Fall 2012: Greetings from the Dean

September 2012—On behalf of the staff of Raynor Memorial Libraries, I want to welcome all of you to a new year at Marquette University. I especially want to reach out to those who are new to the university, whether you are new to the student body, faculty, or staff at Marquette. As you will read elsewhere in this newsletter, this is an exciting season for the Libraries—celebrating The Hobbit's anniversary, hosting events in the Freedom Project, and welcoming four new librarians to our staff.

• If you are new to campus, we hope that you will find that the qualities that are Marquette are reflected in our mission, services, and resources that support the academic experience in teaching, learning, and scholarship. Our statistics only tell part of the story, but they reflect the synergy that we believe is crucial to learning outside of the classroom.
  • Almost 76,000 items were checked out last year by the Marquette community, plus an additional 75,000 class reserves.
• • More than 19,000 questions were answered by staff at the Information Desk.
• • More than 16,000 users accessed materials in our special collections and archives.
• • More than 5,600 people—mostly students—attended 316 instruction and orientation sessions presented by librarians.
• • Five hundred and fifty individual research consultations were conducted by librarians.
  • More than 3.3 million searches were conducted in our online databases, yielding 11.9 million full text retrievals of articles and other materials.
• • The Libraries' website recorded 4.7 million page views, averaging 13,052 page views per day. Many of these users took advantage of our collection of 1.2 million e-books and 34,000 online journals and magazines.
  • Print is certainly not dead at Raynor Memorial Libraries, with a collection of more than 1.7 million print volumes, as well as other printed materials in our regular and special collections.
  • Our turnstile count exceeded 659,000 visitors last year, which is only about 7% of the total pages viewed on our website!
  

What’s In a Name: the Kimberly-Clark Learning Commons
Maybe it’s because we are located in the center of the campus, but you will find Raynor Memorial to be heavily used by the Marquette community. As you walk through our physical doors, you will notice a new sign above the Information Desk announcing The Kimberly-Clark Learning Commons. The new name for Raynor Library's public user areas (formerly Kimberly-Clark Information Commons), highlights the proactive involvement of our services to engage faculty and students beyond information, as we aspire to connect information to the active process of learning.
Two leaders in our field have suggested that, in academic libraries, the learning function of the information commons has become more significant and that the dynamic environment we have created and seek to sustain is really a learning commons. As we engage more with faculty and employ more learning principles in our information literacy initiatives, learning becomes our aspiration.

Our Digital Media Studio
When you visit the Learning Commons, be sure to investigate the Digital Media Studio. Raynor Memorial Libraries support digital media production for Marquette students by providing equipment, work space, and assistance for creating and producing multimedia projects and presentations. The Digital Media Studio includes both Mac and PC workstations with an array of software applications. You can find more details online

Strategic Planning at Raynor Memorial Libraries
We are excited to announce "Information, Integration, Innovation," our strategic plan for the years 2012-2015. In the coming months you will see us implement our commitment to the four strategic priorities: Collections, Teaching and Learning, Engagement, and Organizational Development and Effectiveness. To read the specifics, you can find our Strategic Plan online.

We look forward to your next visit to Raynor Memorial Libraries – and wish you the very best in the new academic year.

Janice Welburn, Dean
University Libraries