Section VI:
TRENDS, 2000-2001

Planning:

• Planning occurs within the context of the College's Strategic Plan 2000-2005.
• Construction (the new Library; an expanded Library Café) continues strongly to influence Library and Academic IT planning and services.
• Both the University and the College interest themselves in technology planning and policy-making.
• Outcomes assessment emerges as a key theme; in response, Library and Academic IT staff develop a variety of mechanisms to measure success.

Space:

• The new building drives organizational issues–indeed, everything we do.
• Variety in student study spaces supercedes the old one-size-fits-all model.
• The new Library is a magnet for campus social events.

Collections:

• Special Collections continues to expand its holdings, acquiring prestigious new collections.
• Digital collections grow in size and importance.
• Digital collections create a new client for Information Services: the off-site reader.
• Public and private band together to obtain more favorable rates for electronic content.
• A volatile e-publishing environment means librarians must be vigilant and skillful in selecting, acquiring, and managing e-resources.
• The way in which e-journals are packaged greatly reduces our flexibility when cancellations are necessary.
• The advent of full-text e-resources causes the creation of new tools for access, beyond the Library catalog.
• Digital collections suggest the need for new measurements of service.
• Remote access to digital collections becomes ubiquitous.
• The Library Web site becomes the gateway to electronic collections, increasing its importance as a research tool.
• Growing numbers of Web-based courses increase demand for full-text e-resources.

Electronic Delivery of Information:

• The electronic transfer of Library information (overdue notices, book renewals, interlibrary loan and document supply requests) becomes routine.
• The digital delivery of both services and information causes Library and Academic IT staff to collaborate on more and more projects.
• First-generation Web sites (the Library, AIT) are redesigned using database-driven systems.
• Document supply and interlibrary loan grow in popularity, as the electronic accessibility of indexes and library catalogs grows.

Systems & Networking:

• The Library Systems group assumes increasing responsibility for software projects.
• The heavy dependence on technology of all Library functions mandates state-of-art hardware and systems.
• Wireless technologies become part of the Library and Academic IT service program.

Technology for Teaching & Learning:

• Campus interest in Web-based learning accelerates.
• The Library and Academic IT play key roles in the use of technology with teaching; they meet and surpass established performance goals.
• The need to standardize across campus on software packages commonly used in teaching and learning (as well as versions of those packages) becomes increasingly pressing.
• The use of the Internet for teaching and research expands, as more and more faculty develop a course sites.
• Faculty begin to incorporate video, audio, and streaming media with their course sites.
• Course site enrichment tools developed at Brooklyn College put our faculty ahead of their peers at other institutions and generate invitations to share our expertise with others; we extend this concept by opening our faculty training and development workshops to all CUNY faculty.
• Providing course site accessibility for persons with disabilities presents a constant challenge for both faculty and staff: the relevant software changes rapidly, and software/hardware incompatibilities are common.
• Faculty workshops for teaching with technology are now tiered, tailored to the needs of both beginners and varying levels of experts; a faculty development program for instructors who wish to teach completely online is offered.
• Participation in faculty workshops for teaching with technology increases significantly.
• The popularity of Blackboard as an online course platform rapidly expands.
• In the Library Café, business surpasses that of the previous year.
• The needs of students heavily dependent on graphics (chiefly those in TV/Radio, Film, Theater, and Art) spur the addition of Macintosh computers and associated software to the Café.

Access to Collections

• A Web-based catalog replaces the old mainframe NOTIS system.
• Interest in the versatility of handheld devices grows.

Copyright:

• Copyright guidelines for fair use, clear and easily understandable in the print universe, are now murky and more complex in the digital world.
• New legislation (the TEACH Act) underscores the importance of pass-worded course sites.
• The University's intellectual property policy exerts its own influence on web-based teaching.

Instruction:

• Digital collections cause librarians to increase their emphasis on instruction, both for students and faculty.
• Brooklyn College maintains a leadership role within CUNY in information literacy.
• The enormous quantity of un-refereed information available via the Web and its variable quality underscore the librarian's job to teach readers to evaluate the resources they identify.

Staff Development:

• Staff development (for both professional and supporting staff) grows in importance as the Library takes the lead in providing technological instruction for faculty and students.
• Staff development opportunities take many forms, including external events, in-house training, videoconferences, and partnerships with sister institutions.