Since the 1/7/03 version of the University of Houston Libraries' directory of librarians, 42 professional librarians (holders of MLS degrees with faculty-like status) have left the UH Libraries.¹

Of the 83 librarians who have been listed in the directory on or after 1/7/03, these 42 librarians represent 50.6% of that total number .

Of the 42 librarians who were listed in the directory as of 1/7/03, 23 have left the University of Houston Libraries.²

Of the librarians who were added to the directory after 1/7/03, 19 have left the University of Houston Libraries,³ bringing the total number of librarians who have left to 42.

Departing librarians include four Movers & Shakers winners and three ALA Emerging Leaders.

Eighteen librarians who were listed seven years ago (1/7/03) still work at the University of Houston Libraries, including the dean, 3 assistant/associate deans, 6 department heads, and 8 librarians at other levels.⁴

In addition to these 18 librarians, 23 librarians who were added to the directory after 1/7/03 still work there (for a total of 41 librarians).⁵

Eighty-three librarians have been listed in the directory on or after 1/7/03. The 42 librarians who left the University of Houston Libraries represent 50.6% of that total number.

1. Data compiled from public records: (1) the University of Houston Libraries' directory of librarians (including Internet Archive versions) and (2) the University of Houston's undergraduate catalogs archive. Position titles from the directory. Latest titles listed used and not corrected based on data from other sources. Does not exclude retirements. All reported totals as of 1/7/10. Analysis excludes one librarian who was listed on 1/7/03 who died. Analysis excludes the separately administered University of Houston Law Library. The University of Houston is a state-funded, public institution, which is subject to the Texas Public Information Act.

2. Titles of librarians who worked at the University of Houston Libraries as of 1/7/03 who have left are:

1. Assistant Art and Architecture Librarian
2. Assistant Collection Development Librarian
3. Assistant Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development
4. Assistant Dean for Public Services
5. Assistant Music Librarian
6. Assistant to the Dean
7. Coordinator, Interlibrary Loan Services
8. Coordinator of Library Instruction
9. Coordinator of the Music Library
10. Coordinator of the Pharmacy Library
11. Coordinator of Reference Services
12. Director, Electronic Resources Program
13. Head, Acquisitions Department and Head, Collection Management
14. Head Architecture and Art Library
15. Head, Research and Instructional Services
16. Head, Serials Dept.
17. Interim Coordinator of Library Instruction
18. Outreach Librarian
19. Research and Instructional Services Librarian
20. Social Sciences Librarian
21. UHS at Sugar Land Librarian
22. University Archivist
23. University Librarian

3. Titles of librarians who worked at the University of Houston Libraries after 1/7/03 who have left are:

1. Acting Coordinator of the Music Library
2. Archivist & History Subject Specialist Librarian
3. Assistant Dean for Systems
4. Assistant Librarian
5. Collections Coordinator
6. Coordinator of Reference Services
7. Coordinator of the Music Library
8. Electronic Resources Coordinator
9. English Librarian
10. Head of Libraries Web Services Department (announced resignation effective 1/4/10)
11. ILS Coordinator
12. Instruction Librarian
13. Instruction Librarian
14. Librarian [Conrad N. Hilton Library]
15. No listed title
16. Science & Mathematics Librarian
17. Social Sciences Librarian
18. Social Science Librarian
19. UHS at Sugar Land Librarian

4. Titles of librarians who worked at the University of Houston Libraries as of 1/7/03 who still work there are:

1. Associate Dean of Libraries
2. Assistant Dean, Collection Services
3. Assistant Dean for Personnel and Planning
4. Catalog Librarian
5. Dean of Libraries
6. Digital Projects and Instruction Librarian [Special Collections and Archives]
7. Head, Integrated Library System
8. Head of Acquisitions
9. Head of Branch Services
10. Head, Cataloging and Metadata Services
11. Head, Computer Systems and Networking Dept.
12. Head, Special Collections and Archives Dept.
13. Head of the Optometry Library
14. Library Development Coordinator
15. Manager, Cataloging Services
16. Science and Engineering Librarian
17. Training, Assessment, and Statistics Coordinator
18. University Archivist

5. Titles of librarians who worked at the University of Houston Libraries after 1/7/03 who still work there are:

1. Architecture & Art Library Coordinator
2. Assistant Head of Acquisitions
3. Associate Dean for Public Services
4. Business Librarian
5. Cataloging Coordinator
6. Chemistry Librarian
7. Coordinator of Interlibrary Loans
8. Coordinator of Music Library
9. Digital Projects Director
10. Education Librarian
11. Electronic Resources Coordinator
12. English Librarian
13. Head of Access Services
14. History & Political Science
15. No listed title
16. Metadata Coordinator
17. Modern & Classical Languages Librarian
18. Program Director for Collections
19. Program Director of Research & Reference Services
20. Psychology and Social Work Librarian
21. Science & Mathematics Librarian
22. Sociology/Communication Librarian
23. Web Services Coordinator

Karen A. Coombs, Head of Libraries Web Services at the University of Houston Libraries, has resigned from that post effective 1/4/2010 to provide technical support services for LISHost and to do consulting work. Coombs was profiled in DigitalKoans earlier this year when she was named in Library Journal's Movers & Shakers 2009: The People Shaping the Future of Libraries.

In July 2006, the University of Houston Libraries released their UH Libraries Strategic Directions, 2006-2010. This planning document is always mentioned in the UH Libraries' recruitment ads: "The UH Libraries have adopted and are implementing a set of strategic directions . . . [URL] and we seek individuals who will be interested in advancing this plan." Like all such planning documents, it represents the library's aspirations, and, of course, it is unrealistic to expect that all such aspirations will be realized.

This post examines the "Enrich Support for Scholarly Communication" section of the document, an area that my job was focused on when I worked there until my November 2006 resignation as Assistant Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development. Based solely on public information (and thus incomplete information), it asks the question: "What progress has been made in scholarly communication support since the strategic directions document was released?" For some objectives, it is not possible to make any assessment because there is no available public information about them.

The first goal is "Expand efforts to build and preserve digital collections," and it includes items such as digitizing Special Collections materials, developing a secure institutional repository, participating in digital preservation efforts such as LOCKSS and Portico, and participating in the Texas Digital Library.

It appears that little visible progress has been made in these areas. No new public digital Special Collections exhibits have been made available (back-room digitization efforts likely continued), there is no public institutional repository, and, while the Libraries participate in the Texas Digital Library project, none of their digital materials appear to be available on its Website. The planning efforts of the institutional repository committee that I chaired, whose first steps included producing ARL's Institutional Repositories SPEC Kit 291, do not seem to have been followed up. The Libraries do not participate in Portico, but do participate in LOCKSS.

The second goal is "Advocate for open access in order to develop collections in a cost-efficient manner and increase the reach of University-generated scholarship," and it includes items such as selecting open access materials, acting as a faculty/student resource about digital rights, acting as a digital rights advocate with publishers, and providing tools such as digital/institutional repositories and open access journal platforms.

Again, little progress appears to have been made. The Libraries do have a list of open access materials. The scholarly communication projects started by a committee that I chaired appear to have been abandoned since my and Adrian Ho's departures. The detailed 2005 Transforming Scholarly Communication website still exists, but it does not appear to be accessible unless you do a site search for it and it does not seem to have been maintained. The 2006 Transforming Scholarly Communication Symposium, which was conceived as an annual event, is also inaccessible short of a site search, and it does not appear to have been held in subsequent years. The Transforming Scholarly Communication Weblog, which was started in 2005, has been deleted. There does not appear to be any general information about scholarly communication topics such as author rights or the open access movement on the Website to substitute for these inaccessible pages. While the Libraries were a pioneer in open access journal publishing with the 1989 launch of The Public-Access Computer Systems Review (ceased in 2000), there appears to be no recent activity in the open access publishing area.

The third goal is "Collaborate with communities of practice within the University to help scholars make their work accessible and improve the world-wide visibility of the University’s scholarship." Aside from another repository objective (that mentions ETDs) and a self-archiving assistance objective, the objectives in this section don't lend themselves to public assessment. An Electronic Theses & Dissertations Pilot Project was launched in 2007 with two UH colleges participating, but it is unclear what has happened subsequently. There is no evidence of self-archiving assistance.

To summarize:

• The UH Libraries have not made any new digital exhibits (or any other digitized material) publicly available since at least November 2006.
• The UH Libraries do not have an operational institutional repository.
• Although the Libraries published one of the first open access journals and one of the first open access books, they are not currently publishing any open access journals or books.
• Initial efforts to educate the university community about scholarly communication issues through a symposium, weblog, and website appear to have been abandoned. There is no evidence of any other initiatives in this area.
• There is no evidence that the UH Libraries are using Texas Digital Library services.

Recently, the Libraries have hired a Digital Projects Program Director, and, hopefully, this may move forward some of the objectives in this section of the strategic directions.

Of course, this examination of one of four goals in the strategic planning document doesn't mean that progress hasn't been made in the other goals; however, it appears that the "Enrich Support for Scholarly Communication" goal has not been a major focus of activity since 2006, at least not in ways that are publicly visible.

1/8/10 Update: During Fall 2009, the University of Houston Libraries rolled out the University of Houston Digital Library. As of today, it contains around 1,050 image files.

The Libraries have removed their late 1980s and early 1990s digital publishing projects (Public-Access Computer Systems News, The Public-Access Computer Systems Review, and the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography) and mailing lists (PACS-L and PACS-P) from their Digital Projects page. The Public-Access Computer Systems Review and the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography are still accessible via the Libraries' online catalog; the rest are only accessible by using Google or a similar search engine.

Dana C. Rooks, Dean of the University of Houston Libraries, stars in a YouTube video in an imitation of a Madonna dance routine. In the video, Rooks is wheeled around on a book truck by a troupe of dancers as Madonna's song "Material Girl" is played. John A. Lehner, Associate Dean for Personnel, Planning, and Library Systems at the University of Houston Libraries, acts as the MC. The performance occurred at the 2009 Texas Library Association meeting.

Rooks has been on the staff of the University of Houston Libraries since 1979, serving as Dean since January 1997. For most of her prior career at the UH Libraries, she served as Assistant Director for Administration.

1/8/10 Update: From the current YouTube record: "This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by WMG [Warner Music Group]. The audio has been disabled."

Below is a table showing the comparative rankings of state-funded Texas ARL Libraries on 18 factors. This data is from the ARL Statistics 2005-06 (see the "Summary of Rank Order Tables for University Libraries, 2005-06" table on pages 66-70).

The state-funded ARL Libraries are:

• Texas A&M University (A&M)
• Texas Tech University (TECH)
• University of Houston (UH)
• University of Texas, Austin (UT)

There are 113 university libraries in ARL. In the table below, "1" is the best possible top rank for a factor; "113" is the worst possible bottom rank. The top-ranked value for a factor within a row is shown in italics; the bottom-ranked value is shown in bold.

Below is a summary of the number of top and bottom rankings of state-funded ARL libraries within their peer group on 18 factors.

Below is a table that shows the overall rankings of state-funded ARL libraries using ARL's Expenditures-Focused Index.

Michelle Boule, who recently authored the "Tips for High Turnover" posting about the high turnover rate at the University of Houston Libraries that DigitalKoans previously discussed, has herself resigned. In the 3 1/2 years that she has worked at the UH Libraries, Boule has become a well-known advocate for the Web 2.0 movement in libraries, most recently writing Changing the Way We Work. Boule was named as an ALA Emerging Leaders Program participant in 2006.

In her posting, she says, in part:

This post has been a long time coming. If all works out accordingly, this post will be published directly after or right before I hand the interested parties my letter of resignation from the University of Houston Libraries where I have worked for three and a half years. I am sad to be leaving my friends and colleagues behind, even though I will see most of them often enough. Those who know me or have been paying attention will not be surprised at my departure. I have needed, searched for, even longed for a change in work scenery for quite awhile.

Michelle Boule, who joined the University of Houston Libraries in September 2004, has written an interesting posting about coping with the high turnover rate at that library, where: "In the past year and a half, over half of the librarians and all of the staff (except one) in my department have left, for various reasons, including all three of our managers."

While your library is unlikely to be experiencing a turnover rate as high as the UH Libraries, she offers some good advice on riding the turbulent waves of change that are useful in less severe situations.

John A. Lehner, Assistant Dean for Personnel and Planning, has been given permanent responsibility for information technology support at the University of Houston Libraries.

Prior to their departures in mid- and late-2006, two Assistant Deans provided information technology support at the UH Libraries: Marc Truitt, former Assistant Dean for Systems (now the Director of Information Technology Resources and Services at the University of Alberta Libraries and Editor of Information Technology and Libraries) and Charles W. Bailey, Jr., former Assistant Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development (now publisher of Digital Scholarship).

Lehner had been in an acting capacity after those departures. Lehner will retain his personnel and planning responsibilities in his new position. His new title is Assistant Dean for Library Systems, Planning, and Personnel.

Lehner worked as a city planner prior to receiving his MLS in 1994. Before joining the UH Libraries in 1998, he was the Chair of Academic Program Support and Liaison Librarian at the Fletcher Library at the Arizona State University West Campus, which holds about 400,000 volumes.

Library Journal contacted me about my resignation. I declined an interview, but I did issue the below statement for their article about this topic ("In Surprise Move, Bailey Resigns from U. of Houston") in the November 9, 2006 issue of Library Journal Academic Newswire:

During my thirty-one-year career, I have always viewed myself as a technological change agent. In the current environment, academic libraries must make difficult resource allocation choices between maintaining print collections, supporting ever-growing collections of licensed electronic resources, and fostering new modes of scholarly communication. There is no universal "right" choice. Each library must realistically make its own decision about what the right mix of these activities is in light of unique local circumstances. At this stage of my life, I believe that I can best serve my particular passions in the realm of scholarly communication and digital libraries elsewhere, although I am grateful for the support I have received at the University of Houston Libraries from many colleagues, both past and present, and I am especially grateful to Robin. N. Downes, former Director of the UH Libraries. For those interested in following my continued digital publishing activities, they can do so at www.digital-scholarship.com.

That's all I have to say on the matter at this time.

Related post:

• "John A. Lehner, AD for Personnel and Planning, Given Responsibility for IT Support at the University of Houston Libraries."

I have resigned my position as Assistant Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development at the University of Houston Libraries effective 1/31/07.

Effective immediately, there are several important changes to the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography (SEPB), Scholarly Electronic Publishing Resources (SEPR), and the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog (SEPW) that users should be aware of:

1. These publications have been moved to my domain:

• SEPB
• SEPR
• SEPW

2. While the UH Libraries will archive SEPB versions up to version 64, no new versions will be published on their Website. If you maintain a catalog record for SEPB, I would ask that you update it with the new address. Next Monday’s SEPW will be published at the new site.

3. A transition version of SEPB (65) has been published at the new site. There are no content changes. This version simply makes a number of HTML coding adjustments needed for the new location. A Google Custom Search Engine replaces the prior search capability. Once Google starts indexing the new site, search results will be from that site.

4. The SEPW mailing list will be discontinued at the end work today. You can continue to get an e-mail version from FeedBurner. I’m sorry for the inconvenience of your having to sign up again; all that is required is your e-mail address.

5. The SEPW RSS feed remains the same.

6. You can continue to follow my digital publishing activities at my domain and at DigitalKoans.

Thanks for your patience during this transition.