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Rider University Libraries

Libraries Mission, Vision, and Strategic Plan

 

Mission:
Rider University Libraries are committed to student success by supporting education and research through services that provide convenient, reliable, and purposeful access to information resources for the entire Rider Community.

Vision:
Rider University Libraries strive to be at the center of intellectual life of the University.

Strategic Plan:

Archives

  1. Goal: Ensure the long-term physical preservation of collections to support research, accessibility, and academic success for the Rider community and outside researchers.
    1. Objective 1: Establish conservation measures for the Moore and Talbott Archives—including creating a new physical space or improving current physical spaces with better climate control, organization, and security.
  2. Goal: Ensure Archival collections are complete, up-to-date, and comprehensive in order to fulfill reference requests from the Rider community and outside researchers.
    1. Objective 1: Establish measures for the Moore and Talbott Archives to receive, periodically and in a timely manner, all University-related materials including photographs and audiovisual recordings. Also, to receive any backlogs of such materials.
  3. Goal: Ensure easy access to all collections through the use of updated and sufficient integrated technology so that all collections can be readily discovered.
    1. Objective 1: Create better access to Moore Archives by improving databases and software.
  4. Goal: Provide adequate Archives staffing to ensure stewardship and long-term care of the collections as well as expert reference service for the Archives.
    1. Objective 1: Fill Talbott Library’s currently open Special Collections/Archives Librarian position, so that the Archives has a full-time Faculty member responsible for overseeing the collection, providing reference services, and supervision of all Archives related work.
    2. Objective 2: Hiring a permanent staff member is also needed to continue the digitization project and process other Special Collections/Archives related work.

Articulating our Value

  1. Goal: Promote the use of the Library and its significance to student success by communicating our personnel, services, resources, and their relevance.
    1. Objective 1: Form an events committee that includes representatives from all Library stakeholders (including the Library Faculty, Staff, and Library Ambassadors), creating an environment of diversity and collegiality.
    2. Objective 2: Create a master calendar for the events that will be held in the Library and promote the events via campus websites, news, posters, email, and other web platforms the University adopts.
    3. Objective 3: Increase involvement and participation in all major University events, such as Open House, New Student Orientation, Honor Convocation, and Commencement.
      1. Partner with Admissions tours to educate the students about the services available for them at the Libraries.
      2. Coordinate with Dean of Students Office to have a Library session as part of the new student orientation sessions.
      3. Distribute a Libraries’ newsletter to all new students and guests to inspire them to explore the Library’s resource further.
  2. Goal: Increase presence on campus through the development of outreach events outside and inside the Library.
    1. Objective 1: Work with the Library Ambassadors to participate at different events within the Library.
    2. Objective 2: Expand programming that addresses specific needs of commuting, transfer, veteran, and Continuing Studies students.
  3. Goal: Expand the students’ learning outside of the classroom with special events that promote engaged learning.
    1. Objective 1: Develop partnerships with other organizations on the Rider campus to host events in the Library such as the Bronc Radio Station, the Shared Read Program, the Rider/Westminster Alumni, Vale Events, and Independent Scholarship & Creative Activities Program (ISCAP) Day.
  4. Goal: Increase Faculty, Staff, Students, and Administrators’ awareness of Library resources and services.
    1. Objective 1: Utilize data (e.g. gate counts, electronic resources usage, RIP stats, surveys, and etc.) to create a complete picture of Rider University Libraries’ effectiveness.
    2. Objective 2: Create surveys tailored to Faculty, Staff, Students, and Administrators to assess current awareness.
    3. Objective 3: Create brief presentations specifically for staff meetings.
    4. Objective 4: Create talking points for annual individual meetings with Deans.
    5. Objective 5: Spread awareness to staff about their Library borrowing privileges and collections.
    6. Objective 6: Participate in campus activities (student, faculty, staff) such as orientations and “Take Your Child to Work” day.
  5. Goal: Enhance the patron experience by expanding the customer service expectations, skills, and knowledge of those working the service desks.
    1. Objective 1: Greet the patron to make them feel welcome.
    2. Objective 2: Maintain positive presence and supportive attitude in assisting patrons.
  6. Goal: Establish partnership with University Advancement to enhance the value of the Libraries to the University and to support Library initiatives.

Collection Development

  1. Goal: Support the current and upcoming curricular and learning needs of the University.
    1. Objective 1: Review and update current collection development policies, as they directly relate to supporting current and emerging programs, and considering trends in the information ecosystem and questions of access and user experience and needs, e.g., e-resources vs. print (books, serials, audio, and video); purchasing vs. licensing.
    2. Objective 2: Review and assess existing collections and programs and support new programs, considering factors including the growth of the collection, particularly in newer areas of inquiry; accreditation; consortial arrangements/NJ Library holdings; usage statistics/analytics; quantitative and qualitative assessment; Resource Impact Statements; current and potential collaborators; and user experience and needs.
    3. Objective 3: Establish regular communication with departments/faculty to address their particular information needs.
  2. Goal: Promote our collections and maximize accessibility and discoverability of our purchased, subscribed, or open-access materials.
    1. Objective 1: Assess, streamline, and innovate workflows for access to purchased, subscribed, or borrowed materials. Facilitate information sharing between ILL/document delivery and collection development.
    2. Objective 2: Promote to faculty/patrons the availability of purchase requests/fulfillment.
    3. Objective 3: Explore customer-based/patron-driven collection development.
    4. Objective 4: Improve the discoverability of our purchased and subscribed collections and their relationship to/transparency with curated Open Access collections (included in EDS or in loaded into the catalog, e.g., JSTOR Open Access books).
    5. Objective 5: Explore synergies with OER and Scholarly Communications issues.

Information Literacy

  1. Goal: Continue to refine and enhance the research instruction program.
    1. Objective 1: Assess instruction sessions, reference/research help interactions, and workshops.
    2. Objective 2: Analyze and incorporate assessment feedback into our instruction planning and preparation.
    3. Objective 3: Foster a student-centered, active learning environment where students are motivated and responsible for their own learning.
    4. Objective 4: Promote and advocate inquiry by helping learners engage deeply in research topics by critically analyzing sources and their authority.
    5. Objective 5: Track students’ experience through our Research Instruction Program.
    6. Objective 6: Continue to collect accurate statistics on all forms of Library instruction (consider tracking # enrolled and # in attendance).
  2. Promote information literacy as a core component of student success and lifelong learning skills.
    1. Objective 1: Promote information literacy as a way to strengthen students’ persistence and timeliness to graduation.
      1. Promote the use of the Library and its significance for student success to students’ families.
      2. Expand programming with Academic Success Center.
    2. Objective 2: Strengthen information literacy and student learning outcomes.
      1. Design and implement an “assessment as learning” strategy utilized by students, faculty, and staff to continuously evaluate student success as it pertains to achievement of information literacy outcomes listed in the University Student Learning Outcomes and Disciplinary Outcomes goals. Encourage the use of capstone experiences and program portfolios to evidence student learning in information literacy.
      2. Provide Faculty Development opportunities for designing and modifying courses, assignments, and rubrics that also highlight best practices as they pertain to information literacy student learning and outcomes assessment.
      3. Work with Faculty members to increase use of evidence-based pedagogical strategies to improve student information literacy.
      4. Encourage increased communication and collaboration across disciplines and annually showcase successful examples of outcomes assessment and student learning related to information literacy. Encourage Staff and Faculty to audit/visit courses and attend Faculty research presentations.
      5. Expand the use of existing technologies (e.g. Canvas, DegreeWorks, Bronc Nation) to support learning, instruction, advising, and assessment.
  3. Goal: Meet full-time, non-traditional, and online learners at their points of need by direct interaction in the libraries, in classrooms, and other locations.
    1. Objective 1: Work with Faculty, when appropriate, to assist in the creation of well-written, research-based assignments.
    2. Objective 2: Develop workshops for Faculty regarding effective research assignment design, “How-Tos,” introduction to new Library resources, and more.
    3. Objective 3: Expand online instruction, digital learning objects, and virtual reference technologies to support online programs and flipped classrooms.
    4. Objective 4: Continue to provide point of need help via in person librarian desk hours, phone service, online chat, and Ask-a-Librarian email services.
    5. Objective 5: Evaluate reference, instruction, and workshops as well as assess student learning outcomes.

Liaison

  1. Goal: Evaluate, expand, and increase participation between all library staff and faculty with academic and non-academic departments and selected community organizations.
    1. Objective 1: Assign a library contact to each University department.
    2. Objective 2: Build relationships with University employees by marketing library services available for their own personal/professional use.
    3. Objective 3: Develop external marketing plan for selected community organizations.
  2. Goal: Support and reinforce new liaison roles.
    1. Objective 1: Offer guidance, training, mentoring, and advice to all those in a liaison role at the library, including creating librarian talking points for liaison visits.
    2. Objective 2: Establish internal strategies so that all personnel are proficient in communicating existing liaison information, especially part-time and temporary faculty and staff.
    3. Objective 3: Utilize outreach to help supply liaisons with information that is vital to their areas of subject specialty.

Scholarly Communication

  1. Goal: Educate the University community about various issues in scholarly communication, including open access, copyright and Creative Commons licensing, self-archiving, metrics and altmetrics, and promotion/dissemination.
    1. Objective 1: Conduct an information audit to gauge campus awareness around various scholarly communication issues.
    2. Objective 2: Provide professional development opportunities/training for Librarians on scholarly communication (for example, ACRL roadshow training).
    3. Objective 3: Include scholarly communication outreach as part of liaison duties.
    4. Objective 4: Provide campus-wide programming/workshops.
    5. Objective 5: Continue outreach to disciplines and programs via liaison Librarians.
  2. Goal: Explore the role of the Libraries in providing access to the University’s electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs).
    1. Objective 1: Learn the dissertation submission process and archiving for the doctoral programs in order to support the students writing dissertations.
    2. Objective 2: Survey Masters programs requirements and needs for archiving and access.
    3. Objective 3: Explore ETD software and workflow strategies for efficiency.
  3. Goal: Support University research and promote research within and beyond the University.
    1. Objective 1: Conduct an information audit to learn of University needs and values. (For example, what are the Sciences doing about their data sets?).
    2. Objective 2: Evaluate our current institutional repository (IR) database in relation to University needs and scholarly communication trends.
    3. Objective 3: Provide programming to promote awareness and dissemination of University research.
    4. Objective 4: Promote the existence of our IR database and/or the benefits of self-archiving elsewhere.
  4. Goal: Explore OERs (Open Educational Resources) to make textbooks more affordable.
    1. Objective 1: Conduct an informational/interest session on OER.
    2. Objective 2: Explore partnerships to develop and implement OERs to reduce textbook cost for our students. (e.g., TLC, Sustainability Committee).

Space

  1. Goal: Assess and enhance the space to ensure the needs of our patrons are met.
    1. Objective 1: Provide space conducive for individual and group study, equipped with appropriate technology.
    2. Objective 2: Make the space within the libraries more ADA compliant.
    3. Objective 3: Investigate food and drink options.
    4. Objective 4: Reconfigure Moore Circulation Desk area for optimal space usage.
    5. Objective 5: Relocate the music computing lab at Talbott.
    6. Objective 6: Maintain upkeep and cleanliness of study space.
    7. Objective 7: Supply students with better access to electrical sources, including charging stations for their electronic devices.
  2. Goal: Provide better environmental controls throughout the libraries.
    1. Objective 1: Provide libraries’ with accurate and adjustable thermostats outside the Moore Faculty offices and throughout the Talbott Library.
    2. Objective 2: Address the libraries’ leaking/flooding problems.
  3. Goal: Work with the relevant groups at Rider to make the libraries more environmentally sustainable.
    1. Objective 1: Work with Facilities, Sustainability, OIT, and other groups.
    2. Objective 2: Establish internal sustainability advisory group focused on specific library issues.

Policy Statements & Principles for Library Service

All library services are affected directly or indirectly by the following policy statements and guiding principles:

  1. Rider University Strategic Plan, Mission & Vision
  2. Rider University Libraries Mission & Vision Statement
  3. Intellectual Freedom, Privacy and Ethics
  4. Copyright Law
  5. Standards for Libraries in Higher Education

These policies and principles consist of standards and practices developed by the Moore Library as well as those established by the University, governmental agencies, library associations, and the library community at large.

A. Rider University Strategic Plan, Mission & Vision.
Rider University Libraries supports the Rider University Strategic Plan, Mission, and Vision.

B. Rider University Libraries Mission & Vision Statement
Mission: Rider University Libraries are committed to student success by supporting education and research through services that provide convenient, reliable, and purposeful access to information resources for the entire Rider Community.
Vision: Rider University Libraries strive to be at the center of intellectual life of the University. (Rider University Libraries Strategic Plan, AY 2019-2022, Approved 12/6/2018.)

C. Intellectual Freedom, Privacy and Ethics
University Libraries supports, abides by, and stands behind those principles which are outlined in the following policies, which guarantee a climate of intellectual freedom, the rights of users to personal decisions regarding what they read or access electronically, and the protection of confidentiality about those personal research decisions. In support of confidentiality of patrons’ personal reading decisions, University Libraires does not retain the circulation or search records of its patrons once an item has either been returned to the library or paid for if lost. Further, University Libraries supports HR. 1157, the Freedom to Read Protection Act of 2003, introduced on March 6, 2003 and referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security on May 5, 2003, which would “amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to exempt bookstores and libraries from orders requiring the production of any tangible things for certain foreign intelligence investigations, and for other purposes.” Should an FBI agent or other law enforcement agent approach someone authorized to work in Moore Library, the FBI agent or law enforcement agent will be directed to the Dean of Libraries. Since 1939, the American Library Association and other associations have recognized the importance of codifying and making known to the public and the profession the principles which guide librarians in action.

Library Bill of Rights (American Library Association) 
Code of Ethics of the American Library Association
Intellectual Freedom Principles for Academic Libraries: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights 
The Freedom to Read Statement 
Policy Concerning Confidentiality of Personally Identifiable Information about Library Users
(adopted July 2, 1991, by the American Library Association Council); Confidentiality of library users’ records (N.J.S.A. 18A:73-43.1 - 18A: 73-43.2);
NJLA Policy on Confidentiality of Library Records 
Plagiarism: Rider University Librarians will assist in the verification of suspected plagiarism provided this assistance does not violate the confidentiality of library records.

D. Copyright Law,
Title 17 of the U.S. Code, “Copyrights,” is the copyright law adhered to by University Libraries.

Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries or archives are authorized to “reproduce, distribute, display, or perform in facsimile or digital form a copy or phonorecord of such work, or portions thereof, for purposes of preservation, scholarship, or research, if such library or archives has first determined, on the basis of a reasonable investigation, that none of [those] conditions ... apply.” One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be “used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.” (Title 17, Section 108)

If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of “fair use,” that user may be liable for copyright infringement. “In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes

  1. The nature of the copyrighted work
  2. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
  3. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.” (Title 17, Section 107)

University Libraries retains the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. University Libraries displays the appropriate Copyright Law warnings on all reproduction equipment and on materials copied for interlibrary loan. Items accepted for Reserve must also comply with the Copyright Law. The Copyright Act of 1976 (effective January 1, 1978) Public Law 94-553, 90 Stat. 2541

E. Standards for Libraries in Higher Education

University Libraries follows the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Standards for Libraries in Higher Education.