VC/UHV Library Annual Report FY07

Seven years ago, the Library, along with the festivities of the University of Houston-Victoria’s 25- year anniversary, celebrated the move of our Media Center across campus to the new University Center building.    The Media Center had long suffered from seemingly unsolvable space problems and their new quarters were spacious and pretty.  Renamed the Media Library, they also enjoyed the addition of the TiltRac, a video streaming system which allowed us to push video to other locations on campus, notably the Allied Health building at Victoria College.

If the Library suffered from having a part of it living somewhere else, we grew accustomed.  Like parents having children off at college, the Main Library remodeled the “bedroom”, moving the archives and special collections into former Media Center space and founding the Victoria Regional History Center.

But again, like parents with children off at college, the children return and want their bedroom back.  New initiatives at UHV required space re-allocation, and the Media Library was selected to return to the Main Library.

While we were glad to have the Media Library back, we also needed to find a place to put it.  A great deal of creativity and hard work was shown during FY2007 in preparation for the Media Library move. As you read the narrative reports of Library departments this year, you may not grasp the labor involved in what may seem like a simple idea.

The Periodicals department analyzed the entire print and microform periodical collection, removing all holdings duplicated in electronic formats – making space for the new Media Center on the second floor of the Library.  The U.S. Government Documents collection was analyzed by the Documents Librarian, extensively weeded, with new emphasis placed on an electronic government information collection.  The Catalog Department assisted these departments with the bibliographic work required in collection maintenance, and also acted as a storage facility as documents, periodicals and other materials came and went.

The Circulation Department patiently tore down and built shelving according to our needs. The Library IT Department moved computers, hooked them up again in temporary locations, and made sure the Media Center staff could get to their email.  Library Administration aided all of this as purchase requisitions and maintenance work orders threatened to overwhelm.

During this time, the Acquisitions Department processed the Jack O. and Ellen Braman Miller Texana Collection, a large and valuable collection of books about Texas.

Then there was the Media Library (now the Media Center again) itself.  The collections had to be packed and moved.  The new space had to be planned and analyzed, with the realization that the new space would be constructed in phases. 

All this while maintaining normal and undisrupted Library services throughout the Spring 2007 semester.

Thomas Wolfe was wrong, you can go home again, but things will be changed.  Into FY2008, we are still working toward the new Media Center, with new viewing rooms, equipment changes, and new Internet video distribution system.  We are emerging from this a leaner library, focused on the future, determined to keep itself and its collections and space valuable and usable for our faculty and students.