Standard Seven
LIBRARY AND OTHER INFORMATION RESOURCES
Description
The Boston University library system is composed of the Pappas Law Library; the School of Theology Library; the Alumni Medical Library, serving the schools of Medicine, Dental Medicine, and Public Health; and Mugar Memorial Library and branches (African Studies, Astronomy, Music, Science and Engineering, Stone Science, Pickering Educational Resources, and the Frederick S. Pardee Management Library). The University Librarian acts as the director of Mugar Memorial Library and its branches. The directors of the other primary libraries affiliated with the professional schools of Law, Theology, and Medicine report to the academic deans of those schools. All libraries ultimately report to the University Provost or the Provost of the Medical Campus. Each of the four libraries has an independent budget. In addition, there are several important research centers—including the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, which houses the papers of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as an internationally known Twentieth-Century Archive—and specialized libraries and collections on the campus.
The University Libraries collections contain more than 2.4 million physical volumes; 4.6 million microform units; 45,264 current unique serials titles; and 77,000 media titles. The libraries have made great progress in increasing access to research materials via networked services, especially in electronic journals, and through the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) Virtual Catalog. Regional library consortia—including the Boston Library Consortium, Boston Theological Institute, and the New England Law Library Consortium—give students at BU access to more than 35 million items. The BLC Virtual Catalog delivery system provided more than 12,000 items to patrons at Boston University in AY 2007–08 alone. An additional 5,600 items were delivered by means of a free, reciprocal Interlibrary Loan service.
Boston University Libraries also participate in regional and national collaborations for digital preservation and distribution, such as the Open Content Alliance and Portico. In 2007, Boston University made a multiyear commitment to the Open Content Alliance regional scanning center at the Boston Public Library. The pressure placed on all libraries by the continued rising costs of research material over the past several decades makes strong regional consortia and the growth and availability of digital information resources a key element in Boston University libraries’ continued success.
Chief librarians meet with their respective dean or provost to plan and develop budgets that take into account projected price increases for library materials. The budget process includes a review of positions, projected minor or capital expenses, and proposals for one-time or ongoing initiatives.
In FY 2008, the Boston University libraries system employed 199 permanent full-time staff (including 102 professional librarians or supervisory staff). That year, the Association of Research Libraries ranked Boston University 43rd in terms of the number of professional staff and 44th in total number of staff. Staff is distributed strategically to support several professional schools. For efficiency, many services including electronic licensing, processing, and cataloging for Mugar and its branches are centralized at Mugar Memorial Library.
Library hours on the Charles River Campus cover 108 hours of service per week. The Alumni Medical Library, which houses and provides support for several electronic classrooms, is open 107 hours of service per week. During examination periods, branch libraries offer extended hours and Mugar Memorial Library is open around the clock. Libraries are located in several of the key professional schools, in close proximity to teaching and research centers. All library spaces provide wireless Internet. Additional resources include study rooms (in the Pappas Law Library and Pardee Management Library) and interactive electronic classrooms (in the Pappas Law Library, Pickering Educational Resources Library, and School of Theology Library).
The libraries are actively integrated into the undergraduate curriculum by means of significant partnerships that recognize the centrality of information resources to the learning experience. Undergraduates are served through the College of Arts & Sciences Writing Program’s WR 150 course, which requires students to demonstrate research skills, and through the College of General Studies (CGS) second year capstone project, in which student teams undertake significant research in order to produce a 50-page policy paper. Librarians participate in launch sessions for the CGS capstone project, conduct in-library research sessions, and prepare an online research guide for students. Efforts are underway to increase contact with first-year students in the College of General Studies, well before the capstone experience has begun, by emulating the WR 150 model.
Librarians are also involved with curricula and instruction at the graduate level. At the School of Law, law librarians teach in the required First Year Writing Program; offer an upper-class seminar in Advanced Legal Research; and teach research components in many courses at the request of faculty. Curriculum-integrated instruction is provided by education librarians at the Alumni Medical Library to students in all Medical Campus schools, with extensive programs in Problem-Based Learning and Evidence-Based Medicine (School of Medicine) and Evidence-Based Dental Medicine (School of Dental Medicine), as well as a required two-credit course, “Introduction to Biomedical Information,” in the Division of Graduate Medical Sciences. The Alumni Medical Library provides online information portals for all Medical Campus schools, as well as over 120 Web-based, quality-filtered Subject Guides. In addition, the Alumni Medical Library provides instruction in information skills across the School of Public Health curriculum.
Individual subject bibliographers and librarians in discipline- and subject-oriented libraries serve as the primary contacts with faculty members in their respective fields. Notable examples of this kind of interaction include: the Introduction to Biology program at the Science & Engineering Library; the two-credit “Introduction to Critical Inquiry” course in Sargent College’s Health Science program, which is team taught by a faculty member and a librarian three times a year; and evidence-based library instruction for the School of Dental Medicine and Division of Graduate Medical Sciences offered by the Alumni Medical Library.
Libraries at Boston University, together with the Office of Information Technology, offer a wide range of training opportunities in the use of information resources and technology. In 2007–2008, BU libraries conducted more than 1,000 sessions with more than 21,000 participants. In addition, a library representative participates in the New Faculty Orientation each August and in orientation sessions for new instructors in the College of Arts & Sciences Writing Program.
The Boston University library system and the Office of Information Technology also recognize the significance of Web-based information resources and services to off-site members of the Boston University community, and both are committed to initiatives that support equality of access to information. In 2008, the two offices implemented an EZProxy authentication system that allows a single sign-in for all valid users of library information, regardless of their location. The EZProxy system is extremely reliable and has significantly simplified the process of accessing electronic resources from an off-campus location. A fuller account of technological resources is provided in STANDARD EIGHT: PHYSICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL RESOURCES.
Appraisal
Libraries at Boston University receive sufficient resources. For the last five fiscal years, the libraries’ materials budget has increased by an average of 7% annually. Libraries’ overall budget rose more than 5.2% annually during the same period. This consistent support prevented cutbacks in staffing and information resources. In FY 2009, the library received additional staff and capital funding to support Distance Education and related services. Future funding is planned for the creation of an institutional repository and accompanying infrastructure, which will support student learning and faculty teaching, research, and professional services, and will align with Boston University’s strategic plan.
The assessment of Boston University Libraries’ services, collections, and staff has been grounded in traditional library measures including both descriptive statistics (e.g., expenditures, resource allocation, populations served, collection development, and circulation) and the volume of use of services (e.g., reference, instruction, and interlibrary loan). As a longtime member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Boston University Libraries have also begun to experiment with new measures to assess the cost and use of digital resources. Contextual ARL data has consistently informed decision making within the BU library system.
During the last decade, the Association of Research Libraries has sponsored and developed new tools to assess user satisfaction, information literacy, and the use of subscription resources and new programs to facilitate assessment. Boston University participated in Project SAILS (Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills) and is currently participating in ARL’s Effective, Sustainable, and Practical Assessment Program. The BU Libraries will consider participating in MINES (Measuring the Impact of Networked Electronic Services) when that begins in 2009.
In addition to collecting statistics for use in annual reports and to submit to the ARL, Boston University Libraries have been conducting usability testing of the website, www.bu.edu/library, since March 2005. The Usability Group overseeing this effort reports periodically to the Library’s Web Committee and recommends changes to the website. In early 2008, the Usability Group began conducting focus groups with students to find out what they value, use, and would like to change about the library’s website. The Usability Group summarized the findings of the first five focus groups in a report that is now being used to inform the redesign and the acquisition of specific searching tools.
Early in 2008, the University Librarian directed the Web Committee to set up an Assessment Group to plan and implement a cohesive, transparent assessment program for digital resources and services for the general libraries. The primary goal of this program is to provide information to stakeholders throughout the institution about the use of these resources and the changing needs of library users. To expedite this process and ensure timely development, the libraries participated in a consulting program, “Effective, Sustainable, and Practical Library Assessment,” offered by ARL, which culminated in a report by the consultants advising how the libraries should develop an assessment program responsive to the strategic plan of Boston University.
The Assessment Group has initially focused on assessing electronic resources and will later expand their scope to include Web-based services. Among those participating in this initiative are staffs from the Alumni Medical Library, Pappas Law Library, the School of Theology Library, and Mugar Memorial Library and branches.
After conducting an initial environmental scan, the Assessment Group then developed a program plan stipulating which statistics would be collected about the use of electronic resources, and what kinds of user surveys, focus groups, and usability tests will be utilized. The program plan laid out a rationale for selecting specific quantitative and qualitative measures, a description of how these measures would be analyzed and reported, and a recommended frequency for each type of data collection. Implementation of the program plan began in the fall of 2008.
The Media Group continually assesses Boston University’s instructional technology support needs in consultation with faculty and administrators. As appropriate, more classroom-based systems will be installed, upgraded, and enhanced in order to attain and ensure equitable resources across our instructional facilities.
Projection
Information discovery without limits challenges libraries and librarians at Boston University to continue to transform their services and facilities to advance and lead in the creation, discovery, and archiving of knowledge. The transforming effect of digital technology is already felt in every area of library activity. In the future, the creation, dissemination, and preservation of knowledge will continue to be increasingly facilitated by and dependent on digital communication. Boston University’s libraries must stay ahead of these universal trends in library and information sciences in order to succeed.
The libraries’ success will also be contingent on aligning their goals with the goals of Boston University as a whole, as articulated in the strategic plan. To this end, it is essential for the library system to provide leadership in the development of services and resources central to (1) the strengthening the faculty, and (2) enhancing the undergraduate and graduate education environments. The Boston University library system is well positioned to achieve both of these goals by leveraging existing partnerships with the College of Arts & Sciences, the College of General Studies, and a number of professional and graduate schools and programs. A recent vote by the Faculty Assembly in favor of establishing a digital Institutional Repository will provide BU Libraries with another key role in supporting scholarship, research, teaching, and service across all academic units.
The number of budgeted and filled positions for Boston University Libraries has remained between 198 and 202 for the past five years. In FY 2008, two new staff members were added to extend Distance Library Services to faculty and students, regardless of location. In the short term, the libraries cannot expect an increase in staffing levels, except where warranted under Boston University’s strategic plan. The Institutional Repository provides an example of one such exception: the University has made a clear commitment to provide sufficient staff and resources to launch and maintain the Institutional Repository. Other library initiatives will be supported by retraining staff for new skills and by the reorganization of functional units.
The libraries have been active participants in strategic planning at Boston University, both by assisting with the development of the University-wide plan and the plans for the schools of Law, Theology, and Medicine, as well as by developing their own strategic plan, which identifies Outcomes and Strategies in four distinct areas of library activity: Research and Scholarly Communication; Partnerships in Instruction; Access; and Infrastructure.
The major advisory and policy development bodies for library-related actions and initiatives are the Faculty Council Committee on Research Activities, Libraries, and Support Services and the University Council Committee on Scholarly Activities and Libraries. In 2008, the Faculty Council and University Council both unanimously endorsed an Open Access initiative after 18 months of engaging faculty members at Boston University in a discussion about the pros and cons of institutional repositories and researching best practices.
The planned expansion of electronic information resources means that equitable access for all members of the Boston University community, including distance education students and others who are not on campus, will continue to pose a challenge. The Boston University Libraries and the Office of Information Technology will continue to monitor the use and performance of services and resources provided over the network, in order to increase and improve these services in future.
