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Dean’s Note: Announcing the University of Cincinnati Libraries Strategic Plan, 2024-2027
Shortly upon my arrival at the University of Cincinnati Libraries, we began a participatory and data-informed process to draft a Strategic Plan. Through town halls, retreats, info sessions, surveys, discussions and debate we examined what is going well in the Libraries along with what opportunities exist for improvement and growth. This spring we embarked on an exercise to begin to determine and articulate our Values. We asked ourselves what are our organization’s core beliefs that will motivate our work and guide our efforts. How we work together will guarantee success of the plan. In developing our plan, we also concentrated on our role within the university and greater community. The…
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Dean’s Note: Building our foundation
The 2023/2024 academic year was a busy one as we worked to connect students, faculty and researchers to dynamic data, information and resources while simultaneously planning for the future of UC Libraries. To set us up for the future, much of our efforts recently have focused on building a stronger foundation as we prepare to launch our Strategic Plan in the fall. That foundation comprises three elements: people, leadership and values. People An investment in our people is key to advancing the Libraries. This begins with filling job vacancies and hiring new librarians and staff that will bring new skills and expertise to our organization. This spring we completed a…
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Note from the Dean: Creating a shared vision for UC Libraries
My tenure as dean and university librarian for the University of Cincinnati Libraries began in mid-August and I feel privileged to have joined such a highly talented team during a time of great growth at the University of Cincinnati. While higher education and academic libraries are certainly not new environments for me, like we say in this profession, “if you’ve seen one library, you’ve seen one library.” I am grateful to have such a welcoming community within UC Libraries to get me up to speed and support my transition, this experience has made me proud to be a Bearcat! For more about my professional background and my thoughts on trends…
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Note from the Dean: A Focus on Students
Students are why we’re here. This issue of Source includes articles that feature student workers, celebrates students return to our spaces and highlights events and support for students. One of my main focuses upon being named interim dean and university librarian is to foster student success and the Libraries pivotal role in that success. As part of our mission to empower discovery, stimulate learning and inspire the creation of knowledge by connecting students, faculty, researchers and scholars to dynamic data, information and resources, the University of Cincinnati Libraries fuels student success, research, scholarship and engagement with the community. We forge pathways to discovery and empower students, faculty and researchers to…
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A final note from Dean Xuemao Wang
This summer, UC Libraries bids farewell to Dean Xuemao Wang as he leaves the university for Northwestern University. Wang has served as dean and university librarian at the University of Cincinnati since 2012. In 2019 he took on the additional title and responsibilities of vice provost of digital scholarship. During his tenure, Wang worked with library faculty and staff to raise the Libraries’ visibility regionally, nationally and internationally through the development of a Strategic Plan that focused on the four pillars of Digital Technologies and Innovation, People, Space, Data to Information to Knowledge. He emphasized agility, innovation and collaboration as we worked to achieve our vision to become the globally…
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A Note from the Dean: Introducing our NEXT Directions
As announced in our Annual Progress Report, this year the faculty and staff of UC Libraries undertook an endeavor to update our existing Strategic Plan, building on success of our Strategic Plan implementation, bringing in initiatives from the Provost-led Strategic Sizing priorities and aligning them with UC’s NEXT Lives Here Strategic Directions. What has resulted is a new Strategic Framework for UC Libraries that we are calling our NEXT Directions. Through fulfillment of our NEXT Directions, the University of Cincinnati Libraries aims to increase our impact by: creating paths to education innovation and student success; contributing to the university’s research, learning and teaching agendas; and by creating partnerships within…
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From the Dean
Looking back as we plan our NEXT Directions. This year’s Annual Progress Report covers July 2020 through June 2021. It was an exceptionally complicated time, during which we entered the second year of the pandemic, developed and adopted new digital resources to support remote learning and remote research and prepared for the transition back to campus for the 2021 fall semester. We have had our share of hardships and successes. The difficulty and stress of the pandemic has put a strain on library faculty and staff, but they persevered, working together to find innovative solutions to meet the needs of our users. In these unprecedented times, they continuously found ways…
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Dean’s Note: Welcome Back!
I am pleased to welcome all new and returning students to campus. This summer, following guidance from the state and the university, UC Libraries’ faculty and staff worked tirelessly to prepare for students to return. All 10 library locations reopened in time for the fall semester, a massive achievement for our small, but dedicated staff. The transition from virtual to in-person has been an extensive process. As dean, my priority is the safety of our faculty and staff and all library users. Library spaces needed to be evaluated to allow for social distancing under the university’s COVID-19 operation guidelines. Also over the summer we undertook a transformational project with the…
