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Seattle Pacific University: Library Annual Report, 2000/01

J. Ray Doerksen, University Librarian

Highlights

• Major library surveys conducted
• New integrated library system implemented
• Collection development in transition
• Explosion in the use of technology in teaching

General

Many names could be applied to the year 2000/01, but in essence it was a year of transition. Given the pace of change in libraries, almost any year could be called a year of transition, but the fact that the foundations are being shaken was most vividly demonstrated on February 28, 2001, when a 6.8 earthquake struck Seattle and Seattle Pacific University. Following a closure of about 3 hours for an inspection, the building re-opened for business without any structural damage. The top two floors, however, remained closed until evening as staff gently returned a couple thousand books to the shelves from which they had been violently shaken by the earthquake.

Another event marking the realities of library transitions in resources and services was the library’s open house held in September. Organized under the leadership of Susan Reynolds, the open house gave the SPU community new insights into what the modern library can do.

Two major surveys, led by Jenifer Sigafoes and Carrie Fry, were completed during the year. The first was a survey of faculty. The response rate was 39% (70 out of 179). In sum, the survey showed a high regard for library staff and services, a definite need for more learning resources, and an appreciation of the need for a campus wide information literacy program.

The second survey tried to assess needs from a student perspective. Over 1,000 students participated in this Web survey; more than 90% were undergraduates. The general message, not entirely unexpectedly, was that students wanted more—more books, more journals, and more library hours. Somewhat surprising in these results was the expressed preference for access to more books in paper format. It is clear that despite the convenience and accessibility of electronic learning resources, students still want the library to hold a generous collection of books. Added to the call for more journals, this demand for books places immense pressure on a library budget that is static in terms of funds to purchase learning resources. It is hoped that the Orbis borrowing service coming in 2001/02 will satisfy at least some of the demand.

On April 27, 2001, the library hosted a workshop sponsored by the Puget Sound Academic Independent Libraries (PSAIL) group. About 30 librarians were in attendance for the session entitled: “Reference Services: Where in the Academy are We?” Featured presenters were Rich Hines, University Librarian at the University of Portland, and Joe Janes, Assistant Professor at the University of Washington Information School and developer of the Internet Public Library at the University of Michigan.

Personnel

Transition is nothing new in the area of personnel. The only exception during 2000/01 was in the Technical Services department, where staffing remained stable. In Access Services, 50% of the staff was new—Lisa Jeremiah, who began in September as interlibrary loan technician, and Lori Karns, who assumed afternoon/evening duties in November. But the segment of the library most greatly affected by change during the year was the faculty librarians, or learning consultants. As Faculty Chair, Gary Fick was relieved of all reference desk duties for the year. Linda Lambert was on sabbatical during the spring term, and then resigned at the end of the year. This placed greater reference burdens on the other librarians, although Nola Ware, as a part-time replacement, helped pick up the slack. Finally, Kate Shelby-Martin resigned in January. Thus, at the close of the year, two faculty positions were vacant; Gary Fick accepted the role of search committee chair to fill these vacancies.

Several other changes occurred. Dominic Williamson assumed the position of Graphic Designer in Instructional Technology Services (ITS) in September. Natalie Vick was named Coordinator of Technical Services, thus assuming responsibility for acquisitions and serials in addition to cataloging from Ann Hill. Gary was named Senior Learning Consultant, thus becoming responsible for coordinating that group of librarians. Liaison assignments were adjusted, some permanently, others on an interim basis until the open positions are filled. The new year (2001/02) thus began with almost all librarians holding liaison assignments. Discussion of liaison responsibilities resurrected the issue of faculty status for all librarians. As a result, the librarians as a group prepared a proposal, requesting that the university confer faculty status on all librarians. The outcome is still uncertain.

Staff development was another focus. The library’s Staff Development Committee, with Paula Kraupa as chair, was formed late in the year. Its initial act was to name the first recipient of the Student Employee of the Year award—Jelena Novakovic. It is hoped that this is only the first step toward a comprehensive staff development and recognition program in the library. Several staff also participated in Orbis consortium committees, thus helping expand their horizons beyond the local library.

Library Services

In-Building Services

Two recent trends in building-centered services were reversed in 2000/01. Circulation of materials increased (see table below), as did the number of visitors to the library. Continuing their downward trends were in-library use of materials and the number of reference questions fielded.

**  1999-2001 numbers include items circulated in the Reserves system.

Electronic Services

Use of electronic resources—both inside and outside the library—continues to rise. Several explanatory comments are necessary regarding the table below (which lists vendors, for the most part, rather than the databases themselves). The decrease in the use of OCLC FirstSearch is more apparent than real. During the year, two heavily used databases (ATLA and PsycInfo) were moved to a new Vendor (EBSCO). Use of the remaining FirstSearch databases thus actually increased. The increase in EBSCO’s figures, on the other hand, reflects the fact that the number of databases included in EBSCOHost rose substantially—even though use of the main database (Academic Search Elite) actually fell by almost 25,000 in 2000/01 (see next page). It should also be noted that new resources appeared during the year, and thus have no 1999/00 data.

Vendor                                                      Searches                           

                                                (1999/00)                     (2000/01)

Cambridge Sci Abs                      2,356                           2,870
Christian Per Index                                                           1,116
EBSCOhost                               86,237                       111,486
EDRS (ERIC)                                                                     753*
JSTOR                                                                             2,028
NetLibrary                                                                            75
OCLC FirstSearch                     61,393                         51,463
ProQuest                                    22,671*                       15,584**                              
Silver Platter                                    920                           7,344
                                                ======                       ======
            TOTALS                     173,577                       192,719                                              

*    This represents number of documents retrieved rather than searches.
**  Statistics lacking for July 2000.

What are the most popular databases? Listed below are the TOP TEN (where applicable, last year’s use, and rank, is given within parentheses). There is a considerable gap from the TOP TEN to the next database, ArticleFirst (2,789). For a complete list of databases, please see the Appendix.

Interlibrary Loan

Another trend that continued its upward march was the use of interlibrary loan services by faculty and students of SPU. The gap between items loaned to other libraries and items borrowed from other libraries continues to widen. In 2000/01, the ratio of borrowing to lending rose to 2.35 to 1. It will be interesting to see how Orbis borrowing affects interlibrary loan in coming years.

Figure 1

Information Literacy

A service that is getting greater attention from the librarians is the teaching of information literacy (IL). Eager to see that SPU students obtain lifelong learning skills while enrolled, librarians continued traditional instruction sessions but added some new wrinkles. Contact with CIS was established so that the educational efforts of both groups with respect to technology could be coordinated. Refinement of Common Curriculum teaching materials continued, as did development of Web resources for the use of faculty. Ultimately, it is desired that information literacy become a project of the entire academic community.

Special Collections

Another service that was upgraded this year was the Samuel Emmanuel Special Collections room. Furnishings were added, and greater order was given to the materials housed in the room in order to facilitate retrieval. Complete cataloging of the materials in the Library of Congress system is still future, although some of the materials are available through the catalog now. In addition, policies governing the use of the collection were written. Special commendation is due Jenifer Sigafoes for her work in this area.

Collection Development

A key transitional area is that of collection development. Traditionally, the library has emphasized paper periodicals and books, but the number of electronic learning resources is increasing—without greater funding and despite the ravages of inflation, particularly with regard to periodicals. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that fiscal survival is dependent upon an increasing reliance on consortial purchases—arrangements that usually bring down the price of materials for individual libraries but entail a loss of autonomy with respect to the purchase of individual titles.

Since the library now subscribes to a number of electronic fulltext aggregations of periodicals, some redundancy in subscriptions has occurred—that is, the library carries paper or microform subscriptions while, at the same time, it purchases electronic access to some of the same titles embedded in a group purchase. One major collection development project, led by Aileen Maddox, is the reduction in redundancy of titles in more than one format. The library’s budget cannot sustain format redundancy, although there are long-term archival dangers in relying too heavily on electronic resources. One sub-project accomplished in 2000/01 was the assignment of subject descriptors to all serial titles, so that learning consultants can get a better grasp of the periodical subscriptions in their areas of responsibility, and make informed cancellation decisions. The year was also marked by the disappearance of the last CD-ROM database from the library’s offerings; all databases are now available remotely through the Internet.

Because of last year’s over expenditure for learning resources—and a call for institutional parsimony during the winter—the library’s purchase of monographs took a substantial “hit” in 2000/01 (see table below). Fewer funds were also expended on electronic resources in the past year than in 1999/00 because the latter year witnessed some large one-time payments. The total expenditure for electronic resources in 2000/01 was also substantially lower because some special contracts were negotiated for one year only, resulting in unique savings. It is doubtful that the library’s full panoply of electronic resources will ever cost so little again.

Here is the recent history of expenditures for learning resources. Costs for microforms are included for both monographs and periodicals.

Despite the serious shortfall in purchasing power for monographs, almost 6,000 titles were added to the collection in 2000/01. This figure includes 901 gift books as well as 1,311 electronic books from NetLibrary, bringing the total collection to approximately 175,000 volumes. For the first time in history, the SPU library now offers e-books as well as e-journals.

In order to ease catalog searching of the collections, the library entered into a contract with Library Technologies Inc. for maintaining authority control of access points such as names and subject headings. One more project in the continuing search for a comprehensive and uniform catalog is the reclassification of music scores from Dewey to Library of Congress. This project makes progress as time permits.

Technology

The big story in 2000/01 was implementation of a new integrated library system—Millennium, from Innovative Interfaces Inc.—in August 2000. Much training and on-the-job learning accompanied the new installation. New records—for example, fund and vendor records in acquisitions—were created, and new workflow processes were necessary. In serials, data entry for 2,794 new summary records occurred (one for each serial title in the collection), in order to facilitate check in of new issues. Given staff expertise and perseverance, the result is a better system with modern interfaces, easier report generation, and new, convenient features. In addition, installing the system opened the door to participation in the Orbis consortium.

The newest library department—Instructional Technology Services (ITS)—also made large strides during the year. One function of ITS, under the capable direction of David Wicks, is management of the hardware and software of staff and public computers in the library building. During the year, 179 requests involving new installations and repairs were completed. New computers were installed in the lab on the lower level of the library.  These are the first machines in the building to include DVD drives, which should open opportunities to begin considering DVD instead videotape when ordering video content.  The addition of these machines produced a shift that allowed older machines to be eliminated from other public areas of the building. 

The other major role of ITS is helping faculty incorporate technological solutions into the teaching/learning process on campus. The 2000/01 academic year was highlighted by dramatic growth in both production and services, transitioning from a role of helping individual faculty with small projects to a higher-level role of assisting the schools in the fulfillment of their instructional objectives. Highlights include: working with faculty to create online learning opportunities for their students; assisting faculty with the creation of digital content for instruction, national conferences, and accreditation visits; and providing numerous workshops including an online learning forum attended by 65 members of the faculty.

Projects

During the year, 259 documented projects were completed.  These projects included everything from scanning slides, to creating videos, to building entire online courses.  Figure 2 shows the breakdown of projects by organization.  The School of Education led the way in projects.  This was primarily due to the development of the Online Master’s in

Figure 2

Curriculum and Instruction program.  Although the initial work on the 17 courses for this project has been completed there will be ongoing work as instructors make adjustments based on evaluations.   It should also be noted that this project has helped to increase the

overall use of instructional technology in the School of Education as professors not involved in the online program have begun to use the tools recommended by their peers.

The work completed with the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Business, and the School of Health Sciences included helping instructors add online components to courses, scanning slides to be used in digital presentations, and editing videos to be used in instruction.  Although individual faculty members from the respective disciplines have used ITS services for several years, major growth in work with the School of Theology and the School of Psychology, Family and Community is anticipated during the next academic year.

All projects completed for the Office of Campus Ministry involved digitizing chapel events for streaming audio playback over the Internet.  Although these projects account for 13% of the total, the nature of the work requires minimal hours by ITS staff.  Projects under the “Benefited All” category primarily consisted of how-to documentation for instructional technology applications.  It is expected that all of this documentation will be moved online during the 2001/02 academic year.  Typical projects completed for administration included audio and video production of lectures and other all-campus events.  The non-profit category consisted of video and streaming media production done for groups such as CounterBalance, http://www.counterbalance.org, and the American Cultural Exchange, http://www.cultural.org/. Projects for these groups were only completed as time allowed and were billable services rendered.  This type of work has significantly decreased during this past year because of the growth of instructional technology projects by SPU faculty. 

Online Learning

The use of online learning increased dramatically during the 2000/01 academic year, growing 243% from the previous year.  By the end of the academic year there were 254 courses that were using some form of online learning.  The types of online learning components utilized by instructors included: written documents such as syllabi, lecture notes and journal articles; streaming lectures with animation and audio; asynchronous discussion boards, and online grade books.

Figure 3 shows the breakdown of courses utilizing online learning components by school.  The College of Arts and Sciences clearly leads the way with 129 total courses.  This should be expected given their number of course offerings, but note that until 2000/01 both SBE and SOE had more courses. It is anticipated that there will continue to be significant growth in the future, which will put a strain on both staff and technical resources.

Figure 3

Library Goals for 2001/02

1. Continued re-making of the library through technology-enabled services.
• Implementation of Orbis borrowing for the purpose of increasing access to books.
• Implementation of Ariel scanning software for quicker delivery of interlibrary loan articles.
• More publicity about JSTOR and NetLibrary.
• Growth of Web-based information literacy modules.
• Continued increase in the utilization of ITS by SPU academic units, particularly in relation to online learning.
2. Continued review of major library operations and services.
• Review of book and journal acquisition strategy in light of student demands for local and remote access.
• Development of goals/objectives arising out of the library’s mission for purposes of planning and assessment.
3. Development of goals/objectives arising out of the library’s mission for purposes of planning and assessment.

November 2001

Appendix 

Electronic Database Use 2000/2001