Difference between revisions of "Standard 5"

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==Text==
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==Standard 5 – Library and Information Resources==
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[[Image:five_resources.jpg]]
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===Standard 5.A – Purpose and Scope===
  
  
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==Introduction==
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''The primary purpose for library and information resources is to support teaching, learning, and if applicable, research in ways consistent with, and supportive of, the institution’s mission and goals. Adequate library and information resources and services, at the appropriate level for degrees offered, are available to support the intellectual, cultural, and technical development of students enrolled in courses and programs wherever located and however delivered.''
  
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Evergreen's library and information resources, which include traditional library services, media services and academic computing, support "freely chosen inquiry based on broad skills of knowing, reasoning and communicating about issues whose outcomes remain to be discovered" (Smith, Standard 2). All areas work to balance dynamic tensions between the open-ended demands of free inquiry in a flexible, responsive curriculum with the need for stability, security and efficiency in systems and services. Thus, Evergreen’s information resources and services should be evaluated as they support the aspirations of free inquiry, balanced with the need for reliable, efficient systems and services.
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====Supporting the Academic Mission of the College====
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Library and information resources at The Evergreen State College support students as they learn to reason and communicate about freely chosen inquiries whose outcomes remain to be discovered or created (Smith, Standard 2). Library and information resources at Evergreen must therefore balance the open-ended demands of free inquiry with the need for stability, security, and efficiency in systems and services. Historically, the Library has been well funded when compared to many public baccalaureates, in recognition of the extraordinary demands of open-ended inquiry and independent study. All library and information resources are shaped by the primary mission of teaching and providing state-of-the-art facilities for academic programs and individual students in this interdisciplinary, liberal arts curriculum. Strong collaboration among library, computing and media staff, faculty, and administration assures the development of the library and information resources as centers for teaching and learning.
  
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Many distinctive challenges arise in working to support a fluid, interdisciplinary curriculum and individual students free to pursue any significant question. Historically, in recognition of this college-wide focus on independent and freely-chosen inquiry, the library has been comparatively well funded. To effectively meet the expectations of independent inquiry, the library, media and academic computing depend upon well-established, intensive, personal, resilient and institutionally thoroughgoing interconnections to the curriculum, the faculty and the academic administration. These exceptionally strong interconnections form the essence the work and help assure high levels of use and satisfaction in the campus community.
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====The Founding Vision of the Library: Any Medium, Any Location====
  
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During the period of the self-study, the college has weathered the digital turn and the information services and instruction faculty and staff note and actively encourage the disappearance of the barriers among the library, media and academic computing. The faculty and staff teach and serve across various spaces, formats, disciplines, budgets, administrative units, geographical areas and jurisdictional boundaries, while working with platforms that have become increasingly interchangeable. Most students now presume such fluidity. They do not recognize format distinctions which were common in academia as recently as ten years ago.
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In 1969, when the founding dean of Library Services James Holly wrote his “Position Paper No. 1,” he proposed a model which he called the generic library, in some ways anticipating the concept of today's virtual library. “By generic I include man’s [sic] recorded information, knowledge, folly, and wisdom in whatever form put down, whether in conventional print, art forms, magnetic tape, laser storage, etc. By generic, I also eliminate physical boundaries such as [a] specific building or portion limited and identified as ‘the library.’”  Holly's vision motivated many aspects of library, media, and computer services, but proved in many ways untenable due to technical and budgetary constraints and because the college community expressed traditional longings for a bounded space. Today, laptops and networked data are ubiquitous and most students expect remote access to information resources, regardless of medium. Technology, as well as community values, have caught up with Holly’s founding vision, and Evergreen's library and learning resources now include all media, distributed to almost any location. Display of networked and audiovisual information now brings information technology to almost any classroom on campus. Active involvement in new consortia has led to quick access to expanded collections and information resources from around the region. Academic programs and students off-campus have access to rich, academically sound journal holdings. A wide selection of digitized media applications and advanced media labs provide access to media production. Increasingly seamless access to media, computing, and traditional information resources benefits all students. At the same time, the physical library has expanded its role as a social and intellectual space and provides an increasingly hospitable center for learning and gatherings of all kinds. A $22-million remodel connected previously disparate areas and created a more cohesive information-technology wing, providing one central entrance for the Library, Media Services, the Computer Center, and the Computing and Communications offices.
  
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Founding Dean of Library Services, James F. Holly, wrote his “Position Paper No. 1” in the Fall of 1969.  His primary assumption about the library was that it would be generic:
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====Functions and Facilities Covered in Standard 5====
  
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By generic I include man’s [sic] recorded information, knowledge, folly, and wisdom in what ever form put down, whether in conventional print, art forms, magnetic tape, laser storage, etc.  By generic, I also eliminate physical boundaries such as [a] specific building or portion limited and identified as “the library.”
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Reflecting these developments, Standard 5 considers information resources and services from several disparate administrative units: Library Services, including Media Services (administratively part of the Academic division); Academic Computing (administratively part of the Finance and Administration division); and the Computer Applications Lab (CAL) (administratively part of the academic division, with a historical role supporting the science curriculum). The phrase "library and information resources" in Standard 5 should be understood to refer to these units collectively, while comments about separate areas will use more specific language such as the Library, Media Services, the CAL, or Academic Computing. Occasional references to Computing and Communications will address technology infrastructure when relevant to instructional and academic support functions.
  
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As library services developed over time, the premise of the generic library proved untenable in many ways.  Budgetary and technological limitations and traditional expectations often caused retrenchment from this ideal. Today, information resources on every campus are becoming generic in Holly’s sense due to the broad reach of networked information and the ubiquity of the increasingly portable personal computer. With Holly’s vision as the foundation of the library, and interdisciplinary curriculum as the environment, Evergreen’s information services have moved quickly and flexibly into boundary crossing.  The largest single accomplishment of the past decade, a major remodel of the library, media and computing areas, interconnected the disparate areas into a more cohesive information technology wing. Looking ahead, continued integration of information services provides the greatest challenge and opportunity to thoughtfully and effectively support the academic mission.  This evolving web of staff, facilities, tools and services needs a manageable name and for the purposes of this study, it will be called the Library and Information Resources Network or LIRN, covering the work of what is administratively identified as Library Services (which includes Media Services) and Academic Computing.
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The information resources offered and supported by the Library, Academic Computing, and the CAL represent facilities and functions commonly found in libraries and computer centers elsewhere in academia. The Media Services section of the Library requires some explanation, as its role and location in the institution are unique. Media Services provides not only the usual audiovisual support for instruction, but also extensive collections and facilities in support of media production by students across the curriculum. Media production labs, a large circulating collection of portable media equipment, and extensive instruction represent activities, facilities, and functions which will not be found within the library at most institutions. Some media arts, communications or education departments might provide some such services to students of their curriculum, but not the library, and certainly not for general use. In the context of an interdisciplinary college, and in the light of the original ideal of the generic library, these services are provided through the Library in order to assure cross-curricular access and opportunity for students from anywhere in the curriculum, whether those students are studying media or simply wish to communicate academic content using media beyond print.
  
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Two broad categories of shared work organize the description below according to the college’s academic mission. First is teaching and instruction as a function of LIRN. This section will describe and assess the instructional work of the LIRN in the context of the college's alternative, flexible, student-centered pedagogy.  The second section will consider the collections, tools and resources supporting the curriculum, driven by content  which is interdisciplinary and fluid and which ranges from the broad to the deep. In each case the discussion will consider whether the resources and services of LIRN encourage and support "freely chosen inquiry and broad skills of knowing, reasoning and communication about open questions with real world implications."  A third section will discuss plans for embracing the new opportunities and challenges identified in the assessment to that point.
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====5.A.1 Sufficiency of Information Resources and Services====
  
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''The institution’s information resources and services include sufficient holdings, equipment, and personnel in all of its libraries, instructional media and production centers, computer centers, networks, telecommunication facilities, and other repositories of information to accomplish the institution’s mission and goals.''
  
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Throughout this study, library and information resources will be found to be strongly linked via face-to-face collaboration and consultation with faculty, staff, and students. These interconnections, within a flat organizational structure, assure constant feedback and redevelopment of services and facilities. Library funding generally compares very well with public institutions and correlates strongly to average funding for private liberal arts peers, peers with whom our use statistics compare favorably. An external assessment performed by Edutech described budgetary support for information technology as comparable to that of institutions with similar missions. There are no comparable institutions for studying the large activity of cross-curricular media services; however, advocacy from both the cross-curricular perspective of the Library and from the specific needs of the media faculty help ensure support. Rapid expansion in information technology access and aspirations have led to changes in personnel allocation and expertise and will continue to make increasing demands on a staff and faculty already stretched in many areas.
  
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==Teaching and Instruction==
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For a description of facilities, see [[media: Major_Facilities_List.doc |Major Facilities]] and Areas 1 & 2 of the [[media:TESC_Information_Environment_Review.doc | Edutech Information Environment Review]]. For holdings and equipment, see Standard 5.B.1. For personnel, see Standard 5.D.1. For evaluation of budgetary support, see Standard 5.D.6.
  
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===Description of Teaching and Instructional Programs===
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====5.A.2 Sufficiency of Core Collection and Related Resources====
  
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The title of this section suggests the array of instruction in which LIRN engages.  From basic technical skills instruction to complex, content-driven teaching by faculty and professionals in the curriculum, LIRN both supports and teaches in multiple modes.  Additionally, information services, collections and policies at Evergreen have developed in a dynamic relationship with teaching faculty who assume an inquiry-based, independent research-oriented interdisciplinary curriculum.  LIRN works intensively with the faculty in a proactive role which assumes teaching as the focus of everyone’s work. Whether in the library, academic computing or media services, LIRN understands, assesses and provides services through the lens of teaching  [EX: Library Dean’s position description 8/07].
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''The institution’s core collection and related information resources are sufficient to support the curriculum.''
  
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Teaching and instruction in LIRN is broadly encompassed by the term Information Technology Literacy, a literacy mandated in higher education in Washington State.  ITL as used throughout this study encompasses every aspect of computer usage including digitized library research, but also concepts found in the theoretical literature of media literacy.  Media literacy has been the ongoing concern of the Media Services, and of the generic library as the interdisciplinary curriculum and the mission to provide broad skills to communicate about open inquiry mandate a very broad role for Media Services. Media instructional models support the broadest definition of media literacy, which includes the ability to "access, analyze, evaluate and create messages across a variety of contexts."  This definition presumes something like digitized scholarship as the goal; not only should the literate student read and write astutely, but she should access, view and produce media astutely as well.[Footnote Sonia Livingstone article; Wyatt's definition; Caryn's position paper from the gen ed. process Nov. 27, 2000].  Media literacy is a cross-curricular agenda, necessitating instruction designed for students across programs, disciplines and other forms of academic work.
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Broad institutional support for cross-curricular library and information services has historically generated sufficient institutional budgetary support for core collections and facilities. During the study period, inflation and budget cuts reduced base budgets for local monograph collections. Non-state resources bridged some of the gap without building the base budget permanently. Consortial agreements created opportunities for cost-effective collective purchases of serials and for efficient resource sharing, resulting in better support for the intensive work by individual students.  
  
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On most campuses audio-visual services limit themselves to providing and supporting media equipment in classrooms.  Any in-depth instruction or support occurs within specialized curricular departments such as Communications, Media Arts or Educational Technology. As Media Services works to support any student's free inquiry, so also does Media Services support development of communication skills in the manner and medium appropriate to his or her study. Thus Media Services does not merely to deliver equipment, nor do they work exclusively with students one area of the curriculum.
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Collection Development, see 5.B.1 and 5.B.5
  
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Intensive academic work with and about media happens not only in interdisciplinary teams that include media faculty, but any student might decide to create a film, multi-media or musical production independently or within a program that is not media intensive. These are the challenging demands of the "freely chosen inquiry," demands which cannot all be met at all times. The location of Media Services administratively and physically within the library is meant to insure that media studies and media production are supported appropriately both within the programs that media faculty teach and elsewhere in the freely chosen inquiries of students.  Access to both broad and deep information technology across the curriculum and within specialized studies has also been the mission of academic computing support.  Each area of LIRN demonstrates distinctive structures assuring interconnection with the teaching of the college.
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====5.A.3 Education Program Drives Resources and Services====
  
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Within the Library, Evergreen requires rotation between the librarians and the teaching faculty. [EX: Pedersen, etc. for full description] To describe briefly, faculty librarians are expected to rotate out of the library to teach full-time on a regular basis and, in exchange, teaching faculty rotate into the library to serve as combined reference, instructional and collection development librarians.  Faculty who rotate into the library leave with current skills to embed information literacy effectively into their programs and teams and cross curricular contexts.  Library faculty develop the ability to work effectively across pedagogical and disciplinary realms to deliver information literacy instruction.  Librarians know the faculty as colleagues and teaching faculty know the librarians (probably the only basis for widespread and effective library instruction in a curriculum without requirements).
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''Information resources and services are determined by the nature of the institution’s educational programs and the locations where programs are offered.''
  
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The pedagogical experience and tools the library faculty develop teaching inside and outside of the library allow them to match instruction with individual academic programs. There are no canned tours or instructional programs; library instruction is not managed.  A loosely organized liaison system allocates the librarians among the academic programs each year, with personal connections, academic training, scheduling and serendipity all contributing to create the final combination of librarians and programs. Perpetual faculty-wide interactions in faculty governance and team-teaching reinforce the strong connections between the library faculty and the teaching faculty. Teaching teams also spread best practices in library instruction as older teaching faculty introduce their new faculty teammates to their library colleagues and the teaching they offer.
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Strong connections to the curriculum inform all library and information services. A distinctive library rotation system connects the library and teaching faculty in the shared project of curriculum and program planning. Teaching alliances between media services professionals and media faculty determine the character of media services. A strong liaison system connects Academic Computing instructors and services with teaching faculty. Meanwhile, a very experienced staff with substantial managerial responsibilities manages day-to-day library services while implementing services in response to the new opportunities advancing information technology affords. (See Standard 5.B.2 - Teaching and Instruction).
  
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As a result faculty librarians provide a wide array of library and information technology related teaching. One-time workshops designed to introduce sources particular to the needs of a program make up the most common format. At the other end of the spectrum, each year one or more library faculty affiliates deeply with a program, meeting weekly to create stepped learning conjoined with research assignments . For several years an information technology seminar linked library internship opportunities and a web technology workshop.  A small group of students experienced deep exploration of contemporary questions in the world of rapid digitization and its social implications paralleled with real library work and web production practice. The seminar and workshop have provided a venue for library faculty, staff and Academic Computing instructors to gather and consider both the past and future of information technologies. This teaching partnership sustains an important bridge of communication and mutual professional development between academic computing staff and library faculty. It also functions as a project laboratory, where the campus IT Survival Guide and similar web products have been developed. Each year one librarian has also offered research classes through the evening and weekend curriculum. [Ex: Sarah H. syllabi; webpages for internship; section on MIT workshops in Pedersen monograph; Librarian’s interview/self-evals; Washington Center Monograph; Randy Stilson's syllabi; Internship and intensive teaching as examples of experiments and individualized designs].
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Information technology planning and governance are discussed in Area 5 (Planning and Governance) of the [[media: TESC_Information_Environment_Review.doc|Edutech Information Environment Review]].
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The study notes that planning is collaborative and responsive to academic needs, and could be strengthened through a stronger role for the Information Technology Collaborative Hive (ITCH).
  
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Support for the two major off-campus offerings, Tacoma and the Reservation-Based, Community-Determined programs has focused heavily on instruction.  Students of these programs do not have good access to the physical campus, and must be directed to the many high quality resources made available to them on-line.  Most years librarians work closely with the Research Methods class at Tacoma, providing instruction on site several weeks per quarter.  Library instruction at the Reservation sites of the Reservation-Based Community-Determined programs has varied widely. Recently program has focused on building library methods into the lower division bridge curriculum, which has not involved the library directly.  Rebuilding this connection should be a high priority, and a planned faculty rotation from the Reservation-Based program will be an opportunity to do so. See the discussion of collections and services for discussion of the many ways direct access to collections has been facilitated through new services to off-campus programs. [EX: NAS and Tacoma resource pages]
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===Standard 5.B – Information Resources and Services===
  
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Within the library, the Library Faculty see themselves primarily as teachers.  They tend to understand the services of the library in the context of teaching, rather than as service providers.  They take a proactive approach to the work, suggesting tools and strategies for designing library instruction, and finding the intellectual work in the world of research instruction.  They see the library as part of the larger work of the faculty and students, rather than as a separate realm.  They are in an excellent position to work across administrative as well as curricular boundaries and sustain an important role in the crossroads of traditional research methods, contemporary information technology and the world of the curriculum and teaching faculty.
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''Information resources and services are sufficient in quality, depth, diversity, and currency to support the institution’s curricular offerings.''
  
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Other LIRN instructors also provide diverse instruction to support the very fluid curriculum and wide-ranging pedagogical styles and student skill levels. Several teaching structures occur most commonly across media and computing facilities and curricular areas. At the level of academic programs, all of the major computer and media labs assist academic programs with group instruction workshops designed around a technology or the tools of a particular discipline.  In working with interdisciplinary programs, workshops occur in different spaces depending on the technical needs; there is no constraint upon which facility may be used.  In one quarter, a program involving science and media might have a computer workshop in the Computer Center around blogs, a math program workshop in the Computer Applications Lab, a video creation and manipulation session in the Multimedia lab, and a library research workshop in one of the general purpose Computer Center labs. In this way academic programs can leverage the expertise of staff that specialize in those applications and find the best facility for their class size and application needs.
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==== 5.B.1 Equipment and Materials to Support the Educational Program====
  
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Teaching faculty must be able to easily locate and contact the appropriate staff member to coordinate instruction which may also require significant logistical support: lab scheduling, equipment check-out, server space, password access, personnel scheduling and other details may be necessary. Within Academic Computing, a staff member is assigned to each program to help coordinate technology needs for the quarter or year. This staff member will help set up technical support such as fileshares, webspaces and other resources, but will also schedule and teach workshops and coordinate with other technology areas on campus if the program is cross-disciplinary and has additional technology needs outside of Academic Computing.  The liaison becomes the point person for all computer support and instruction needs for the program.  Media Services staff work directly with faculty to design close integration of media use in programs, coordinated with a single Head of Instructional Media. The basis for media instruction, providing theory into practice, is a core methodology for achieving the best application of media tools into intellectual citizenship. The critical interaction between the program design and integration of tools use is a dynamic well fostered by regular joint facilities development and use planning between faculty and Media Services staff, who often team teach with faculty in the area.
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''Equipment and materials are selected, acquired, organized, and maintained to support the educational program.''
  
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Students who are working independently on computing projects may choose general access computing workshops which are pre-scheduled throughout the year.  Thus faculty may send students to the workshops, students may direct themselves and faculty and staff may take part as well as desired.  All the general access pre-scheduled workshops function on a first-come, first served basis.
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=====Collection Development Procedures & Methods=====
  
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Media production facilities are accessed by gaining proficiency, usually provided through one on one workshops or instruction provided by staff. Many Evening and Weekend Studies courses provide a coherent, regular pathway for instruction in use of the more complex production facilities, allowing contract or students specializing in other areas of the curriculum to gain the skills needed to apply media production resources to their work.
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The Library faculty develops collections to support Evergreen's changeable interdisciplinary curriculum without the usual benefit of departmental allocation or structures. The librarians build collections and vendor profiles on the basis of their work as both library and teaching faculty (see 5.B.2), work which involves full-time teaching, faculty governance, extensive collegial engagement with the teaching faculty, and affiliation with planning units. The curriculum committee is the faculty as a whole, and develops the curriculum in curricular planning units, curriculum retreats, and governance groups. The Library faculty's overall knowledge of the curriculum is strengthened by teaching faculty who rotate into the Library and lavish their attention on areas of the collection related to their disciplinary expertise. Finally, librarians honor most requests from individuals for additions to the collection, working from the fact that free inquiry and individual research are central to the Library’s mission.
  
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Proficiencies are brief equipment workshops with associated testing to insure students have the basic skills to operate the many types of portable equipment and the media labs, some which are open 24 hours a day. Media instructors run hundreds of these quick skills-focused instructional sessions annually, serving thousands of students, ensuring proper use of the equipment, and providing supportive technical background for systems.
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In the past, the Library has struggled to satisfy incidental research demands outside the boundaries defined by the core, repeating curriculum. The substantial part of the curriculum which varies from year to year, the significant amount of work by independent contract students (almost 1,300 independent study contracts in 2006-07), and the opportunity for intensive individual projects within full-time, multi-quarter programs have all driven demand for specialized materials outside the core collection. Resource sharing and large, shared purchases, all made efficient because of networking technology, have eradicated this problem, although budget cuts and inflation create some difficulties keeping the core collection current. The budget for core monograph purchases has been supplemented with allocations from non-state resources in order to help bridge this gap. See 5.B.5 below.
  
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In addition, Evergreen subscribes to Lynda.com, a web-based instructional resource that provides focused, well-developed on-line tutorials on a large array of software applications, programming languages, and the like.  A Computing wiki began last year and hosts approximately 2,000 pages of instructions, tutorials and other information. Students, faculty and staff use this resource increasingly to learn about computer-related technologies hosted on campus.
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=====Media Services=====
  
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A significant portion of the Media Services staff are artists and professionals in their own right who teach routinely as adjuncts, providing major portions of the Evening & Weekend Program as well as Extended Education teaching. Some of the work of the area is to provide the facilities to support this teaching as well as the rest of the curriculum. As instructors, they are important to the success of media-based programs and are seen as colleagues by the Expressive Arts faculty whose programs they support and as gurus by faculty who are less media-literate. These working relationships form the backbone of the interconnections so essential to the effective administration of media services in general.
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Close work with the curriculum and faculty also informs the development of media facilities and services. Media staff attend the Expressive Arts  planning unit meetings, in particular the Moving Image subgroup. Budgetary processes for equipment purchase and operating costs include multiple avenues for consideration of educational program needs. Through the planning units, needs are communicated to the academic budget planners. Through the Library, cross-curricular media demands are communicated to the academic budget planners. Through the ITCH, cross-unit needs are coordinated and passed up to the campus-wide budget process. These three avenues help ensure that the budget process addresses both broad and specific curricular demands for media.
  
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Media staff who teach as adjuncts are also often called upon to support the full-time curriculum as visiting artists. Photo, Electronic Media and Media Loan staff supervise 4 to 8 student interns who are critical to the effective functioning of labs and services. These students typically not only gain high level skills in technical production, but also develop instructional, collaborative and administrative skills associated with working closely with students and technical staff. Finally, all LIRN faculty and staff sponsor many individual contracts which provide opportunities for students who have identified intensive individual inquiries which are not supported in the curriculum at large.
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Some stresses develop. Like the Library, Media Services serves the entire academic community, from programs to individuals. And, like the Library, Media Services strains under the pressure of answering the needs of independent study, as well as a fluid curriculum. Students working on independent media productions compete with Expressive Arts programs for scarce resources, from equipment to laboratories to teaching staff. In order to balance these competing demands, Media Services requires students and faculty to submit media request forms, which are reviewed by the Media Services manager and the head of Instruction Media, who allocate resources, both human and technological. Independent contract forms include a question about the need for special equipment or facilities, which serves as a safety net for screening intensive media use. In these ways Media Services assures that students embarking on media studies do so with appropriate support. The Expressive Arts planning unit also instituted a Student Originated Studies (SOS) group contract in media to assure that students have consistent access to facilities and instructional support as they pursue their independent projects.
  
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The faculty institute has become a valuable method for connecting with the faculty and updating information technology expertise. Every summer and now throughout the quarter, faculty institutes offer a way for faculty to familiarize themselves with new technologies and media applications which may be relevant or helpful in their teaching.  Rather than being mandated, presenters propose institute topics in response to a call for proposals and those with high positive response are scheduled.  In other words, this method for technology education is entirely staff and faculty driven. The institutes focus on a specific technology, such as teaching statistics with Excel or how to use on-line collaborative tools to encourage learning communities, or explore a larger, integrated technology based theme, like streaming media as a critique technology.  As part of the paid work of the summer institutes, faculty do self-directed work focused on their real academic program needs.  They evaluate the technology for their use, experiment, practice, and plan how to incorporate applications into programs.
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=====Information Technology Equipment & Facilities=====
  
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The [[Media: TESC_Information_Environment_Review.doc| Edutech Information Environment Review]]  includes equipment in its discussion of technological facilities in Area 1 of the report. The report states, "Computing, networking and information technology facilities at Evergreen are extensive and impressive. In most cases, Evergreen facilities are at or near standards for similar institutions, and in some cases surpass them. However, these standards are a moving target, and there are areas in which the college will probably have to make upgrades in the near future."  The report lauded the computer labs, classroom technology, and access to computers. Recommended improvements were to extend wireless to the entire campus and permanently fund a replacement cycle for equipment.
  
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====5.B.2 Teaching and Instruction====
  
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===Analysis & Assessment of Teaching & Instructional Programs===
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''Library and information resources and services contribute to developing the ability of students, faculty, and staff to use the resources independently and effectively.''
  
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As the foregoing description makes clear, LIRN focuses strongly on teaching.  Assessment of this teaching might well consider several questions:  1) In a college without requirements, does information technology instruction reach enough students to assure that the vast majority of graduates develop their skills broadly in support of their inquiries? 2) Which students are taught?  Do students receive their information technology instruction in an array of disciplinary and developmentally varied situations or is it happening only in pockets of the curriculum?  3) Is it working?  Have students acquired information technology skills?
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=====Defining Information Technology Literacy=====
  
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How many students are reached?  Within recent years about 75% of the student population has annually attended program-based library instruction workshops. [EX: workshop statistics]. Librarians and teaching faculty have designed these workshops with the assumption that the skills imparted are embedded in the interests and needs of the program learning community. At a minimum, the faculty for the program usually 1) creates a research assignment which informs and motivates the students’ work; 2) attends the workshop and takes part, adding his or her expertise and/or questions; 3) provides the library liaison a syllabus and a copy of the assignment and a list of the topics students are considering and 4) asks the students to begin considering their topic or even hypothesis before attending the workshop so that they are primed to begin actual research during the workshop. This is the minimal model for the one-time library workshop; extended relationships with programs and students are common, although not nearly as frequent as the one-time workshop.  Librarians teach in staged series of workshops most frequently in the graduate programs, in the sciences, and in the off campus programs.
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Standard 2 links the five foci and six expectations of an Evergreen education to the idea of reflexive thinking. "Reflexive thinking begins with a question, an interrogation of the world, and an encounter with the other. As such it involves the student in the whole process of substantive learning about subjects, disciplines and methods that is the standard domain of learning. But reflexivity is the capacity that a learner has to think about the situation and conditions that underlie her own personal and collective experience of thinking and knowing." (See [[Standard_2#Reflexive_Thinking | reflexive thinking]]). This work is engaged and supported through the broad and deep resources of the collections and instruction within the library and information resources.  
  
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The rate of media instruction has increased significantly over the self-study period. From 2000 to 2007, a total of more than 1500 workshops were offered to approximately 156 programs. The number of workshops given and students reached in 2005 and 2006 were each more than double the numbers provided in 2000. One driver for these increases has been that workshops are needed for more kinds of equipment, especially in the media loan collection and in the new Multimedia and DIS labs.
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The professional literature and practice of librarianship defines information literacy as a reflective process. To be clear, a '''reflective''' process considers, evaluates, synthesizes, and in general, engages information discovered through research. In contrast, a '''reflexive''' process goes on to consider one's own learning and knowledge as influenced through exposure to the information under consideration. According to Jeremy J. Shapiro and Shelley K. Hughes, in their article entitled [[Media: educom_review.pdf|'Information Literacy as a Liberal Art']], information literacy should "be conceived more broadly as a new liberal art that extends from knowing how to use computers and access information to critical reflection on the nature of information itself, its technical infrastructure, and its social, cultural and end even philosophical context and impact..."
  
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Academic Computing instructors provide academic program-based training sessions and workshops throughout the academic year. These sessions are very well attended because the faculty usually design and schedule them as formal class periods.
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The information literacy curriculum includes:
  
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{| class="wikitable"
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* Tool literacy - The ability to use print and electronic resources including software and online resources.
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|+ '''Computer Lab Workshops for Academic Programs''' (cells represent academic programs/# of students)
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* Resource literacy - The ability to understand the form, format, location, and methods for accessing information resources.
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* Social-structural literacy - Knowledge of how information is socially situated and produced, including understanding the scholarly publishing process.
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* Research literacy - The ability to understand and use information technology tools to carry out research, including the use of discipline-related software and online resources.
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* Publishing literacy - The ability to produce a text or multimedia report of research results.
  
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! Computer Lab !! 2004-05 !! 2005-06 !! 2006-07
 
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| Computer Center || 221/4423 || 171/3418 || 253/4880
 
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| Computer Applications Lab || 50/1368 || 50/1248 || 52/1344
 
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|}
 
  
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=====ITL in the Context of Holly's Generic Library=====
  
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Up until 2007, Academic Computing offered 30 to 40 general computer skills workshops per year in the Computer Center, attended by approximately 350 students.  Professional staff conducted these workshops which were focused on general technical skills-building, independent of academic programs. Voluntary attendance became increasingly sporadic, which may be attributed to the increasing number of students who consider themselves already technically literate.  In response to this waning attendance, Academic Computing redesigned the workshops as student-centered open support sessions to which students bring their self-identified technology questions or projects. This student-centered structure should more effectively meet the specific skill-levels and interests of the students. Assessing the effectiveness and popularity of this new model will be an important assessment project over the immediate future and will drive further instructional design.
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Information literacy at Evergreen is itself a reflexive practice, in addition to being central to the process of reflexive thinking in the broader context of undergraduate education at Evergreen. That is, the student uses library and information resources to put herself in relation to information and thinking from a variety of sources and further, reflects about herself and her learning as she researches and learns. Within the context of library and information resources as understood and managed at Evergreen, this literacy includes not just print scholarship, but media and computing, to become not just information literacy but Information Technology Literacy (ITL). Reflection upon information includes reflection upon the nature and role of the tools themselves. Reflexive thinking includes the relation of the user to the information and the tools.  
  
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Raw numbers of teaching contacts across LIRN help us understand how many students are taught, but not which students. The Office of Institutional Research conducted end-of-year program reviews from 2001 to 2006 which asked faculty “Did your students use technology to present work, conduct research (including library research), or solve problems?  If yes, how?"  The responses show several tendencies, as reported in the “Summary of Information Technology Literacy Emphasis in Programs” (August 2006). Not surprisingly, especially because faculty were prompted to consider library research skills as technological, “library/internet research skills were the most commonly used, followed by some form of presentation technology.”  [Exhibit: http://www.evergreen.edu/institutionalresearch/pdf/assessment/epr/EPRsummary2006technology.pdf.]
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Thus, in order to assure that students have the skills to communicate about their open inquiries and the resources to support deeply reflexive thinking, library and information resources take a broad role in the curriculum. Two of the “Six Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate” relate directly to commitment by the library and information resources to help students achieve intellectual independence, creativity, and critical acumen. Expectation Two states that our graduates will communicate creatively and effectively; Expectation Four, that our graduates apply qualitative, quantitative, and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across the disciplines. Not only should literate students read and write astutely, they also should access, view, critique, and produce media and writing that is eloquent and complete. In this way, digital scholarship merges seamlessly with individual and formal educational goals, just as print scholarship has in the past.
  
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Closer analysis of which technologies were taught in what parts of the curriculum may be found in the supplemental material below.  To summarize, while library information technology is fairly widespread, and other information technologies are common throughout much of the curriculum, the faculty are quite selective in the choice of particular types of applications.  Significantly different technologies are taught predominantly in different parts of the curriculum and there is no standard set of applications broadly taught throughout the curriculum or in Core programs.  This is consistent with the practices described above in library instruction where the content and pedagogy is designed to suit the particular inquiry at hand.
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=====Cross-Curricular Media Instruction=====
  
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Library, media and academic computing instructional support seem to follow the reported engagement with the technologies in programs. Weak coverage in a planning unit is generally matched with weak instructional support from LIRN.  Thus the end of program reviews may be used as tools for assessing, very generally, gaps in service and coverage.
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Library and information resources support ITL as an agenda for students across programs, disciplines, and media. Library and information resources staff and faculty collaborate with teaching teams as they instruct students in media and students who create films, multimedia, or musical works for programs or for independent study. These are the challenges of the "freely chosen inquiry," challenges that cannot all be met at all times. However, the location of Media Services administratively and physically within Library Services is meant to ensure that media studies and media production are supported appropriately both within the programs that media faculty teach and elsewhere in the inquiries of students. The spread of entry-level media applications into the general-use computer labs increases access to media production across the curriculum.
  
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As a case in point, Media Services claims as its mission support for media literacy and instruction across the curriculum. Over the past ten years the nature of media services technology has changed dramatically; the platform for entry-level or basic media production and consumption has become the commonly available personal computer. Analog media production has become almost non-existent outside of expressive or creative contexts and has become much less common even there.  As a result basic media applications are now ubiquitous.  How has that impacted the support media services provides to media technology in the curriculum? Data from scheduling software provides insight into which faculty and programs were served through formal workshops since Fall of 2000 and this data matches findings in the end of program reports.
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Although library and information resources instructors work to fuse teaching with program content, students are nevertheless able to access any media application or information technology beyond or without considering program content. Likewise, many programs focus entirely on technical skill building, without any formal attempt to link these practices to disciplinary content. And in other areas of the curriculum, such as the Culture, Text, and Language planning unit, critical media and information studies are often taught in a theoretical mode, without hands-on media production—the thing itself. The point is that when skills are valorized over content, or when theory ignores practice, students neglect concrete critical reflection on how technology impacts the message, the creators, the audience, or society. However, Holly's generic library model, the founding principle for library and information resources at Evergreen, has emphasized and counterbalanced the tendency to isolate skills from content. Students who read texts expect to write as well; why should they view media and not expect to create it? Early on, a rotating faculty member who helped link instruction with critical media studies and with interdisciplinary programs directed Media Services. Library and information resources continue to struggle to advocate for the critical study of media and information technology across the curriculum.
  
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The scheduling data, while it does not cover the very significant teaching done in equipment proficiency workshops or one-on-one instruction in labs, shows that almost 90% of formal program-based workshops serve expressive arts faculty. Thus it is clear that media services formal instruction focuses heavily on the specialized media production applications which are not migrating to other areas of the teaching faculty.  This was a distinct choice made by media services in recognition of the increasingly powerful media applications to be found in broadly available personal computer applications. Media Services has been developing production and instruction facilities for some time which apply computing tools to media, and this work actively influenced the revision and subsequent growth in media related instruction in Academic Computing. The migration of basic level media tools to entry level computers has moved some instruction to Academic Computing instructors and labs.  More complex and specialized media work is supported in remodeled specialty labs in Media Services.
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Academic computing also provides access to and instruction in information technologies through a balance of specialized and open computing facilities. With the migration of many media applications to commonly available personal computer platforms, instruction and facilities to support entry-level media production have spread to academic computing and even to the Library proper.
  
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A snapshot of Computer Center program-related workshops in Fall and Winter of 2006/07, shows that 68% of the faculty requesting these workshops are from areas other than Expressive Arts.  The Computer Applications Lab shows a similar emphasis on broadly used applications.  Although the CAL focuses on the science curriculum in ES and SI, instruction and program use in the CAL has moved toward broader applications of data analysis and reporting. The proximity of the space to the two adjacent science labs has enabled the specific experimentation to move to the science labs.  Roughly 60%-75% of the classes meeting in the CAL do some type of statistical or numeric analysis using primarily Excel. Other tools used include Graphical Analysis, R, and SPSS. Presentation preparation is the second highest use; 90% of the population engage in preparing results and presentations using presentation tools, with the highest use of Powerpoint, Word, Illustrator and Excel. Approximately 60% of the programs meeting in the space take advantage of analytical tools including (in order of usage) ArcGIS, Mathematica and Stella, which used to be the most highly used CAL applications. This is largely the result of better data collection tools which allow direct work with analysis of data straight from the experiment.  Faculty are also now working more strictly in lab and field experimentation and bring the data back into the computer classroom for analysis using standard applications.
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Library and information resources faculty and staff instruct and teach in multiple modes, from basic skills instruction to more complex, content-driven teaching by faculty and professionals in the curriculum. In addition, the teaching faculty contribute substantively and collaboratively to planning and implementing information services, collections, and policies. This dynamic collaboration between the teaching faculty and the library and information resources has shaped the primary mission to support inquiry-based education. Each area within library and information resources has developed structures to connect teaching and instruction closely to the faculty, the curriculum, and the academic mission of the college. Utilization, satisfaction, and curricular surveys demonstrate the breadth and effectiveness of this work (See Planning and Evaluation 5.E).
  
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Formal, entry-level cross-curricular information technology literacy instruction, including media applications and excluding library technology, has clearly become an important part of the work of Academic Computing.  This should not suggest a silo of basic information technology that occurs only under the auspices of one department.  The blending of services and facilities that networking has encouraged across LIRN and the generally greater familiarity and ownership of personal computers and, even more, laptops has made the use of basic information technology ubiquitous.  All areas of LIRN provide extensive informal support and instruction, whether to students on independent contract, students choosing media as their form of communication within non-media programs or students working within media and information technology intensive programs. Entry level and basic media production tools are accessed by many students for general program uses, and the Academic Computing area has expanded its instructional support to teach these resources. In more complex or specialized media work, almost all instruction by Media Services in labs designed and staffed to also provide access for the general student.  Thus students who are not members of media-focused programs still find intensive, ongoing technical support for advanced work if needed.
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=====Faculty Librarians and Library Teaching=====
  
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All this data addresses basic questions of use.  It does nothing to consider that aspect of information technology and media literacy which considers critical approaches. Whether students are creators or readers and consumers of mediated texts, these data do nothing to elucidate what the faculty expect and provide in the way of critical perspectives. Critical approaches may even occur more heavily in parts of the curriculum such as CTL where information technology use hardly appears at all. In the past, the generic library model brought the traditional critical aspect of research into discussions of media. A rotating faculty member directed media services and helped linked service models of instruction with critical approaches across the curriculum and with individual faculty. Today, while ITCH and remodeled physical relationships provide more opportunity to address questions of purchase, delivery and support, there is little opportunity for cross-LIRN discussions of critique or shared strategies for engagement with the curriculum. This should be an area of concern.
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Evergreen requires rotation between the librarians and the teaching faculty. Briefly stated, faculty librarians rotate out of the Library to teach full time on a regular basis and, in exchange, teaching faculty rotate into the Library to serve as librarians providing reference, instruction, and collection development. (See [[media:Learning_Communities_and_the_Academic_Library.pdf | Pedersen]] pp. 41-44 for more discussion of this system). Faculty who rotate into the Library leave with updated skills for developing information literacy within their programs and teams across the curriculum. Library faculty develop their subject specialties and enhance their ability to work across pedagogical and disciplinary realms. Perpetual faculty-wide interactions in faculty governance and team-teaching reinforce the strong connections between the library faculty and the teaching faculty. Librarians know the faculty as colleagues and teaching faculty know the librarians (probably the only basis for widespread and effective library instruction in a curriculum without requirements). Teaching teams also spread effective library instruction practices as experienced teaching faculty introduce their new faculty teammates to their library colleagues and the teaching they offer. Most new faculty also bring updated information technology skills and experience to share with their colleagues.
  
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To summarize, not only does LIRN teach a large number of students about information technologies, but also a very wide spectrum of the curriculum includes information technology use and skills development. The interdisciplinary focus of Interarea programs appears to provide the environment in which students are most likely to experience a range of embedded skills development across information technologies, while other areas of the curriculum use technology in highly varied ways as appropriate for the pedagogy and content of programs.
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A loose liaison system links each librarian with a subset of the curriculum, based on subject expertise, planning unit affiliation, and personal alliances. Faculty librarians provide a wide array of library and information technology-related teaching. One-time workshops designed to engage sources particular to the research projects within an academic program represent the most common format. Librarians and teaching faculty design these workshops with the assumption that the skills imparted are embedded in the interests and needs of the program learning community. At a minimum, the faculty for the program usually 1) create a research assignment which informs and motivates the students’ work; 2) attend the research workshop and participate, adding their expertise and/or questions; 3) provide the library liaison with a syllabus and a copy of the assignment and a list of the topics students are considering; and 4) ask the students to begin considering their topic before attending the workshop so they are primed to begin actual research during the workshop.  
  
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The third level of analysis is to consider whether this array of instruction and inclusion in programs collude to assure effective academic research and information technology skill development. No established single information literacy curriculum or single list of skills will match the Evergreen context. Open inquiry, absence of requirements, independent learners, and a fluid curriculum responsive to changing events drive varied needs and expectation. Thus, standard assessment methods that presume particular goals for skills at particular stages of a student’s college career do not make sense for Evergreen's students or curriculum.
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Librarians teach workshops on research most frequently in the graduate programs, the sciences, and the off-campus programs. The teaching models for these more extended situations vary according to the library faculty involved and the role in the curriculum, and they evolve significantly year to year. Each year, library faculty affiliate deeply with a few such programs, meeting weekly to create stepped learning conjoined with research assignments. For documents exemplifying this teaching, see [[media:Forensics_week-by-week.doc | Forensics Syllabus]] and [[media:Chemistry_Health_Professions_Project_Description.doc | Chemistry Health Professions Project]]. During several academic years, an information technology seminar linked library internship opportunities with a hands-on Web technology workshop. In that model, a small group of students explored contemporary questions in the world of rapid digitization and its social implications. They paralleled that study with real library work and Web production practice, including wikis and Web pages designed to support library functions. The seminar and workshop have provided a venue for library faculty, staff, and Academic Computing instructors to gather and consider both the past and future of information technologies. See the syllabi for the programs Still Looking ([[media: stilllooking_fall.pdf|fall]], [[media: stilllooking_winter.pdf|winter]], [[media: stilllooking_spring.pdf|spring]]), Information Landscapes ([[media: infolandscapes_fall.pdf|fall]], [[media: infolandscapes_winter.pdf|winter]], [[media: infolandscapes_spring.pdf|spring]]), and Common Knowledge ([[media: commonknowledge_fall.pdf|fall]], [[media: commonknowledge_winter.pdf|winter]], [[media: commonknowledge_spring.pdf|spring]]). Each year, one librarian also offers research methods through the evening and weekend curriculum.
  
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Nevertheless, in an effort to understand and promote discussion of researching methods and abilities among Evergreen students, LIRN and the Office of Institutional Research devised a more ethnographic assessment project which brought students with real research inquiries together to work collaboratively and intensively on library research in a context where processes, techniques, thinking and results might be examined.  The group involved was very small, and not intended to be in any way representative statistically of the general level of library research competence. This process was an example of combining assessment of technical skills with assessment of the processes of inquiry, including the critical perspectives not assessed above.
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In-depth, extended library-related teaching within programs and service to off-campus and Evening and Weekend programs can be a challenge in the context of a reduced core of library faculty. During the self-study period, one faculty line was cut during budget reductions. This causes significant stress on the quality and quantity of instruction the area is able to provide.
  
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The summarized results of the process show that the strengths of these particular students were analytical and content-focused, while their technical command of library research tools for their specific inquiries and searching were weak. Thus the ability to develop an effective inquiry; the assessment, evaluation and synthesis of findings; the academic content of the work; and the reiterative group process of developing the research content were all strengths. This suggests that “Faculty may want to assess their students’ abilities to obtain information and offer tutorials or refer students to the Library [presumably librarians or the reference desk] when deficiencies are detected.”
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=====Library Faculty as Service Providers=====
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Library faculty see themselves primarily as teachers. They tend to understand the services of the Library in the context of teaching and learning, specifically teaching as it actually happens in the Evergreen curriculum. Thus, they do not tend to work from externally defined "best practices," nor do they function in a reactive mode. They take a proactive approach to the work, suggesting tools and strategies for designing library instruction and finding the intellectual work in the world of research instruction. They position themselves to work across administrative as well as curricular boundaries and sustain an important role in the crossroads of traditional research methods, contemporary information technology, and the world of the curriculum and their teaching colleagues.
  
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As in the case of computer workshops, student-centered skills instruction remains preferable, and that is the model of the reference desk and the reference desk interview. Within programs, small peer group work on thesis development is a common strategy.  Adding peer group discussion of the research process, or brainstorming, to library instruction seems productive, based on this process assessment. Library faculty working with programs may want to suggest and encourage this focus and could also, when time allows, set up these small group processes as part of library workshops.  How to encourage focused instruction at time of need remains challenging and depends largely upon the faculty as they review and assess the bibliographic results of students’ actual work. It may be profitable to offer bibliography evaluation and student conferences to programs where students produce annotated bibliographies and thesis statements as part of staged research assignments.  [Exhibit: http://www.evergreen.edu/institutionalresearch/pdf/assessment/informationliteracy.pdf]
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=====Service and Teaching=====
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The faculty librarians have transformed the reference desk into a teaching space, which goes well beyond traditional service models. For this reason, there is generally a librarian at the desk during the hours the Library is open to the public. Each contact between a librarian and a patron represents an opportunity to teach and learn. In collections, Web page design, signage, collection organization, and creation of virtual services, the librarians ask not just what is easiest or matches the expectations of inexperienced users, but what can be taught through the new design, service, or collection. For example, broad aggregate databases have been purchased because they are cost effective, but the librarians also emphasize and teach comparatively complex digitized indexes, which refer students more deeply into the discipline-based literature of their inquiries. As discussed throughout this document, library and information resources are designed, planned, taught, and supported in the context of college-wide teaching and learning.
  
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Another indicator for skills development is the 2006 Evergreen Student Experience Survey which asked "To what extent have your Evergreen experiences contributed to your growth in ... the following computer-related fields...?"  For the category 'Studying or Doing Research via the Internet or other online sources" 30.5% of Olympia campus students reported at least some contribution; 47.5% reported quite a bit or a lot, for a total of 77.5%.  More than 84% of Tacoma students reported at least some, of which 50% reported quite a bit. More than 93% of reservation-based students reported at least some contribution; 86.2% reporting quite a bit or a lot.  These statistics correlate well with the end of program review and instructional data. Considering just how many students express self-confidence in their research skills, and as the internet provides so many increasingly powerful tools for personal research, it is heartening to see that a good majority of students recognize that they developed greater (and one hopes more scholarly) research skills as part of their education at Evergreen.
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=====Library Faculty and Off-Campus Programs=====
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Library support for the two major off-campus offerings, the Tacoma and the Reservation-Based Community-Determined programs, focuses heavily on instruction, with additional support from networked technology, including specialized Web pages for these programs. See [[Media: reservation_library.pdf|services for Reservation-Based students]] and [[Media: tacoma_library.pdf|services for Tacoma-based students]]. Students of these programs have limited access to the physical library and must be alerted to the many high-quality resources available to them online through the Library. End-of-program reports show very high engagement with information technology in these programs (See [[Media: End-of-program_Review_Results_for_2006-07_%E2%80%93_Information_Technology_Literacy_by_Planning_Unit.pdf |End-of-program Review Results for 2006-07 - Information Technology Literacy by Planning Unit]]). Most years, librarians work closely with the Research Methods class at Tacoma, providing laboratory-based instruction on location several weeks per quarter. As of 2007-08, this work has taken on a more formalized structure and has developed into credit-generating research classes.
  
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The ESES 2006 also asked about "Using the computer for artistic expression (e.g. music, other audio, still images, animation, video, etc."  Just over 42% reported Evergreen contributed "Some", "Quite a Bit" or "A Lot".  Fully 36.8% said "Not at All" and 20.9% said "Very Little."  Other than word processing, skills development attributed to Evergreen for other types of computer applications is fairly low.  Because the data is broken out by specific technologies or applications, it echoes the end of program reviews where different parts of the curriculum report differing kinds of information technology instruction and use.
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Library instruction at the upper-division off-campus sites of the Reservation-Based Community-Determined programs has varied widely year-by-year. Recently, the program has focused on building library methods into the lower-division bridge curriculum, which has not involved the library faculty directly. Reservation-based programs report 100% teaching and use of library and Internet research in 2007; however, this work has not engaged the Library's holdings or services significantly. Rebuilding this connection should be a high priority, and a planned faculty rotation from a former director of the reservation-based program will be an opportunity to do so. Perusal of the [[Media: Achievements2.doc |Achievements]] list for the self-study period demonstrates that almost every development supports distant access to collections and services and thus the off-campus programs.
  
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Overall, information technology, whether library research, media or computer technology, is embedded throughout most of the curriculum. No single set of information technology skills has been embraced, as faculty and students choose and adapt the technology according to the pedagogical and disciplinary requirements of their chosen inquiry.
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=====Modes of Instruction in Media and Academic Computing=====
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In all major computer and media labs, staff instructors provide group instruction designed to support the needs of specific academic programs, covering particular applications and tools relevant to the disciplines involved. Media and computing instructors teach workshops in different spaces and in different modes, depending on the discipline and the technology. There are no constraints upon which facilities may be used. In one quarter, a science program might have workshops in the Computer Center focusing on blogs, a math workshop using Excel in the Computer Applications Lab, a session on video documentation for field research in the Multimedia Lab, and a library research workshop in one of the Computer Center's general-purpose labs. In this way, academic programs leverage staff expertise and facilities as needed.
  
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Teaching faculty must be able to easily identify and contact the appropriate staff member to coordinate computer instruction, which may require significant logistical support such as lab scheduling, equipment checkout, server space, password access, personnel scheduling, and other details. In Academic Computing, program liaisons work with faculty to coordinate how programs will teach technology. For instance, the staff liaison helps set up file shares and Web spaces and schedules and teaches workshops. In Media Services, the head of instructional media provides a central location for faculty and students requesting instructional support in media to connect with appropriate media instructors and to schedule facilities and instruction. The Media Services staff work with faculty to design and integrate media into their programs. Media Services staff meet regularly with media faculty in the Expressive Arts planning unit so they can develop facilities, plan for access, and foster integration of media into academic programs.
  
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Students who work independently on media or computing projects or who decide to tackle media projects within non-media oriented programs also receive many forms of instructional support. Academic Computing offers regularly scheduled technology workshops, which are open to all. In addition, Evergreen students can access Lynda.com, which tutors students in software applications and programming languages. The Library recently subscribed to Safari Books Online, which supports the computer science curriculum and addresses technical inquiries from students across the curriculum. Academic Computing began a computing wiki in 2006-07 which hosts approximately 2,000 pages of instructions and tutorials and which continues to expand. Increasingly, students, faculty, and staff rely on the Academic Computing wiki to stay abreast of technologies hosted on campus.
  
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==Information Collections and Services==
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Any student may access most media-production facilities and check out portable media equipment once they have completed relevant hands-on training sessions called proficiencies. Media instructors run hundreds of these quick, skills-focused instructional sessions annually, which serve thousands of students, ensure proper use of the equipment, and provide supportive technical background for systems. The number of formal instructional sessions provided to programs has doubled since 2000, suggesting the rapidly expanding use and breadth of college-supported media technology. Finally, the Evening and Weekend Studies curriculum provides a coherent, regular pathway for learning more complex media-production processes.
  
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===Description of Information Collections & Services===
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Like the library faculty, media instructors teach in a variety of modes: full-time, part-time, introductory, intensive, general, sustained, intermittent, specialized, individual, within programs, or collaboratively in small groups. Many of the media staff are artists, professionals, and faculty in their own right, with Master of Fine Arts degrees in their fields. They teach photography, electronic music, Web design, and digital imaging as adjuncts in Evening and Weekend Studies and in Extended Education. Media staff who teach as adjunct faculty are often called to teach full time as visiting artists. Their contributions to the part- and full-time curriculum are substantial and sustained, some of them having taught for more than twenty years. Their work supports the Expressive Arts. It assures access and instruction for students who do not consider themselves artists but who want to engage in technologies that constitute important developing communication media and also define the visual aesthetics of science, history, political science, psychology, and other narratives. Additionally, Photo, Electronic Media, and Media Loan staff annually teach as field supervisors for up to eight student interns who are critical to the effective functioning of labs and services. These students typically not only gain high-level technical production skills, but also develop instructional, collaborative, and administrative experience by working closely with students, faculty, and technical staff. Finally, all media staff sponsor many individual contracts, which provide opportunities for students who have identified intensive individual inquiries that are not supported in the curriculum at large. In general, media staff are central to the success of media-based programs and are viewed as colleagues by the Expressive Arts faculty, whose programs they support. These working relationships form the backbone of Media Services.
  
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When the minds of the library faculty and the media and computing instructors turn to providing support services, they work with the rest of the LIRN staff to assure responsiveness to the needs of the curriculum and individual student work. LIRN does not react to the expectations of patrons and the professional environment, but instead creatively designs services and collections in interaction with rest of the teaching world of the college.
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=====Faculty Institutes=====
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As described thus far, library and information resources instructors regularly work with, instruct, and support the teaching faculty through individual collaboration. In addition, they design and teach several faculty institutes each summer. Faculty institutes create valuable connections among faculty, library, media, and academic computing instructors. Recent information technology institutes have focused on specific applications such as teaching statistics with Excel, using online collaborative tools to foster learning communities, or creating program Web pages. Some years, substantive discussions of information technology literacy as opposed to hands-on training have been offered. During institutes, faculty are often afforded paid time for self-directed work that focuses on their program planning. In these instances, faculty evaluate technology, practice using it, and plan how to incorporate applications into their programs.
  
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Library faculty benefit from both teaching experience in Evergreen’s  innovative curriculum and extensive service in governance structures of the faculty at large as they work to develop collections directly supportive of the curriculum. [Ex: list of librarian and staff dtf assignments]. Because the faculty at large develops the curriculum, the work is done collectively through Planning Units and all faculty retreats.  Thus, the librarians know what is being planned and know the curricular interests of their colleagues.    The library organizes faculty readings of recently published faculty works, reinforcing the perception of the library as a hospitable public space for faculty interaction and scholarly and creative performance.  The Library Dean meets as one of the Academic Deans in the cross-curricular administrative structure. Library faculty develop collections in response to the fluid curriculum without benefit of distributed departmental funds or decision-making.  Faculty who rotate into the library will often review, weed and strengthen familiar areas of the collection.
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====5.B.3 Availability of Policies====
  
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Evergreen's teaching models shape the design of traditional service points within the Library.  Fully staffing the reference desk, usually with faculty librarians whenever the library is open comes from the presumption that individual assistance should be process-focused rather than product focused, leading the patron to contextual understanding of research tools and methods appropriate to their needs.  The reference desk serves as the end of the pipeline begun in workshops, the place where librarians can see what library instruction produces, whether inspiration or confusion. [ex: Pedersen e-mail on teaching at the desk]. Reference collections, tools and resources such as periodical databases, web pages or finding aids, demonstrate attention not just to convenience, but also and more substantially to learning opportunities.  Thus, for example, very broad aggregate databases have been purchased because they are extremely cost-effective, but the library also emphasizes comparatively expensive digitized indexes which refer students more deeply into the discipline-based literature of their inquiries.  In web page design, signage, collection organization, and creation of virtual services, the central question is what can be taught through the new design, service or collection.
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''Policies, regulations, and procedures for systematic development and management of information resources, in all formats, are documented, updated, and made available to the institution’s constituents.''
  
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The particular challenge of developing library collections and information services at Evergreen has been the impossibility of effectively satisfying all but the most beforehand requests of students and faculty working deeply on projects outside of the core curriculum and collections.  With the advent of intensively networked services, this issue has basically been solved, even though the expectation for immediate access to all information in all formats continues to grow. For all but the very worst procrastinators, the SUMMIT system, which includes well over 30 academic libraries from Oregon and Washington, brings huge monographic collections to hand within two or three days. Additionally, periodicals collections have expanded 8 to 9 times over the self-study period; although parts of the aggregated databases are often less than appropriate for the academic context, specific titles and databases have been added thoughtfully, within the framework of the academic mission. Consortial purchases not only reduce costs dramatically, but are based upon the academic focus of the consortia. Finally, ILLiad, the on-line interlibrary loan system brings journal articles to the email accounts of students, again, within days (or even hours) of ordering. There are almost no discernable limits to accessing published information for any researcher except those who need to present within 24 hours. Nevertheless, Orbis-Cascade, the umbrella consortium which administers SUMMIT, is exploring collaborative collection development to ensure both the depth of the shared collections and the appropriate coverage of local collections.  This process should result in even better assurance that students can effectively find the monographs needed to support their widest and deepest inquiries.
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The Web provides a venue for all policies, regulations, and procedures for all information resources and services.  
  
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Freely-chosen independent media production by students creates similar significant strain for Media Services and creates competition with the Expressive Arts media curriculum  over scare resources (whether equipment, laboratories or staff teaching). In order to balance these demands, a Media Request Form is required for students (and programs) planning extensive use of Media Services.  Individual contract forms include a checkmark for special equipment or facilities and the academic deans who review the forms use this as a safety net for screening intensive media use.  The Media Services Manager and the Head of Instructional Media thus review Media contracts in order to assure that media resources are sufficient for the proposed work. A Student Originated Studies (SOS) group contract in media has been set up in the Expressive Arts planning unit in order to handle some of this demand for independent media production studies and to assure that students have the supervision and instructional and facilities support they need.
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See [[Supporting_Documentation_for_Standard_Five#Policies,_regulations,_and_procedures_for_the_development and_management_of_library_and_information_resources,_including_collection_development_and_weeding|Required Exhibit 2: Policies, Regulations, and Procedures for the Development and Management of Library and Information Resources]]
  
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As information technology has evolved over the past ten years and computers have become the networked platform for the majority of information access, research, communication and media production, LIRN has devoted significant energy to blending services. With the generic library as a foundation and the interdisciplinary curriculum as the context, merged collections and services are not a new commitment, but build upon the college’s alternative past. The major remodel planned and implemented during the self-study period substantially strengthened the opportunities for the networking of services, facilities and staff of LIRN.  One central, broad entrance provides access to the Library, the Computer Center, Media Loan and the stairs to Electronic Media, Photo Services and Computing and Communications.  A large staircase which hides this entrance from the view of individuals entering the building will be removed in the current, second phase of the library building remodel.
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====5.B.4 Participatory Planning====
  
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Instructional emphases and responsiveness to the character of the academic mission have shaped the work of the remodel. Collaborative study spaces predominate, whether open area tables, grouped lounge furniture, pod-shaped arrangements in labs or group study and media viewing rooms. Wireless access (almost ubiquitous on campus now) allows informal groupings around personal or library-owned laptops.  Additional laboratory spaces provide easier scheduling for program work and more computers for individuals when classes do not use the labs. Limited quiet study areas provide an alternative for the solitary scholar, but group work is the norm and encouraged.
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''Opportunities are provided for faculty, staff, and students to participate in the planning and development of the library and information resources and services.''
  
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The Library as a physical as well as virtual space is emphasized through new artwork which welcomes patrons to lounge and study areas. The new basement lounge near Rare Books and Archives, now affectionately dubbed the Library Underground, hosts frequent campus gatherings and public readings. During the current crunch on college space due to more remodeling, meetings and teaching spaces are opened up for groups from across campus. The prominent location of the media collections assures visibility and close connection to the circulation and reference staff when Sound and Image Library (SAIL) are not present. Lounge furniture is scattered in what were formerly the barren hallways of media loan or the utilitarian desks of the computer center. More room for the book collection, more study space and more flexibility for computers, laptops and media all serve to extend the ways in which students, faculty and the public can use the wing.
+
Faculty, staff, and students participate in the planning and development of library information resources and services. The college community values face-to-face communication and formal procedures for consultation are minimal. All learning and information resources staff and faculty receive and welcome direct requests and suggestions. As an example, good hiring represents an important decision determining how library and information services evolve and prosper. Hiring processes are broadly consultative. Committees with representation from different work units interview and recommend for all staff positions. Students, staff, and faculty representatives join in hiring committees for any major positions, especially those of administrators and faculty. These hiring processes routinely include public presentations by the candidates, which are announced to the entire college community to allow input from staff, faculty, and students.
  
−
With a large, visible, shared entrance to the Information Technology wing, LIRN has the option to consider a shared information desk.  Early recommendations for an Information Commons, incorporating library, media and computing expertise and serving as a staff development tool for literacy across technologies, have become outdated but the fundamental concept still generates significant interest. Users, services and the portions of the curriculum served have already blended greatly as a result of the process of digitization and movement to the web environment. Ongoing conversations should continue about how best to help students navigate the ever more intertwined LIRN facilities and services as digitization and the web continue to enlarge their domination of information media. [Exhibit: Berlin Group]
+
More broadly, collaborative work with teaching faculty and other clients drives the design and planning for almost all instructional and technical support. Face-to-face planning and direct engagement with teaching faculty in a program-by-program context defines the work of library and information resources across all units (see Participatory Planning 5.E.1).
  
−
The remodel also brought the Writing and the Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning Centers into the main floor of the library, physically centralizing many academic teaching and learning support functions. This relationship has the potential to become an instructional and intellectual connection as well as a physical one.
+
====5.B.5 Networks Extend Information Resources====
  
−
Another form of blended information technology has occurred within and between Academic Computing and Media Services as specialized labs have evolved over the self-study period. Historically, Academic Computing focused on the physical computer center and on-site teaching and technology training for students and faculty, usually on specific skills such as Word. The specialty labs (CAL, MML, DIS) focused on specialized and more content specific software and hardware.  The specialized labs allowed students to work with more content-rich knowledge and media production, collaborative critique, or discipline-oriented applications, all requiring higher level instruction, academic focus and, often, critical analysis.
+
''Computing and communications services are used to extend the boundaries in obtaining information and data from other sources, including regional, national, and international networks.''
  
−
Today, students often acquire computing skills through individualized and/or ad hoc methods such as on-line tutorials or one-on-one peer instruction over laptops. Distinctions between library, media, scientific and computer information technologies disappear as the average laptop or workstation may runs applications previously requiring highly specialized, expensive hardware. Thus the distinctions based on hardware between general and specialized technology labs have blurred. The main computer center includes many specialized scientific software packages such as ArcGIS and Mathematica while standard graphic manipulation software such as Photoshop and Illustrator appear in the science computer labs. Similarly, the computer center supports high level statistics applications such as R as well as digital music editing.  The library computers provide basic Office applications and general web access in addition to library-specific searches, but specific computers also provide GIS, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, assistive/adaptive technology and scanning applications. Additionally, the network environment has changed to reduce distinctions for students working across lab spaces. One user domain and single sign-on (SSO) mean much simpler access to networked resources.
+
Consortial arrangements in the Orbis Cascade regional system offer Summit, a resource-sharing system that makes it possible to satisfy almost any book and most media requests generated by the individualistic interests of students working on independent projects. The Summit system includes thirty-five academic libraries from Oregon and Washington and delivers resources within two or three days. Students also use many highly specialized materials from periodicals databases, which have expanded the number of journal subscriptions Evergreen holds eight to nine times over the self-study period. This enhancement is largely due to the Cooperative Library Project (CLP), a state-funded resource-sharing project among the four-year Washington state baccalaureates.
  
−
While specialized peripherals, collaborative production, associated labs and some more intensive computing power still require specialty labs, the primary difference is the level of expertise, content specific knowledge, and broader context for use. Students benefit in many ways; they know where to find specialized support from the staff and faculty and tend to be introduced to the higher level, more complex applications in the context of a broader academic framework.
+
Consortial purchases have reduced per-title costs dramatically and have strengthened areas of the curriculum not necessarily the focus of a core liberal arts collection. For example, psychology, education, and business were heavily emphasized in the most recent round of shared purchasing by CLP. Finally, ILLiad, the interlibrary loan system, brings journal articles to the students' mailboxes and e-mail accounts within a few days. There are almost no discernible limits to accessing published information for any researcher except those who need to present within twenty-four hours. Effective campus networks supported by Computing and Communication's technical support staff make this possible. College-wide steps that have made efficient resource sharing and online information possible have included implementing the Banner student records system and establishing e-mail as the official student communications medium.
  
−
Planning for these rapidly merging LIRN facilities and services creates challenges for administratively separated departments. The most formal mechanism for collaboration around technology is the Information Technology Collaboration Hive (ITCH). Evergreen supports three ITCH groups: Academic, Administrative, and Core. The Academic ITCH meets at least once a month and includes professional staff from each of the primary technology labs, faculty, and interested students. The purpose of the Academic ITCH is to coordinate general academic IT initiatives, help develop general academic computing policy, and to guide strategic planning. Because of the distributed nature of academic IT, strategic planning often is itself distributed to individual facilities and their associated user groups. Specialization within academic IT labs sometimes falls along planning unit lines, but more often crosses planning units. Professional staff members in each of the primary technology areas have developed intensive, personal connections to discipline-specific slices of the curriculum, faculty and academic administration while also needing cross-disciplinary and cross-divisional exploration and communication.  ITCH provides one of the necessary cross-curricular and cross-division contexts for developing information technology across these strong.
+
===Standard 5.C – Facilities and Access===
  
 +
''The institution provides adequate facilities for library and information resources, equipment, and personnel. These resources, including collections, are readily available for use by the institution’s students, faculty, and staff on the primary campus and where required off-campus.''
  
 +
====5.C.1 Availability of Information Resource Facilities====
  
−
===Analysis & Assessment of Information Services and Collections===
+
''Library and information resources are readily accessible to all students and faculty. These resources and services are sufficient in quality, level, breadth, quantity, and currency to meet the requirements of the educational program.''
  
−
Once again, although it is clear that LIRN provides a wide array of information services, the question still remains  whether the services are effective. Institutional Research surveys alumni and students about campus resources routinely.  Over time, responses regarding the library and computing center have been strikingly positive. The library and computer center have been most used for many years and satisfaction levels have also been consistently among the highest. Recently, the college web page was added to the survey and dominates use statistics as the required tool for registration and most other student business.  Further, as sustainability patriots, the primacy of bus service in recent surveys cannot be a cause for lament.
+
For a description of facilities, see [[Media: Major_Faciities_List.doc |Major Facilities]] and Areas 1 and 2 of the [[Media:TESC_Information_Environment_Review.doc|Edutech Information Environment Review]].
  
−
Alumni Surveys:
+
The [[media: TESC_Information_Environment_Review.doc|Edutech Information Environment Review]] specifically considered networking, telecommunications, and other information technology relevant to accessibility. The campus network was lauded as "solid and reliable." The network itself is described technically in Area 1 of the report. Expansion of wireless access from 75% to the entire campus was recommended; this work is proceeding and has the budgetary support to continue into the future. Most classrooms have been networked with display capability, spreading library and information technology access to large portions of the curriculum. This changes the presumptions of the faculty and students and greatly increases the frequency with which social software, digitized presentations, and other multi-media information technology is incorporated in programs. The Edutech report also recommended establishing at least one dedicated teleconferencing space for general use, which is planned within the [[media: CNM.doc|Center for Creative and Applied Media (CCAM)]]. According to Edutech, "student access to computers at Evergreen does not seem to be a problem."
  
−
1998 99% library use rate; 75.5% somewhat or very satisfied
+
=====The Information Technology Wing=====
  
−
94% computer center use rate;79.2% somewhat or very satisfied
+
'''LIR Facilities and Services Visibly Interconnect'''
  
−
2002 97% library use rate; 85% somewhat or very satisfied
+
With the generic library as a foundation and the interdisciplinary curriculum as the context, merged collections and services build upon an alternative past. Library and information resources thus collaborate actively across academic and administrative departmental boundaries. The major remodel, implementing a newly consolidated Information Technology Wing, substantially strengthened opportunities for connecting services, facilities, and staff. One central, broad entrance now provides access to the Library, the Computer Center, Media Loan and the stairs to Electronic Media, Photo Services and Computing and Communications. See [[media: Consultant%27s_Site_Visit_Report_2004.doc | Consultant Pre-Remodel Report]] for an assessment of facility requirements produced before the project. For further detail, extensive documents describing the project are available in the documents room.
  
−
96% computer center use rate; 87% satisfaction rate
+
'''More Teaching and Study Spaces'''
  
−
2004 97% on campus student library use rate; 94.2% off campus student library use rate
+
The ideal of collaborative learning shaped the remodel. Shared study spaces predominate, whether open area study tables, grouped lounge furniture, pod-shaped arrangements in labs, or small group study and media viewing rooms. Wireless access allows informal group work around personal or library-owned laptops. Additional laboratory spaces provide easier scheduling for program work and more computers for individuals when classes do not use the labs. Limited quiet study areas provide an alternative for the solitary scholar; at the same time, small group work is facilitated and encouraged. Overall, the Information Technology Wing has shed barren hallways and utilitarian desks in favor of lounge areas and comfortable study spaces. Overstuffed couches and chairs, large tables, task lighting, and more room for collections all contribute to the conviviality that informs shared inquiry.
  
−
92% on campus student computer center use; 93.4% off campus computer center use
+
'''Hospitable Spaces and Blended Access'''
  
−
The 2006 Student Experience Survey shows
+
Art exhibitions invite patrons into lounge and study areas and help define the Library as a public space. The new basement lounge, affectionately dubbed the "Library Underground," hosts frequent campus gatherings and public readings, although flooding (a new issue since the remodel) disrupted the area several times in 2006-07. Groups from across campus meet, study, and teach in library spaces, which are open to all and where food and drink have always been allowed. The Sound and Image Library (SAIL) media collections are prominently located in the reference area, where SAIL staff work closely with the reference librarians. The newly established Assisted Technology Lab (ATL) conjoins the SAIL and has become a vital meeting place for students to work and show their art and media productions. Again, SAIL and reference staff provide service and technical support for ATL patrons. As the physical reference collection continues to shrink, reference, the SAIL, the ATL, and Circulation will continue forming a more blended and prominent shared public presence.
  
−
95% reported using the library
+
=====More General Access Lab Facilities=====
  
−
88.5% reported using the computer center.
+
Rapid developments in networked information technology have blurred between general and specialized technology labs. The main computer center includes many specialized scientific software packages such as ArcGIS and Mathematica, while common graphic manipulation software, such as Photoshop and Illustrator, appear in the CAL. Similarly, the Computer Center supports high-level statistics applications such as R, as well as digital music editing. The library computers provide basic Office applications and general Web access in addition to library-specific searches, but specific library computers also provide GIS, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, assistive/adaptive technology, and scanning applications, while the SAIL provides multiple stations for basic media dubbing, transfer, and editing. Switching to a single user domain and sign-on means simpler, more consistent access to networked resources across campus. The Digital Imaging and Multimedia facilities provide applications for advanced media production, but are open to all students. Some specialty labs have self-contained resources, such as large format printers or applications requiring more sophisticated hardware. However, the primary distinction among labs is the level of expertise and specialized knowledge of the staff. Students benefit when they know the specialized character of a lab means there will be more skilled assistance.
  
−
Thus, despite the radically changing information environment, the drop over time in the reported use of the physical library has been slight: 4% from 1998 to 2006. The computer center also has enjoyed heavy use over time, with some reduction as more and more students use their own laptops on campus; the survey showed that 91% of students have their own computers. Satisfaction rates for the library and computer center remain the highest for any services on campus.
+
====5.C.2 Cooperative Agreements====
  
−
Starting in 2006, the ESES inquired about using library resources online. The response was 85.2% using library resources on-line.  Internal records also suggest phenomenal growth in online use of library resources. In 2000, when the library subscribed to three aggregate databases (Proquest, Ebscohost and JSTOR), 80,000 searches were recorded.  In 2006, with approximately 30 subscription databases, there were more than 262,677 searches. Careful review of variations of use from year to year reveals the direct impact a fluid curriculum has on database use.  For example, Modern Language Association International Bibliography statistics are quite erratic; one major project in a large academic program explains a five-fold increase of use in one year. As JSTOR has developed into a more deeply and broadly multi-interdisciplinary tool, use statistics show a shift away from heavy dependence on the less scholarly aggregates.  Extensive lobbying by faculty and librarians encourages this shift toward use of scholarly resources such as JSTOR.
+
''In cases of cooperative arrangements with other library and information resources, formal documented agreements are established. These cooperative relationships and externally provided information sources complement rather than substitute for the institution’s own adequate and accessible core collection and services.''
  
−
The alumni and student survey data compare library use to other resources on campus and show increased use of web-based resources over time and thus provide some idea of satisfaction with services and with information technology learning. In order to assess whether these use rates are cause for celebration, comparisons with other libraries will provide some guidance.
+
Despite greatly expanded information access through Summit and shared purchasing agreements, the Library continues strong support for the core collection within budgetary constraints created by budget cuts and inflation. Over time, Summit circulation data will provide specific reports on areas of the collection where students and faculty consistently or repeatedly demonstrate the need for more depth. Additionally, the Orbis Cascade Alliance is working on shared collection development guidelines to help design complementary collections.  
  
−
In 2002, the Library implemented a major new service of sufficient complexity to allow some assessment of how efficiently the dissemination of new information technology occurs at Evergreen. Does interconnectedness mean that news and skills spread quickly? The new service (then Cascade, now the much larger SUMMIT consortium of Washington and Oregon academic libraries) allowed students to search the shared collections of the 4-year public colleges and universities of the state, make on-line requests, and have items mailed very quickly to Evergreen.
+
See [[Standard_5#Collection_Development_Procedures_.26_Methods | Collection Development Procedures and Methods]].
  
−
All five institutions added the service at the same time. Using normal communications, instructional methods and interconnections, Evergreen had the best results among the member libraries. Evergreen patrons borrowed 9,723 that first year, more than any other library, even though Evergreen is by far the smallest institution in the consortium. At ten times Evergreen’s size, the University of Washington borrowed just under 7,000 that year.  It took a year for the University of Washington to surpass us, while the other institutions had not done so even in 2006.  While one might assume that small collection size drives this higher demand, the fact is that Evergreen students also use their local collection at higher rates than their peers at Cascade-member institutions.
+
See [[Supporting_Documentation_for_Standard_Five#Formal.2C_written_agreements_with_other_libraries |Required Exhibit 11 Formal Agreements with Other Libraries]].
  
−
[[Image:.wmz|312px]]
+
===Standard 5.D – Personnel and Management===
  
−
Judging by the quick integration of SUMMIT into the culture of the college, it appears that communication methods and instructional relationships effectively support the spread of awareness of new services and the skills to use them. And it is important to remember that it was the circulation staff, with the willing support of staff of other areas, who made the service work effectively and efficiently from the outset.  Lower early use rates at other institutions may be partially the result of staff deliberately implementing the service at a careful pace in order to avoid system collapse. Evergreen decided to implement at full force, with excellent results. Had turnaround time or inefficiency disappointed the users of Cascade, the take-off would have fizzled.
+
''Personnel are adequate in number and in areas of expertise to provide services in the development and use of library and information resources.''
  
 +
====5.D.1 Sufficiency of Staffing====
  
 +
''The institution employs a sufficient number of library and information resources staff to provide assistance to users of the library and to students at other learning resources sites.''
  
−
The peer groups Evergreen most commonly uses for comparisons consist of liberal arts colleges.  In general, the liberal arts college library (and thus, liberal arts college students!) is a very hard working institution. Nationally, a comparison of the average 2004 national liberal arts college library use statistics with those of the smaller masters level universities (Carnegie Class Masters I) reveals a dramatic difference. Looking at the first level of use, the walk into the library, Evergreen’s average gate count per FTE was 1.8, Masters universities were at 1.4 and Liberal arts colleges averaged 2.77.  At the next level of engagement or expertise, the patron checks out a book.  The highest level of library use collected federally is when the patron identifies materials from libraries beyond his own and requests an interlibrary loan (ILL).  Unfortunately, in order to be comparable, ILL data must be combined with the data for circulation, because SUMMIT statistics are counted as either circulations or interlibrary loans, depending upon the practice of the reporting library. Evergreen’s patrons borrow (via ILL and circulation) an average of 36 items per student, while the masters level institutions borrow only 1.55 and the liberal arts colleges nationally borrow an average of 34.
+
The chart below suggests that library and information resources staffing is similar to that of comparable public institutions, falling between the averages of peer public liberal arts colleges (COPLAC) and the larger regional universities in the state (WA Regionals in the table below). Note that Evergreen (TESC) and other public college library staffing averages are significantly below the staffing for groups made up largely of private Ivies, DEEP (Documenting Effective Educational Practices), CTCL (Colleges That Change Lives), and CIEL (Consortium of Innovative Environments for Learning).  
  
−
The same dramatic distinction between liberal arts colleges and comprehensive institutions appears in the SUMMIT consortium, which covers the full gamut of colleges and universities in Oregon and Washington.  Following is a chart which ranks the top half of the 31 libraries in the region based upon their rates of use of SUMMIT, and shows Evergreen high on the list of the higher ranked liberal arts colleges, all well above usage rates at more comprehensive institutions.
+
{| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="1"| class="wikitable"
  
−
<div align="center">{| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="1"
+
|+'''Staffing Comparisons'''
−
| Library
+
 
−
| # Items borrowed
+
|  Library      ||  Professionals/FTE  || Total Staff/FTE 
−
| FTE
+
|-
−
| Items/FTE
+
|  TESC  ||  1.93  ||  7.5 
 +
|-
 +
|  DEEP  ||  4.65  ||  16.32
 +
|-
 +
|  CTCL  ||  4.79  ||  14.71 
 +
|-
 +
|  CIEL  ||  5.51  ||  13.43 
 +
|-
 +
|  COPLAC  ||  2.67  || 8.55 
 +
|-
 +
|  WA Regionals  || 1.41 ||  5.62 
 +
|}
 +
 
 +
Source: IPEDS 2006 (See [[Media: DEEP_2006.xls | DEEP 2006]]; [[Media: CTCL_2006.xls | CTCL 2006]];[[Media:CIEL_2006.xls | CIEL 2006]]; [[Media: COPLAC_2006.xls | COPLAC 2006]]; [[Media: WA_state_public_2006.xls | WA State Public 2006]])
 +
 
 +
(N.B. The staff count for Evergreen has been halved since approximately 50% of Library and Media Services staffing is devoted to Media Services production, instruction, and equipment check-out. At other institutions, these services, if they are offered at all, reside in academic departments such as media arts or education.) 
 +
 
 +
The [[Media: TESC_Information_Environment_Review.doc |Edutech Information Environment Review]] discusses staffing in Area 3. The report shows staffing to be average when compared to similar institutions in terms of size, mission, and culture.
 +
 
 +
Because library use at Evergreen compares favorably to more heavily staffed private liberal arts colleges and because all areas sustain a substantial instructional role, there are areas of strain. The rapid expansion of technology-driven services and collections also creates stresses, despite reallocation of staff as media and technologies shift. Following are the primary areas of concern:
 +
 
 +
* Support for rapidly expanded classroom technology, an additional demand on top of general institutional growth
 +
* Staffing for greater focus on curriculum planning and engagement with faculty in Academic Computing
 +
* Staffing to support expanding electronic library resource collections (ordering, contracts, management, evaluation, etc.)
 +
* Weakened presence of faculty librarians due to the loss of one line in budget cuts during the self-study period
 +
 
 +
 
 +
====5.D.2 Staff Qualifications====
 +
 
 +
''Library and information resources staff include qualified professional and technical support staff, with required specific competencies, whose responsibilities are clearly defined.''
 +
 
 +
The balance of librarians to other library staff is weighted toward non-professionals when compared to other liberal arts college libraries. Further, as librarians rotate into the full-time curriculum, they temporarily leave behind reference work, management, administration, and collection development. Any sustained work, such as Web-page development, is interrupted by these regular absences. Further, full-time teaching faculty rotate into the Library as neophytes who need training and who present widely disparate skills, abilities, and ambitions. Beyond the system of rotation, with its concomitant duties, librarians are contractually obligated to participate in college governance and curriculum planning, not to mention their own scholarly projects and sabbaticals. Librarians have nine-month contracts and several are absent during the summer sessions when the Library is minimally staffed. These organizational facts mean that Evergreen has no managerial class of librarians. Instead, the team of faculty librarians share management with staff. Paraprofessionals head almost all departments, including Circulation, Government Publications, Periodicals, Technical Services, and Acquisitions. Their year-round presence and regular workdays provide consistency for development of services, maintenance of collections, public service, and supervision of classified staff and student workers. In this collaborative environment, staff often lead the way in adopting new services. The tremendous commitment by the staff grounds the Library and makes it an ideal teaching environment.
 +
 
 +
Most library faculty carry both subject and library master's credentials in order to support their teaching as well as their role as professional librarians (see [[Supporting_Documentation_for_Standard_Five#Vitae_of_professional_library_staff | CVs of professional library staff]]).
 +
 
 +
As is the case with librarians, many media staff and instructors carry additional graduate training. Graduate degrees noted by staff other than librarians include three MPAs, two MFAs, an MA in art history, an MEd and EdS, an MSE (technical engineering), an MS in chemistry, and an MS in computer information systems. The library faculty, whose roles require substantial attention to teaching and governance outside the Library, must depend upon library staff as managers of major services and functions within the Library. Highly experienced staff with significant levels of responsibility keep the Library not just open, but anticipating and embracing change and new opportunities for service (see 5.B.2 Modes of Instruction in Media and Academic Computing for a discussion of media instructors as artists and teaching faculty).
 +
 
 +
In the realm of technical support, the Edutech report recommended assigning "staff responsibilities more specifically." More specific responsibilities and positions have been implemented in Technical Support Services. In the smaller units that provide distributed service and instruction such as the CAL, Academic Computing, and Media Services, this stricter delineation of support functions is not as clearly appropriate. Instead, it is often valuable for staff to be well versed on all or most aspects of the instruction or service required and in direct communication with the student, staff, or faculty who needs help. For example, the liaison system in Academic Computing assumes that in most cases a faculty member will receive all aspects of support from one liaison, or that the liaison will coordinate the support and instruction required.
 +
 
 +
All staff and faculty have engaged new skills as the information technology evolves. Multiple reclassifications have assured that staff job descriptions and pay scales match new expectations for technological expertise. Staff have also shifted the location of their work partially or entirely as budget cuts and new programs such as Summit and ILLiad have relocated the areas of greatest stress. Increased emphasis on technology in many positions has led to reclassifications and increases in salaries for some staff, resulting in compression of salaries for some managers. A campus-wide study of exempt salaries is expected to address this issue.
 +
 
 +
====5.D.3 Professional Growth====
 +
 
 +
''The institution provides opportunities for professional growth for library and information resources professional staff.''
 +
 
 +
The library faculty are fully funded for professional activities through the central faculty professional development funds and policies, as well as through faculty institutes.
 +
 
 +
See [[Media: facultyfundingopportunities.pdf|Faculty Development at Evergreen]]
 +
 
 +
See [[Media: professionalleave_policy.pdf|Professional Leave (Faculty Handbook 6.100)]]
 +
 
 +
See [[Media: professionaltravel_policy.pdf|Professional Travel (Faculty Handbook 6.200)]]
 +
 
 +
See [[Media: facultydevelopment_policy.pdf|Faculty Development (Faculty Handbook 6.300)]]
 +
 
 +
The remaining library and media services staff may request up to $500 annually from a pool of $2,500. Additional funding has been requested to bring the maximum benefit up to $750 in order to be consistent with the rest of academics, but this funding has not been granted thus far. Non-state funds from the Friends of the Library have been allocated for retreats and other staff meetings in order to compensate for some of this differential access to professional development funds.
 +
 
 +
Computing and Communications allocates more than $40,000 per year to support attendance of technical staff at technical conferences and trainings. This allows staff to expand their skills with current technology, increase their knowledge of new and advancing technology, and connect with peers from other institutions and experts in specific technologies. These training opportunities are critical to the team’s ability to support teaching and learning and to provide management of the college’s administrative systems (see [[Media:CC Training spreadsheet.xls | CC Training Spreadsheet]]).
 +
 
 +
====5.D.4 Organizational Structure====
 +
 
 +
''Library and information resources and services are organized to support the accomplishment of institutional mission and goals. Organizational arrangements recognize the need for service linkage among complementary resource bases (e.g., libraries, computing facilities, instructional media and telecommunication centers).''
 +
 
 +
The fundamental organizing principle of library and information resources at Evergreen is that an interdisciplinary curriculum demands integrated services. Beyond that, the founding vision aspired to provide all media, in any location. Contemporary networked technology and the expectations of students now create a climate in which barriers between different information can and must be dissolved. For all these reasons, blended resources, facilities, and services predominate throughout Standard 5.
 +
 
 +
See [[Standard_5#The_Founding_Vision_of_the_Library:_Any_Medium.2C_Any_Location|The Founding Vision: Any Medium, Any Location]].
 +
 
 +
See [[Standard_5#The_Information_Technology_Wing|The Information Technology Wing]].
 +
 
 +
=====Shared Technology Creates the Need for More Shared Work=====
 +
 
 +
Media applications, which were once physically limited to Media Services, are now located, maintained, taught, and used throughout the facilities administered by Academic Computing and, to a degree, the Library. Similarly, library resources, which were once physically limited to the Library building, are now found anywhere within reach of the Web. Public computers, once found only in the Computer Center, are everywhere, as are privately-owned laptops. These shifts have accelerated during the past ten years and have changed the instructional roles of the areas and their relationship to the curriculum. Undoubtedly, library and information resources will continue to distribute their budgets, facilities, and staff to continue expanding access to information technology in academic programs and for individual students.
 +
 
 +
As technologies have changed, so have the relationships among the Library, Media Services, and Computing, which now share in the communal project of interconnecting, teaching, and supporting our information and technological resources. At this juncture, there seems little point in redesigning the administrative structures that oversee these areas because new relationships and responsibilities have evolved organically, based on need, demand, and interest, and will continue to do so. In order to ensure that these effective working relationships continue to develop, reinforcing connections such as joint staffing, deliberately planning together, and continuing involvement across the areas when hiring for new staff and particularly administrators must be emphasized.
 +
 
 +
The [[Media: TESC_Information_Environment_Review.doc | Edutech Information Environment Review]] suggested that the existing distributed structures were valuable, but  recommended greatly enhancing the role and formal responsibilities of the ITCH to assure better planning in consonance with the mission of the college. See 5.E for fuller discussion of this recommendation. Edutech did not capture the centrality of the teaching role in major portions of the information resources environment at Evergreen. It is teaching and its development that assures the most important connections between the academic mission of the college, the educational program, and IT services of all kinds. While the Library and Media Services collaborate as a matter of course with Academic Computing, the real challenge remains: How to more thoroughly engage the teaching faculty across the curriculum in defining the role of information technology in the academic careers of our students.
 +
 
 +
====5.D.5 Engagement in Curriculum Development====
 +
 
 +
''The institution consults library and information resources staff in curriculum development.''
 +
 
 +
See [[Standard_5#Collection_Development_Procedures_.26_Methods | Collection Development Procedures & Methods 5.B.1]]
 +
 
 +
====5.D.6 Library and Information Resources Budgets====
 +
 
 +
''The institution provides sufficient financial support for library and information resources and services, and for their maintenance and security.''
 +
 
 +
Similar to staffing levels noted above, the Library is well funded compared to other regional public baccalaureates in the state (WA State Public in the table below) and peer public liberal arts libraries nationally (COPLAC in the table below). This comparatively rich funding reflects a historical recognition of the demands of open inquiry and independent research and the centrality of library research in a liberal arts education. Both funding and use rates closely match those of the private liberal arts libraries which predominate the DEEP (Documenting Effective Educational Practices), CTCL (Colleges That Change Lives) and CIEL (Consortium of Innovative Environments for Learning) peer groups. Thus, the general funding level for the Evergreen Library compares closely to that of institutions with similar missions, services, and roles within their institutions. For further discussion of the role of libraries in liberal arts colleges, see [[Standard_5#Comparing_Use_Statistics_With_Other_Libraries | Comparing Use Statistics With Other Libraries (5.E)]]. On the other hand, the library budget reported below includes Media Services (approximately 50% of library staffing falls into this category). Most libraries do not include any of the functions provided by Media Services at Evergreen. Instead, these functions, including media instruction, media-production facilities, media production to support college activities, and portable media production equipment check-out, if offered at all, would be part of an academic department such as education or media arts. If Media Services costs and services were not considered, then budgets are close to those of other public institutions, while use statistics are comparable to private liberal arts institutions.
 +
 
 +
{| class="wikitable"
 +
! Library
 +
! FTE
 +
! Circulation+ILL/FTE
 +
! Expenditures/FTE
 +
|-
 +
| '''Evergreen'''
 +
| '''4153'''
 +
| '''31'''
 +
| '''$782'''
 +
|-
 +
| DEEP Colleges
 +
| 2046
 +
| 18
 +
| $829
 +
|-
 +
| CTCL
 +
| 1506
 +
| 23
 +
| $859
 +
|-
 +
| COPLAC
 +
| 3742
 +
| 16
 +
| $464
 +
|-
 +
| CIEL
 +
| 7042
 +
| 25
 +
| $794
 +
|-
 +
| WA State Public
 +
| 11,415
 +
| 15
 +
| $373
 +
|}
 +
 
 +
Source: IPEDS 2006 (See [[Media: DEEP_2006.xls | DEEP 2006]]; [[Media: CTCL_2006.xls | CTCL 2006]];[[Media:CIEL_2006.xls | CIEL 2006]]; [[Media: COPLAC_2006.xls | COPLAC 2006]]; [[Media: WA_state_public_2006.xls | WA State Public 2006]])
 +
 
 +
As budget cuts have reduced both staffing and collections, diversified revenue sources have become a high priority for library administration. Generous biennial infusions from the central academic budget have withered since earlier study periods. Indirect funds from activity grants to the faculty, major gifts from donors, book sales, and fines for lost or destroyed books have all increased to make up important non-state sources for collection development. The development of facilities and programming have been supported through major donors, with the library dean and the campus fundraisers focusing significant attention on these efforts.
 +
 
 +
The [[Media: TESC_Information_Environment_Review.doc| Edutech Information Environment Review]] discusses budgets in Area 4 and compares Evergreen to similar schools on the basis of physical environment, enrollment numbers, education goals and aspirations, residential nature, tuition, and governance structure. The review determined that Evergreen devotes considerable resources to IT and is consistent with its peers. In 2005, Evergreen’s expenditure on IT—expressed as a percentage of total institutional expenditures—was 6.7%. This percentage aligns with the 6.7% reported by Computing in a 2006 survey of public four-year colleges. The average for all institutions was 6.5%. Generally, IT is funded comparably to institutions with similar missions and culture. The report recommended that budget processes should be addressed that take into account the heavy demands upon replacement, operation, and maintenance as IT becomes ubiquitous in the classroom, as well as in labs.
 +
 
 +
See [[Supporting_Documentation_for_Standard_Five#Comprehensive_budget.28s.29_for_library_and_information_resources |Comprehensive Budget (Required Exhibit 9)]]
 +
 
 +
===Standard 5.E – Planning and Evaluation===
 +
 
 +
''Library and information resources planning activities support teaching and learning functions by facilitating the research and scholarship of students and faculty. Related evaluation processes regularly assess the quality, accessibility, and use of libraries and other information resource repositories and their services to determine the level of effectiveness in support of the educational program.''
 +
 
 +
====Evaluating Information Services and Collections====
 +
 
 +
Assessments of Evergreen's library and information resources confirm support for the academic mission of the college as a public liberal arts college that expects a substantial number of students to engage in self-selected independent inquiry. Utilization patterns among Evergreen students correlate closely to the intensive use found among liberal arts colleges as opposed to lower use rates found among more comprehensive institutions.
 +
 
 +
'''Comparing Use Statistics With Other Libraries'''
 +
 
 +
In 2002, Washington's four-year public baccalaureate institutions implemented the Cascade resource-sharing consortium. This start-up provided an amazing new service and an opportunity to assess how rapidly a major new service might be implemented. Evergreen patrons borrowed 9,723 items during the first year, more than any other library, even though Evergreen was by far the smallest institution in the consortium at that time. Although ten times bigger than Evergreen, the University of Washington borrowed just under 7,000 items during the first year. The quick acceptance of Cascade testified to the efficient connection between the Library, library instruction, and the teaching faculty and curriculum at large.
 +
 
 +
Cascade became Orbis Cascade as the Washington and Oregon academic consortia merged. The new resource-sharing service, entitled Summit, provides ongoing comparative statistics. To continue comparison with the original members of Cascade, in 2006, Evergreen borrowed 4.52 items per FTE; almost four times the next heaviest user at 1.15 items borrowed per student. Although one might assume that small collection size drives this higher demand, the fact is that the Evergreen collection circulates at a high rate per student as well, according to federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data.
 +
 
 +
IPEDS data for 2006 also provide the opportunity to compare use statistics of liberal arts colleges with Evergreen and with small master's-level universities (Carnegie Class Master's I), where strong distinctions appear again. When both circulation and interlibrary loan are counted, Evergreen circulates 31 items per FTE, liberal arts colleges nationally average 24 items per FTE, and the Master's I institutions circulate 8.34 per FTE.
 +
 
 +
The same dramatic distinction between liberal arts colleges and comprehensive institutions appears in the Summit consortium, which covers a full array of colleges and universities in Oregon and Washington. The following table lists the heaviest users from the member libraries, based upon their rates of use per FTE in 2006. Evergreen places high on the list, among the most highly ranked liberal arts colleges, which placed well above usage rates at more comprehensive institutions.
 +
 
 +
{| class="wikitable" cellspacing="0" border="1"
 +
! Library
 +
! Number of Items Borrowed
 +
! FTE
 +
! Items/FTE
 
|-
 
|-
−
| Reed
+
| Reed College
 
| 20,480
 
| 20,480
 
| 1,268
 
| 1,268
 
| 16.15
 
| 16.15
 
|-
 
|-
−
| G. Fox U.
+
| George Fox University
 
| 14,427
 
| 14,427
 
| 2,392
 
| 2,392
 
| 6.03
 
| 6.03
 
|-
 
|-
−
| Marylhurst
+
| Marylhurst University
 
| 4,548
 
| 4,548
 
| 852
 
| 852
 
| 5.34
 
| 5.34
 
|-
 
|-
−
| Lewis/Clark
+
| Lewis & Clark College
 
| 14,386
 
| 14,386
 
| 2,953
 
| 2,953
 
| 4.87
 
| 4.87
 
|-
 
|-
−
| TESC
+
| '''The Evergreen State College'''
 
| '''16,118'''
 
| '''16,118'''
 
| '''  4,200'''
 
| '''  4,200'''
−
| 3.84
+
| '''3.84'''
 
|-
 
|-
−
| Whitman
+
| Whitman College
 
| 6,672
 
| 6,672
 
| 1,803
 
| 1,803
 
| 3.70
 
| 3.70
 
|-
 
|-
−
| Willamet
+
| Willamette University
 
| 9,164
 
| 9,164
 
| 2,511
 
| 2,511
 
| 3.65
 
| 3.65
 
|-
 
|-
−
| UPS
+
| University of Puget Sound
 
| 7,570
 
| 7,570
 
| 2,742
 
| 2,742
 
| 2.76
 
| 2.76
 
|-
 
|-
−
| Seattle Pacific
+
| Seattle Pacific University
 
| 8,589
 
| 8,589
 
| 3,466
 
| 3,466
Line 254: Line 428:
 
| 2.30
 
| 2.30
 
|-
 
|-
−
| Western Ore.
+
| Western Oregon University
 
| 8,623
 
| 8,623
 
| 3,992
 
| 3,992
 
| 2.16
 
| 2.16
 
|-
 
|-
−
| U Portland
+
| University of Portland
 
| 6,764
 
| 6,764
 
| 3,211
 
| 3,211
 
| 2.11
 
| 2.11
 
|-
 
|-
−
| U Oregon
+
| University of Oregon
 
| 38,796
 
| 38,796
 
| 18,880
 
| 18,880
 
| 2.05
 
| 2.05
 
|-
 
|-
−
| E. Ore. U.
+
| Eastern Oregon University
 
| 4,620
 
| 4,620
 
| 2,306
 
| 2,306
 
| 2.00
 
| 2.00
 
|-
 
|-
−
| Pacific U.
+
| Pacific University
 
| 4,232
 
| 4,232
 
| 2,341
 
| 2,341
−
| 1.81|}</div>
+
| 1.81
 +
|}
  
−
Looking at national data, the following table compares the averages of various commonly used Evergreen peer groups:
+
(Source: [[Media: summit_statistics.xls|Summit Borrowing Statistics FY06]])
  
−
{| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="1"
+
Thus it is clear that, as of 2006, Evergreen library utilization mirrors the practices of liberal arts colleges. High-use rates also seem to reflect an academic emphasis on major student projects. For instance, at Reed College, which requires a senior thesis, the college library circulates or borrows 120 items per student. On the other hand, looking ahead, ''academic library use patterns are in a period of dramatic change.'' In 2007, the University of Washington implemented WorldCat Local, which provides immediate click-though prompts, leading the user from local catalog to Summit to some journal databases, periodical holdings, and interlibrary loan if appropriate. Summit use at the University of Washington doubled since implementation and interlibrary loan has also increased steeply. A large increase in borrowing at the University of Washington drives lending rates throughout the Summit system, but even more important, it suggests that discovery tools will dramatically increase usage without change in the library instructional program or academic practices. The Orbis Cascade consortium will soon be implementing WorldCat as the shared Summit catalog and many libraries in the consortium will undoubtedly implement WorldCat Local as their local library catalog as well.
−
| Library
+
 
−
| FTE
+
'''Library and Computer Center Use & Satisfaction Rates'''
−
| Gate Count/FTE
+
 
−
| Circulation+ILL/FTE
+
The data above demonstrate that library and information resources are comparatively well utilized. While high rates of use suggest something about effectiveness, surveys of popularity (frequency of use and satisfaction with use) provide further affirmation. Institutional Research routinely surveys alumni and students about campus resources. A summary of campus resource utilization (See [[Media: Alumni_Surveys_2002-2006_-_Campus_Utilization_Statistics.pdf | Alumni Surveys 2002-2006 - Campus Resource Utilization]]) shows that during the six-year period, the Library and the computing facilities have been the top two most used campus facilities, trading off for first place. Alumni who were somewhat or very satisfied with the services have reported in at between 87% and 92% during the period surveyed.
 +
 
 +
Starting in 2006, the [[media: Evergreen_Student_Experience_Survey_2006_%E2%80%93_Campus_Resources_Utilization_%E2%80%93_Olympia_Campus_Students.pdf | Evergreen Student Experience Survey (ESES)]] included questions about using library resources online and found that 85.2% of respondents use online library resources. Internal records also suggest phenomenal growth in online use of library resources. In 2000, when the Library subscribed to three aggregate journal databases (Proquest, Ebscohost and JSTOR), users conducted 80,000 searches. In 2007, among approximately 30 subscription databases, there were well over 250,000 searches. Careful review of variations of use from year to year reveals the direct impact a fluid curriculum has on database use. For example, Modern Language Association International Bibliography statistics are quite erratic; one major project in a large academic program explains a fivefold increase of use in one year. As JSTOR has developed into a more deeply and broadly multi-interdisciplinary tool, use statistics show a shift away from heavy dependence on the less scholarly aggregates. Extensive lobbying by faculty and librarians encourages this shift toward use of scholarly resources such as JSTOR. Use statistics for periodicals and databases drive selection and instruction planning. When use statistics are low for a database seen by the library faculty as critical to a discipline or of particularly high academic value, then library faculty focus instruction on that database whenever appropriate.
 +
 
 +
'''Media Services User Surveys'''
 +
 
 +
Institutional Research and Assessment added Media Services to its alumni survey of campus resource utilization starting in 2004. Since then, Media Services has been listed as the fifth most utilized resource. Alumni reported being somewhat or very satisfied at a rate of 89% and 90% in the two survey years (see [[ Media: Alumni_Surveys_2002-2006_-_Campus_Utilization_Statistics.pdf | Alumni Surveys 2002-2006 - Campus Resource Utilization]]).
 +
 
 +
The 2006 Evergreen Student Experience Survey (ESES)asked students about their use of Media Services, which showed 48% use of Media Loan (see [[Media: Evergreen_Student_Experience_Survey_2006_Campus_Resource_Utilization_Olympia.pdf|Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 - Campus Resource Utilization - Olympia]]). A survey designed and implemented by staff member Lin Crowley supplemented this data. Crowley’s respondents reported an average satisfaction level for each service ranging from 3.07 to 3.62 (out of 4), which indicated that those who used current services were generally fairly satisfied with each of the services they use.
 +
 
 +
Although respondents to Crowley’s survey were predominantly active Media Services users, many respondents were uninformed about some services. Respondents supported investment in new digital technologies, but most were unaware of new or planned digital facilities. One clear conclusion of the survey is that visibility and access could be better for some services. Suggested improvements often focused on access, whether longer hours, more workshops, or more facilities. The survey project director recommended that future follow-up surveys be conducted to compare whether the reasons people use each service change and to evaluate the satisfaction levels for each type of services by patron types. See [[Media : TESC_Media_Services_Assessment_Project.doc | Evergreen Media Services Assessment Project]]
 +
 
 +
====Evaluation of Teaching and Instructional Programs: Information Technology Literacy====
 +
 
 +
The strong focus on teaching throughout library and information resources suggests the following questions: 1) In a college without requirements, does information technology instruction reach enough students to assure that the vast majority of graduates develop skills  in support of their inquiries? 2) Which students are taught? Do students receive information technology instruction in an array of disciplinary and developmentally varied situations or is it happening only in pockets of the curriculum? 3) Is it working? Are students acquiring cross-curricular information technology, including media literacy?
 +
 
 +
'''How many students are taught?'''
 +
 
 +
About 3,000 students attend program-based library instruction workshops annually. These statistics exclude most cases of repeated contacts with the same student and thus represent very broad coverage of the student body.
 +
 
 +
From 2000 to 2007, Media Services offered a total of more than 1,500 workshops to approximately 156 academic programs. This number does not include the thousands of quick proficiencies also provided by the area. The number of formal media workshops given and students reached in 2005 and 2006 were each more than double the numbers provided in 2000. Workshops have increased along with new technologies, especially in Media Loan and in the new Multimedia and Digital Imaging Studio (DIS) labs.
 +
 
 +
Most instruction provided by Academic Computing and the Computer Applications Lab (CAL) serves specific academic programs. These sessions are represented in the following table:
 +
 
 +
{| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="1"| class="wikitable"
 +
 
 +
|+'''Computer Lab Workshops for Academic Programs''' (cells represent academic programs/number of students)
 +
 
 +
| Year                  || 2004-05  || 2005-06  || 2006-07
 
|-
 
|-
−
| '''TESC'''
+
| Computer Center  || 221/4,423  ||  171/3,418 || 253/4,880
−
| '''3987'''
+
−
| '''1.81'''
+
−
| '''36'''
+
 
|-
 
|-
−
| DEEP Colleges
+
| Computer Applications Lab  ||   50/1,368  ||  50/1,248  || 52/1,344
−
| 1903
+
−
| 2.85
+
−
| 36
+
 
|-
 
|-
−
| CTCL
+
| Totals          || 271/5,791  || 191/4,666  || 305/6,224
−
| 1555
+
−
| 4.20
+
−
| 39
+
−
|-
+
−
| COPLAC
+
−
| 4097
+
−
| 2.03
+
−
| 25
+
−
|-
+
−
| CIEL
+
−
| 7383
+
−
| 1.20
+
−
| 19
+
−
|-
+
−
| Washington Comprehensives
+
−
| 10575
+
−
| 1.74
+
−
| 18
+
 
|}
 
|}
  
−
Thus, the way in which Evergreen students use their library reflects academically superior liberal arts practices. Looking closely at the colleges with extremely high statistics (Reed College and New College of Florida, for instance, have 120 and 89 uses per student) institutions surface which have major senior thesis projects, demonstrating that an emphasis on independent academic inquiry will drive library use.
+
Up until 2007, Academic Computing offered 30 to 40 general computer skills workshops per year in the Computer Center, attended by approximately 350 students. Professional staff focused these workshops on general technical skill building, independent of academic programs. Over time, fewer students were attending these workshops, presumably because more students come to college with strong technical skills and with specialized self-determined needs for support. In response to waning attendance, Academic Computing redesigned the workshops as student-centered support sessions to which students bring their questions or projects. This student-centered structure should more effectively meet the specific demands of students. Computing will evaluate the success of this reinvented structure. All areas of library, media, and computing find the strongest teaching and the greatest demand for instruction occurs in conjunction with programs.
 +
 
 +
'''Which Students?'''
 +
 
 +
The number of teaching contacts shows that library and information resources staff reach a large number of academic programs, but does not indicate which programs. End-of-program surveys conducted from 2001 to 2006 by the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment asked faculty, “Did your students use technology to present work, conduct research (including library research), or solve problems? If yes, How?” Not surprisingly, faculty answered that library/Internet research skills were the most commonly used at 50%, followed by some form of presentation technology. Ninety percent of programs reported some substantial use of information technology. (See[[Media: Summary_of_Information_Technology_Literacy_Emphasis_in_Programs.pdf | Summary of Information Technology Literacy Emphasis in Programs]])
 +
 
 +
In 2006-07, questions were revised to more accurately identify programs where there was intentional focus on teaching ITL: "Did your program include activities to improve information technology literacy?" With this more restrictive language, 70% of programs reported including ITL. (See[[Media: End-of-program_Review_Results_for_2006-07_%E2%80%93_Information_Technology_Literacy_by_Planning_Unit.pdf | End-of-program Review Results for 2006-07 - Information Technology Literacy by Planning Unit]])
 +
 
 +
Further, in 2006-07, a follow-up question asked specifically which kind of technology was taught. Significantly different technologies predominate in different parts of the curriculum. No standard set of applications comes into play, although as of 2006-07, presentation technologies (at 42% of all programs) have increased by 70% over their use in the 2001 to 2006 reports and now begin to approach library and Internet research in their prevalence at 50%. Online communication applications were reported by 32% of programs, an increase of 19% over the 2001-2006 data.
 +
 
 +
Reservation-based programs reported library and Internet research at the highest rate, at 100% of programs, although this work was weakly connected to library instruction and therefore it is unclear whether academic library-supplied resources were used. At the other end of the spectrum, Culture, Text, and Language was lowest with 21% reporting library or Internet searching. The remainder of planning units ranged between 43% and 50% library/Internet use, with Core programs at the low end with 43%.
 +
 
 +
The substantial move toward presentation media and online communication in programs drives increases in multimedia applications. Presentation technology and online communication applications encourage the use of still and moving images, sound clips, graphs, and charts. These media are mixed with traditional print communication written by students or linked from Web resources. While these media and print applications involve basic, commonly used applications of information technology, they easily migrate toward more advanced media production. The increasing presence of multimedia information technology in Evergreen's learning communities drives further demand upon Media Services and Academic Computing, along with increased overlap of their teaching and service roles.
 +
 
 +
Since its inception in the context of Holly’s generic library, Media Services has followed its mission to support media literacy and instruction across the curriculum. During the last ten years, Media Services have changed dramatically as the personal computer has become the platform for entry-level media production and consumption. One measure of this change has materialized in how media staff have served programs through formal workshops since fall 2000. The scheduling data shows that almost 90% of formal program-based workshops serve Expressive Arts faculty. While this scheduling data does not cover equipment proficiency workshops or one-on-one instruction, both used more broadly across the curriculum, it is nevertheless clear that formal instruction by media staff focuses heavily on Expressive Arts programs, with an emphasis on advanced production applications, the exclusive provenance of expressive arts faculty. Media Services provides this advanced instruction in specialized labs, which were enhanced and expanded during the remodel. One effect of this specialization is that entry-level students have migrated to Academic Computing, where the staff works in collaboration with media staff to provide instruction on entry-level media-production applications. In fact, during fall and winter 2006-07, 68% of the faculty who requested workshops in Computer Center were from planning units other than Expressive Arts, and many of these workshops included media instruction (Photoshop, iMovie, Flash, etc.).
 +
 
 +
Just as in the Computer Center, the Computer Applications Lab (CAL) shows a trend toward more broadly used applications. Although the CAL has traditionally focused on the science curriculum in the Environmental Studies and Scientific Inquiry planning units, these users have begun to share their space with those who have less specialized demands. Roughly 60% to 70% of the classes in the CAL now work with statistical or numeric analysis, primarily Excel, but also with Graphical Analysis, R, and SPSS. Ninety percent of CAL users prepare presentations, most often with Powerpoint, Word, Illustrator and Excel. Approximately 60% of the programs meeting in the CAL still use analytical tools, including (in order of usage) ArcGIS, Mathematica, and Stella, which were once the focal point of all CAL applications. Science faculty have shifted their emphasis to on-site analysis, using advanced applications in specialized scientific labs in ways that parallel the shift in Media Services toward advanced applications. Meanwhile, the CAL and the Computer Center serve increasing numbers of students who seek instruction or support for the increasingly powerful personal computing applications in media production, statistical analysis, and presentation media.
 +
 
 +
'''Does Library Instruction Result in ITL Gains?'''
 +
 
 +
The Library, consistent with college-wide practices, rejects requirements and embraces students who engage in open inquiry and independent judgment. In this context, the Library supports a fluid curriculum and responds to changes that drive the needs and expectations of an innovative teaching faculty. Standard or standardized assessment methods do not apply because the Library shapes teaching according to individual students, a fluid curriculum, and highly diverse pedagogy. Instead, the Library commits to the intensive and never-ending task of recreating learning goals, student-by-student, program-by-program. Context is everything, which obviates the role of abstract standardized measures.
 +
 
 +
On the other hand, the Library does engage in qualitative assessment, the descriptive characterization of ITL teaching and learning. As is the case throughout the faculty (see Standard 2.B.3, Engagement and Reflection), library faculty write annual evaluations of themselves and their library and teaching colleagues. They also engage in five-year reviews in which a panel of teaching colleagues discusses their work. These evaluations consistently address instructional aspirations, successes, and failures. See [[Media: Reflections_on_library_instruction.doc | Reflections on Library Instruction]].
 +
 
 +
Further, under the leadership of the Office of Institutional Research, the librarians designed a project that assessed students as they worked through real research inquiries. The study, [[media: ActivityInfomationLiteracy.pdf |"The Activity of Information Literacy"]], documented the techniques and processes and even the thinking of several small samples of students as they collaborated intensively on research questions. The study showed that these particular students were stronger in their grasp of content than they were in their command of library research tools for their specific inquiries. In other words, a question about history might not lead them to historical abstracts. They were also strong in their ability to develop their research questions and to evaluate and synthesize the results. What these results suggest is that “Faculty may want to assess their students’ abilities to obtain information and offer tutorials or refer students to the Library when deficiencies are detected.”
 +
 
 +
Beyond the immediate results, this qualitative assessment also suggested that the students benefited greatly when they collaborated. Certainly, this observation is corroborated by the gains that students make when they work together in skill building instead of in canned computer workshops outside of programs. Additionally, peer groups are widely used across the curriculum as a way to encourage students to develop research topics and individual projects. Given the results of the qualitative assessment and given the widely practiced use of peer groups, library faculty should seek ways to implement collaborative research activities when they link their instruction to programs. This model of cooperation would build on the more isolated collaborations that take place, as a matter of course, between librarians and students at the reference desk. An enlarged vision of this basic transaction—discussion, exploration, and brainstorming—will enhance the relevance and effectiveness of library teaching and workshops.
 +
 
 +
'''Student Assessment of Their ITL Learning'''
 +
 
 +
The Evergreen Student Experience Survey (ESES) asks questions that elucidate what the students themselves think they learned at Evergreen. In 2006, the ESES asked, "To what extent have your Evergreen experiences contributed to your growth in ... the following computer-related fields...?" Responses generally matched fairly well with the perspectives found in the end-of-program surveys. For the category "Studying or Doing Research via the Internet or other online sources:
 +
 
 +
* 30.5% of Olympia-campus students reported at least some contribution.
 +
* 47.5% reported quite a bit or a lot, for a total of 77.5%.
 +
* More than 84% of Tacoma students reported at least some, of which 50% reported quite a bit.
 +
* More than 93% of reservation-based students reported at least some contribution; 86.2% reporting quite a bit or a lot.
 +
 
 +
Considering how many students express self-confidence in their research skills, and as the Internet provides so many increasingly powerful tools for personal research, it is heartening to see that a good majority of students feel they developed their research skills as part of their education at Evergreen.
 +
 
 +
The 2006 ESES also asked about "Using the computer for artistic expression (e.g., music, other audio, still images, animation, video, etc.)":
 +
 
 +
* More than 42% reported that Evergreen contributed "Some," "Quite a Bit," or "A Lot"
 +
* Fully 36.8% said "Not at All"
 +
* 20.9% said "Very Little"
 +
 
 +
The 2006 ESES surveyed use of non-artistic computer tools, asking about specific types of applications such as spreadsheets, GIS, Web development, posters, or programming. In general, as was found in end-of-program reviews, no single type of computer application dominated. No application type was used by more than 50% of students; instead, different types of applications were used by smaller subsets of the students surveyed.
 +
 
 +
====5.E.1 Participatory Planning====
 +
 
 +
''The institution has a planning process that involves users, library and information resource staff, faculty, and administrators.''
 +
 
 +
=====Overall Planning for Collections & Services=====
 +
 
 +
The fluidity of interdisciplinary and individual study defines library services. The dean of Library Services strengthens the ties between academics and the Library and Media Services through weekly meetings with the provost, associate vice president for academic budget and planning, and academic dean of budget, as well as weekly academic deans meetings. Once a month, the director of computing and communications and the manager of Academic Computing also join the academic deans' meeting.
 +
 
 +
The interconnection of the instructional role with the planning and support functions drives the efficacy of all the services in these areas. In the [[Media: TESC_Information_Environment_Review.doc | Edutech Information Environment Review]], Area 5 discussed planning and governance in the Evergreen information environment. The review was somewhat critical of the lack of coordination in support, planning, and governance of IT across the campus and advocated for a stronger role for the Information Technology Collaborative Hive (ITCH), an organization which links library, media, and computing managers and instructors. However, the report did not emphasize how the teaching function and role in Academic Computing, the CAL, and Media Services creates strong collaboration in all service and instruction design.
 +
 
 +
Further, placing library and information resources within the larger ethos of the college, any major policy discussions or long-term planning processes invoke the participatory college-wide Disappearing Task Force (DTF) structure. Budgetary processes are generally collaborative and include opportunities for review and input from the campus community (see Participatory Decision-Making Culture [Standard 1 Section 2.3] and Standard 6). The college budget process and schedule drives most mid-term library planning. (See Standard 7 Section 7.A.3).
 +
 
 +
Additional opportunities for community contributions to planning include faculty who rotate into the Library and who focus on collection development and other planning projects. An annual Reference Services Group retreat establishes the year's work before classes start in the fall. Faculty development reviews, also known as five-year reviews, and faculty institutes provide opportunities for conversations across campus about a range of teaching, learning, and service questions as they impact information services. The library internship program provided a reading seminar for several years within which library faculty, staff, and interns could discuss changing information technology and its cultural meaning. Finally, the librarians often engage in faculty reading seminars, frequently focused on library issues, where shared thinking about the future of libraries evolves.
 +
 
 +
=====Loose Structures and Responsiveness to Rapid Change in the Information Environment=====
 +
 
 +
Among the organizations included in library and information resources, the Library is the largest and most embedded in tradition and thus may be the most invested in preexisting professional structures and assumptions. Additionally, a comparative lack of top-down managerial structures could lead to a tendency to stagnate in some environments. How well does the Library balance the competing demands of conservation, teaching, and technological adaptation and innovation? The success of the Library’s flat organization can be measured by the impressive way in which the Library group has responded to institutional and profession-wide changes and challenges. See the [[Media: Achievements.doc |Achievements]] document for a description of major changes in services, faculties, and collections implemented during the study period. Most of the changes are responses to opportunities provided by technological developments and external engagement in consortia. The consortia relieve any single library from much of the burden of research and develop into new technologies, an overwhelming burden for a comparatively small library such as Evergreen's. Additionally, Evergreen's library administration and staff have worked actively in leadership roles in the Orbis Cascade consortium to assure that the consortium supports efficient, cost-effective movement into the world of networked and shared resources.
 +
 
 +
====5.E.2 Planning Linkages====
 +
 
 +
''The institution, in its planning, recognizes the need for management and technical linkages among information resource bases (e.g., libraries, instructional computing, media production and distribution centers, and telecommunications networks).''
 +
 
 +
=====Planning Across LIR=====
 +
 
 +
With networked information technology and almost universal access to digitized academic information resources, coordination of planning across library and information resources has become increasingly critical. The information technology staff and librarians from across the administrative units found that while administrative restructuring did not appear to provide a more effective connection among services, it was nevertheless wise to imagine a new structure to foster collaboration. A cross-areas collaborative group entitled the Information Technology Collaborative Hive (ITCH) was created, which provides the most formal mechanism for collaboration around technology across the various parts of the college.
 +
 
 +
Evergreen supports three ITCH groups: Academic, Administrative, and Core. The Academic ITCH meets at least once a month and includes professional staff from each of the primary technology labs, faculty, and interested students. The Academic ITCH coordinates general academic IT initiatives, helps develop general academic computing policy, and guides strategic planning. Professional staff members in each of the primary technology areas have developed strong connections to discipline-specific slices of the curriculum, faculty, and academic administration. As the ITCH develops, the members will explore ways to communicate and plan in cross-disciplinary and cross-divisional programs. The ITCH provides one of the necessary cross-curricular and cross-divisional contexts for developing information technology across administratively distinct areas. The Administrative ITCH plans for administrative IT support and the Core ITCH acts as the coordinating body for all areas of IT represented in the ITCH.
 +
 
 +
The ITCH created a strategic plan in conjunction with the campus-wide strategic planning process in 2007. Strategic Direction number 7 addresses technology. The statement is notable for the breadth of its concerns, with aspirations addressing media, library, and computing technology: 
 +
 
 +
: Use technology to enhance teaching and learning and administrative support at Evergreen.
 +
Evergreen will intentionally foster secure, sustainable, flexible, easy-to-use, and accessible information technologies (IT) that support and enhance our teaching and learning philosophies and the administrative needs of the institution. Evergreen’s continuing commitment to technology and media literacies as critical components of a liberal arts education has led us to re-envision our Television Studio into a Center for New Media [now entitled the Center for Creative and Applied Media (CCAM)] that will provide cross-curricular and extra-curricular support for computer mediated production, performance, interactivity, teleconferencing, live broadcasts, digital image storage, processing, re-broadcasting, and format conversion for all areas of the college. Accuracy and quality of information will improve and strong support will make technology and a broad range of information services available to on- and off-campus users. Security requirements of networks, software, hardware and data will be met while ensuring appropriate user access, including control of access to confidential information and the need for academic exploration. Classroom spaces will be technologically current and functional for meeting curricular needs (see the complete  [[Media: itchstrategicplan_wiki.pdf|IT Strategic Plan wiki]] for more detail).
 +
 
 +
The [[media: TESC_Information_Environment_Review.doc |Edutech  Information Environment Review]] recommended a stronger, more formal role and status for the ITCH, which has not found support from higher-level administrators who have budgetary responsibility over the divisions of the college. This means the ITCH continues to serve as a bottom-up structure of collaboration based on the experience of direct collaboration with and support for students, staff, and faculty users.
 +
 
 +
=====Continue Blending More Functions within Library and Information Resources=====
 +
 
 +
Library and information resources support a surprisingly diverse infrastructure of technologies and media in the curriculum. For greatest efficiency, library and information resources should consider even more coordination across boundaries to provide technology support. Students should be able to move seamlessly between different areas, such as the CAL, the Multimedia Lab (MML), and the Computer Center. Certainly, the pathways between areas could be more clearly articulated by identifying and developing more common services, including printing, building and maintaining image sets, server file space, and common software. By taking better advantage of the network infrastructure, students will experience less confusion and IT staff who directly support the curriculum could dedicate more energy toward coordinating, developing, and designing IT strategies with academic programs instead of maintaining redundant infrastructures.
 +
 
 +
Library and information resources could develop a shared perspective about their public presence. One possibility for representing blended facilities and services would be a central help desk for the Information Technology Wing. The shared entrance to the wing has become a prominent architectural feature and an opportunity to reshape the community’s understanding of what the areas collectively represent. A central help desk could provide basic information about facilities, services, and staff, and it would help facilitate how efficiently patrons move between the various floors of the wing. Continued attention to the best use of the Library Underground and how to assure its connection to other floors should be part of this process; a large, flexible teaching and gathering space is developing there and appropriate equipment will be needed to support that vision. Concurrently, assuring safety for the adjacent Archives and Rare Books Collections is critical.
 +
 
 +
Construction of the Center for Creative and Applied Media (CCAM) will begin soon. This project has distinct relevance to the changing roles of Media Services, the Library, and Academic Computing within the evolving digital liberal arts. The CCAM will comprise a collection of media production studios and equipment to complement existing Media Services and Academic Computing media resources and provide the primary bridge between the campus media infrastructure and networked digital resources. For a discussion of the CCAM and related curricular projects, see  [[media: CNM.doc | Center for Creative and Applied Media]].
 +
 
 +
====5.E.3 Evaluation and the Future====
 +
 
 +
''The institution regularly and systematically evaluates the quality, adequacy, and utilization of its library and information resources and services, including those provided through cooperative arrangements, and at all locations where courses, programs, or degrees are offered. The institution uses the results of the evaluations to improve the effectiveness of these resources.''
 +
 
 +
As part of an institution constantly engaged in processes of narrative evaluation and other forms of assessment, library and information resources engage in and are the subject of extensive assessment both within library and information resources and externally through Institutional Research and Assessment surveys and studies. In addition to formal annual processes such as budget building and annual library faculty retreats, the results of these assessments feed into the development of ongoing teaching and services through constant face-to-face interactions among faculty, administrators, staff, and students, which inform all operations. The Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, as cited throughout this report, provides annual surveys about library and information resources, several of which are broken down by campus.
 +
 
 +
See:
 +
 
 +
[[ Media: Alumni_Surveys_2002-2006_-_Campus_Utilization_Statistics.pdf | Alumni Surveys 2002-2006 - Campus Utilization]]
 +
 
 +
[[Media: Summary_of_Information_Technology_Literacy_Emphasis_in_Programs.pdf | Summary of Information Technology Literacy Emphasis in Programs]]
 +
 
 +
[[Media: End-of-program_Review_Results_for_2006-07_%E2%80%93_Information_Technology_Literacy_Overview.pdf | End-of program Review Results for 2006-07 - Information Technology Literacy Overview]]
 +
 
 +
[[Media: End-of-program_Review_Workshop_-_Information_Technology_Across_the_Curriculum.pdf | End-of-program Review Workshop - Information Technology Across the Curriculum]]
 +
 
 +
[[Media: Evergreen_New_Student_Survey_2005_%E2%80%93_Computer_Skills_%E2%80%93_First-time%2C_First-years.pdf | Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 - Computer Skills - First-time, First-years]]
 +
 
 +
[[Media: Evergreen_New_Student_Survey_2005_%E2%80%93_Computer_Skills_%E2%80%93_Transfer_Students.pdf | Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 - Computer Skills - Transfer Students]]
 +
 
 +
[[Media: Evergreen_Student_Experience_Survey_2004_-_Information_Technology_Literacy_and_Technology-related_Resources.pdf | Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2004 - Information Technology Literacy and Technology-related Resources]]
 +
 
 +
[[Media: Evergreen_Student_Experience_Survey_2006_%E2%80%93_Growth_in_Computer_Skills_%E2%80%93_Olympia_Campus_Students.pdf | Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 - Growth in Computer Skills - Olympia Campus]]
 +
 
 +
[[Media: Evergreen_Student_Experience_Survey_2006_-_Satisfaction_of_Olympia_Campus_Students.pdf |
 +
Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 - Satisfaction of Olympia Campus Students]]
 +
 
 +
[[Media: End-of-program_Review_Results_for_2006-07_%E2%80%93_Information_Technology_Literacy_by_Planning_Unit.pdf | End-of-program Review Results for 2006-07 - Information Technology Literacy by Planning Unit]]
 +
 
 +
=====Collections and Access=====
 +
 
 +
The Web presence of the Library will, of course, continue to evolve. The Library continues work on a new library front page and database search pages. It is likely that the new library front page will become the responsibility of the college-wide Web team, freeing library staff from this unfunded work. A new federated search is being implemented. Meanwhile, the Orbis Cascade consortium is migrating to WorldCat, which the Library will consider for local use as well. A local catalog designed on the principle of Web discovery tools can be expected to generate significant changes in library use. In this context, changes in staffing may be required to support increases in use of services such as Summit and ILLiad, and the content and focus of instruction may require substantial revision. Evaluation of service and instruction via peer comparisons will change, as discovery tools will generate higher uses without increased instruction. Instruction will likely need to focus even more on evaluating sources and finding those resources not easily located via discovery tools.
 +
 
 +
The continued expansion of audiovisual media collections represents a critical part of the vision of the generic library. To that end, one-time funds have frequently been infused into a small base budget for film and sound recordings, and the collection has grown significantly. Sound & Image Library (SAIL) staff and selectors have emphasized both new titles and replacement of older formats and worn copies. The Library anticipates circulating the collection through Summit, which will increase wear. See [[media:SAILacq.xls|SAIL Acquisition Statistics]]. Selectors will continue a recent change of policy allowing the purchase of any medium from their funds allocated for print monographs, but a stable and larger allocation for the SAIL budget would lessen the need to do so and reduce variations in expenditures, workload, and processing. The Resource Selection Committee is currently reviewing materials budgets with the intention of reallocating funds according to the curricular demands for video and digitized reference resources. If these discussions result in a larger budget for the SAIL, there will be more work, but also more consistency. Additionally, the staff will be more deeply involved in researching Web-based media collections. This additional workload represents a challenge for the SAIL.
 +
 
 +
Digital collection development should go forward in concert with the push to digitize archival collections, including photographs, video, and copies of faculty artwork. The CCAM will take the lead in this ongoing project.
 +
 
 +
Because of the Summit and ILLiad systems, the core collections do not need to support individual students who engage in inquiries that lie outside the collection profile based upon the core curriculum. However, Summit use will also allow the Library to identify whether there are any consistent weaknesses in the collection that show up as subject areas driving high borrowing rates from other institutions. The data from Summit should be analyzed over a three-year period, due to the fluidity of the curriculum, at which point the Library will decide if such data are useful in guiding collection development.
 +
 
 +
The Library will continue to take advantage of the significantly increased purchasing power created by consortial agreements for periodical and other database purchases. The Library needs to keep an eye on the time and expertise required to keep up with the ever-increasing work of evaluating these agreements, purchases, and contracts and the technical work to support electronic resources, and it may want to consider creating a position for managing electronic resources. A centralized specialist working on electronic resources would potentially help the selectors by consistently researching and disseminating information about new products.
 +
 
 +
Overall, long-standing assumptions about budgets for collections must be reevaluated. While major cuts were made to the monographic budget early in the study period and were only partially restored over time, it is not clear that simply restoring those funds and adding funds for inflation are the desirable next moves. The Resource Selection Committee will need to continue to explore more flexible responses to a rapidly changing publishing environment in order to match collection budgets to evolving research needs. Private fundraising and other non-state funds have helped close collection development gaps in some cases, such as the SAIL budget. Library and information resources overall have begun to receive private support for equipment and facilities projects as well. More work with the Office of College Advancement should be emphasized, as many alumni have demonstrated willingness to support the library and information resources.
 +
'''
 +
Support for Rapidly Evolving Information Technology'''
 +
 
 +
While the [[media:TESC_Information_Environment_Review.doc |Edutech  Information Environment Review]] gave Evergreen good marks for its budgetary support of information technology, the report also recommended that “to follow current best practices, the replacement cycle should be permanently funded and the operations budgets need to be raised regularly to reflect the increase in technology-equipped classrooms, the increased number of servers and desktop computers that must be supported, and other increases in the technology base.” The college has begun to address this issue, proposing permanent line items in the next biennium for replacing the core server and desktops. This movement toward more permanent allocations for replacement and repair will help ensure that the infrastructure can support the curriculum. Although the ITCH can play only an advisory role, it has participated actively in the process of establishing permanent allocations, setting priorities, and sharing resources.
 +
 
 +
The remodeled Information Technology Wing and the construction of the Seminar II building created dramatically more technology-equipped teaching spaces. There are now forty-nine media and computer-capable classrooms, with more on the way. Labs are equipped with computers for each student, and most classrooms now include a computer along with projection and display systems. The Library plans to convert one classroom in the Library Underground to a lab, and teaching spaces on campus still without computers or display technology are on the way to being equipped. At this point, library and information resources just manage to support the computer facilities distributed across campus. As more spaces are computerized and enrollment creeps up toward the target of 5,000, the college will have to add additional staff and funding for maintenance. All capital construction and remodeling plans must include consideration of maintenance, replacement, and support for media and networked display.
 +
 
 +
As media technology has changed, some faculty choose to continue teaching older analog equipment, often for good pedagogical and aesthetic reasons. In the context of doubling instruction loads, this breadth of technologies generates a daunting challenge for Media Loan as it stretches to maintain, house, and teach a very wide array of portable equipment. Media Loan should work with the Expressive Arts faculty and other major users to reduce the range of Media Loan equipment necessary to support the curriculum.
 +
 
 +
=====Library Instruction=====
 +
 
 +
The reduced number of library faculty has resulted in less ability to provide library instruction deeply and broadly to the  entire curriculum. Further, reference desk service has changed as the Internet creates patrons who access our resources from remote locations. Most immediately, virtual patrons do not benefit from the teaching that takes place at the reference desk, although the transactions that do occur at reference tend to be more substantive. As traffic at the physical reference desk has diminished, faculty who rotate into the Library have more limited opportunities to learn about library resources through interactions with patrons. These trends should inform the reference group as they consider how to proceed in allocating team responsibilities with or without an increase in the number of library faculty.
 +
 
 +
The reference group should evaluate service to areas of the curriculum that report or demonstrate less involvement in the various forms of information technology instruction (as reflected in end of program reports), and consider whether more or different instructional support would be appropriate, feasible, or desirable.
 +
 
 +
Library instruction will evolve in the context of catalogs that imitate Web discovery tools. It is entirely likely that patrons will frequently discover services which have, until now, had to be pointed out to them. For the near future, however, finding and using the most effective, appropriate journal databases still requires instruction or intervention on the part of librarians or faculty. Evaluation of library instruction based upon comparative use statistics will probably be less valuable than in this past study period, as academic library finding tools will vary greatly for some time to come, creating widely disparate use statistics. Thus close attention to database use trends and their correlation to the implementation of new finding tools will be important in the near future.
 +
 
 +
Intensive, embedded library and media instruction remain the most desirable and effective models. Some librarians focus on these models, including such work as evaluating bibliographies, which become the basis for assessing the quality of student research and the basis for further instruction. Faculty librarians may want to explore evaluating research results more commonly as they develop their ties with programs and faculty in all disciplines, particularly if discovery tools generate easier access to resources beyond the immediate catalog search. As librarians become more involved in each stage of research, including writing or production, they should be able to provide more consistent support to students. Time for this work with students is restricted by the number of librarians, as is time for the more extended work essential to students from Tacoma and reservation-based programs, who depend so heavily upon off-campus access and have less opportunity to confer with librarians at the reference desk. Faculty who rotate into the Library must be more fully engaged in this aspect of the librarians' work in order to help balance the external teaching demands upon library faculty.
 +
 
 +
When the Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning and Writing Centers were planned into the new Information Technology Wing, the hope was for substantial collaboration. While the location of these centers within the Library brings more students in, aids the sense of hospitality, and provides convenient resources for students, collaboration has remained minimal. Thus opportunities for shared instruction and service have yet to be exploited.
 +
 
 +
'''Cross-Curricular Information Technology Literacy'''
 +
 
 +
As discussed above, library and information resources and the teaching faculty assure that information technology infuses the curriculum. On the other hand, the faculty has not embraced any particular set of information technology skills as fundamental to the liberal arts undergraduate at Evergreen. Instead, faculty choose and adapt information and media technologies according to the pedagogical and disciplinary requirements of their chosen inquiry. There is little work across the curriculum about critical approaches to media or basic definitions of college-level technical literacy for the liberal arts. In the immediate future, library and information resources should invite the teaching faculty into a discussion about whether the campus has any broad consensus about Information Technology Literacy (ITL), including critical approaches. Long ago, the college committed to writing across the curriculum and allocated significant institutional resources to encourage that work—without proscriptive limits or standards. A wider discussion about ITL could produce a similar vision and institutional support. In the long run, such a vision will shape our understanding of digital scholarship in the liberal arts.
 +
 
 +
The expansion of entry-level media technology instruction raises questions about the staffing assumptions in Academic Computing. If critical approaches to information technology are to be addressed, and if cross-curricular information technology literacy is a priority for the contemporary liberal arts, then instructional staffing based on historical models of canned skills workshops may be insufficient. Academic Computing should continue current efforts to recruit instructional staff who have the expertise to work intensively in program planning and curriculum development, as well as on technical support for those activities. The numbers of such instructional IT staffing may also need to be evaluated in response to these new and expanding demands for work within the curriculum.
 +
 
 +
====Conclusion: Holly's Generic Library Has Come to Fruition====
 +
 
 +
Library and information resources have been deeply influenced by the organizational habits of the college, habits of collaboration, egalitarian ideals, fluidity, face-to-face interactions, non-departmentalization, reflexive learning, and independent and interdisciplinary inquiry. The result is a responsive, flexible, evolving set of services and resources. Library and information resources faculty and staff work across the media, regardless of where services reside administratively, in order to fuse traditional library services, information services, computing, and media. Library and information resources assess technology within the context of Evergreen’s particular curriculum and implement new applications incrementally in collaborative processes involving all three areas of service and the teaching faculty. As part of that work, library and information resources have had the distinct historical advantage of presuming that information comes in all formats and that it is not only possible but advisable to break down as many barriers as possible to access information in all its forms. In this, library and information resources are shaped by their founding vision - the generic library - an idea whose time has come.
 +
 
 +
===Standard 5 Findings and Conclusions===
 +
 
 +
Findings:
 +
 
 +
1) Overall, library and information resources at Evergreen demonstrate effective development of collaborative planning, services, and instruction in support of the academic mission and educational programs of the college.
 +
 
 +
2.) Over the past decade, the Library and Media Services have fully committed to networking and digital resources. This shift has implied a change in organization, reorganization of job classifications, and the creation of new patterns of work supported in all areas.
 +
 
 +
3.) Commitment to the use of networking digital information resources has allowed and promoted the integration of all sections of library and information resources and has pushed the staff in all areas to reconceptualize their work and to find new patterns of organization and collaboration.
 +
 
 +
4.) Students and faculty are thinking about and using information resources in all media. They can now reasonably expect to have seamless access to a wide array of high-quality academic information, media, and computer applications almost anywhere on campus.
 +
 
 +
5.) The Library is funded like a public college, but the emphasis on projects, the array of inquiries, and the fact that it is a teaching library means that it is used as if it were a part of a private liberal arts college.
 +
 
 +
Conclusions:
 +
 
 +
1.) The Evergreen Library has always been what other libraries have striven to become: a '''teaching library''' deeply connected to the faculty and curriculum. The result is that students use the Library very actively. Historically, Media Services has had the same teaching focus. Academic computing, with a longstanding instructional role, is also moving toward more substantive teaching and collaboration with faculty. This cross-curricular emphasis on teaching must be continued.
 +
 
 +
2.) The original vision of the Library was "generic," which means that it includes all media in all locations. The contemporary term in the profession is the '''virtual library. ''' Evergreen's library and information resources have been able to realize the vision due to the advent of effective, ubiquitous networking and digital resources. The new technology plus major consortial agreements have created an explosion of access to high-quality scholarly information and media.
 +
 
 +
3. The remodeled and more unified Information Technology Wing is the physical manifestation of the blending of traditional print, media, and computer technology that characterizes the virtual library and information in the digital age. Despite being spread across administrative divisions, the Library, Media Services, Academic Computing, the CAL, and Computing and Communications all collaborate effectively to assure more and more seamless access to information resources. We must guard these interconnections and continue to seek opportunities for collaboration that will provide the best service, teaching, and efficiency.
 +
 
 +
Commendations:
 +
 
 +
1.) Through consortial agreements and wise use of resources made available to the college, an extraordinary array of high-quality academic resources. For example, the number of academic journals now available is nine times larger than at the outset of the review. Active leadership in consortia such as Orbis Cascade and the Cooperative Libraries Project supported these cost-effective approaches.
 +
 
 +
2.) The willingness of staff from all areas to share, collaborate, and dream as they worked through the complex reorganizations and new work necessary to create an operative virtual library has been extraordinary.
 +
 
 +
3.) The creation of an accessible, integrated, well-conceived teaching space with the renovation of the B and C wings of the Library has allowed the virtual library to have a physical presence that embodies the integration of these areas, while providing hospitable spaces and programming to complement virtual use information resources.
 +
 
 +
4.) The spread of digital media and computer facilities to the campus as a whole, in the Lecture Halls, and in the new classrooms of Seminar II, as well as the extension of wireless access to most of the campus has allowed the teaching resources of library and information resources to be used across the campus.
 +
 
 +
5.) Both the development of the virtual library and a continued commitment to extensive instruction have led to effective library and information resources for off-campus programs and users.
  
−
A consultant on information technology provided peer comparisons of Evergreen's support for information technology.  The review determined that Evergreen devotes considerable resources to IT, and that Evergreen is consistent with many  peers in doing so. Edutech compared us to similar schools (in physical environment, enrollment numbers, educational goals and aspirations, residential nature, tuition, and governance structure) and found that such schools put a larger percentage of their budget into information technology than institutions with different kinds of aspirations.
+
Recommendations:
  
−
Evergreen’s total actual expenditure for IT in 2005, expressed as a percentage of total institutional expenditures, was 6.7%.  This is in alignment with the figure reported by the Campus Computing 2006 survey for public four-year colleges, 6.7%. Campus Computing reported 6.5% as the average for all institutions.
+
1.) Library and information resources must maintain the flexibility in staff’s capacity to respond to the rapidly changing digital environment.
  
−
As in all areas of LIRN, Media Services plans and develops their work based on strong interconnections with faculty.  Assessment of the popularity of these services may be approached through use data from Institutional Research and an additional user survey by Media Services staff member Lin Crowley, conducted as a project for her Masters in Public Administration studies. The goal of the survey was to understand what and how often the current college community, including students, staff and faculty, use Media Services. In addition, satisfaction levels were surveyed in order to identify areas of Media Services which may need additional attention and to elicit requests for additional services.
+
2.) Library and information services must continue to remain aware of developments in information technology, critically assess them, and carefully integrate technological capacities into the staff’s capacity for teaching.
  
−
The survey data showed that respondents used various services or facilities at rates of between 40% to 80% with more general facilities such as media loan more heavily used than more specialized facilities. While the response rate was too small to be statistically valid for the entire campus community, it can be safely assumed that users of media services would be the predominant respondents. This should be compared to The Evergreen Student Experience Survey, which showed 48% use of media loan and 89.6% somewhat or very satisfied. Crowley’s respondents reported an average satisfaction level for each service ranging from 3.07 to 3.62 (out of 4), which indicated that those users who used current services are generally pretty satisfied with each of the services that they use.
+
3.) Library and information resources should assure that connections between the three units (the Library, Academic Computing, and Media Services) that make up library and information resources are as seamless as possible.
  
−
Despite the fact that the respondents were largely active media services users, many respondents expressed lack of awareness of some media services and although there was much interest in investment in new equipment in digital technology, respondents were often unaware of new or planned digital facilities.  One clear conclusion of the survey is that visibility could be better for some of the various media services.  Suggestions for improvement focused on access, whether longer hours, more workshops or more facilities. The survey project director recommended that future follow-up surveys be conducted to compare whether the reasons people use each service change and to evaluate the satisfaction levels for each type of services by patron types. [Exhibit: Crowley, Lin. Media Service Survey]
+
4.) Media Services instructors should consciously promote considerations of media among faculty across the curriculum, as well as continue to work effectively with those who depend upon media as the center of their work.
  
−
High use of general media facilities is verified in use statistics: for example, during the past year, Media Loan recorded about 14,000 patron contacts and handled over 132,000 transactions with individual pieces of media equipment, a level of use which has remained fairly constant throughout the study period.
+
5.) Staff from all areas should pursue and develop cross-curricular faculty conversations about information and technology as literacies for the liberal arts, including critical perspectives.
  
−
A final, important question to consider as LIRN assesses services and collections is whether LIRN responds rapidly, responsibly and appropriately to the opportunities presented by changing technology. Among the organizations included in LIRN, the library is the largest and most embedded in professional traditions. In the context of the rapid digitization of information challenges, the library may have the most investment in pre-existing structures and assumptions.
+
6.) Library and information services should assure that instructional staffing and library faculty is sufficient in training and numbers to support extensive, integrated information technology literacy instruction across the curriculum and to off-campus and weekend and evening programs.
  
−
The Library rotation model and the particular form of library faculty status, while providing strong connection to the fluid curriculum and the motivated individual learner, also creates significant challenges to library administration and services.  Consistency is a problem. Library faculty tend to be drawn away from much of the administration and day-to-day services of the library other than reference and bibliographic instruction, a tendency which has only been increased by the loss of one faculty library line due to budget cuts. Contractual requirements push Library faculty into college governance, full-time teaching, and the development of their own intellectual, creative and/or scholarly interests as teaching faculty.  Limited summer coverage and sabbaticals further attenuate consistent attention to ongoing library administration.
+
7.) Library and information services should continue to develop maintenance and replacement funds to support rapidly expanding information technology, instruction, and service throughout the campus.
  
−
This means that Evergreen has no managerial class of librarians, but rather a team of faculty librarians who share management responsibilities with staff.  Non-librarians head almost all departments and assure administrative consistency and focus.  As a result, the hands-on managers of the library departments and the staff in those areas initiate a large proportions of new services and developments. The staffs of the areas involved discuss and decide upon new services or activities in a generally egalitarian manner, keeping in mind the nature of the college, the community and the curriculum. The library takes these steps largely without top-down pressure.  Certainly the possibilities created by the close working relationship between the library and teaching faculty would be strangled by unresponsive services were not the library staff also imbued with a professional, responsive and thoughtful culture of public service.
+
Plans:
  
−
As an organization which makes decisions about services, staffing and resources through a flat, organically driven culture, does LIRN take appropriate advantage of the many new options and responsibilities which result from new digitized and networked information resources?  An appended list of major changes in services in library and media services, almost all driven by the opportunities created in the realm of digital resources and systems, testifies to a flexible and responsive organization.
+
1.) Library, Media Services, and Academic Computing staff and faculty will collaborate in planning ongoing summer faculty institutes facilitating cross-curricular faculty conversations about information technology literacy for the liberal arts.
  
−
The overall organizational habits of the college, habits of collaboration, egalitarian ideals, fluidity, face-to-face interactions, non-departmentalization, and interdisciplinary inquiry, deeply influence LIRN planning. The result is a responsive, flexible, evolving set of services and resources. Working across the digital divide from traditional library services to computing to media has generated a commitment to providing information technology services without regard to where the services reside administratively.  LIRN assesses technology within the context of Evergreen’s particular curriculum and needs and implements new applications incrementally in collaborative processes involving all three areas of service and the teaching faculty. As part of that work, LRN has had the distinct historical advantage of presuming that information comes in all formats and that it is not only possible but advisable to break down as many barriers as possible to access to information in all its forms in order to approach the ideal of the generic library, an idea whose time may have finally come.
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2.) The shape of expenditures on collections should evolve as inflation, consortia, networked access, and digital publications continue to change the information environment. The Library Resource Selection Committee will continue to review database, Summit, and local collection use, as well as allocation of non-state funds in order to appropriately support collections in all media. As a member of the Orbis Cascade Alliance, the Library will pursue collaborative collection development emphasizing strong core local collections and coordinated shared collections.
  
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== Standards ==
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3.) The substantial instructional role necessary to support information technology literacy across the curriculum should be recognized in campus hiring priorities.
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=== [[Standard 5.A|Standard 5.A - Missions and Goals]] ===
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=== [[Standard 5.B|Standard 5.B - Planning and Effectiveness]] ===
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4.) The Library, Media Services, and Academic Computing will continue to emphasize shared work. Several areas of potential collaboration in addition to faculty institutes include considering a shared public presence at the newly emphasized main entrance to the Information Technology Wing, an increased role for the ITCH in planning and management of information technology on campus, shared staff positions, shared hiring processes, and more collaborative instruction for academic programs.
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=== [[Standard 5.C|Standard 5.C - Facilities and Access]] ===
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=== [[Standard 5.D|Standard 5.D - Personnel and Management]] ===
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=== [[Standard 5.E|Standard 5.E - Planning and Evaluation]] ===
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== Supporting Documentation ==
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== Standard 5 - Supporting Documentation ==
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See [[Supporting Documentation for Standard Five|Supporting Documentation for Standard Five]]
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See [[Supporting Documentation for Standard Five|Supporting Documentation for Standard 5]]

Latest revision as of 10:45, 4 August 2008

Contents

Standard 5 – Library and Information Resources

Five resources.jpg

Standard 5.A – Purpose and Scope

The primary purpose for library and information resources is to support teaching, learning, and if applicable, research in ways consistent with, and supportive of, the institution’s mission and goals. Adequate library and information resources and services, at the appropriate level for degrees offered, are available to support the intellectual, cultural, and technical development of students enrolled in courses and programs wherever located and however delivered.

Supporting the Academic Mission of the College

Library and information resources at The Evergreen State College support students as they learn to reason and communicate about freely chosen inquiries whose outcomes remain to be discovered or created (Smith, Standard 2). Library and information resources at Evergreen must therefore balance the open-ended demands of free inquiry with the need for stability, security, and efficiency in systems and services. Historically, the Library has been well funded when compared to many public baccalaureates, in recognition of the extraordinary demands of open-ended inquiry and independent study. All library and information resources are shaped by the primary mission of teaching and providing state-of-the-art facilities for academic programs and individual students in this interdisciplinary, liberal arts curriculum. Strong collaboration among library, computing and media staff, faculty, and administration assures the development of the library and information resources as centers for teaching and learning.

The Founding Vision of the Library: Any Medium, Any Location

In 1969, when the founding dean of Library Services James Holly wrote his “Position Paper No. 1,” he proposed a model which he called the generic library, in some ways anticipating the concept of today's virtual library. “By generic I include man’s [sic] recorded information, knowledge, folly, and wisdom in whatever form put down, whether in conventional print, art forms, magnetic tape, laser storage, etc. By generic, I also eliminate physical boundaries such as [a] specific building or portion limited and identified as ‘the library.’” Holly's vision motivated many aspects of library, media, and computer services, but proved in many ways untenable due to technical and budgetary constraints and because the college community expressed traditional longings for a bounded space. Today, laptops and networked data are ubiquitous and most students expect remote access to information resources, regardless of medium. Technology, as well as community values, have caught up with Holly’s founding vision, and Evergreen's library and learning resources now include all media, distributed to almost any location. Display of networked and audiovisual information now brings information technology to almost any classroom on campus. Active involvement in new consortia has led to quick access to expanded collections and information resources from around the region. Academic programs and students off-campus have access to rich, academically sound journal holdings. A wide selection of digitized media applications and advanced media labs provide access to media production. Increasingly seamless access to media, computing, and traditional information resources benefits all students. At the same time, the physical library has expanded its role as a social and intellectual space and provides an increasingly hospitable center for learning and gatherings of all kinds. A $22-million remodel connected previously disparate areas and created a more cohesive information-technology wing, providing one central entrance for the Library, Media Services, the Computer Center, and the Computing and Communications offices.

Functions and Facilities Covered in Standard 5

Reflecting these developments, Standard 5 considers information resources and services from several disparate administrative units: Library Services, including Media Services (administratively part of the Academic division); Academic Computing (administratively part of the Finance and Administration division); and the Computer Applications Lab (CAL) (administratively part of the academic division, with a historical role supporting the science curriculum). The phrase "library and information resources" in Standard 5 should be understood to refer to these units collectively, while comments about separate areas will use more specific language such as the Library, Media Services, the CAL, or Academic Computing. Occasional references to Computing and Communications will address technology infrastructure when relevant to instructional and academic support functions.

The information resources offered and supported by the Library, Academic Computing, and the CAL represent facilities and functions commonly found in libraries and computer centers elsewhere in academia. The Media Services section of the Library requires some explanation, as its role and location in the institution are unique. Media Services provides not only the usual audiovisual support for instruction, but also extensive collections and facilities in support of media production by students across the curriculum. Media production labs, a large circulating collection of portable media equipment, and extensive instruction represent activities, facilities, and functions which will not be found within the library at most institutions. Some media arts, communications or education departments might provide some such services to students of their curriculum, but not the library, and certainly not for general use. In the context of an interdisciplinary college, and in the light of the original ideal of the generic library, these services are provided through the Library in order to assure cross-curricular access and opportunity for students from anywhere in the curriculum, whether those students are studying media or simply wish to communicate academic content using media beyond print.

5.A.1 Sufficiency of Information Resources and Services

The institution’s information resources and services include sufficient holdings, equipment, and personnel in all of its libraries, instructional media and production centers, computer centers, networks, telecommunication facilities, and other repositories of information to accomplish the institution’s mission and goals.

Throughout this study, library and information resources will be found to be strongly linked via face-to-face collaboration and consultation with faculty, staff, and students. These interconnections, within a flat organizational structure, assure constant feedback and redevelopment of services and facilities. Library funding generally compares very well with public institutions and correlates strongly to average funding for private liberal arts peers, peers with whom our use statistics compare favorably. An external assessment performed by Edutech described budgetary support for information technology as comparable to that of institutions with similar missions. There are no comparable institutions for studying the large activity of cross-curricular media services; however, advocacy from both the cross-curricular perspective of the Library and from the specific needs of the media faculty help ensure support. Rapid expansion in information technology access and aspirations have led to changes in personnel allocation and expertise and will continue to make increasing demands on a staff and faculty already stretched in many areas.

For a description of facilities, see Major Facilities and Areas 1 & 2 of the Edutech Information Environment Review. For holdings and equipment, see Standard 5.B.1. For personnel, see Standard 5.D.1. For evaluation of budgetary support, see Standard 5.D.6.

5.A.2 Sufficiency of Core Collection and Related Resources

The institution’s core collection and related information resources are sufficient to support the curriculum.

Broad institutional support for cross-curricular library and information services has historically generated sufficient institutional budgetary support for core collections and facilities. During the study period, inflation and budget cuts reduced base budgets for local monograph collections. Non-state resources bridged some of the gap without building the base budget permanently. Consortial agreements created opportunities for cost-effective collective purchases of serials and for efficient resource sharing, resulting in better support for the intensive work by individual students.

Collection Development, see 5.B.1 and 5.B.5

5.A.3 Education Program Drives Resources and Services

Information resources and services are determined by the nature of the institution’s educational programs and the locations where programs are offered.

Strong connections to the curriculum inform all library and information services. A distinctive library rotation system connects the library and teaching faculty in the shared project of curriculum and program planning. Teaching alliances between media services professionals and media faculty determine the character of media services. A strong liaison system connects Academic Computing instructors and services with teaching faculty. Meanwhile, a very experienced staff with substantial managerial responsibilities manages day-to-day library services while implementing services in response to the new opportunities advancing information technology affords. (See Standard 5.B.2 - Teaching and Instruction).

Information technology planning and governance are discussed in Area 5 (Planning and Governance) of the Edutech Information Environment Review. The study notes that planning is collaborative and responsive to academic needs, and could be strengthened through a stronger role for the Information Technology Collaborative Hive (ITCH).

Standard 5.B – Information Resources and Services

Information resources and services are sufficient in quality, depth, diversity, and currency to support the institution’s curricular offerings.

5.B.1 Equipment and Materials to Support the Educational Program

Equipment and materials are selected, acquired, organized, and maintained to support the educational program.

Collection Development Procedures & Methods

The Library faculty develops collections to support Evergreen's changeable interdisciplinary curriculum without the usual benefit of departmental allocation or structures. The librarians build collections and vendor profiles on the basis of their work as both library and teaching faculty (see 5.B.2), work which involves full-time teaching, faculty governance, extensive collegial engagement with the teaching faculty, and affiliation with planning units. The curriculum committee is the faculty as a whole, and develops the curriculum in curricular planning units, curriculum retreats, and governance groups. The Library faculty's overall knowledge of the curriculum is strengthened by teaching faculty who rotate into the Library and lavish their attention on areas of the collection related to their disciplinary expertise. Finally, librarians honor most requests from individuals for additions to the collection, working from the fact that free inquiry and individual research are central to the Library’s mission.

In the past, the Library has struggled to satisfy incidental research demands outside the boundaries defined by the core, repeating curriculum. The substantial part of the curriculum which varies from year to year, the significant amount of work by independent contract students (almost 1,300 independent study contracts in 2006-07), and the opportunity for intensive individual projects within full-time, multi-quarter programs have all driven demand for specialized materials outside the core collection. Resource sharing and large, shared purchases, all made efficient because of networking technology, have eradicated this problem, although budget cuts and inflation create some difficulties keeping the core collection current. The budget for core monograph purchases has been supplemented with allocations from non-state resources in order to help bridge this gap. See 5.B.5 below.

Media Services

Close work with the curriculum and faculty also informs the development of media facilities and services. Media staff attend the Expressive Arts planning unit meetings, in particular the Moving Image subgroup. Budgetary processes for equipment purchase and operating costs include multiple avenues for consideration of educational program needs. Through the planning units, needs are communicated to the academic budget planners. Through the Library, cross-curricular media demands are communicated to the academic budget planners. Through the ITCH, cross-unit needs are coordinated and passed up to the campus-wide budget process. These three avenues help ensure that the budget process addresses both broad and specific curricular demands for media.

Some stresses develop. Like the Library, Media Services serves the entire academic community, from programs to individuals. And, like the Library, Media Services strains under the pressure of answering the needs of independent study, as well as a fluid curriculum. Students working on independent media productions compete with Expressive Arts programs for scarce resources, from equipment to laboratories to teaching staff. In order to balance these competing demands, Media Services requires students and faculty to submit media request forms, which are reviewed by the Media Services manager and the head of Instruction Media, who allocate resources, both human and technological. Independent contract forms include a question about the need for special equipment or facilities, which serves as a safety net for screening intensive media use. In these ways Media Services assures that students embarking on media studies do so with appropriate support. The Expressive Arts planning unit also instituted a Student Originated Studies (SOS) group contract in media to assure that students have consistent access to facilities and instructional support as they pursue their independent projects.

Information Technology Equipment & Facilities

The Edutech Information Environment Review includes equipment in its discussion of technological facilities in Area 1 of the report. The report states, "Computing, networking and information technology facilities at Evergreen are extensive and impressive. In most cases, Evergreen facilities are at or near standards for similar institutions, and in some cases surpass them. However, these standards are a moving target, and there are areas in which the college will probably have to make upgrades in the near future." The report lauded the computer labs, classroom technology, and access to computers. Recommended improvements were to extend wireless to the entire campus and permanently fund a replacement cycle for equipment.

5.B.2 Teaching and Instruction

Library and information resources and services contribute to developing the ability of students, faculty, and staff to use the resources independently and effectively.

Defining Information Technology Literacy

Standard 2 links the five foci and six expectations of an Evergreen education to the idea of reflexive thinking. "Reflexive thinking begins with a question, an interrogation of the world, and an encounter with the other. As such it involves the student in the whole process of substantive learning about subjects, disciplines and methods that is the standard domain of learning. But reflexivity is the capacity that a learner has to think about the situation and conditions that underlie her own personal and collective experience of thinking and knowing." (See reflexive thinking). This work is engaged and supported through the broad and deep resources of the collections and instruction within the library and information resources.

The professional literature and practice of librarianship defines information literacy as a reflective process. To be clear, a reflective process considers, evaluates, synthesizes, and in general, engages information discovered through research. In contrast, a reflexive process goes on to consider one's own learning and knowledge as influenced through exposure to the information under consideration. According to Jeremy J. Shapiro and Shelley K. Hughes, in their article entitled 'Information Literacy as a Liberal Art', information literacy should "be conceived more broadly as a new liberal art that extends from knowing how to use computers and access information to critical reflection on the nature of information itself, its technical infrastructure, and its social, cultural and end even philosophical context and impact..."

The information literacy curriculum includes:

  • Tool literacy - The ability to use print and electronic resources including software and online resources.
  • Resource literacy - The ability to understand the form, format, location, and methods for accessing information resources.
  • Social-structural literacy - Knowledge of how information is socially situated and produced, including understanding the scholarly publishing process.
  • Research literacy - The ability to understand and use information technology tools to carry out research, including the use of discipline-related software and online resources.
  • Publishing literacy - The ability to produce a text or multimedia report of research results.


ITL in the Context of Holly's Generic Library

Information literacy at Evergreen is itself a reflexive practice, in addition to being central to the process of reflexive thinking in the broader context of undergraduate education at Evergreen. That is, the student uses library and information resources to put herself in relation to information and thinking from a variety of sources and further, reflects about herself and her learning as she researches and learns. Within the context of library and information resources as understood and managed at Evergreen, this literacy includes not just print scholarship, but media and computing, to become not just information literacy but Information Technology Literacy (ITL). Reflection upon information includes reflection upon the nature and role of the tools themselves. Reflexive thinking includes the relation of the user to the information and the tools.

Thus, in order to assure that students have the skills to communicate about their open inquiries and the resources to support deeply reflexive thinking, library and information resources take a broad role in the curriculum. Two of the “Six Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate” relate directly to commitment by the library and information resources to help students achieve intellectual independence, creativity, and critical acumen. Expectation Two states that our graduates will communicate creatively and effectively; Expectation Four, that our graduates apply qualitative, quantitative, and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across the disciplines. Not only should literate students read and write astutely, they also should access, view, critique, and produce media and writing that is eloquent and complete. In this way, digital scholarship merges seamlessly with individual and formal educational goals, just as print scholarship has in the past.

Cross-Curricular Media Instruction

Library and information resources support ITL as an agenda for students across programs, disciplines, and media. Library and information resources staff and faculty collaborate with teaching teams as they instruct students in media and students who create films, multimedia, or musical works for programs or for independent study. These are the challenges of the "freely chosen inquiry," challenges that cannot all be met at all times. However, the location of Media Services administratively and physically within Library Services is meant to ensure that media studies and media production are supported appropriately both within the programs that media faculty teach and elsewhere in the inquiries of students. The spread of entry-level media applications into the general-use computer labs increases access to media production across the curriculum.

Although library and information resources instructors work to fuse teaching with program content, students are nevertheless able to access any media application or information technology beyond or without considering program content. Likewise, many programs focus entirely on technical skill building, without any formal attempt to link these practices to disciplinary content. And in other areas of the curriculum, such as the Culture, Text, and Language planning unit, critical media and information studies are often taught in a theoretical mode, without hands-on media production—the thing itself. The point is that when skills are valorized over content, or when theory ignores practice, students neglect concrete critical reflection on how technology impacts the message, the creators, the audience, or society. However, Holly's generic library model, the founding principle for library and information resources at Evergreen, has emphasized and counterbalanced the tendency to isolate skills from content. Students who read texts expect to write as well; why should they view media and not expect to create it? Early on, a rotating faculty member who helped link instruction with critical media studies and with interdisciplinary programs directed Media Services. Library and information resources continue to struggle to advocate for the critical study of media and information technology across the curriculum.

Academic computing also provides access to and instruction in information technologies through a balance of specialized and open computing facilities. With the migration of many media applications to commonly available personal computer platforms, instruction and facilities to support entry-level media production have spread to academic computing and even to the Library proper.

Library and information resources faculty and staff instruct and teach in multiple modes, from basic skills instruction to more complex, content-driven teaching by faculty and professionals in the curriculum. In addition, the teaching faculty contribute substantively and collaboratively to planning and implementing information services, collections, and policies. This dynamic collaboration between the teaching faculty and the library and information resources has shaped the primary mission to support inquiry-based education. Each area within library and information resources has developed structures to connect teaching and instruction closely to the faculty, the curriculum, and the academic mission of the college. Utilization, satisfaction, and curricular surveys demonstrate the breadth and effectiveness of this work (See Planning and Evaluation 5.E).

Faculty Librarians and Library Teaching

Evergreen requires rotation between the librarians and the teaching faculty. Briefly stated, faculty librarians rotate out of the Library to teach full time on a regular basis and, in exchange, teaching faculty rotate into the Library to serve as librarians providing reference, instruction, and collection development. (See Pedersen pp. 41-44 for more discussion of this system). Faculty who rotate into the Library leave with updated skills for developing information literacy within their programs and teams across the curriculum. Library faculty develop their subject specialties and enhance their ability to work across pedagogical and disciplinary realms. Perpetual faculty-wide interactions in faculty governance and team-teaching reinforce the strong connections between the library faculty and the teaching faculty. Librarians know the faculty as colleagues and teaching faculty know the librarians (probably the only basis for widespread and effective library instruction in a curriculum without requirements). Teaching teams also spread effective library instruction practices as experienced teaching faculty introduce their new faculty teammates to their library colleagues and the teaching they offer. Most new faculty also bring updated information technology skills and experience to share with their colleagues.

A loose liaison system links each librarian with a subset of the curriculum, based on subject expertise, planning unit affiliation, and personal alliances. Faculty librarians provide a wide array of library and information technology-related teaching. One-time workshops designed to engage sources particular to the research projects within an academic program represent the most common format. Librarians and teaching faculty design these workshops with the assumption that the skills imparted are embedded in the interests and needs of the program learning community. At a minimum, the faculty for the program usually 1) create a research assignment which informs and motivates the students’ work; 2) attend the research workshop and participate, adding their expertise and/or questions; 3) provide the library liaison with a syllabus and a copy of the assignment and a list of the topics students are considering; and 4) ask the students to begin considering their topic before attending the workshop so they are primed to begin actual research during the workshop.

Librarians teach workshops on research most frequently in the graduate programs, the sciences, and the off-campus programs. The teaching models for these more extended situations vary according to the library faculty involved and the role in the curriculum, and they evolve significantly year to year. Each year, library faculty affiliate deeply with a few such programs, meeting weekly to create stepped learning conjoined with research assignments. For documents exemplifying this teaching, see Forensics Syllabus and Chemistry Health Professions Project. During several academic years, an information technology seminar linked library internship opportunities with a hands-on Web technology workshop. In that model, a small group of students explored contemporary questions in the world of rapid digitization and its social implications. They paralleled that study with real library work and Web production practice, including wikis and Web pages designed to support library functions. The seminar and workshop have provided a venue for library faculty, staff, and Academic Computing instructors to gather and consider both the past and future of information technologies. See the syllabi for the programs Still Looking (fall, winter, spring), Information Landscapes (fall, winter, spring), and Common Knowledge (fall, winter, spring). Each year, one librarian also offers research methods through the evening and weekend curriculum.

In-depth, extended library-related teaching within programs and service to off-campus and Evening and Weekend programs can be a challenge in the context of a reduced core of library faculty. During the self-study period, one faculty line was cut during budget reductions. This causes significant stress on the quality and quantity of instruction the area is able to provide.

Library Faculty as Service Providers

Library faculty see themselves primarily as teachers. They tend to understand the services of the Library in the context of teaching and learning, specifically teaching as it actually happens in the Evergreen curriculum. Thus, they do not tend to work from externally defined "best practices," nor do they function in a reactive mode. They take a proactive approach to the work, suggesting tools and strategies for designing library instruction and finding the intellectual work in the world of research instruction. They position themselves to work across administrative as well as curricular boundaries and sustain an important role in the crossroads of traditional research methods, contemporary information technology, and the world of the curriculum and their teaching colleagues.

Service and Teaching

The faculty librarians have transformed the reference desk into a teaching space, which goes well beyond traditional service models. For this reason, there is generally a librarian at the desk during the hours the Library is open to the public. Each contact between a librarian and a patron represents an opportunity to teach and learn. In collections, Web page design, signage, collection organization, and creation of virtual services, the librarians ask not just what is easiest or matches the expectations of inexperienced users, but what can be taught through the new design, service, or collection. For example, broad aggregate databases have been purchased because they are cost effective, but the librarians also emphasize and teach comparatively complex digitized indexes, which refer students more deeply into the discipline-based literature of their inquiries. As discussed throughout this document, library and information resources are designed, planned, taught, and supported in the context of college-wide teaching and learning.

Library Faculty and Off-Campus Programs

Library support for the two major off-campus offerings, the Tacoma and the Reservation-Based Community-Determined programs, focuses heavily on instruction, with additional support from networked technology, including specialized Web pages for these programs. See services for Reservation-Based students and services for Tacoma-based students. Students of these programs have limited access to the physical library and must be alerted to the many high-quality resources available to them online through the Library. End-of-program reports show very high engagement with information technology in these programs (See End-of-program Review Results for 2006-07 - Information Technology Literacy by Planning Unit). Most years, librarians work closely with the Research Methods class at Tacoma, providing laboratory-based instruction on location several weeks per quarter. As of 2007-08, this work has taken on a more formalized structure and has developed into credit-generating research classes.

Library instruction at the upper-division off-campus sites of the Reservation-Based Community-Determined programs has varied widely year-by-year. Recently, the program has focused on building library methods into the lower-division bridge curriculum, which has not involved the library faculty directly. Reservation-based programs report 100% teaching and use of library and Internet research in 2007; however, this work has not engaged the Library's holdings or services significantly. Rebuilding this connection should be a high priority, and a planned faculty rotation from a former director of the reservation-based program will be an opportunity to do so. Perusal of the Achievements list for the self-study period demonstrates that almost every development supports distant access to collections and services and thus the off-campus programs.

Modes of Instruction in Media and Academic Computing

In all major computer and media labs, staff instructors provide group instruction designed to support the needs of specific academic programs, covering particular applications and tools relevant to the disciplines involved. Media and computing instructors teach workshops in different spaces and in different modes, depending on the discipline and the technology. There are no constraints upon which facilities may be used. In one quarter, a science program might have workshops in the Computer Center focusing on blogs, a math workshop using Excel in the Computer Applications Lab, a session on video documentation for field research in the Multimedia Lab, and a library research workshop in one of the Computer Center's general-purpose labs. In this way, academic programs leverage staff expertise and facilities as needed.

Teaching faculty must be able to easily identify and contact the appropriate staff member to coordinate computer instruction, which may require significant logistical support such as lab scheduling, equipment checkout, server space, password access, personnel scheduling, and other details. In Academic Computing, program liaisons work with faculty to coordinate how programs will teach technology. For instance, the staff liaison helps set up file shares and Web spaces and schedules and teaches workshops. In Media Services, the head of instructional media provides a central location for faculty and students requesting instructional support in media to connect with appropriate media instructors and to schedule facilities and instruction. The Media Services staff work with faculty to design and integrate media into their programs. Media Services staff meet regularly with media faculty in the Expressive Arts planning unit so they can develop facilities, plan for access, and foster integration of media into academic programs.

Students who work independently on media or computing projects or who decide to tackle media projects within non-media oriented programs also receive many forms of instructional support. Academic Computing offers regularly scheduled technology workshops, which are open to all. In addition, Evergreen students can access Lynda.com, which tutors students in software applications and programming languages. The Library recently subscribed to Safari Books Online, which supports the computer science curriculum and addresses technical inquiries from students across the curriculum. Academic Computing began a computing wiki in 2006-07 which hosts approximately 2,000 pages of instructions and tutorials and which continues to expand. Increasingly, students, faculty, and staff rely on the Academic Computing wiki to stay abreast of technologies hosted on campus.

Any student may access most media-production facilities and check out portable media equipment once they have completed relevant hands-on training sessions called proficiencies. Media instructors run hundreds of these quick, skills-focused instructional sessions annually, which serve thousands of students, ensure proper use of the equipment, and provide supportive technical background for systems. The number of formal instructional sessions provided to programs has doubled since 2000, suggesting the rapidly expanding use and breadth of college-supported media technology. Finally, the Evening and Weekend Studies curriculum provides a coherent, regular pathway for learning more complex media-production processes.

Like the library faculty, media instructors teach in a variety of modes: full-time, part-time, introductory, intensive, general, sustained, intermittent, specialized, individual, within programs, or collaboratively in small groups. Many of the media staff are artists, professionals, and faculty in their own right, with Master of Fine Arts degrees in their fields. They teach photography, electronic music, Web design, and digital imaging as adjuncts in Evening and Weekend Studies and in Extended Education. Media staff who teach as adjunct faculty are often called to teach full time as visiting artists. Their contributions to the part- and full-time curriculum are substantial and sustained, some of them having taught for more than twenty years. Their work supports the Expressive Arts. It assures access and instruction for students who do not consider themselves artists but who want to engage in technologies that constitute important developing communication media and also define the visual aesthetics of science, history, political science, psychology, and other narratives. Additionally, Photo, Electronic Media, and Media Loan staff annually teach as field supervisors for up to eight student interns who are critical to the effective functioning of labs and services. These students typically not only gain high-level technical production skills, but also develop instructional, collaborative, and administrative experience by working closely with students, faculty, and technical staff. Finally, all media staff sponsor many individual contracts, which provide opportunities for students who have identified intensive individual inquiries that are not supported in the curriculum at large. In general, media staff are central to the success of media-based programs and are viewed as colleagues by the Expressive Arts faculty, whose programs they support. These working relationships form the backbone of Media Services.

Faculty Institutes

As described thus far, library and information resources instructors regularly work with, instruct, and support the teaching faculty through individual collaboration. In addition, they design and teach several faculty institutes each summer. Faculty institutes create valuable connections among faculty, library, media, and academic computing instructors. Recent information technology institutes have focused on specific applications such as teaching statistics with Excel, using online collaborative tools to foster learning communities, or creating program Web pages. Some years, substantive discussions of information technology literacy as opposed to hands-on training have been offered. During institutes, faculty are often afforded paid time for self-directed work that focuses on their program planning. In these instances, faculty evaluate technology, practice using it, and plan how to incorporate applications into their programs.

5.B.3 Availability of Policies

Policies, regulations, and procedures for systematic development and management of information resources, in all formats, are documented, updated, and made available to the institution’s constituents.

The Web provides a venue for all policies, regulations, and procedures for all information resources and services.

See Required Exhibit 2: Policies, Regulations, and Procedures for the Development and Management of Library and Information Resources

5.B.4 Participatory Planning

Opportunities are provided for faculty, staff, and students to participate in the planning and development of the library and information resources and services.

Faculty, staff, and students participate in the planning and development of library information resources and services. The college community values face-to-face communication and formal procedures for consultation are minimal. All learning and information resources staff and faculty receive and welcome direct requests and suggestions. As an example, good hiring represents an important decision determining how library and information services evolve and prosper. Hiring processes are broadly consultative. Committees with representation from different work units interview and recommend for all staff positions. Students, staff, and faculty representatives join in hiring committees for any major positions, especially those of administrators and faculty. These hiring processes routinely include public presentations by the candidates, which are announced to the entire college community to allow input from staff, faculty, and students.

More broadly, collaborative work with teaching faculty and other clients drives the design and planning for almost all instructional and technical support. Face-to-face planning and direct engagement with teaching faculty in a program-by-program context defines the work of library and information resources across all units (see Participatory Planning 5.E.1).

5.B.5 Networks Extend Information Resources

Computing and communications services are used to extend the boundaries in obtaining information and data from other sources, including regional, national, and international networks.

Consortial arrangements in the Orbis Cascade regional system offer Summit, a resource-sharing system that makes it possible to satisfy almost any book and most media requests generated by the individualistic interests of students working on independent projects. The Summit system includes thirty-five academic libraries from Oregon and Washington and delivers resources within two or three days. Students also use many highly specialized materials from periodicals databases, which have expanded the number of journal subscriptions Evergreen holds eight to nine times over the self-study period. This enhancement is largely due to the Cooperative Library Project (CLP), a state-funded resource-sharing project among the four-year Washington state baccalaureates.

Consortial purchases have reduced per-title costs dramatically and have strengthened areas of the curriculum not necessarily the focus of a core liberal arts collection. For example, psychology, education, and business were heavily emphasized in the most recent round of shared purchasing by CLP. Finally, ILLiad, the interlibrary loan system, brings journal articles to the students' mailboxes and e-mail accounts within a few days. There are almost no discernible limits to accessing published information for any researcher except those who need to present within twenty-four hours. Effective campus networks supported by Computing and Communication's technical support staff make this possible. College-wide steps that have made efficient resource sharing and online information possible have included implementing the Banner student records system and establishing e-mail as the official student communications medium.

Standard 5.C – Facilities and Access

The institution provides adequate facilities for library and information resources, equipment, and personnel. These resources, including collections, are readily available for use by the institution’s students, faculty, and staff on the primary campus and where required off-campus.

5.C.1 Availability of Information Resource Facilities

Library and information resources are readily accessible to all students and faculty. These resources and services are sufficient in quality, level, breadth, quantity, and currency to meet the requirements of the educational program.

For a description of facilities, see Major Facilities and Areas 1 and 2 of the Edutech Information Environment Review.

The Edutech Information Environment Review specifically considered networking, telecommunications, and other information technology relevant to accessibility. The campus network was lauded as "solid and reliable." The network itself is described technically in Area 1 of the report. Expansion of wireless access from 75% to the entire campus was recommended; this work is proceeding and has the budgetary support to continue into the future. Most classrooms have been networked with display capability, spreading library and information technology access to large portions of the curriculum. This changes the presumptions of the faculty and students and greatly increases the frequency with which social software, digitized presentations, and other multi-media information technology is incorporated in programs. The Edutech report also recommended establishing at least one dedicated teleconferencing space for general use, which is planned within the Center for Creative and Applied Media (CCAM). According to Edutech, "student access to computers at Evergreen does not seem to be a problem."

The Information Technology Wing

LIR Facilities and Services Visibly Interconnect

With the generic library as a foundation and the interdisciplinary curriculum as the context, merged collections and services build upon an alternative past. Library and information resources thus collaborate actively across academic and administrative departmental boundaries. The major remodel, implementing a newly consolidated Information Technology Wing, substantially strengthened opportunities for connecting services, facilities, and staff. One central, broad entrance now provides access to the Library, the Computer Center, Media Loan and the stairs to Electronic Media, Photo Services and Computing and Communications. See Consultant Pre-Remodel Report for an assessment of facility requirements produced before the project. For further detail, extensive documents describing the project are available in the documents room.

More Teaching and Study Spaces

The ideal of collaborative learning shaped the remodel. Shared study spaces predominate, whether open area study tables, grouped lounge furniture, pod-shaped arrangements in labs, or small group study and media viewing rooms. Wireless access allows informal group work around personal or library-owned laptops. Additional laboratory spaces provide easier scheduling for program work and more computers for individuals when classes do not use the labs. Limited quiet study areas provide an alternative for the solitary scholar; at the same time, small group work is facilitated and encouraged. Overall, the Information Technology Wing has shed barren hallways and utilitarian desks in favor of lounge areas and comfortable study spaces. Overstuffed couches and chairs, large tables, task lighting, and more room for collections all contribute to the conviviality that informs shared inquiry.

Hospitable Spaces and Blended Access

Art exhibitions invite patrons into lounge and study areas and help define the Library as a public space. The new basement lounge, affectionately dubbed the "Library Underground," hosts frequent campus gatherings and public readings, although flooding (a new issue since the remodel) disrupted the area several times in 2006-07. Groups from across campus meet, study, and teach in library spaces, which are open to all and where food and drink have always been allowed. The Sound and Image Library (SAIL) media collections are prominently located in the reference area, where SAIL staff work closely with the reference librarians. The newly established Assisted Technology Lab (ATL) conjoins the SAIL and has become a vital meeting place for students to work and show their art and media productions. Again, SAIL and reference staff provide service and technical support for ATL patrons. As the physical reference collection continues to shrink, reference, the SAIL, the ATL, and Circulation will continue forming a more blended and prominent shared public presence.

More General Access Lab Facilities

Rapid developments in networked information technology have blurred between general and specialized technology labs. The main computer center includes many specialized scientific software packages such as ArcGIS and Mathematica, while common graphic manipulation software, such as Photoshop and Illustrator, appear in the CAL. Similarly, the Computer Center supports high-level statistics applications such as R, as well as digital music editing. The library computers provide basic Office applications and general Web access in addition to library-specific searches, but specific library computers also provide GIS, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, assistive/adaptive technology, and scanning applications, while the SAIL provides multiple stations for basic media dubbing, transfer, and editing. Switching to a single user domain and sign-on means simpler, more consistent access to networked resources across campus. The Digital Imaging and Multimedia facilities provide applications for advanced media production, but are open to all students. Some specialty labs have self-contained resources, such as large format printers or applications requiring more sophisticated hardware. However, the primary distinction among labs is the level of expertise and specialized knowledge of the staff. Students benefit when they know the specialized character of a lab means there will be more skilled assistance.

5.C.2 Cooperative Agreements

In cases of cooperative arrangements with other library and information resources, formal documented agreements are established. These cooperative relationships and externally provided information sources complement rather than substitute for the institution’s own adequate and accessible core collection and services.

Despite greatly expanded information access through Summit and shared purchasing agreements, the Library continues strong support for the core collection within budgetary constraints created by budget cuts and inflation. Over time, Summit circulation data will provide specific reports on areas of the collection where students and faculty consistently or repeatedly demonstrate the need for more depth. Additionally, the Orbis Cascade Alliance is working on shared collection development guidelines to help design complementary collections.

See Collection Development Procedures and Methods.

See Required Exhibit 11 Formal Agreements with Other Libraries.

Standard 5.D – Personnel and Management

Personnel are adequate in number and in areas of expertise to provide services in the development and use of library and information resources.

5.D.1 Sufficiency of Staffing

The institution employs a sufficient number of library and information resources staff to provide assistance to users of the library and to students at other learning resources sites.

The chart below suggests that library and information resources staffing is similar to that of comparable public institutions, falling between the averages of peer public liberal arts colleges (COPLAC) and the larger regional universities in the state (WA Regionals in the table below). Note that Evergreen (TESC) and other public college library staffing averages are significantly below the staffing for groups made up largely of private Ivies, DEEP (Documenting Effective Educational Practices), CTCL (Colleges That Change Lives), and CIEL (Consortium of Innovative Environments for Learning).

Staffing Comparisons
Library Professionals/FTE Total Staff/FTE
TESC 1.93 7.5
DEEP 4.65 16.32
CTCL 4.79 14.71
CIEL 5.51 13.43
COPLAC 2.67 8.55
WA Regionals 1.41 5.62

Source: IPEDS 2006 (See DEEP 2006; CTCL 2006; CIEL 2006; COPLAC 2006; WA State Public 2006)

(N.B. The staff count for Evergreen has been halved since approximately 50% of Library and Media Services staffing is devoted to Media Services production, instruction, and equipment check-out. At other institutions, these services, if they are offered at all, reside in academic departments such as media arts or education.)

The Edutech Information Environment Review discusses staffing in Area 3. The report shows staffing to be average when compared to similar institutions in terms of size, mission, and culture.

Because library use at Evergreen compares favorably to more heavily staffed private liberal arts colleges and because all areas sustain a substantial instructional role, there are areas of strain. The rapid expansion of technology-driven services and collections also creates stresses, despite reallocation of staff as media and technologies shift. Following are the primary areas of concern:

  • Support for rapidly expanded classroom technology, an additional demand on top of general institutional growth
  • Staffing for greater focus on curriculum planning and engagement with faculty in Academic Computing
  • Staffing to support expanding electronic library resource collections (ordering, contracts, management, evaluation, etc.)
  • Weakened presence of faculty librarians due to the loss of one line in budget cuts during the self-study period


5.D.2 Staff Qualifications

Library and information resources staff include qualified professional and technical support staff, with required specific competencies, whose responsibilities are clearly defined.

The balance of librarians to other library staff is weighted toward non-professionals when compared to other liberal arts college libraries. Further, as librarians rotate into the full-time curriculum, they temporarily leave behind reference work, management, administration, and collection development. Any sustained work, such as Web-page development, is interrupted by these regular absences. Further, full-time teaching faculty rotate into the Library as neophytes who need training and who present widely disparate skills, abilities, and ambitions. Beyond the system of rotation, with its concomitant duties, librarians are contractually obligated to participate in college governance and curriculum planning, not to mention their own scholarly projects and sabbaticals. Librarians have nine-month contracts and several are absent during the summer sessions when the Library is minimally staffed. These organizational facts mean that Evergreen has no managerial class of librarians. Instead, the team of faculty librarians share management with staff. Paraprofessionals head almost all departments, including Circulation, Government Publications, Periodicals, Technical Services, and Acquisitions. Their year-round presence and regular workdays provide consistency for development of services, maintenance of collections, public service, and supervision of classified staff and student workers. In this collaborative environment, staff often lead the way in adopting new services. The tremendous commitment by the staff grounds the Library and makes it an ideal teaching environment.

Most library faculty carry both subject and library master's credentials in order to support their teaching as well as their role as professional librarians (see CVs of professional library staff).

As is the case with librarians, many media staff and instructors carry additional graduate training. Graduate degrees noted by staff other than librarians include three MPAs, two MFAs, an MA in art history, an MEd and EdS, an MSE (technical engineering), an MS in chemistry, and an MS in computer information systems. The library faculty, whose roles require substantial attention to teaching and governance outside the Library, must depend upon library staff as managers of major services and functions within the Library. Highly experienced staff with significant levels of responsibility keep the Library not just open, but anticipating and embracing change and new opportunities for service (see 5.B.2 Modes of Instruction in Media and Academic Computing for a discussion of media instructors as artists and teaching faculty).

In the realm of technical support, the Edutech report recommended assigning "staff responsibilities more specifically." More specific responsibilities and positions have been implemented in Technical Support Services. In the smaller units that provide distributed service and instruction such as the CAL, Academic Computing, and Media Services, this stricter delineation of support functions is not as clearly appropriate. Instead, it is often valuable for staff to be well versed on all or most aspects of the instruction or service required and in direct communication with the student, staff, or faculty who needs help. For example, the liaison system in Academic Computing assumes that in most cases a faculty member will receive all aspects of support from one liaison, or that the liaison will coordinate the support and instruction required.

All staff and faculty have engaged new skills as the information technology evolves. Multiple reclassifications have assured that staff job descriptions and pay scales match new expectations for technological expertise. Staff have also shifted the location of their work partially or entirely as budget cuts and new programs such as Summit and ILLiad have relocated the areas of greatest stress. Increased emphasis on technology in many positions has led to reclassifications and increases in salaries for some staff, resulting in compression of salaries for some managers. A campus-wide study of exempt salaries is expected to address this issue.

5.D.3 Professional Growth

The institution provides opportunities for professional growth for library and information resources professional staff.

The library faculty are fully funded for professional activities through the central faculty professional development funds and policies, as well as through faculty institutes.

See Faculty Development at Evergreen

See Professional Leave (Faculty Handbook 6.100)

See Professional Travel (Faculty Handbook 6.200)

See Faculty Development (Faculty Handbook 6.300)

The remaining library and media services staff may request up to $500 annually from a pool of $2,500. Additional funding has been requested to bring the maximum benefit up to $750 in order to be consistent with the rest of academics, but this funding has not been granted thus far. Non-state funds from the Friends of the Library have been allocated for retreats and other staff meetings in order to compensate for some of this differential access to professional development funds.

Computing and Communications allocates more than $40,000 per year to support attendance of technical staff at technical conferences and trainings. This allows staff to expand their skills with current technology, increase their knowledge of new and advancing technology, and connect with peers from other institutions and experts in specific technologies. These training opportunities are critical to the team’s ability to support teaching and learning and to provide management of the college’s administrative systems (see CC Training Spreadsheet).

5.D.4 Organizational Structure

Library and information resources and services are organized to support the accomplishment of institutional mission and goals. Organizational arrangements recognize the need for service linkage among complementary resource bases (e.g., libraries, computing facilities, instructional media and telecommunication centers).

The fundamental organizing principle of library and information resources at Evergreen is that an interdisciplinary curriculum demands integrated services. Beyond that, the founding vision aspired to provide all media, in any location. Contemporary networked technology and the expectations of students now create a climate in which barriers between different information can and must be dissolved. For all these reasons, blended resources, facilities, and services predominate throughout Standard 5.

See The Founding Vision: Any Medium, Any Location.

See The Information Technology Wing.

Shared Technology Creates the Need for More Shared Work

Media applications, which were once physically limited to Media Services, are now located, maintained, taught, and used throughout the facilities administered by Academic Computing and, to a degree, the Library. Similarly, library resources, which were once physically limited to the Library building, are now found anywhere within reach of the Web. Public computers, once found only in the Computer Center, are everywhere, as are privately-owned laptops. These shifts have accelerated during the past ten years and have changed the instructional roles of the areas and their relationship to the curriculum. Undoubtedly, library and information resources will continue to distribute their budgets, facilities, and staff to continue expanding access to information technology in academic programs and for individual students.

As technologies have changed, so have the relationships among the Library, Media Services, and Computing, which now share in the communal project of interconnecting, teaching, and supporting our information and technological resources. At this juncture, there seems little point in redesigning the administrative structures that oversee these areas because new relationships and responsibilities have evolved organically, based on need, demand, and interest, and will continue to do so. In order to ensure that these effective working relationships continue to develop, reinforcing connections such as joint staffing, deliberately planning together, and continuing involvement across the areas when hiring for new staff and particularly administrators must be emphasized.

The Edutech Information Environment Review suggested that the existing distributed structures were valuable, but recommended greatly enhancing the role and formal responsibilities of the ITCH to assure better planning in consonance with the mission of the college. See 5.E for fuller discussion of this recommendation. Edutech did not capture the centrality of the teaching role in major portions of the information resources environment at Evergreen. It is teaching and its development that assures the most important connections between the academic mission of the college, the educational program, and IT services of all kinds. While the Library and Media Services collaborate as a matter of course with Academic Computing, the real challenge remains: How to more thoroughly engage the teaching faculty across the curriculum in defining the role of information technology in the academic careers of our students.

5.D.5 Engagement in Curriculum Development

The institution consults library and information resources staff in curriculum development.

See Collection Development Procedures & Methods 5.B.1

5.D.6 Library and Information Resources Budgets

The institution provides sufficient financial support for library and information resources and services, and for their maintenance and security.

Similar to staffing levels noted above, the Library is well funded compared to other regional public baccalaureates in the state (WA State Public in the table below) and peer public liberal arts libraries nationally (COPLAC in the table below). This comparatively rich funding reflects a historical recognition of the demands of open inquiry and independent research and the centrality of library research in a liberal arts education. Both funding and use rates closely match those of the private liberal arts libraries which predominate the DEEP (Documenting Effective Educational Practices), CTCL (Colleges That Change Lives) and CIEL (Consortium of Innovative Environments for Learning) peer groups. Thus, the general funding level for the Evergreen Library compares closely to that of institutions with similar missions, services, and roles within their institutions. For further discussion of the role of libraries in liberal arts colleges, see Comparing Use Statistics With Other Libraries (5.E). On the other hand, the library budget reported below includes Media Services (approximately 50% of library staffing falls into this category). Most libraries do not include any of the functions provided by Media Services at Evergreen. Instead, these functions, including media instruction, media-production facilities, media production to support college activities, and portable media production equipment check-out, if offered at all, would be part of an academic department such as education or media arts. If Media Services costs and services were not considered, then budgets are close to those of other public institutions, while use statistics are comparable to private liberal arts institutions.

Library FTE Circulation+ILL/FTE Expenditures/FTE
Evergreen 4153 31 $782
DEEP Colleges 2046 18 $829
CTCL 1506 23 $859
COPLAC 3742 16 $464
CIEL 7042 25 $794
WA State Public 11,415 15 $373

Source: IPEDS 2006 (See DEEP 2006; CTCL 2006; CIEL 2006; COPLAC 2006; WA State Public 2006)

As budget cuts have reduced both staffing and collections, diversified revenue sources have become a high priority for library administration. Generous biennial infusions from the central academic budget have withered since earlier study periods. Indirect funds from activity grants to the faculty, major gifts from donors, book sales, and fines for lost or destroyed books have all increased to make up important non-state sources for collection development. The development of facilities and programming have been supported through major donors, with the library dean and the campus fundraisers focusing significant attention on these efforts.

The Edutech Information Environment Review discusses budgets in Area 4 and compares Evergreen to similar schools on the basis of physical environment, enrollment numbers, education goals and aspirations, residential nature, tuition, and governance structure. The review determined that Evergreen devotes considerable resources to IT and is consistent with its peers. In 2005, Evergreen’s expenditure on IT—expressed as a percentage of total institutional expenditures—was 6.7%. This percentage aligns with the 6.7% reported by Computing in a 2006 survey of public four-year colleges. The average for all institutions was 6.5%. Generally, IT is funded comparably to institutions with similar missions and culture. The report recommended that budget processes should be addressed that take into account the heavy demands upon replacement, operation, and maintenance as IT becomes ubiquitous in the classroom, as well as in labs.

See Comprehensive Budget (Required Exhibit 9)

Standard 5.E – Planning and Evaluation

Library and information resources planning activities support teaching and learning functions by facilitating the research and scholarship of students and faculty. Related evaluation processes regularly assess the quality, accessibility, and use of libraries and other information resource repositories and their services to determine the level of effectiveness in support of the educational program.

Evaluating Information Services and Collections

Assessments of Evergreen's library and information resources confirm support for the academic mission of the college as a public liberal arts college that expects a substantial number of students to engage in self-selected independent inquiry. Utilization patterns among Evergreen students correlate closely to the intensive use found among liberal arts colleges as opposed to lower use rates found among more comprehensive institutions.

Comparing Use Statistics With Other Libraries

In 2002, Washington's four-year public baccalaureate institutions implemented the Cascade resource-sharing consortium. This start-up provided an amazing new service and an opportunity to assess how rapidly a major new service might be implemented. Evergreen patrons borrowed 9,723 items during the first year, more than any other library, even though Evergreen was by far the smallest institution in the consortium at that time. Although ten times bigger than Evergreen, the University of Washington borrowed just under 7,000 items during the first year. The quick acceptance of Cascade testified to the efficient connection between the Library, library instruction, and the teaching faculty and curriculum at large.

Cascade became Orbis Cascade as the Washington and Oregon academic consortia merged. The new resource-sharing service, entitled Summit, provides ongoing comparative statistics. To continue comparison with the original members of Cascade, in 2006, Evergreen borrowed 4.52 items per FTE; almost four times the next heaviest user at 1.15 items borrowed per student. Although one might assume that small collection size drives this higher demand, the fact is that the Evergreen collection circulates at a high rate per student as well, according to federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data.

IPEDS data for 2006 also provide the opportunity to compare use statistics of liberal arts colleges with Evergreen and with small master's-level universities (Carnegie Class Master's I), where strong distinctions appear again. When both circulation and interlibrary loan are counted, Evergreen circulates 31 items per FTE, liberal arts colleges nationally average 24 items per FTE, and the Master's I institutions circulate 8.34 per FTE.

The same dramatic distinction between liberal arts colleges and comprehensive institutions appears in the Summit consortium, which covers a full array of colleges and universities in Oregon and Washington. The following table lists the heaviest users from the member libraries, based upon their rates of use per FTE in 2006. Evergreen places high on the list, among the most highly ranked liberal arts colleges, which placed well above usage rates at more comprehensive institutions.

Library Number of Items Borrowed FTE Items/FTE
Reed College 20,480 1,268 16.15
George Fox University 14,427 2,392 6.03
Marylhurst University 4,548 852 5.34
Lewis & Clark College 14,386 2,953 4.87
The Evergreen State College 16,118 4,200 3.84
Whitman College 6,672 1,803 3.70
Willamette University 9,164 2,511 3.65
University of Puget Sound 7,570 2,742 2.76
Seattle Pacific University 8,589 3,466 2.48
Linfield 5,354 2,331 2.30
Western Oregon University 8,623 3,992 2.16
University of Portland 6,764 3,211 2.11
University of Oregon 38,796 18,880 2.05
Eastern Oregon University 4,620 2,306 2.00
Pacific University 4,232 2,341 1.81

(Source: Summit Borrowing Statistics FY06)

Thus it is clear that, as of 2006, Evergreen library utilization mirrors the practices of liberal arts colleges. High-use rates also seem to reflect an academic emphasis on major student projects. For instance, at Reed College, which requires a senior thesis, the college library circulates or borrows 120 items per student. On the other hand, looking ahead, academic library use patterns are in a period of dramatic change. In 2007, the University of Washington implemented WorldCat Local, which provides immediate click-though prompts, leading the user from local catalog to Summit to some journal databases, periodical holdings, and interlibrary loan if appropriate. Summit use at the University of Washington doubled since implementation and interlibrary loan has also increased steeply. A large increase in borrowing at the University of Washington drives lending rates throughout the Summit system, but even more important, it suggests that discovery tools will dramatically increase usage without change in the library instructional program or academic practices. The Orbis Cascade consortium will soon be implementing WorldCat as the shared Summit catalog and many libraries in the consortium will undoubtedly implement WorldCat Local as their local library catalog as well.

Library and Computer Center Use & Satisfaction Rates

The data above demonstrate that library and information resources are comparatively well utilized. While high rates of use suggest something about effectiveness, surveys of popularity (frequency of use and satisfaction with use) provide further affirmation. Institutional Research routinely surveys alumni and students about campus resources. A summary of campus resource utilization (See Alumni Surveys 2002-2006 - Campus Resource Utilization) shows that during the six-year period, the Library and the computing facilities have been the top two most used campus facilities, trading off for first place. Alumni who were somewhat or very satisfied with the services have reported in at between 87% and 92% during the period surveyed.

Starting in 2006, the Evergreen Student Experience Survey (ESES) included questions about using library resources online and found that 85.2% of respondents use online library resources. Internal records also suggest phenomenal growth in online use of library resources. In 2000, when the Library subscribed to three aggregate journal databases (Proquest, Ebscohost and JSTOR), users conducted 80,000 searches. In 2007, among approximately 30 subscription databases, there were well over 250,000 searches. Careful review of variations of use from year to year reveals the direct impact a fluid curriculum has on database use. For example, Modern Language Association International Bibliography statistics are quite erratic; one major project in a large academic program explains a fivefold increase of use in one year. As JSTOR has developed into a more deeply and broadly multi-interdisciplinary tool, use statistics show a shift away from heavy dependence on the less scholarly aggregates. Extensive lobbying by faculty and librarians encourages this shift toward use of scholarly resources such as JSTOR. Use statistics for periodicals and databases drive selection and instruction planning. When use statistics are low for a database seen by the library faculty as critical to a discipline or of particularly high academic value, then library faculty focus instruction on that database whenever appropriate.

Media Services User Surveys

Institutional Research and Assessment added Media Services to its alumni survey of campus resource utilization starting in 2004. Since then, Media Services has been listed as the fifth most utilized resource. Alumni reported being somewhat or very satisfied at a rate of 89% and 90% in the two survey years (see Alumni Surveys 2002-2006 - Campus Resource Utilization).

The 2006 Evergreen Student Experience Survey (ESES)asked students about their use of Media Services, which showed 48% use of Media Loan (see Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 - Campus Resource Utilization - Olympia). A survey designed and implemented by staff member Lin Crowley supplemented this data. Crowley’s respondents reported an average satisfaction level for each service ranging from 3.07 to 3.62 (out of 4), which indicated that those who used current services were generally fairly satisfied with each of the services they use.

Although respondents to Crowley’s survey were predominantly active Media Services users, many respondents were uninformed about some services. Respondents supported investment in new digital technologies, but most were unaware of new or planned digital facilities. One clear conclusion of the survey is that visibility and access could be better for some services. Suggested improvements often focused on access, whether longer hours, more workshops, or more facilities. The survey project director recommended that future follow-up surveys be conducted to compare whether the reasons people use each service change and to evaluate the satisfaction levels for each type of services by patron types. See Evergreen Media Services Assessment Project

Evaluation of Teaching and Instructional Programs: Information Technology Literacy

The strong focus on teaching throughout library and information resources suggests the following questions: 1) In a college without requirements, does information technology instruction reach enough students to assure that the vast majority of graduates develop skills in support of their inquiries? 2) Which students are taught? Do students receive information technology instruction in an array of disciplinary and developmentally varied situations or is it happening only in pockets of the curriculum? 3) Is it working? Are students acquiring cross-curricular information technology, including media literacy?

How many students are taught?

About 3,000 students attend program-based library instruction workshops annually. These statistics exclude most cases of repeated contacts with the same student and thus represent very broad coverage of the student body.

From 2000 to 2007, Media Services offered a total of more than 1,500 workshops to approximately 156 academic programs. This number does not include the thousands of quick proficiencies also provided by the area. The number of formal media workshops given and students reached in 2005 and 2006 were each more than double the numbers provided in 2000. Workshops have increased along with new technologies, especially in Media Loan and in the new Multimedia and Digital Imaging Studio (DIS) labs.

Most instruction provided by Academic Computing and the Computer Applications Lab (CAL) serves specific academic programs. These sessions are represented in the following table:

Computer Lab Workshops for Academic Programs (cells represent academic programs/number of students)
Year 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07
Computer Center 221/4,423 171/3,418 253/4,880
Computer Applications Lab 50/1,368 50/1,248 52/1,344
Totals 271/5,791 191/4,666 305/6,224

Up until 2007, Academic Computing offered 30 to 40 general computer skills workshops per year in the Computer Center, attended by approximately 350 students. Professional staff focused these workshops on general technical skill building, independent of academic programs. Over time, fewer students were attending these workshops, presumably because more students come to college with strong technical skills and with specialized self-determined needs for support. In response to waning attendance, Academic Computing redesigned the workshops as student-centered support sessions to which students bring their questions or projects. This student-centered structure should more effectively meet the specific demands of students. Computing will evaluate the success of this reinvented structure. All areas of library, media, and computing find the strongest teaching and the greatest demand for instruction occurs in conjunction with programs.

Which Students?

The number of teaching contacts shows that library and information resources staff reach a large number of academic programs, but does not indicate which programs. End-of-program surveys conducted from 2001 to 2006 by the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment asked faculty, “Did your students use technology to present work, conduct research (including library research), or solve problems? If yes, How?” Not surprisingly, faculty answered that library/Internet research skills were the most commonly used at 50%, followed by some form of presentation technology. Ninety percent of programs reported some substantial use of information technology. (See Summary of Information Technology Literacy Emphasis in Programs)

In 2006-07, questions were revised to more accurately identify programs where there was intentional focus on teaching ITL: "Did your program include activities to improve information technology literacy?" With this more restrictive language, 70% of programs reported including ITL. (See End-of-program Review Results for 2006-07 - Information Technology Literacy by Planning Unit)

Further, in 2006-07, a follow-up question asked specifically which kind of technology was taught. Significantly different technologies predominate in different parts of the curriculum. No standard set of applications comes into play, although as of 2006-07, presentation technologies (at 42% of all programs) have increased by 70% over their use in the 2001 to 2006 reports and now begin to approach library and Internet research in their prevalence at 50%. Online communication applications were reported by 32% of programs, an increase of 19% over the 2001-2006 data.

Reservation-based programs reported library and Internet research at the highest rate, at 100% of programs, although this work was weakly connected to library instruction and therefore it is unclear whether academic library-supplied resources were used. At the other end of the spectrum, Culture, Text, and Language was lowest with 21% reporting library or Internet searching. The remainder of planning units ranged between 43% and 50% library/Internet use, with Core programs at the low end with 43%.

The substantial move toward presentation media and online communication in programs drives increases in multimedia applications. Presentation technology and online communication applications encourage the use of still and moving images, sound clips, graphs, and charts. These media are mixed with traditional print communication written by students or linked from Web resources. While these media and print applications involve basic, commonly used applications of information technology, they easily migrate toward more advanced media production. The increasing presence of multimedia information technology in Evergreen's learning communities drives further demand upon Media Services and Academic Computing, along with increased overlap of their teaching and service roles.

Since its inception in the context of Holly’s generic library, Media Services has followed its mission to support media literacy and instruction across the curriculum. During the last ten years, Media Services have changed dramatically as the personal computer has become the platform for entry-level media production and consumption. One measure of this change has materialized in how media staff have served programs through formal workshops since fall 2000. The scheduling data shows that almost 90% of formal program-based workshops serve Expressive Arts faculty. While this scheduling data does not cover equipment proficiency workshops or one-on-one instruction, both used more broadly across the curriculum, it is nevertheless clear that formal instruction by media staff focuses heavily on Expressive Arts programs, with an emphasis on advanced production applications, the exclusive provenance of expressive arts faculty. Media Services provides this advanced instruction in specialized labs, which were enhanced and expanded during the remodel. One effect of this specialization is that entry-level students have migrated to Academic Computing, where the staff works in collaboration with media staff to provide instruction on entry-level media-production applications. In fact, during fall and winter 2006-07, 68% of the faculty who requested workshops in Computer Center were from planning units other than Expressive Arts, and many of these workshops included media instruction (Photoshop, iMovie, Flash, etc.).

Just as in the Computer Center, the Computer Applications Lab (CAL) shows a trend toward more broadly used applications. Although the CAL has traditionally focused on the science curriculum in the Environmental Studies and Scientific Inquiry planning units, these users have begun to share their space with those who have less specialized demands. Roughly 60% to 70% of the classes in the CAL now work with statistical or numeric analysis, primarily Excel, but also with Graphical Analysis, R, and SPSS. Ninety percent of CAL users prepare presentations, most often with Powerpoint, Word, Illustrator and Excel. Approximately 60% of the programs meeting in the CAL still use analytical tools, including (in order of usage) ArcGIS, Mathematica, and Stella, which were once the focal point of all CAL applications. Science faculty have shifted their emphasis to on-site analysis, using advanced applications in specialized scientific labs in ways that parallel the shift in Media Services toward advanced applications. Meanwhile, the CAL and the Computer Center serve increasing numbers of students who seek instruction or support for the increasingly powerful personal computing applications in media production, statistical analysis, and presentation media.

Does Library Instruction Result in ITL Gains?

The Library, consistent with college-wide practices, rejects requirements and embraces students who engage in open inquiry and independent judgment. In this context, the Library supports a fluid curriculum and responds to changes that drive the needs and expectations of an innovative teaching faculty. Standard or standardized assessment methods do not apply because the Library shapes teaching according to individual students, a fluid curriculum, and highly diverse pedagogy. Instead, the Library commits to the intensive and never-ending task of recreating learning goals, student-by-student, program-by-program. Context is everything, which obviates the role of abstract standardized measures.

On the other hand, the Library does engage in qualitative assessment, the descriptive characterization of ITL teaching and learning. As is the case throughout the faculty (see Standard 2.B.3, Engagement and Reflection), library faculty write annual evaluations of themselves and their library and teaching colleagues. They also engage in five-year reviews in which a panel of teaching colleagues discusses their work. These evaluations consistently address instructional aspirations, successes, and failures. See Reflections on Library Instruction.

Further, under the leadership of the Office of Institutional Research, the librarians designed a project that assessed students as they worked through real research inquiries. The study, "The Activity of Information Literacy", documented the techniques and processes and even the thinking of several small samples of students as they collaborated intensively on research questions. The study showed that these particular students were stronger in their grasp of content than they were in their command of library research tools for their specific inquiries. In other words, a question about history might not lead them to historical abstracts. They were also strong in their ability to develop their research questions and to evaluate and synthesize the results. What these results suggest is that “Faculty may want to assess their students’ abilities to obtain information and offer tutorials or refer students to the Library when deficiencies are detected.”

Beyond the immediate results, this qualitative assessment also suggested that the students benefited greatly when they collaborated. Certainly, this observation is corroborated by the gains that students make when they work together in skill building instead of in canned computer workshops outside of programs. Additionally, peer groups are widely used across the curriculum as a way to encourage students to develop research topics and individual projects. Given the results of the qualitative assessment and given the widely practiced use of peer groups, library faculty should seek ways to implement collaborative research activities when they link their instruction to programs. This model of cooperation would build on the more isolated collaborations that take place, as a matter of course, between librarians and students at the reference desk. An enlarged vision of this basic transaction—discussion, exploration, and brainstorming—will enhance the relevance and effectiveness of library teaching and workshops.

Student Assessment of Their ITL Learning

The Evergreen Student Experience Survey (ESES) asks questions that elucidate what the students themselves think they learned at Evergreen. In 2006, the ESES asked, "To what extent have your Evergreen experiences contributed to your growth in ... the following computer-related fields...?" Responses generally matched fairly well with the perspectives found in the end-of-program surveys. For the category "Studying or Doing Research via the Internet or other online sources:

  • 30.5% of Olympia-campus students reported at least some contribution.
  • 47.5% reported quite a bit or a lot, for a total of 77.5%.
  • More than 84% of Tacoma students reported at least some, of which 50% reported quite a bit.
  • More than 93% of reservation-based students reported at least some contribution; 86.2% reporting quite a bit or a lot.

Considering how many students express self-confidence in their research skills, and as the Internet provides so many increasingly powerful tools for personal research, it is heartening to see that a good majority of students feel they developed their research skills as part of their education at Evergreen.

The 2006 ESES also asked about "Using the computer for artistic expression (e.g., music, other audio, still images, animation, video, etc.)":

  • More than 42% reported that Evergreen contributed "Some," "Quite a Bit," or "A Lot"
  • Fully 36.8% said "Not at All"
  • 20.9% said "Very Little"

The 2006 ESES surveyed use of non-artistic computer tools, asking about specific types of applications such as spreadsheets, GIS, Web development, posters, or programming. In general, as was found in end-of-program reviews, no single type of computer application dominated. No application type was used by more than 50% of students; instead, different types of applications were used by smaller subsets of the students surveyed.

5.E.1 Participatory Planning

The institution has a planning process that involves users, library and information resource staff, faculty, and administrators.

Overall Planning for Collections & Services

The fluidity of interdisciplinary and individual study defines library services. The dean of Library Services strengthens the ties between academics and the Library and Media Services through weekly meetings with the provost, associate vice president for academic budget and planning, and academic dean of budget, as well as weekly academic deans meetings. Once a month, the director of computing and communications and the manager of Academic Computing also join the academic deans' meeting.

The interconnection of the instructional role with the planning and support functions drives the efficacy of all the services in these areas. In the Edutech Information Environment Review, Area 5 discussed planning and governance in the Evergreen information environment. The review was somewhat critical of the lack of coordination in support, planning, and governance of IT across the campus and advocated for a stronger role for the Information Technology Collaborative Hive (ITCH), an organization which links library, media, and computing managers and instructors. However, the report did not emphasize how the teaching function and role in Academic Computing, the CAL, and Media Services creates strong collaboration in all service and instruction design.

Further, placing library and information resources within the larger ethos of the college, any major policy discussions or long-term planning processes invoke the participatory college-wide Disappearing Task Force (DTF) structure. Budgetary processes are generally collaborative and include opportunities for review and input from the campus community (see Participatory Decision-Making Culture [Standard 1 Section 2.3] and Standard 6). The college budget process and schedule drives most mid-term library planning. (See Standard 7 Section 7.A.3).

Additional opportunities for community contributions to planning include faculty who rotate into the Library and who focus on collection development and other planning projects. An annual Reference Services Group retreat establishes the year's work before classes start in the fall. Faculty development reviews, also known as five-year reviews, and faculty institutes provide opportunities for conversations across campus about a range of teaching, learning, and service questions as they impact information services. The library internship program provided a reading seminar for several years within which library faculty, staff, and interns could discuss changing information technology and its cultural meaning. Finally, the librarians often engage in faculty reading seminars, frequently focused on library issues, where shared thinking about the future of libraries evolves.

Loose Structures and Responsiveness to Rapid Change in the Information Environment

Among the organizations included in library and information resources, the Library is the largest and most embedded in tradition and thus may be the most invested in preexisting professional structures and assumptions. Additionally, a comparative lack of top-down managerial structures could lead to a tendency to stagnate in some environments. How well does the Library balance the competing demands of conservation, teaching, and technological adaptation and innovation? The success of the Library’s flat organization can be measured by the impressive way in which the Library group has responded to institutional and profession-wide changes and challenges. See the Achievements document for a description of major changes in services, faculties, and collections implemented during the study period. Most of the changes are responses to opportunities provided by technological developments and external engagement in consortia. The consortia relieve any single library from much of the burden of research and develop into new technologies, an overwhelming burden for a comparatively small library such as Evergreen's. Additionally, Evergreen's library administration and staff have worked actively in leadership roles in the Orbis Cascade consortium to assure that the consortium supports efficient, cost-effective movement into the world of networked and shared resources.

5.E.2 Planning Linkages

The institution, in its planning, recognizes the need for management and technical linkages among information resource bases (e.g., libraries, instructional computing, media production and distribution centers, and telecommunications networks).

Planning Across LIR

With networked information technology and almost universal access to digitized academic information resources, coordination of planning across library and information resources has become increasingly critical. The information technology staff and librarians from across the administrative units found that while administrative restructuring did not appear to provide a more effective connection among services, it was nevertheless wise to imagine a new structure to foster collaboration. A cross-areas collaborative group entitled the Information Technology Collaborative Hive (ITCH) was created, which provides the most formal mechanism for collaboration around technology across the various parts of the college.

Evergreen supports three ITCH groups: Academic, Administrative, and Core. The Academic ITCH meets at least once a month and includes professional staff from each of the primary technology labs, faculty, and interested students. The Academic ITCH coordinates general academic IT initiatives, helps develop general academic computing policy, and guides strategic planning. Professional staff members in each of the primary technology areas have developed strong connections to discipline-specific slices of the curriculum, faculty, and academic administration. As the ITCH develops, the members will explore ways to communicate and plan in cross-disciplinary and cross-divisional programs. The ITCH provides one of the necessary cross-curricular and cross-divisional contexts for developing information technology across administratively distinct areas. The Administrative ITCH plans for administrative IT support and the Core ITCH acts as the coordinating body for all areas of IT represented in the ITCH.

The ITCH created a strategic plan in conjunction with the campus-wide strategic planning process in 2007. Strategic Direction number 7 addresses technology. The statement is notable for the breadth of its concerns, with aspirations addressing media, library, and computing technology:

Use technology to enhance teaching and learning and administrative support at Evergreen.

Evergreen will intentionally foster secure, sustainable, flexible, easy-to-use, and accessible information technologies (IT) that support and enhance our teaching and learning philosophies and the administrative needs of the institution. Evergreen’s continuing commitment to technology and media literacies as critical components of a liberal arts education has led us to re-envision our Television Studio into a Center for New Media [now entitled the Center for Creative and Applied Media (CCAM)] that will provide cross-curricular and extra-curricular support for computer mediated production, performance, interactivity, teleconferencing, live broadcasts, digital image storage, processing, re-broadcasting, and format conversion for all areas of the college. Accuracy and quality of information will improve and strong support will make technology and a broad range of information services available to on- and off-campus users. Security requirements of networks, software, hardware and data will be met while ensuring appropriate user access, including control of access to confidential information and the need for academic exploration. Classroom spaces will be technologically current and functional for meeting curricular needs (see the complete IT Strategic Plan wiki for more detail).

The Edutech Information Environment Review recommended a stronger, more formal role and status for the ITCH, which has not found support from higher-level administrators who have budgetary responsibility over the divisions of the college. This means the ITCH continues to serve as a bottom-up structure of collaboration based on the experience of direct collaboration with and support for students, staff, and faculty users.

Continue Blending More Functions within Library and Information Resources

Library and information resources support a surprisingly diverse infrastructure of technologies and media in the curriculum. For greatest efficiency, library and information resources should consider even more coordination across boundaries to provide technology support. Students should be able to move seamlessly between different areas, such as the CAL, the Multimedia Lab (MML), and the Computer Center. Certainly, the pathways between areas could be more clearly articulated by identifying and developing more common services, including printing, building and maintaining image sets, server file space, and common software. By taking better advantage of the network infrastructure, students will experience less confusion and IT staff who directly support the curriculum could dedicate more energy toward coordinating, developing, and designing IT strategies with academic programs instead of maintaining redundant infrastructures.

Library and information resources could develop a shared perspective about their public presence. One possibility for representing blended facilities and services would be a central help desk for the Information Technology Wing. The shared entrance to the wing has become a prominent architectural feature and an opportunity to reshape the community’s understanding of what the areas collectively represent. A central help desk could provide basic information about facilities, services, and staff, and it would help facilitate how efficiently patrons move between the various floors of the wing. Continued attention to the best use of the Library Underground and how to assure its connection to other floors should be part of this process; a large, flexible teaching and gathering space is developing there and appropriate equipment will be needed to support that vision. Concurrently, assuring safety for the adjacent Archives and Rare Books Collections is critical.

Construction of the Center for Creative and Applied Media (CCAM) will begin soon. This project has distinct relevance to the changing roles of Media Services, the Library, and Academic Computing within the evolving digital liberal arts. The CCAM will comprise a collection of media production studios and equipment to complement existing Media Services and Academic Computing media resources and provide the primary bridge between the campus media infrastructure and networked digital resources. For a discussion of the CCAM and related curricular projects, see Center for Creative and Applied Media.

5.E.3 Evaluation and the Future

The institution regularly and systematically evaluates the quality, adequacy, and utilization of its library and information resources and services, including those provided through cooperative arrangements, and at all locations where courses, programs, or degrees are offered. The institution uses the results of the evaluations to improve the effectiveness of these resources.

As part of an institution constantly engaged in processes of narrative evaluation and other forms of assessment, library and information resources engage in and are the subject of extensive assessment both within library and information resources and externally through Institutional Research and Assessment surveys and studies. In addition to formal annual processes such as budget building and annual library faculty retreats, the results of these assessments feed into the development of ongoing teaching and services through constant face-to-face interactions among faculty, administrators, staff, and students, which inform all operations. The Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, as cited throughout this report, provides annual surveys about library and information resources, several of which are broken down by campus.

See:

Alumni Surveys 2002-2006 - Campus Utilization

Summary of Information Technology Literacy Emphasis in Programs

End-of program Review Results for 2006-07 - Information Technology Literacy Overview

End-of-program Review Workshop - Information Technology Across the Curriculum

Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 - Computer Skills - First-time, First-years

Evergreen New Student Survey 2005 - Computer Skills - Transfer Students

Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2004 - Information Technology Literacy and Technology-related Resources

Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 - Growth in Computer Skills - Olympia Campus

Evergreen Student Experience Survey 2006 - Satisfaction of Olympia Campus Students

End-of-program Review Results for 2006-07 - Information Technology Literacy by Planning Unit

Collections and Access

The Web presence of the Library will, of course, continue to evolve. The Library continues work on a new library front page and database search pages. It is likely that the new library front page will become the responsibility of the college-wide Web team, freeing library staff from this unfunded work. A new federated search is being implemented. Meanwhile, the Orbis Cascade consortium is migrating to WorldCat, which the Library will consider for local use as well. A local catalog designed on the principle of Web discovery tools can be expected to generate significant changes in library use. In this context, changes in staffing may be required to support increases in use of services such as Summit and ILLiad, and the content and focus of instruction may require substantial revision. Evaluation of service and instruction via peer comparisons will change, as discovery tools will generate higher uses without increased instruction. Instruction will likely need to focus even more on evaluating sources and finding those resources not easily located via discovery tools.

The continued expansion of audiovisual media collections represents a critical part of the vision of the generic library. To that end, one-time funds have frequently been infused into a small base budget for film and sound recordings, and the collection has grown significantly. Sound & Image Library (SAIL) staff and selectors have emphasized both new titles and replacement of older formats and worn copies. The Library anticipates circulating the collection through Summit, which will increase wear. See SAIL Acquisition Statistics. Selectors will continue a recent change of policy allowing the purchase of any medium from their funds allocated for print monographs, but a stable and larger allocation for the SAIL budget would lessen the need to do so and reduce variations in expenditures, workload, and processing. The Resource Selection Committee is currently reviewing materials budgets with the intention of reallocating funds according to the curricular demands for video and digitized reference resources. If these discussions result in a larger budget for the SAIL, there will be more work, but also more consistency. Additionally, the staff will be more deeply involved in researching Web-based media collections. This additional workload represents a challenge for the SAIL.

Digital collection development should go forward in concert with the push to digitize archival collections, including photographs, video, and copies of faculty artwork. The CCAM will take the lead in this ongoing project.

Because of the Summit and ILLiad systems, the core collections do not need to support individual students who engage in inquiries that lie outside the collection profile based upon the core curriculum. However, Summit use will also allow the Library to identify whether there are any consistent weaknesses in the collection that show up as subject areas driving high borrowing rates from other institutions. The data from Summit should be analyzed over a three-year period, due to the fluidity of the curriculum, at which point the Library will decide if such data are useful in guiding collection development.

The Library will continue to take advantage of the significantly increased purchasing power created by consortial agreements for periodical and other database purchases. The Library needs to keep an eye on the time and expertise required to keep up with the ever-increasing work of evaluating these agreements, purchases, and contracts and the technical work to support electronic resources, and it may want to consider creating a position for managing electronic resources. A centralized specialist working on electronic resources would potentially help the selectors by consistently researching and disseminating information about new products.

Overall, long-standing assumptions about budgets for collections must be reevaluated. While major cuts were made to the monographic budget early in the study period and were only partially restored over time, it is not clear that simply restoring those funds and adding funds for inflation are the desirable next moves. The Resource Selection Committee will need to continue to explore more flexible responses to a rapidly changing publishing environment in order to match collection budgets to evolving research needs. Private fundraising and other non-state funds have helped close collection development gaps in some cases, such as the SAIL budget. Library and information resources overall have begun to receive private support for equipment and facilities projects as well. More work with the Office of College Advancement should be emphasized, as many alumni have demonstrated willingness to support the library and information resources. Support for Rapidly Evolving Information Technology

While the Edutech Information Environment Review gave Evergreen good marks for its budgetary support of information technology, the report also recommended that “to follow current best practices, the replacement cycle should be permanently funded and the operations budgets need to be raised regularly to reflect the increase in technology-equipped classrooms, the increased number of servers and desktop computers that must be supported, and other increases in the technology base.” The college has begun to address this issue, proposing permanent line items in the next biennium for replacing the core server and desktops. This movement toward more permanent allocations for replacement and repair will help ensure that the infrastructure can support the curriculum. Although the ITCH can play only an advisory role, it has participated actively in the process of establishing permanent allocations, setting priorities, and sharing resources.

The remodeled Information Technology Wing and the construction of the Seminar II building created dramatically more technology-equipped teaching spaces. There are now forty-nine media and computer-capable classrooms, with more on the way. Labs are equipped with computers for each student, and most classrooms now include a computer along with projection and display systems. The Library plans to convert one classroom in the Library Underground to a lab, and teaching spaces on campus still without computers or display technology are on the way to being equipped. At this point, library and information resources just manage to support the computer facilities distributed across campus. As more spaces are computerized and enrollment creeps up toward the target of 5,000, the college will have to add additional staff and funding for maintenance. All capital construction and remodeling plans must include consideration of maintenance, replacement, and support for media and networked display.

As media technology has changed, some faculty choose to continue teaching older analog equipment, often for good pedagogical and aesthetic reasons. In the context of doubling instruction loads, this breadth of technologies generates a daunting challenge for Media Loan as it stretches to maintain, house, and teach a very wide array of portable equipment. Media Loan should work with the Expressive Arts faculty and other major users to reduce the range of Media Loan equipment necessary to support the curriculum.

Library Instruction

The reduced number of library faculty has resulted in less ability to provide library instruction deeply and broadly to the entire curriculum. Further, reference desk service has changed as the Internet creates patrons who access our resources from remote locations. Most immediately, virtual patrons do not benefit from the teaching that takes place at the reference desk, although the transactions that do occur at reference tend to be more substantive. As traffic at the physical reference desk has diminished, faculty who rotate into the Library have more limited opportunities to learn about library resources through interactions with patrons. These trends should inform the reference group as they consider how to proceed in allocating team responsibilities with or without an increase in the number of library faculty.

The reference group should evaluate service to areas of the curriculum that report or demonstrate less involvement in the various forms of information technology instruction (as reflected in end of program reports), and consider whether more or different instructional support would be appropriate, feasible, or desirable.

Library instruction will evolve in the context of catalogs that imitate Web discovery tools. It is entirely likely that patrons will frequently discover services which have, until now, had to be pointed out to them. For the near future, however, finding and using the most effective, appropriate journal databases still requires instruction or intervention on the part of librarians or faculty. Evaluation of library instruction based upon comparative use statistics will probably be less valuable than in this past study period, as academic library finding tools will vary greatly for some time to come, creating widely disparate use statistics. Thus close attention to database use trends and their correlation to the implementation of new finding tools will be important in the near future.

Intensive, embedded library and media instruction remain the most desirable and effective models. Some librarians focus on these models, including such work as evaluating bibliographies, which become the basis for assessing the quality of student research and the basis for further instruction. Faculty librarians may want to explore evaluating research results more commonly as they develop their ties with programs and faculty in all disciplines, particularly if discovery tools generate easier access to resources beyond the immediate catalog search. As librarians become more involved in each stage of research, including writing or production, they should be able to provide more consistent support to students. Time for this work with students is restricted by the number of librarians, as is time for the more extended work essential to students from Tacoma and reservation-based programs, who depend so heavily upon off-campus access and have less opportunity to confer with librarians at the reference desk. Faculty who rotate into the Library must be more fully engaged in this aspect of the librarians' work in order to help balance the external teaching demands upon library faculty.

When the Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning and Writing Centers were planned into the new Information Technology Wing, the hope was for substantial collaboration. While the location of these centers within the Library brings more students in, aids the sense of hospitality, and provides convenient resources for students, collaboration has remained minimal. Thus opportunities for shared instruction and service have yet to be exploited.

Cross-Curricular Information Technology Literacy

As discussed above, library and information resources and the teaching faculty assure that information technology infuses the curriculum. On the other hand, the faculty has not embraced any particular set of information technology skills as fundamental to the liberal arts undergraduate at Evergreen. Instead, faculty choose and adapt information and media technologies according to the pedagogical and disciplinary requirements of their chosen inquiry. There is little work across the curriculum about critical approaches to media or basic definitions of college-level technical literacy for the liberal arts. In the immediate future, library and information resources should invite the teaching faculty into a discussion about whether the campus has any broad consensus about Information Technology Literacy (ITL), including critical approaches. Long ago, the college committed to writing across the curriculum and allocated significant institutional resources to encourage that work—without proscriptive limits or standards. A wider discussion about ITL could produce a similar vision and institutional support. In the long run, such a vision will shape our understanding of digital scholarship in the liberal arts.

The expansion of entry-level media technology instruction raises questions about the staffing assumptions in Academic Computing. If critical approaches to information technology are to be addressed, and if cross-curricular information technology literacy is a priority for the contemporary liberal arts, then instructional staffing based on historical models of canned skills workshops may be insufficient. Academic Computing should continue current efforts to recruit instructional staff who have the expertise to work intensively in program planning and curriculum development, as well as on technical support for those activities. The numbers of such instructional IT staffing may also need to be evaluated in response to these new and expanding demands for work within the curriculum.

Conclusion: Holly's Generic Library Has Come to Fruition

Library and information resources have been deeply influenced by the organizational habits of the college, habits of collaboration, egalitarian ideals, fluidity, face-to-face interactions, non-departmentalization, reflexive learning, and independent and interdisciplinary inquiry. The result is a responsive, flexible, evolving set of services and resources. Library and information resources faculty and staff work across the media, regardless of where services reside administratively, in order to fuse traditional library services, information services, computing, and media. Library and information resources assess technology within the context of Evergreen’s particular curriculum and implement new applications incrementally in collaborative processes involving all three areas of service and the teaching faculty. As part of that work, library and information resources have had the distinct historical advantage of presuming that information comes in all formats and that it is not only possible but advisable to break down as many barriers as possible to access information in all its forms. In this, library and information resources are shaped by their founding vision - the generic library - an idea whose time has come.

Standard 5 Findings and Conclusions

Findings:

1) Overall, library and information resources at Evergreen demonstrate effective development of collaborative planning, services, and instruction in support of the academic mission and educational programs of the college.

2.) Over the past decade, the Library and Media Services have fully committed to networking and digital resources. This shift has implied a change in organization, reorganization of job classifications, and the creation of new patterns of work supported in all areas.

3.) Commitment to the use of networking digital information resources has allowed and promoted the integration of all sections of library and information resources and has pushed the staff in all areas to reconceptualize their work and to find new patterns of organization and collaboration.

4.) Students and faculty are thinking about and using information resources in all media. They can now reasonably expect to have seamless access to a wide array of high-quality academic information, media, and computer applications almost anywhere on campus.

5.) The Library is funded like a public college, but the emphasis on projects, the array of inquiries, and the fact that it is a teaching library means that it is used as if it were a part of a private liberal arts college.

Conclusions:

1.) The Evergreen Library has always been what other libraries have striven to become: a teaching library deeply connected to the faculty and curriculum. The result is that students use the Library very actively. Historically, Media Services has had the same teaching focus. Academic computing, with a longstanding instructional role, is also moving toward more substantive teaching and collaboration with faculty. This cross-curricular emphasis on teaching must be continued.

2.) The original vision of the Library was "generic," which means that it includes all media in all locations. The contemporary term in the profession is the virtual library. Evergreen's library and information resources have been able to realize the vision due to the advent of effective, ubiquitous networking and digital resources. The new technology plus major consortial agreements have created an explosion of access to high-quality scholarly information and media.

3. The remodeled and more unified Information Technology Wing is the physical manifestation of the blending of traditional print, media, and computer technology that characterizes the virtual library and information in the digital age. Despite being spread across administrative divisions, the Library, Media Services, Academic Computing, the CAL, and Computing and Communications all collaborate effectively to assure more and more seamless access to information resources. We must guard these interconnections and continue to seek opportunities for collaboration that will provide the best service, teaching, and efficiency.

Commendations:

1.) Through consortial agreements and wise use of resources made available to the college, an extraordinary array of high-quality academic resources. For example, the number of academic journals now available is nine times larger than at the outset of the review. Active leadership in consortia such as Orbis Cascade and the Cooperative Libraries Project supported these cost-effective approaches.

2.) The willingness of staff from all areas to share, collaborate, and dream as they worked through the complex reorganizations and new work necessary to create an operative virtual library has been extraordinary.

3.) The creation of an accessible, integrated, well-conceived teaching space with the renovation of the B and C wings of the Library has allowed the virtual library to have a physical presence that embodies the integration of these areas, while providing hospitable spaces and programming to complement virtual use information resources.

4.) The spread of digital media and computer facilities to the campus as a whole, in the Lecture Halls, and in the new classrooms of Seminar II, as well as the extension of wireless access to most of the campus has allowed the teaching resources of library and information resources to be used across the campus.

5.) Both the development of the virtual library and a continued commitment to extensive instruction have led to effective library and information resources for off-campus programs and users.

Recommendations:

1.) Library and information resources must maintain the flexibility in staff’s capacity to respond to the rapidly changing digital environment.

2.) Library and information services must continue to remain aware of developments in information technology, critically assess them, and carefully integrate technological capacities into the staff’s capacity for teaching.

3.) Library and information resources should assure that connections between the three units (the Library, Academic Computing, and Media Services) that make up library and information resources are as seamless as possible.

4.) Media Services instructors should consciously promote considerations of media among faculty across the curriculum, as well as continue to work effectively with those who depend upon media as the center of their work.

5.) Staff from all areas should pursue and develop cross-curricular faculty conversations about information and technology as literacies for the liberal arts, including critical perspectives.

6.) Library and information services should assure that instructional staffing and library faculty is sufficient in training and numbers to support extensive, integrated information technology literacy instruction across the curriculum and to off-campus and weekend and evening programs.

7.) Library and information services should continue to develop maintenance and replacement funds to support rapidly expanding information technology, instruction, and service throughout the campus.

Plans:

1.) Library, Media Services, and Academic Computing staff and faculty will collaborate in planning ongoing summer faculty institutes facilitating cross-curricular faculty conversations about information technology literacy for the liberal arts.

2.) The shape of expenditures on collections should evolve as inflation, consortia, networked access, and digital publications continue to change the information environment. The Library Resource Selection Committee will continue to review database, Summit, and local collection use, as well as allocation of non-state funds in order to appropriately support collections in all media. As a member of the Orbis Cascade Alliance, the Library will pursue collaborative collection development emphasizing strong core local collections and coordinated shared collections.

3.) The substantial instructional role necessary to support information technology literacy across the curriculum should be recognized in campus hiring priorities.

4.) The Library, Media Services, and Academic Computing will continue to emphasize shared work. Several areas of potential collaboration in addition to faculty institutes include considering a shared public presence at the newly emphasized main entrance to the Information Technology Wing, an increased role for the ITCH in planning and management of information technology on campus, shared staff positions, shared hiring processes, and more collaborative instruction for academic programs.

Standard 5 - Supporting Documentation

See Supporting Documentation for Standard 5

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The Evergreen State College