COLD Strategic Principles 2014

Advancing Together: Opportunities in an Evolving Landscape

COLD Strategic Principles

Council of Library Deans

California State University

Revised March 2014

The Libraries of the California State University system support the following strategic principles. These principles articulate the value that the CSU libraries bring to our individual campuses and to the system as a whole.

A. Advancing Support of Teaching, Learning, & Scholarship

1. We are committed to student success and excellence in teaching, and embrace the opportunity to partner in improving student learning, information competencies and graduation rates.
2. We design and provide transformative services to meet system and individual campus information literacy needs and learning outcomes.
3. We develop and maintain collaborative collections to support undergraduate, graduate, faculty, and institutional learning, research, scholarship, and creative activities.
4. We provide and enhance access to unique materials through development of digital and print collections to support our academic missions.
5. We provide tools and services that are effective in leading users to academic sources to meet their learning and research needs.

B. Advancing Assessment

1. We instill in our respective libraries a culture of continuous assessment.
2. We define best practices most appropriate to the needs of CSU libraries.
3. We are committed to using our existing data gathering to define assessment outcomes in support of our academic missions.
4. We develop measurable outcomes that contribute to institutional and system wide educational effectiveness in support of successful student learning, graduation rates, and excellence in teaching.
5. We use assessment metrics to engage students, faculty, administrators, and external communities to inform how we can best improve library services.

C. Advancing the Continuing Transformation of Library Services

1. We are committed, as a consortium and as individual libraries, to evaluate emerging library trends, adopting those which provide the most effective opportunities to serve the learning and teaching needs of our students and faculty in support of our academic missions.
2. We investigate and test new models of collaboration:
   1. In collection development, especially of born digital collections.
   2. In coordinated technical services which leverage consortial efforts and improve individual campus work flow.
   3. In resource sharing by testing new models of rapid delivery of requested material.
   4. In shared public service opportunities.
   5. In technology innovation.
   6. In shared print management initiatives.
   7. In transforming library spaces to enhance and support student success.
   8. We commit to an ethos of transparent communication with all stakeholders in the success of our libraries
      1. In partnership with the Chancellor’s Office
      2. With the CSU Academic Council of Provosts (and with each individual provost)
      3. With library colleagues at respective campuses
      4. With teaching faculty and students at same
      5. With the wider professional community of academic librarianship