Library

=Library=

The library is the intellectual heart of any college campus, and serves the needs of students, faculty and staff. The primary purpose of the library is to teach information literacy skills and support teaching and learning at the college. We aim to provide resources and services to support the intellectual, cultural, and technical development of students.

To meet these needs, the library has multiple functions:

• reference (in-person and online), • instruction (course-integrated workshops and credit-bearing classes), • collection development (selecting and deselecting print and digital resources), • circulation services (borrowing, course reserves, physical collection maintenance, etc.), • technical services (acquisition and preparation of materials), • and systems (online access management and integrated library system, i.e. Voyager software, administration).

**Immediate needs**
The library has these current needs (this is not a ranked list). We feel these are the needs around which we would like to focus our problem-solving efforts.


 * 1. Refill the 2nd full-time library faculty member**: Until 2004, the library had two full-time faculty members, one of whom served as library director, but remained full-time within the library teaching, providing reference service, and doing collection development. The library now has a dean of library and eLearning who is an exempt administrator, thereby decreasing the number of full-time faculty from 2 to 1. Currently, the exempt administrator does professional librarian duties, mainly in relation to systems and technical services, i.e. systems administrator for Voyager, online catalog maintenance, original cataloging, authority control, automated authentication services and on occasion teaches classes and provides reference services. This is not a sustainable practice – and honestly is barely working now.

Impact of decreased professional staffing:
 * **Reduction in physical operating hours.** We used to be open 56.5 hours and we have reduced to 52.5. However, many of our resources are available online 24/7, including live librarian assistance via an international cooperative.
 * **Reduced availability of on-site reference librarians.** We used to be able to have the reference desk staffed by a professional librarian at all hours of operation. Now we have the librarians scheduled for reference during the busiest time of the day (9 a.m. to 3 p.m.) -- this is also the time that the majority of our library instruction takes place. Reference service requires in-depth knowledge of our collections and other resources available globally, protocols for online access of resources and services, high proficiency with search strategies, and an understanding of research in the educational context to assist students with their work. We have provided our para-professional staff with training in basic reference service and they have assumed a scheduled rotation at the desk. We also take part in an international cooperative for online reference service. We have attemped to institute a tiered approach to reference service. The desk is staffed at all times by someone, but if a higher level reference issue arises it gets bumped up to a librarian. We're trying to make this work. We still have issues with students leaving without as much assistance as they should be receiving.
 * **Stagnation in the work towards further integration of information literacy into the college curriculum.** We have slowed our outreach efforts because we have reached the maximum of what our librarians can teach without impacting other librarian responsibilities, such as collection development. One possible solution is outsourcing of collection development -- not without it's drawbacks, too.
 * **Slowly deteriorating quality of the online catalog and lack of innovation in user services.** Without a person who has the time to properly maintain our complex systems we are seeing a slow but steady erosion in the quality of our collections' major access point, the online public access catalog. This negatively impacts student and faculty ability to retrieve relevant materials and minimizes the value of our collections (they need to be maximally accessible). This is one of the more troubling impacts to me because it's not an emergency but is a slow build-up. It's also an area that is difficult to find the expertise. In the interest of succession planning, we need to find a way to untangle these duties from the dean and put it back into the hands of a faculty librarian.
 * **We cannot be the best community college library in the state.** We are in a fast-changing world and the library has the potential for building highly-innovative services centered on student and faculty needs. However, not a single library staff member (librarian or otherwise) is here 12 months a year.


 * 2. Increase allocations for collections**: The cost of library materials and databases go up about 5-10% every year. We have not received funds to offset these increased costs. In fact, the total library budget allocation as a percentage of total college budget is lower than the average for community colleges. We do take advantage of consortial agreements with vendors.


 * 3. Re-establish funding for summer contracts for library faculty:** The library lost funding for summer contracts for faculty, and in order to meet the need for library faculty during the summer quarter we raided the collections budgets. We need to either re-establish funding for summer quarter contracts or increase the already suffering collections budgets.


 * 4. Library security gate:** The library security gate is not always functional and is non-repairable. This gate is used to protect an important student asset – the Kirk Library’s collections. We have almost 40,000 items available in the Kirk Library for check-out to students, faculty and staff, everything from non-fiction and fiction books, CD’s, DVD’s, equipment, and more. When items are stolen from the library, not only do students lose the ability to access those items, it negatively impacts the library’s ability to enhance our collections because of the costs associated with the loss. Cost to replace: About $12,000.


 * 5. Library classroom space:** We need adequate teaching space. Details provided in the next section on facilities.

**Information literacy**
Information literacy skills are fundamental to the attainment of academic skills and success in the 21st century workplace. Unprecedented diverse information sources necessitate the efficient access of reliable information.

The academic experience of students needs to prepare them for the information seeking and knowledge management challenges they will face. They will need information skills to be effective members of society and the workforce, locally and globally. This includes the ability to discern usefulness of information in all media from all parts of the world.

These skills are built through instruction, instructional tools, and services for all modes of instruction.

Therefore, the library seeks:


 * 1. Integration of information literacy across curriculum:** all students in all programs receive instruction and experience accessing and evaluating information in the context of the field


 * 2. Information literacy requirement:** the AA degree includes completing an information literacy class taught by a librarian


 * 3. Resources to provide content and instruction in online classes:** Librarians can provide a mix of synchronous and asynchronous instruction, including online tutorials. It takes time to maintain and sustain good online content.

**Beyond information literacy – an Information Studies degree**
A new degree program in Information Studies would be valuable and versatile for any student. Unlike information literacy, which tends to focus on information access and critical thinking, the Information Studies program could extend beyond that into the following areas: information in society, information ethics, information management, leveraging emerging technologies, basics of web design, social media, information reporting and presenting, human computer interaction and usability, and more.

This degree program would prepare students to be successful in any academic program and in the workplace. It is a degree for the 21st century.

Therefore, the library seeks:


 * 1. A full-time faculty member to develop and teach the degree program:** We cannot support teaching a program with existing levels of librarian staffing. Currently, librarians are engaged in information literacy instruction, reference, collection development, and other duties as related to the operation of a library. The person hired to teach this program would focus exclusively on the program and not on other librarian duties.

**Library facilities that facilitate teaching and learning**
The library should be a learning space where student needs around technology, content, and services are met. The library should move toward becoming an information commons or a learning commons, where technology is pervasive, space for individual and group work is accommodating for a variety of activities, and services for students are readily accessible, and library instruction can be provided in context.

Therefore, the library seeks:


 * 1. A dedicated classroom and lab for library instruction:** The library faculty desperately need a classroom with a computer for every student. During the 2008-2009 academic year, Centralia College librarians conducted a total of 84 workshops attended by a total of 1,741 students who were taught research and critical thinking skills (information literacy). Each workshop incorporates some librarian-led demonstration in LIB139, a very cramped room with chairs only. It is also imperative to include hands-on time, which currently must take place outside the room because of the lack of computers. Since the students move out of LIB139 for the hands-on portion of the session in order to use the PCs in the public area this means that every time a class is conducted all students using the public area PCs must be asked to leave. This means that students working at each one of the 21 PCs in the public area are forced to wander campus looking for another workstation. Furthermore, the number of students per workshop often exceeds the number of computers currently in the library.


 * 2. More library computers and space for laptop use:** The library provides students with a seamless work environment so that they may access, manage, and produce information all at the same workstation. In addition to providing access to all of the library’s collections, the computers are equipped with an application suite. We intend to expand our public access computers from 21 stations to 33 stations this winter, but we need at least 50 stations. We are consistently at capacity and often students must turn around and leave. The computers in the library are essential. The library website is the starting point for research, with access to the online catalog to find books and other materials or to access online databases. We currently have almost 40,000 items in our physical collection. Our 27 databases provide access to hundreds of thousands of reference materials, journals, magazines, and more.


 * 3. More group spaces:** Students have a desire for collaborative learning and combining social interaction with work. We currently have 2 group study cubicles, which exists on the periphery of the library’s physical space. We need to go beyond the idea of having just group study rooms and integrate collaborative learning into the design of all of our spaces. For example, we need furniture to accommodate groups of students working on a computer, large tables where several students can use their laptops together, comfortable seating areas to encourage informal meetings, group study rooms equipped with a computer and projector, and study rooms for viewing videos alone or in groups.


 * 4. Access to learning services:** In addition to traditional reference assistance, information technology support should be available to students in the library, with something like a student help desk. The library needs instructional assistants or lab assistants as may be available in the computing commons. Moreover, the addition of writing center and tutoring services would be logical. Students writing papers or preparing other course assignments need to access and organize information (library), use software and equipment (I.T.), and write the paper or put together the project (writing center).


 * 5. Library faculty have offices:** Most of the library's services are available online or by telephone. This includes reference and instruction. The librarians need a quiet and private office to provide reference service and to do voice-overs or create audio files for online materials like tutorials. Currently, all of the librarians have open and unsecurable cubicles just feet away from the public use computers often crowded with students. Two of the three librarians share their cubicle. Library Faculty members’ duties include advising. In order to advise effectively, faculty advisors must be in a private situation where student and advisor can speak frankly about their concerns. However, librarians must conduct advising sessions in cubicles without a door. In order to provide librarians with enough privacy to protect students’ personal information (the cubicles offer neither privacy nor security as there is no way to lock them) and to offer librarians enough privacy in order to stay productive, they should be provided with walled-in offices similar to those offered to most other faculty.


 * 6. The library has the whole building:** We cannot accommodate an information or learning commons without inhabiting the entire building. Indeed, the space we have does not serve current instructional or services needs. A fall 2009 survey of users of the library facilities revealed that noise coming from the other side of the temporary dividers is disruptive to students studying.


 * 7. Other necessities - no space requirement:**

Library services to meet changing needs

 * Robust wifi access
 * student logins or other access management on the computers
 * printing via wireless devices enabled
 * print management
 * more evening and weekend hours (library is hub of learning activity and support)
 * self-checkout
 * automated notification services via email, text message, or otherwise as specified by user
 * decrease of staff intermediation for library services such as interlibrary loan
 * a shift of focus from acquisition to access will require training and more training
 * increasing participation in consortiums - not only for pricing deals on databases but exploring collaborative collection development