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Seattle Pacific University:
Library Annual Report, 2001/02

J. Ray Doerksen, University Librarian

Highlights:

• Orbis borrowing comes to Seattle Pacific University.
• Librarians overcome staff shortages and enhance collection
• Instructional Technology Services achieves fiscal independence
• SPU library bucks general use trends for the second straight year

General:
As garage sales demonstrate, one person’s junk is another person’s treasure. Another way of putting it is: every cloud can have a silver lining. The year’s cloud was the shortage of librarians; the silver lining was the release of financial resources to purchase more learning resources than initially anticipated. Details are in the “Collection Development” section later in this report.

In one sense, it was a year for treading water. Personnel shortages required that basic operations receive first attention; therefore, little progress was made at the more high-level change-producing activities that demand a significant investment of personnel resources. Nevertheless, the library emerged from the year in better condition to serve the 21^st century.

The most significant organizational modification occurred mid-year. Although still under the administrative oversight of the University Librarian, Instructional Technology Services (ITS) was given increased independence by assigning responsibility for its budget to the Director of ITS. A greater campus presence was also effected for ITS when the director assumed responsibility for monitoring the campus computer lab pool funds. It is expected that moving fiscal decision-making responsibility to the level most closely associated with technical operations will improve future performance.

In this day and age, libraries must cooperative to survive. Purchasing cooperatives and shared learning resources are the coin of the contemporary realm. Seattle Pacific University profits much from its participation in various consortia. This year, the library took advantage of an opportunity to give something back. The world’s greatest shared cataloging resource is OCLC’s WorldCat. Many of the holdings in SPU’s library had not been reported in WorldCat; therefore, other libraries were not informed that we would be able to share these resources through interlibrary loan. Natalee Vick, Technical Services Coordinator, arranged to have 99,568 records added as holdings to OCLC’s database—free of charge. The SPU library is now in position to more fully participate as a responsible member in sharing learning resources. An additional benefit to local patrons is that a search of WorldCat will now reveal the entire holdings of the SPU library.

There is one other bit of news about making the collection more visible. All netLibrary electronic books were added to the OPAC in July 2001.

Personnel:
Few personnel changes occurred during the year. In Access Services, Heidi Nance assumed the role of Interlibrary Loan Technician, and in Technical Services, Amy Weis replaced the retiring Mardell Smith as Serials Technician. Two professional vacancies persisted, however, throughout the year. By July 1, 2002, one position was filled by Jenifer Sigafoes, who competed successfully for one position and assumed the duties of Education Liaison/Remote Services Librarian. As the year closed, though, the Theology/Humanities/Fine Arts Liaison position remained vacant.

The other librarians coped well with the shortage of professional staff. Several (Carrie Fry, Aileen Maddox, Jenifer Sigafoes, and Natalee Vick) assumed liaison loads in addition to their usual duties. In order to release time for these extra duties, two part-time librarians were hired to staff the reference desk: Becky Paulson and Liz Gruchala-Gilbert. One unexpected consequence was the eventual hiring of Becky for the position of Public Services Librarian—effective July 1, 2002—to essentially replace Jenifer. Also, despite (or maybe, because of) the vacancies, the remaining librarians took the initiative in re-organizing their committee meetings under shared leadership and a rotating agenda in order to use their time more effectively.

A number of staff continued to participate in Orbis committee work. These are activities that contribute to professional growth and remove some of the isolation involved in day-to-day responsibilities. Also, in one other personnel matter, the Staff Development Committee awarded the honor of 2002 Student Employee of the Year to Jeanette DeBlois.

Learning Resources:
Collections
The biggest news of the year was the introduction of Orbis borrowing in August 2001. Access to the monographic holdings of Orbis libraries opens, in effect, the door to more than 3.5 million books (almost 5 million by fall 2002) in other Oregon and Washington academic libraries. Patrons are able to directly request items on their computers at home or in the office for quick delivery (2-3 days) to SPU’s library. This popular service proved its value during its initial year by supplying over 4,000 books for SPU patrons. It is estimated that each book cost less than $4.00 to supply on demand. Further expansion of Orbis is anticipated (Portland State University will be added in fall 2002). Normal patterns for other libraries suggest that use of these resources by SPU students and faculty will increase during the second year of service. Not until the end of the year did one faculty member report to me the excitement of using Orbis for the first time!

The picture for the local collection was also positive. Vacancies in two librarian positions released financial resources for the purchase of more learning resources than initially anticipated. An original allocation of approximately $422,000 turned into an expenditure of almost $500,000 (see table below). That is, additional learning resources worth more than $70,000 were added to the library’s collections.

Some of the specific print titles added were: Contemporary Literary Criticism (25 vols.), International Encyclopedia of Social & Behavioral Sciences (26 vols.), Loeb Classical Library (223 vols.), and the Soncino Hebrew-English Babylonian Talmud (30 vols.). Also purchased were learning resources for a new women’s studies program. New electronic resources included: Engineering Village 2, Music Index Online, Physical Education Index, PsycArticles, and migration from EBSCOHost’s Academic Search Elite to Academic Search Premier, which includes full text of more than 3,400 journals.

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

Format                         1998/99           1999/00           2000/01           2001/02

Monographs                             $152,427         $274,230         $110,704         $194,525

Periodicals                                  180,707           202,042           209,141           206,534

Electronic resources                     40,779              91,362             54,321             93,939

                                                =======        =======        =======        =======

TOTAL            $373,913         $567,634         $374,166         $494,998

Obviously, the greatest increases were in monographs and electronic resources. By offsetting the effects of inflation, selective cancellations kept the periodical expenditures under control, but continued vigilance will be necessary to keep the periodicals and electronic resources costs from decimating the budget for monographs in the future. At the end of the year, cataloged titles numbered 155,692 (182,874 volumes).

Electronic Resource
Electronic resources—including bibliographic databases, fulltext journals, and other tools—continue to be an important part of the materials that the library provides for SPU learners. In 2001/02, the total number of searches conducted surpassed 200,000 for the first time. Even though no statistics were available for three of the databases, the total number of searches calculated was 176,446—a decrease from the previous year. In addition 1,163 ERIC documents were perused through E*Subscribe, as were 392 titles in netLibrary (electronic books).

The TOP TEN databases, and the number of searches used this year, are:

Academic Search Elite/Premier                         54,023
PsycINFO                                                       16,926
ERIC                                                               12,550
ProQuest (all subsets)*                                     12,130
WorldCat (OCLC FirstSearch)                        11,696
CINAHL                                                           9,124
 MEDLINE (OCLC FirstSearch)                        6,257
ATLA (Religion)                                                 6,112
Philosopher’s Index                                             6,062
PsycArticles                                                        2,846

* Includes searching the following databases: ABI Inform, Research Library, New York Times, and Washington State Newsstand. Searches that were targeted for these databases (rather than all subsets) are listed separately

Although some details vary, the popularity of databases remained similar to that noted in 2000/01. For the complete list, see the Appendix.

For the first time, cost-per-search was calculated. The most expensive databases from a cost/benefit perspective were JSTOR ($2.07/search), MLA ($2.44/search), and LLBA ($4.12/search). It would appear that a review of language databases may be in order. The best “bang for the buck” (less than 30 cents per search) came from Academic Search Elite/Premier, ProQuest, CINAHL, Philosopher’s Index, the EBSCOHost package, and the FirstSearch base package. Since ERIC is a part of three packages, a specific cost per search cannot be calculated; it is, however, undoubtedly a good value.

Interlibrary Loan
It was expected that the introduction of Orbis borrowing service would lessen the demand for interlibrary loans. The statistics below demonstrate that this occurred in 2001/02; both “loans” and “borrows” decreased. The ratio of net borrowing remained greater than 2:1.

Library Services

In-Building Services
Use of the library showed mixed results in 2001/02, but most indicators of activity increased. As the table below demonstrates, building use rose for the second consecutive year, as did circulation of materials. The number of questions handled at the reference desk also increased from the previous year. It may be of interest that about 62 % of circulation goes to undergraduate students; graduate students account for almost 12 %, followed by faculty at nearly 9 % and staff at less than 5 %.

 **  Includes items circulated in the Reserves system.

 Information Literacy
 Even with a shortage of liaison librarians, information literacy activities continued apace. Librarians recorded 105 classroom contact hours, including 73 information literacy sessions with a total of 2,000 students. There were also four sessions, with a total of 67 faculty participating, conducted with teaching personnel rather than students. In addition, the library’s Web page saw the addition of a Faculty Online Reference Materials section in order to help faculty incorporate learning resources and information literacy skills into their classes.

Library Goals for 2002/03
 1.      Develop a complete library assessment plan to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of library operations, resources, and services.

2.      Negotiate participation in Washington’s Cascade union catalog—if that becomes a possibility.

3.      Implement the electronic delivery of interlibrary loan articles through Ariel software.

4.      Continue to investigate and develop 21^st century library services to users not coming to the library building.

5.      Develop an emergency plan for the library.

Appendix
Electronic Database Use 2001/2002