Attached please find a
document (Challenges Facing Williams Library) which was given to
President Schloss when he was on campus a few weeks ago. It briefly
describes the major initiatives we have been involved in, outlines some
of the challenges facing the library, and suggests some solutions.
Also, we have just
conducted a web survey of library users. You might be interested in
some of the preliminary findings:
Overall use of the
library and satisfaction with its resources and services is quite high.
You will be pleased to know that only 3.36% of respondents never come to
the library; only 4.08% feel it is not important to their success; and
only 3.4% are dissatisfied with the overall quality of library service.
When asked
to rate their level of interest in a variety of new resources and
services that the Library might offer, those resources/services
garnering the most interest were: Collaborative Work Spaces With
Computers, Wireless Network Access, Additional Comfortable Seating
Areas, Multimedia Workstations, and, not surprisingly, a Coffee Shop.
In terms of current resources,
students were clear: more full-text online information, more print
books, and more and better computers in the library.
This note outlines the
agenda for the library and the library committee for the next year as we
begin to develop and implement in the library a culture of assessment
in preparation for the upcoming (2007) visit of the Higher Learning
Commission. Your comments are welcome.
Williams Library
Staff:
Director, 3 faculty librarians (Lea Simon, Todd Butler, Christine Kline)
1 career service librarian (Jackie Hanson), 4 library associates (Myrna
Chamberlain, Lorraine McGinnis, Carolyn Blanchard, Dawn Shepard), 1
program assistant (Nancy Miller), 3 part-time reference assistants, and
6.25 FTE student workers.
Budget (FY03):
857K (salaries: 439K (51%), operating expenses: 91K (11%), materials:
325K (38%))
Initiatives:
1. System
migration. The statewide library network (SDLN, or South Dakota Library
Network) is in the process of migrating to a new library management
system, from PALS to Ex Libris. Williams Library is one of four
beta test sites. For additional information on SDLN, see the 2003
Factbook (attached).
2.
Information Literacy. For the
past two years, LIBM155 has been required of all incoming freshmen and
librarians have taught 19 2-credit sections yearly. In the face of
system-wide general education requirement changes, the course will no
longer be required and librarians are working with faculty in English
and Speech to include information literacy components in ENGL101 and
SPCM 101.
3.
Assessment. The library is
beginning, in preparation for the HLC visit in Spring 2007, to discuss
and implement formal assessment procedures.
Challenges:
Funding.
With one exception (FY01) library funding has increased every year,
and NSU is to be commended for the support it has given to the
library. Increases have not been enough, though, to offset
inflationary pressures on the materials budget nor to enable new
staff (reference/instruction and archives/special collections) to be
hired. It is difficult to determine the costs of not having a
library or of not having additional staff; it is difficult to
determine financially their benefits. Productivity gains from the
introduction of technology into libraries are not readily apparent;
however gains in usage by students are measurable and are
significant. (See attached budget and usage report.)
Seamlessness.
Students view the Web as a seamless, one-stop experience and will
continue to use it as their primary information resource. The
library, with its multitude of databases, all of which have odd
names, is justifiably not viewed in the same light. With the advent
of the Web students are operating more and more independently, and
with the advent of such simple yet powerful search engines as
Google, students feel empowered – they feel they have the skills
needed to access needed information.
Disaggregation.
Also with the advent of the Web, content has been separated from
form. It is being made available in smaller and smaller retrievable
bits as it is being made available in larger and larger quantities.
(Think of Amazon’s new “search inside” feature which allows the text
of books to be searched, or Project Merlot, wherein individual
digitized learning objects are stored, waiting to be compiled into
any number of different courses.) With keyword searching now,
individual articles, paragraphs, sentences, as well as tables and
charts are available to students who view the information as
important, not the form. Information of uncertain provenance, or
arrived at out of context, can be quite difficult to evaluate.
Solutions:
The goal of the
librarians, despite these simultaneous yet divergent processes, is
to support all of NSU students’ information needs – searching to
publishing – in a seamless, holistic manner. The librarians tried
to deal with some of these challenges in the LIBM155 classes and
they will continue to deal with them in class presentations. In
particular, the differences between the open web and the much
deeper, proprietary web resources to which the library subscribes
are emphasized, as are information evaluation skills. Librarians
have historically done a good job of putting information in context
for the user, whether by purchasing books, journals, and indices, by
the physical classification of books on the shelves, or by the help
that librarians give at the reference desk. However, with a
continued decrease in guided access, this becomes more difficult.
With the statewide
implementation this fall of the new integrated library system
(Aleph, by ExLibris) and the installation of its SFX/Metalib
software, all of the library’s databases will be able to be searched
at the same time. This will present a much more user-friendly
interface and should alleviate some of the concerns mentioned
above. This raises an interesting question: should, or can, the
proprietary content to which the Library provides access be
integrated into students’ Google search results, and if so,
how?
So far, these
comments have dealt only with searching for information, something
students do frequently. They also need to acquire that information
– to make it physically their own, whether by printing it, reading
it online, ordering an article or book through the library’s
inter-library loan service, or downloading it, and they expect that
information to be available in multiple formats, from print, online
electronic, and multimedia. They also need to manipulate that
information, whether in a word processing, spreadsheet, or database
programs, they need to evaluate information, and they need to
publish their results, whether in a document, on a CD, or in a
presentation.
The Library is one
of students’ favorite places to which to come and work. One of the
most common complaints we hear is that the computers are slow and
out-of date and that there are not enough of them. Our reference
librarians are asked as many questions about PowerPoint, WebCT, and
other programs as they are about information resources. Again, it
is a goal of the librarians to seamlessly and holistically support
all of students’ information needs - searching through publishing.
To this end, the Library proposes that as the new technology center
is completed, space on the first floor of the library also be
reconfigured to support an “Information Commons.” This would
include a collaborative computer laboratory in which students could
have the benefit of being able to consult with librarians, writing
and reading support specialists, instructional design specialists,
and computer support staff. These services, while provided for
student convenience, are increasingly essential to assist student
learning given the shift from print to online sources.
Budget and Usage
Report
BUDGET
$
FY97 $ FY03
Books 103538
103266
Electronic 44318
91949
Periodicals
(paper) 91522 103977
Microforms 21817
26209
Total
261195 325401
FY98: 1063
current subscriptions ($86.10 average)
FY03: 882
subscriptions ($117.89 average)
FY04: ca.175
subscriptions.
USE
1)
In-library book and journal use
per student has held relatively constant over the past few years:
FY99:
27.7 FY03: 25.9
2)
Inter-library loan figures are
slowly increasing:
Items
borrowed: FY99: 1339 FY03: 1504
Items
loaned: FY99: 2846 FY03:
3434
3)
Electronic resources:
Usage of the various
electronic databases to which the library subscribes has grown
exponentially. Students (with faculty and staff) did approximately
100,000 searches during 2003 resulting, studies show, in ca. 250,000
articles viewed. This represents a much heavier use of library
materials than could ever have been documented previously. Some more
specific data:
·
Lexis-Nexis usage has
grown from ca.3000 searches in 2001, to 6084 searches in 2003, to 13,884
searches in 2003. Usage in the first two months of 2004 is 90% over the
first two months of 2003.
·
Total use of databases supplied
by Gale/Thomson has increased by 18% from 2002 to 2003, from
28720 to 33996 searches. Use of their primary resource, Expanded
Academic Index, grew by 29%. For the first two months of 2004,
usage has grown 26%.
·
Columbia International
Affairs Online usage has only grown 6% from 2002 to 2003, from 393
to 417 requested documents.
It is only now that
the multiple vendors of these databases are beginning to agree on common
standards for reporting database usage.
