Standard 5.B

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

All library and information services are informed by strong connections to the curriculum. An entirely distinctive library rotation systems links the library and the teaching faculty. Teaching alliances between media service professionals and media faculty determine the character of media services. A strong liaison system connect academic computing instructional staff with teaching faculty.

The library faculty develops collections to support Evergreen's changeable interdisciplinary curriculum without the usual structure of departmental allocations. 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, who develop the curriculum in curricular planning units, curriculum retreats, and governance groups. Because they participate actively as teaching faculty in the curriculum planning process, the librarians are able to build relevant collections. This 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 , and the opportunity for intensive individual projects within full-time, multi-quarter programs have all generated requests for specialized materials outside the core collection. Resource sharing and large, shared purchases, all made efficient because of networking technology, have eradicated this problem. See 5.B5 below.

Support for Freely Chosen Intensive Media Production

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 freely chosen independent study as well as a fluid curriculum. Students working on independent media productions compete with Expressive Arts programs over 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. Individual Contract forms include a question about the need for special equipment or facilities, and this serves as a safety net for screening intensive media use. In these ways Media Services assures that students who embark on media studies do so with the appropriate support. The Expressive Arts planning unit also instituted a Student Originated Studies (SOS) group contract in media in order to assure that students have more consistent access to facilities and instructional support as they pursue their independent projects.

Something on Equipment?

Teaching and Instruction

5.B.2 Library and information resources and services contribute to developing the ability of students, faculty, and staff to use the resources independently and effectively.

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 contributes substantively and collaboratively to information services, collections and policies. This dynamic collaboration between the teaching faculty and the library and information resources has shaped our 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.

Faculty Librarians and Library Teaching

In the case of the Library, Evergreen requires rotation between the librarians and the teaching faculty [Exhibit: Pedersen, etc. for full description]. Briefly, 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. 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 best practices in library instruction as older teaching faculty introduce their new faculty teammates to their library colleagues and the teaching they offer.

A loose liaison system links each librarian with a subset of the curriculum, based on subject expertise and personal alliances. Faculty librarians provide a wide array of library and information technology related teaching. Teaching outside the library in the curriculum at large, library faculty develop teaching and subject expertise which increases their competence and creativity as they work to match library instruction with individual academic programs. One-time workshops designed to introduce 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 workshop and take part, adding his or her expertise and/or questions; 3) provide the library liaison 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 that they are primed to begin actual research during the workshop. Librarians teach in staged series of workshops most frequently in the graduate programs, in the sciences, and in the off campus programs. Each year one or more library faculty affiliates deeply with a program, meeting weekly to create stepped learning conjoined with research assignments [Exhibit: Sara H. syllabi?]. For several 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 webpages designed to support library functions [Exhibits: IT wiki, Rare Books page; SAIL page?]. The seminar and workshop provided a venue for library faculty, staff and Academic Computing instructors to gather and consider both the past and future of information technologies [Exhibit: internship syllabi]. Each year one librarian also offers research methods through the evening and weekend curriculum. [Exhibit: Randy Stilson syllabi]

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. Students of these programs have limited access to the physical library, 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. In Winter 2008, a librarian will offer a 2-credit research module linked to the broader interdisciplinary curriculum of the Tacoma campus. Library instruction at the Reservation sites of the Reservation-Based Community-Determined programs has varied widely. Recently the program has focused on building library methods into the lower division bridge curriculum, which has not involved the library faculty directly. Rebuilding this connection should be a high priority, and a planned faculty rotation from a former directory of the Reservation-Based program will be an opportunity to do so. See the supplemental discussion of new services for discussion of the many ways direct access to collections has been facilitated through new services to off-campus programs. [this will need to be a link to the specific paragraphs] [Exhibit: NAS and Tacoma resource pages]

Library Faculty as Service Providers

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 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 teaching faculty.

Modes of Instruction in Media and Academic Computing

At the level of academic programs, all major computer and media labs provide group instruction covering particular applications or the tools of the relevant discipline. 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 what facility 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 using video for documenting field research in the Multimedia lab; and a library research workshop in one of the general-purpose labs in the Computer Center. 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 also require significant logistical support such as lab scheduling, equipment check-out, server space, password access, personnel scheduling and other details. In Academic Computing, program liaisons work with faculty in order to coordinate how programs will teach technology. For instance, the staff member helps set up file shares, 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 get help connecting with appropriate media instructors and scheduling 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 that they can develop facilities, plan for access, and foster how the 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 find many forms of instructional support outside of academic programs. 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 also the technical inquiries of 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 wiki to stay abreast of technologies hosted on campus. Any students, having completed the relevant proficiency training session, may access most media production facilities and check out portable media equipment. 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 [do we have statistics?] Finally, the Evening and Weekend Studies curriculum provides a coherent, regular pathway for instruction in use of the more complex production facilities, allowing students to gain the skills needed to apply media production resources to their work.

Like the library faculty, Media instructor 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 MFA’s in their fields. They teach photography, electronic music, web design, and digital imaging as adjuncts in Evening & Weekend Studies and in Extended Education. Their contributions to the curriculum are substantial and sustained, some of them having taught for over 20 years. Not only does their work support the Expressive Arts, it also provides access and instruction to students who don’t consider themselves artists but who want nevertheless to engage in technologies that constitute not just important developing communication media but also define the visual aesthetics of science, history, political science, psychology, and visual narrative. Media staff who teach as adjunct faculty sometimes teach full time, as visiting artists. 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, and as gurus by less media-literate faculty. These working relationships form the backbone of Media Services. Finally, 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 which are not supported in the curriculum at large.

Faculty institutes

Library and information resources instructors also regularly work with and teach the faculty at large through individual collaboration, but also through faculty institutes. Faculty institutes create valuable connections among faculty, library, media and academic computing instructors. Every summer, the Dean of Faculty Development asks faculty and staff to propose institutes that will familiarize participants in new technologies. The Dean funds the proposals that generate the most enrollment, which means that the faculty and staff drive this avenue for development. Recent ITL institutes have focused on teaching statistics with Excel or on using online collaborative tools in foster learning communities. During institutes, faculty are also afforded paid time for self-directed work that focuses on their programs. In these instances, faculty evaluate technology, practice using it, and plan how to incorporate applications into their programs. See Standard 4?

Availability of Policies

5.B.3 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.

See Required Exhibit 2

Participatory Planning

5.B.4 Opportunities are provided for faculty, staff, and students to participate in the planning and development of the library and information resources and services.

As is the case throughout the college, face-to-face communication is valued, and formal procedures for consultation are often minimal. Direct requests and suggestions are received and welcomed by all LIR staff and faculty.

Hiring processes are broadly consultative. Committees with staff from different units interview and recommend for all staff positions. Students, staff and faculty representatives are included in hiring committees for any major positions. See DTF membership and consultation schedules for Library Dean; Head of Academic Computing; Director of Computing and Communications.

Instructional support is designed and planned almost entirely in partnership with teaching faculty on a program-by-program basis.

See 5.E.1

Networks Extend Information Resources

5.B.5 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 make it possible for almost all book requested generated by the individualistic interests of students working on independent projects can be supplied through the SUMMIT system, which includes over 30 academic library collections from Oregon and Washington, all available within two or three days. Many specialized materials are also now supplied by periodicals databases, which have expanded eight to nine times over the self-study period. 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 (psychology, education and business were heavily emphasized in the most recent round of shared aggregated purchasing). Finally, ILLiad, the on-line interlibrary loan system, brings journal articles to the mailboxes and email accounts of students within a few days (or even hours). There are almost no discernible 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. e are actively engaged in the rapid move from paper-based or on-site resources to web-based resources which allow access from all locations and at all times.