FY19 Baker Library Annual Report

Informed Leaders Start Here!

Baker Library's unique assets and capabilities help HBS achieve its mission, with the HBS communities' diverse needs driving the products and services we provide. Our staff's deep research expertise coupled with our unique collections and semantic search environment support innovative faculty research, information-rich learning experiences, and distinctive alumni engagement.

Our customer-centric strategy is guided by our enduring goals:

Deliver the greatest possible value to the HBS Community
Build and enrich a knowledge and information management ecosystem
Be HBS's trusted advisor in navigating knowledge, information, and learning practices
Collect, preserve, and provide access to our business and management collections, to further scholarship and enrich the teaching and learning experience at Harvard and globally.
Sustain Baker Library's standing and thought leadership within Harvard, among peer business schools, and across academic libraries.
Foster the continuous development of KLS as a learning organization.
Leverage HBS assets through cross-functional collaboration and strategic partnerships.

I invite you to explore these pages to see our commitment to you in action through the stories that characterize our work and the statistics that aggregate our efforts. Whether you are a "die-hard" library user, occasional visitor to our virtual resources, yet to utilize any of our products or services, or somewhere in between, I welcome you to this inaugural compilation of the KLS Annual Report.

Deb Wallace
Executive Director
Knowledge & Library Services

OUR MISSION

We deliver distinctive information expertise, services, and products so that our community excels.

Baker Library advances the intellectual ambition of Harvard Business School by providing distinctive information services, scholarly resources, and subject expertise. Our users include HBS faculty, MBA students, Executive Education participants, HBS Alumni, Harvard University researchers and the global community of business history scholars.

WHO WE ARE

We are 100+ statisticians, economists, journalists, business analysts, curators, archivists, programmers, data scientists, research specialists, metadata experts…and even some librarians!

OUR PEOPLE

2019 Knowledge and Library Services Staff

Our Culture

How we do our work is just as important as what we do to achieve our mission and vision. As a department, we aspire to respect all; trust and support our colleagues' contributions; be open, transparent and kind by actively listening, learning and participating; and take responsibility as individual and team contributors.

We are passionate about our role as a trusted advisor, supporting the ever-changing research, teaching, and learning needs of the HBS community.

Our Values

Our culture of service doesn’t stop with the HBS community. Every year, Knowledge and Library Services staff give back to the local community through our Community Service Day and other activities – volunteering at the Greater Boston Food Bank, improving crop fields at Drumlin Farms, assisting with Honan-Allston Library book sales, participating in Gardner Pilot School’s Pen Pal Program, and more.

This year, we returned to Cradles to Crayons to join 800 other volunteers from across the city to fill 42,500 backpacks with new school supplies for children living in low-income, homeless, or emergency situations.

WHAT WE DO

Baker Library acquires, provides access to and preserves a world-renowned business management collection, enabling global scholarship — research, teaching and learning. We further Baker Library’s thought leadership within Harvard, among our peer business schools, and across the academic library landscape with innovative platforms, products, and services.

Our Services

Baker For Faculty

85%

of HBS faculty used some form of Baker Library's services.

277

HBS Working Knowledge articles were published, 3.4M visits--the most visited HBS website.

6,400

hours of faculty research were supported.

$200K

cost savings were generated for faculty research budgets by our Research Data Program.

190

faculty used Baker Research Services for all aspects of their research.

50%

increased attendance at Books@Baker events.

35

HBS courses were supported by Baker Library staff.

230

linear feet added to the Faculty Papers Program.

...

Baker provided services to 85% of HBS faculty in 2019 through every stage of their research and teaching lifecycle. Popular services included data sourcing, literature searches, text mining, statistical analysis, and publication in HBS Working Knowledge.

"Thank you for all your help with getting D&B data files and all the data help in general. In the past, I had no such support for my data work and this has made a big difference to me."

-LT Zhang

"Thank you! This was all very fast and easy, and I am so grateful. I know how lucky I am to be at HBS and have this kind of support."

-Meg Rithmire

Working Knowledge

HBS Working Knowledge saw robust engagement gains across all of its channels this year, riding success from our new three-story-per-week production schedule...

FY19 Highlights

Bounce rate decreased by 5%
Social media engagement gained 12%
Site visits in FY19 gained 3.7%, to a record 3.40M
Newsletter subscriptions advanced 4.7% with 201,000 subscribers
We produced a record number 277 stories, a gain of 9% over the previous year.

Books@Baker

Through a combination of presentations and participant engagement, the Books@Baker series enables faculty to share insights and practical applications of their research with the HBS and Harvard communities.

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Baker for MBA Students

2000+

HBS students utilized Baker services through curriculum-related work.

21

MBA courses supported.

Course Support

Baker supported students in the "Projects in Investing" field course, taught by Sara Fleiss, to prepare for their sponsor organization deliverables. Baker provided an in-class presentation, team research consultations, and an on-campus training session by Bloomberg staff.

Information Products

Online newsletters featuring curated news items on course-related topics. Piloted with two EC courses: Entrepreneurial Sales and Management (Frank Cespedes & Mark Roberge) and Arts & Cultural Entrepreneurship (ACE) (Rohit Deshpande & Henry McGee). Arts-focused case repository created for the ACE course.

Before graduation next week, I wanted to send you a special thank you for all of your help over these past 2 years. Libraries have been a critical part of my success in life as places that spark my imagination and satisfy my curiosity and Baker is no exception.

-MBA class of 2019

Just wanted to let you know how much I love getting this! Thank you for your hard work in putting it together :-)

-MBA student, subscriber to VC/PE Highlights Newsletter

Baker for Executive Education

OPM Course Support
This Financial Ratio Exercise has been designed to give Owner/Presidents Management Program participants a greater appreciation of using financial ratios. We introduced the exercise in class and held 3 drop in research sessions.

PLD Alumni Challenge
For the PLD Alumni Challenge, program alumni bring real world challenges to current PLD participants to solve. We helped them to come up to speed quickly on key industries and markets through a series of customized reports.

“Ask PLD”
Baker’s new “Ask PLD” voice-activated service allows Program for Leadership Development participants to find answers to frequently-asked research questions about the program, access campus resources, contact program staff, and more—all through simple voice requests!

Baker for Alumni

Highlights

Answered 1,068 Alumni research questions
128 Baker for Business consultations
Redesigned Baker for Alumni library page
Alumni Research Engagement increased by 195% since FY15

Record-Breaking Alumni Reunion

We experienced off-the-charts attendance at this year’s Reunion event with HBS Alumni filling three classrooms to learn “3 New Research Skills in 60 Minutes.” Prior to the event, Alumni were given a sampling of some of our special collections.

Efficient and effective service from experienced and knowledgeable professionals who quickly understood the request and helped to enhance the overall objective.

-Peter Bowie, AMP 113

Baker for Business is a trusted partner—they do high-value, secondary research for us so that we can focus on our core mission and make more informed decisions that fuel innovation and growth.

-Rick Bauerly, MBA 1986

Baker for Harvard

Research Project Highlight
Faculty Fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History Kevin Kim used Baker Old Class serials and the Thomas W. Lamont papers to examine business opinion on the 1937 bombing of several Standard Oil ships in China by Japanese planes.

782

research questions answered for Harvard and external researchers

11,458

Harvard and external visitors to the Stamps Reading Room

52%

Special Collections requests came from Harvard University

Our Collections

Baker Library is unique among business school libraries worldwide for its extraordinarily comprehensive and diverse collections, which include over 600,000 printed volumes, 36,897 rare books,186,000 annual reports, 1 million microform items, 50,300 linear feet of archival materials, 264,000 photographs, and 35 terabytes of born-digital and digitized content. Baker subscribes to nearly 4,000 serial and periodical titles and over 100 electronic resources.

Baker Library Special Collections is one of the most extensive repositories of archives and rare books in the world in the fields of business and economic history.

Image: the 1902 first edition of the Wealth of Nations in Chinese.

Acquisitions & Processing

814

Linear feet of archives documenting HBS faculty and the technology, finance & real estate industries

12,227

Photographic, print, and audiovisual objects digitized and made available for research

1,577

Audiovisual items in audio, video, and film formats, such as audiocassettes, VHS, and DvCam, cataloged

22

Collections processed, increasing the total number of archival collections open for research to 2,900

2.51

Terabytes (7.5 million files) of born-digital and web-archived data captured

1,405

Collection items preserved by Conservation staff

28

Rare books acquired for the Kress Collection of Business & Economics using collection endowment funds

714

Print materials, including rare books, reports, and working papers cataloged

Use

5,324

Items from Special Collections used by researchers and staff

32,667

Database visits by HBS and HU researchers

74

Requests to publish Special Collections materials in publications, including books, theses, and websites

1,576

Items borrowed by the HBS community

2,273

Creating Emerging Markets interview transcripts made available to users from 95 countries

5,262

Items borrowed through inter library loan

380

Virtual researchers accessed collection materials through digital content

Driving Intellectual Ambition

Baker Library archivists worked with Teresa Amabile to prepare her research data for publication and deposit into Dataverse, a freely-available online repository. The Diary Study explores the everyday work experiences of professionals working on important innovation projects within their companies.

Sophus Reinert has undertaken extensive research of Baker's Medici Collection as part of his research on the history of capitalism. He has published several articles, used the ledgers to inform his teaching, and has planned additional publications.

Exhibit

Lehman Brothers: A History, 1850–2008
Drawing from the extensive Lehman Brothers Collection in Baker Library’s Special Collections, Lehman Brothers: A History, 1850–2008 examines the story of one of the country’s longest-running investment banks, its reach into nearly every sector of the American economy, and the impact of the firm’s collapse.

Global Outreach

Utilizing the R.G. Dun & Company credit report volumes collection, Baker Library developed a pilot project: Discover Your History Genealogy & Research Serviceexclusively for HBS alumni.

Materials from over 300 Special Collections' manuscript collections dating from 1600 to 1800 were digitized and placed online as part of the Colonial North America project at Harvard Library.

Baker Library made its first international loan to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, lending 17 original items from Special Collections’ China Trade collections for the exhibition The Dragon and the Eagle: American Traders in China.

HBS Art Collection & Program

Designed and released new website for contemporary art, featuring the Schwartz Art Collection, the C. Ludens Ringnes Sculpture Collection, and a downloadable outdoor sculpture map

Sculptures by Lynda Benglis and Bharti Kher featured as part of the 2019-20 exhibition supported by the C. Ludens Ringnes Sculpture Collection

Nick Cave: Soundsuits exhibition in Klarman Hall in conjunction with DIALOGUE program

Polaroid Consultant Photographers Collections Project

This special project focuses on the archives of Polaroid’s consultant photographers, including Ansel Adams who tested Polaroid products for over 30 years and produced over 10,000 test photographs with corresponding memos to inform their R&D efforts. Major milestones include:

Created teaching materials to support HBS Cases
Explored opportunities to create exhibits in museum venues
Supported research opportunities across Harvard, including GSD and SEAS doctoral students and Kirkland House undergrads.

Archival Donations

Henri A. Termeer Papers, ca. 1980-2011

Henri A. Termeer served for almost thirty years as Chairman, President and CEO of Genzyme Corporation, a pioneering enterprise in the growth of the biotechnology industry.

Kenneth H. Olsen Collection, 1940-2011

Ken Olsen was a computer engineer and entrepreneur who helped to transform the computer industry as co-founder and president of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).

Ben Shapiro Papers, 1961-2016

Ben Shapiro is the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing, Emeritus. His collection documents the development of his courses and case development.

HBS Club of New York Records

The oldest HBS alumni club, founded in 1920. The collection gives insight into alumni interactions with prominent business leaders over the century.

Our Spaces

Behind the Scenes

AV Workstation

We preserve audiovisual items for future digitization and access.

Conservation Lab

We examine and treat collections to preserve their long term usability.

Processing Room

We arrange, describe, and house collection materials for discoverability and use.

Digital Processing Room

We capture and analyze born-digital content to prepare it for preservation and research access.

Baker Tours

We provided 16 Baker Library tours of the Stamps Reading Room to 200+ HBS Executive Education participants, where they also learned what resources they could access remotely after completing their program.

How We Do It

FY19 BY THE NUMBERS

60K visitors to Stamps Reading Room

15% increase in web traffic

$200K saved through faculty data licensing service

6,400 hours of faculty research and teaching support

118,646 visits to web exhibits & guides

$200K generated through management consulting

4,787 HBS case requests filled

4,445 reference desk interactions

277 Working Knowledge articles

OUR PLATFORM

Baker Library Discovery Platform & Content Management System

361%

Increase in queries searched

Baker Library's discovery platform enables search functionality on the Baker Library website. It helps researchers intuitively navigate through Baker's vast collections. Grounded in user needs, driven by powerful meta data and taxonomies, and leveraging semantic search technology, users have a single interface to Baker and HBS priority content.

Digital Baker Ecosystem

The implementation of Aeon marks an important new addition to our digital infrastructure. It replaces the manual and often times paper-based tracking of researchers and collections use. This modern request and workflow management system allows Special Collections to efficiently manage and locate materials so we can provide exceptional service to our researchers.

Our Budget

Our operating budget consisted of $14M in expense and $840k revenue.

Annual Report FY19

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