University Libraries' Releases Annual Report for 2014-2015

News item published on: 2016-01-13 10:45:32

On behalf of University Libraries at The University of Southern Mississippi, I want to encourage you to review our accomplishments in this report and learn more about the many opportunities and services we provide to make academic goals and aspirations a reality.  The facilities, technologies, collections, and professional expertise that make up the University Libraries is a core component of Southern Miss’ academic enterprise, whether it is supporting national, regional, and specialized accreditation efforts, providing access to scientific literature, or managing spaces for students to work productively either individually or in groups.  Our role is to strengthen retention and graduation rates by providing excellent services and support to students and faculty as efficiently as possible.  Graduating students who are information literate, able to successfully find, evaluate, and use information ethically, legally, and efficiently, so they are in a position to compete for top jobs in the workforce and become engaged citizens is our top priority.  In this rapidly changing information based economy, we are determined to help lead the campus toward growth and a stronger reputation for excellence.

A key area of focus for the University Libraries is maximizing our contribution to student success.  We already provide critical access to academic resources to support their course work, but we are working diligently to find ways to make our physical and virtual spaces more inviting and efficient so students can make better use of reliable information to solve problems and engage more meaningfully in their academic pursuits.

Another area of growth is the use of technology to improve access to our rich collections.  From the world class de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection to our Civil Rights collection to our Mississippiana and university history collections, researchers in any location are able to find and use our unique materials much more easily and quickly by virtue of our efforts in developing the Mississippi Digital Library to be a major vehicle in providing access to unique scholarly material.

I invite you to explore our online and physical collections to discover the amazing resources our libraries have to offer students and researchers, not to mention the community and world at large.  Our world is full of questions waiting to be answered and the University Libraries is a great place to build knowledge and accomplish great things.

You can review the annual report here. 

John Eye

Dean of University Libraries