The Libraries’ Role in Attracting and Retaining Graduate Studentsto meet the relevant goals of Flagship 2030

Libraries Assessment CommitteeOctober 15th, 2008

Overview

• Assessment Committee• Assessment Cycle• Why graduate students?• Prefatory notes• Data• Results• “Recommendations”• What’s next?

Libraries Assessment Committee

The Committee will undertake and/or coordinate measurements of the quality of services and collections and the needs and expectations of the Libraries' clientele to support strategic planning, facilities planning, budget or performance review cycles, vendor contract renewals, or technology/systems conversions. It will endeavor to conduct library assessment in relation to institutional goals and outcomes. The Committee will recommend to Library Council and/or other committees actions based on the results of measurement and assessment.

Assessment Cycle

Why graduate students?

21.2%

27.0%

17.8%

22.9%27.7%

28.5%

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

2002 2004 2006

Satis

facti

on Pe

rcen

tage

LibQUAL+ Survey Year

Graduates UCB

ARL

Prefatory Notes

• Data communicated to Learning Commons team and consultant

• Full report shared with Council

• Living document—we need your input

Data

– 2005 PBA survey (n > 1000)– 2006 LibQUAL+ (n = 225)– interviews (n = 8)– circulation and ILL data – electronic database login

tabulations – budgetary data dating from

1996-2006– departmental enrollment data– several informal polls– a comprehensive literature

review

Results

• Use• Perceptions

– Collections– Facilities– Services

• Beyond the perceptions

Results: Use

• Three of the top four campus services utilized by graduate students are provided by the Libraries.

• 62% use Libraries facilities daily or weekly and 85% use Libraries websites daily or weekly.

• While they use the Libraries websites frequently, they appear to use it primarily to locate known items, using commercial search engines such as Google Scholar to discover new items.

Results: Perceptions

• On two measures, libraries services rate higher than collections or facilities

• Very high expectations for electronic collections

Results: Collections

• Scientists -> electronic (80pts below ARL)

• Humanists -> print (40pts below ARL)

• Social Scientists fall in the middle

Results: Facilities

13.9%

23.9%

3.3%

24.2%

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

UCB ARL Norlin Branches

Satis

facti

on Pe

rcent

age*

What about Norlin?

• overall ambiance• individual study space • expert help provided• hours • how conducive the

building is to studying

Beyond the perceptions

• Collections • Facilities• Services

Collections

1.50%

2.00%

2.50%

3.00%

3.50%

4.00%

ARLCUB

Comparison of ARL and UCB library expenditures as a percentage of campus expenditures

Collections

Collections

• Interviews reveal Google Scholar is the index of choice for grad students

• They use Chinook to locate known items

• There is a significant correlation between website usage and positive perception of e-resources

Collections

Transactions per student Scientists

Social Scientists Humanists

Prospector 0.059 0.191 0.375

Interlibrary loan 0.282 1.085 1.966

Circulation 3.019 4.819 30.552

Spring 2008 circulation/interlibrary loan sampling

Collections

Database sessions per graduate student

Collections

Collections summary

• UCB is well funded for collections

• Serials cut impacted perceptions and underlying reality

• There are some differences in disciplinary use of format

• We can’t solve this problem by (merely) throwing more money at it

Facilities

• Norlin dedicates more assignable space to book stacks

• Branches dedicate more to study and computing space

Facilities

Multi-channel services

• “[there] is the need for customers to have a consistent experience across all of the channels that they use in communicating with the supplier. Indeed, such is the importance of ‘consistency of experience’ that determining how it can be achieved must become a priority for multi-channel marketers . . . [we] need to build bridges between channel silos.”

--Madaleno, R., Wilson, H., & Palmer, R. (2007). Determinants of customer satisfaction in a multi-channel B2B environment. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 18(8), 915-925.

Facilities

Annual change in Libraries budget allocations

StaffingAssociation of Reserach Libraries

FTE Student per FTE Professional Staff2005 - 2006

0 200 400 600 800

Harvard, 38Yale, 43

Waterloo, 662Virginia Tech, 687

271 (Median)

Colorado, 583

Putting it all together

• We do need to improve collections (we dropped from 68th to 94th in serials, back up to 86th)

• Improving facilities and staffing could help

• Diversifying Libraries investment is best strategy

What we’ve already done• Business Library• The purchase of several large electronic collections in

the humanities• The purchase of several large electronic indexes,

electronic books, and back-files in the sciences• The implementation of an ‘open-URL resolver’• A redesign of Chinook• The inclusion of enhanced records in Chinook, • The cataloging of special collections and government

publications materials;• The construction of a subject guides database• The unveiling of CU-Digital Library• The negotiation of consortia subscriptions. • The recruiting of an Electronic Collections Assessment

Librarian that can assist and provide leadership for continuous assessment of collections and their use;

• Begun desktop delivery of journal articles from PASCAL;

• OTHERS????

What we’re doing

• Learning Commons, Research Floor, Study Space

• Moving to a streamlined acquisitions process• Cancelling print subscriptions• An assessment of how monographic funds are

allocated to various disciplines. • Construction of a second off-site holding

facility, PASCAL II. • The investigation of “second-generation”

catalog• The investigation of further access to

electronic book collections;• The completion of a draft statement on

scholarly communications• The continued design of an institutional

repository• Others??

What We Still Have to Do• Complete all phases of the Norlin Library

Renaissance Plan• Investigate federated search technologies• Expand Collection Development’s monograph

reallocation project to include serials• Begin a grassroots campaign to increase graduate

student awareness of the crisis in scholarly communications;

• Create an emerging technologies group• Create a graduate student advisory group• Seek a one-time “facilities renewal budget• Reassess the use of PASCAL with respect to

monographs and serials, paying attention to disciplines;

• Expand desktop-delivery services;• Work with the campus to increase operations and

personnel budgets to help diversify its investment in the Libraries;

• OTHERS????

Full report

• Draft available:http://ucblibraries.colorado.edu/internal/assessment/Libraries_and_Graduate_Students_Oct2008.pdf