The Faculty Senate announced Nov. 30 that in cooperation with the Library and Technology Services Advisory Committee, it will sponsor a series of lectures and community discussions on "the Future of the Library," according to a campuswide e-mail sent by Prof Tim Hickey (COSI), chair of the Faculty Senate. The goal of the lecture series is to generate a discussion of ideas in order to address changes facing the Goldfarb library and to create an improved strategic plan for the library's future, said Hickey in an interview with the Justice.

In August, LTS extended Goldfarb's hours until 2 a.m. in all areas of the library, after budgetary concerns the previous year led to only the Farber Green Room being open until 2 a.m. At the time, the LTS Advisory Committee found that the added benefit of study time for students outweighed the costs of operating the library according to an Aug. 24 Justice article.

The lecture and discussion series began as a result of challenges encountered by the university library, including higher library operating costs, a lower library budget, a question of creating an open-access repository where professors can make their work available to the public for free and other issues that students, faculty and administrators wish to discuss at the lecture series, explained Hickey.

The "Future of the Library" lecture series is an attempt to discuss and consider the LTS strategic plan for fiscal 2010 through fiscal 2014 that was released in June 2009 and consider strategies to utilize as the library moves forward.

The strategic plan identified changes in computing, changes in the world of information and economic factors as a context for the strategic plan. According to the plan, "Today, information is ubiquitous and global, not special and local. . Libraries must choose among formats, deciding between archival print formats (and their storage costs) and digital formats, which offer access 24/7/365." Additionally, it stated, "The challenge confronting institutions of higher education today is to determine the most cost-effective way of providing technology resources without compromising security of data and information or stifling creative use of new technologies."

Prof. Robert Sekuler (PSYC), chair of the LTS Advisory Committee explained in an e-mail to the Justice that "the Faculty Senate's series on the Future of the Library has two main purposes: first, to educate the entire community about the possibilities and opportunities of the inevitable changes; and second, to allow various constituencies to offer informed input into the process of planning for those changes."

Hickey added that LTS and the Faculty Senate recognize that undergraduate students as well as many other constituents such as faculty, graduate students and undergraduates use the library; therefore, the lecture series will try to create a discussion between the different groups. Hickey said that any decisions that are made regarding the library should be considered with student desires in mind, and these desires should be expressed if students attend the lecture series.

The first event is scheduled for today and features David W. Lewis, the dean of the university Library at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, and assistant vice president of digital scholarly communications. The event is scheduled to be a 45-minute lecture about the future of the library followed by a 45-minute discussion period. Hickey said that Lewis would speak about the growing trend toward libraries' digitalization. The event will be held in the Mandel Center for the Humanities, G03 from 10 to 11:30 am.

Hickey said that the plan is to hold a lecture and discussion session monthly, and this will likely continue for several years as the library continues to face new and growing challenges. There is no set completion date for this project.