part of the twentieth century including social and cultural life, political affairs, and economic prosperity and hardship. The collection contains a rich assortment of maps, illustrations and letters as well as a biographical dictionary with more than 1,000 sketches of prominent figures in Fort Wayne history
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| Selected New Library Resources |
 American History in Video: One of the largest collections of videos for the study of American history that can be streamed instantly over the Internet- American Song: An eclectic collection of music from Americans of diverse origins and all walks of life, from America's past and present, can be searched in the database and played online
- ArtStor: A nonprofit digital library of more than one million images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and social sciences. Software tools allow users to view, zoom in on and pan images as well as print, save, and download images
- Brill E-Books, Global Oriental Imprints collection: Global Oriental is the only UK publisher dedicated to the study of the regions of East Asia and Central Asia. Global Oriental is recognized for the depth and quality of its list which totals some 200 titles
- Ethnographic Video Online: Provides the largest, most comprehensive resource for the study of human culture and behavior -- more than 750 hours and 1,000 films. The collection covers every region of the world and features the work of many of the most influential documentary filmmakers of the 20th century, including interviews, previously unreleased raw footage, field notes, study guides, and more
- Jazz Music Library: The largest and most comprehensive collection of streaming jazz available online -- with thousands of jazz artists, ensembles, albums, and genres. Over 10,601 albums and 131,431 tracks
- LibraryMusicSource.com: The largest collection of Western Classical sheet music ever assembled with access and command of over 300,000 pages of sheet music from over 35,000 works
- Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts: Provides international coverage in linguistics and related disciplines including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and descriptive, historical, comparative, theoretical and geographical linguistics. Abstracts for articles and book reviews in over 1,500 journals, as well as books, book chapters and dissertations
- Wiley Online Library: The online content service from John Wiley & Sons delivering the full text of over 1300 leading scientific, technical, medical, and professional journals and over 800 books
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