Physical Sciences and Engineering Division
SWOT Document
December 1, 2005
Compiled by Division Coordinator Tina Chrzastowski
Strengths
- Comprehensive electronic collections in the sciences providing distributed 24/7 access,
partnering an already strong 10 million volume, library-wide collection.
- Ability to attract outside research grants for new information technologies.
- Expertise of library faculty that is, for example, providing national leadership in digital
librarianship.
- Partnerships with GSLIS faculty enhance research opportunities and provide exceptional
opportunities for graduate research.
- Highly experienced, long-term staff with exceptional skills.
- Strong collections and services that support nationally-ranked science and engineering
programs.
- New chemistry library (FY07); exceptional engineering library facilities.
- Local collections, such as the UIUC faculty Engineering Documents Collection and the
Engineering, Physics, Computer Science Open Archive (OAI) Search, which enhance scholarship with
unique holdings.
Weaknesses
- Simultaneous access to electronic resources is often limited (such as
SciFinder Scholar, JGR, IEEE Digital Library, EI Village); it is expected that an increasing number
of UIUC IP addresses will continue to compete for the same limited resources.
- Inability to acquire interdisciplinary resources or to purchase major works
expected at a research institution (Engineering Standards, SPIE publications, etc.)
- Lack of funding for expansion into electronic book formats.
- Multiple circulation points in Main Library mean staff is spread thinly;
staff, graduate student and student wage reductions further undermine our ability to provide
service at expected levels.
- Facilities are mixed, with new and old both needing and competing for limited
resources.
Opportunities
- Digital materials open up access 24/7; format needs continuing
development.
- GSLIS relationships with both faculty and students offers additional skills
and experience
- Entrepreneurial activities can lead to new revenue streams.
- Changing scholarly publishing models will allow us to participate in and
shape this evolution.
- Merging similar units’ service points allows for the integration of units,
staffs and wage budgets to maximum effect; sharing flexible, multi-unit trained staff offers
continuing education benefits and greater productivity.
- Implementing new technologies, such as blogs, wikis, link resolvers,
federated searching and other innovative access mechanisms to better serve our patrons
- Securing Oak Street II will allow collection movement and help to transform
our departmental libraries.
Threats
- Inability to support Nobel Prize-level research in the sciences due to budget
limitations.
- Inability to build collections in growing or emerging disciplines such as
Computer Science (growing) or Earth, Society and the Environment (emerging).
- Equipment replacement lags; communication about and understanding of
equipment replacement issues is lacking.
- The Library Gateway, and all associated library web pages, as our primary “
door” to our users, is in need of more attention and coordination.
