A Message from the New Dean, Paul Glassman Dean Glassman shares his thoughts on new directions for the Cheng Library. Dean of David & Lorraine Cheng Library, Paul Glassman I'm so grateful for the warm welcome extended by everyone, both within and outside Cheng Library. It is a privilege to work with a library faculty that is known statewide for its accomplishments and entrepreneurial spirit. And based on my observations over the past month, the staff members are also among the most diligent service providers of any academic library I have known. In the MBA program I attended, we learned from Edgar Schein that, to be effective, you have to understand the corporate culture. So, for the first six months, I plan to put on my amateur anthropologist's hat and to observe how the library works—how students and faculty use it, how we interact with our constituents—so as to learn about the culture of the Cheng Library. I think we all agree that an academic library is now far more than a repository. Rather, our goals have enlarged so that we are key contributors to student success and to their development into life-long learners. Part of my job will be to remind us that what counts is not how the user fits into the life of the library, but how the library fits into the lives of our students. Another responsibility I see as critical is to maintain a central position for library services in the academic enterprise. With a set of very workable strategic goals, the Cheng Library remains firmly committed to supporting the university's mission with an entrepreneurial spirit. And in a profession that has changed as cosmically as ours, there is bound to be further change and great opportunity for innovation. I learned from a business professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, Batia Mishan Wiesenfeld, that it is a good idea to "get into the habit of always explaining why." And I am going to try to be sure to make that my mantra. At conferences I have attended recently, there have been session titles such as "Libraries in an Age of Anxiety." Some libraries see disruptive technology as a sort of apocalypse. Some libraries fear new services and avoid them, referring to them as mission creep. Some libraries avoid collaboration so as to maintain a tight watch over their domains and human capital. From my experience so far, these libraries do not include Cheng Library. The overarching goal of dynamic academic libraries has changed. They are no longer mere repositories but rather are service-oriented, with the goal of contributing actively to student success. Academic libraries have the distinct advantage of being neutral zones on campus. I say to students, "We don't give you tests; we don't assign you grades. We're here to help you succeed." I say to students, "Our motto is 'Ask Us!'" It is not surprising that most students, in looking back on their higher education experience, express good will toward their university libraries. The result is that the university library can be an academic town square—and that is just what I think Cheng Library is becoming. In this emergent role, it serves students in multiple capacities—it is a center for discovery, collaboration, and contemplation. And library faculty members seek out teaching moments to ensure that we cultivate a generation of students who are discerning information seekers, a generation of students who will become life-long learners. This is how libraries embrace the overarching goal of creating a better future for our students. A recent accomplishment is the creation of the Cheng Library Digital Archives, and with it we are embracing the next phase of the digital revolution. By creating digital content, not only is the project preserving important documents, such as course catalogs and yearbooks (both the Kokoon and the Pioneer); it is also making that information available across the globe—to William Paterson students, faculty, and alumni/ae, people with a connection to the university, as well as to people who do not know the university and who may, by virtue of the digital archives, discover William Paterson University's information assets. With generous gifts from alumni/ae and other donors, we have been able to preserve and share an important piece of university history and life through the Cheng Library Digital Archives. I look forward to expanding our sights to new projects that will link William Paterson University even more dynamically to the digital universe. There's an old archives joke (yes, there are even archives jokes) that the ancient Egyptians wrote their history on walls, because they were smart enough to know that, if they put it in the files, it would be lost forever. By digitizing William Paterson's history, we are smart enough to know how to preserve it, as well as to share it. --Paul Glassman October 22, 2014
