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Chancellor Zimpher
State University Plaza
Albany, New York 12246

Dear Chancellor Zimpher,

The SUNY library community warmly welcomes you to SUNY. We hope that your recent tour of SUNY’s 64 campuses and your discussions with administration, faculty, staff and students underscored two unique elements of SUNY’s libraries:

1) the esteem that our individual campus constituencies have for their library; and
2) the commitment of SUNY libraries to work together to create a seamless information delivery system for the SUNY academic community.

The latter is a particular point of pride for SUNY libraries. Over the last fifteen years, the library community, working together, has:

• Created SUNYConnect. As a result, SUNY libraries have achieved significant economies of scale in purchasing power, enabling all campuses to have access to a critical core of databases that directly support teaching, learning and scholarship.
• Implemented a single library management system. As a result, all the collections of the 64 campus libraries – from the largest university center to the smallest community college – are merely a key stroke away.
• Developed a state-wide priority delivery system. As a result, our students and faculty have rapid access to over 16,000,000 materials in our collective libraries.
• Crafted a SUNY libraries strategic plan. As a result, SUNY libraries have identified critical SUNY-wide directions and goals and have been working collectively to achieve them.

Our cooperative achievements, to date, underscore SUNY libraries’ commitment to provide our students and faculty with support for teaching, learning, public service and research. However, there is still much to be accomplished. The rapidly changing external and internal environment that we are currently working in requires us to be proactive and responsive. New issues, including digital repositories, shared services, learning management systems, cooperative collection development, as well as scholarly communication,
“Googlization” of resources and partnering with faculty, to name a few, need immediate attention.

We join and champion your web statement that “...we are leveraging our strengths and tackling our challenges to make SUNY a model for the nation and the world.” The three SUNY library organizations (SUNYConnect Advisory Council, SUNY Council of Library Directors, and SUNY Librarians’ Association) are uniquely prepared and experienced to contribute to this outcome. We look forward to working with you on Phase II of your strategic planning process. We are confident that our collective voice in this process will strengthen the primary focus of SUNY: education, research, and economic development.

Cerise Oberman Chair, SUNYConnect Rick Winant Chair, SCLD Logan Rath Chair, SUNYLA