e-Library

The Iowa State University Library system includes the Parks Library, which houses the main collections and services, the e-Library (the electronic digital library), the Veterinary Medical Library, three subject-based reading rooms (Design, Mathematics, and Physical Sciences), and a major offsite storage facility. The Library provides an extensive array of print, electronic, and non-print information resources to support the University’s learning, discovery, and engagement missions. A staff of 40 tenure-track faculty librarians, 22 professional and scientific employees, 77 classified (“merit”) staff, and the full-time equivalent of 46 student employees working at service desks in these facilities and the e-Library provide assistance to library patrons. The University Library’s FY06 state budget is $17,667,461, including an acquisitions budget of $8,497,981. The Dean of the Library reports to the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost. The University Library Committee is the formal representative campus group that advises the Dean of the Library and the Provost.

The Library’s comprehensive collections support instruction and research through the master’s level in most fields and at the doctoral level in 82 Ph.D. specializations. As a charter member (1932) of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Library’s resources a re part of a national collection supporting comprehensive research in many disciplines, particularly in science and technology. The Library’s collections in entomology, botany, economics, agriculture, engineering, and veterinary medicine are widely recognized as exemplary. The Library collects materials in many formats with a major emphasis on electronic resources. In FY05, Iowa State’s Library ranked fourth among the 123 member libraries of ARL in the proportion of acquisitions dollars spent on electronic serials. The Library’s collection of journals is nationally recognized for its strength in scientific areas. A large number of complete journal back files, some dating to the 17th and 18th centuries, permits unusually comprehensive retrospective study. The Library’s holdings include over 2.4 million printed volumes; 35,758 current serial subscriptions, including more than 10,000 full-text electronic journals; and 3.4 million microforms. The Department of Special Collections houses rare books, manuscripts, a film collection, and university and subject-based archives.

Library faculty in the Science & Technology and Social Sciences & Humanities departments are responsible for collection management activities in their areas of subject expertise. The Library maintains acquisitions plans by which many newly published books of a scholarly nature are received automatically from publishers worldwide. The Library also participates in numerous networks and organizations through which it obtains information resources and services for its faculty and students. These include: the Center for Research Libraries, which provides access to more than 3.5 million volumes of specialized research materials, government documents, and dissertations, largely in non-English languages; the Greater Western Library Alliance, a group of 31 research libraries that collaborate in consortial purchases and licenses, reciprocal no-charge lending, and expedited delivery of digitized full-text; the Iowa Access Plus Program, a formal agreement with the State Library of Iowa providing no-charge loans and photocopies to all public and academic libraries in the state; and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), a worldwide cooperative of some 23,000 libraries, providing shared access to over 37 million bibliographic records. Through OCLC’s Reciprocal Faculty Borrowing Program, Iowa State faculty have borrowing privileges and on-site access to the collections of other major research libraries in the United States. Beyond traditional interlibrary loan, which obtains approximately 16,000 items annually from other libraries for Iowa State researchers, the Iowa State Library offers three separate services for the physical or electronic delivery of library materials to users: Document Delivery Service, Storage Delivery Service, and Vet Med Express.

Assistance in using library collections and services is provided at the four branch facilities noted above and at seven separate service points in the Parks Library. The service points include the General Reference Desk, Reserve and Media Services, Interlibrary Loan/Document Delivery, the Circulation Desk, the Microforms Center, Special Collections, and the Map Room. Faculty in the Library’s Science & Technology and Social Sciences & Humanities departments provide specialized reference and instructional services. Reference assistance is available at the General Reference Desk, in consultation rooms, in faculty offices (by appointment), and by telephone, e-mail, and (since 2003) synchronous online chat, through the e-Library’s Ask a Librarian service.

Library faculty teach a basic undergraduate library skills course, Library 160, to over 6,000 students each year. Library 160 is a pre-requisite/co-requisite for English 105 (a second semester, first-year English course) and a University-wide requirement for graduation. Assessment data indicate that Library 160 fills an important need in orienting students to information tools, resources, and services, both in libraries and on the Web. Library faculty also give class presentations, seminars, workshops, and tours in support of individual academic courses, and to acquaint students, faculty, researchers and other groups with the Library’s resources, upon request. Arrangements can be made for library instruction to take place in the Library’s classroom, seminar room, or hands-on computer labs, or, if more appropriate, the librarian may visit the instructor's classroom.

Two other library programs that support classroom learning, the Instruction Commons and e-Reserve, are likely to be merged into a single program in the near future, based on recommendations from the Library’s 5-Year Program Review in 2004. Broadly speaking, the Instruction Commons is both an information literacy program and a virtual space in which students, librarians, and members of the teaching faculty explore ways of integrating electronic resources and library research instruction into teaching and learning. Any course in the University’s curriculum is eligible to participate in the Commons. This includes large, lecture courses as well as small, intensive seminars; undergraduate and graduate-level classes; courses taught in physical classrooms as well as those delivered electronically. Instructor and librarian collaborate to determine what resources (primarily, but not exclusively electronic) are most appropriate to support the overall course goals, as well as the specific objectives of individual assignments, term papers, and projects. Commons staff assist the teacher/librarian team in creating course web pages, which provide contextual access to selected electronic resources, along with standardized links to syllabi, lecture notes, sample exams, and (occasionally) online chat/discussion forums. The Commons website also includes several generic information literacy modules, which can be used (or adapted) for any course, and which follow the research process through the stages of defining a topic; locating, retrieving, and evaluating information; and understanding the legal and ethical issues in using information. The subject librarian may make a “live” classroom presentation, and is available for research consultations by email, synchronous chat, and appointment. Currently, the Instruction Commons reaches approximately 6,000 students per year in participating courses.

e-Reserve is another major instructional support service offered by the Library, providing digitized course reserve readings (journal articles, book chapters, lecture notes, sample tests, and streamed audio files) to students in some 650 courses annually. The current plan to merge e-Reserve and the Instruction Commons should yield efficiencies for both Library staff and users. Students and faculty, in particular, will benefit from a single point of contact for Library services in support of any university course, whether that entails reserved readings, recommended databases and websites, contact with a subject specialist, or access to generic information literacy instruction.

The e-Library, unveiled in 2001 as Iowa State’s newest “branch facility,” is a web-based gateway to the collections and services of the entire Library system, both physical and electronic. Central to the e-Library is the Library Catalog, which allows users to search the Library’s holdings on a variety of access points (author, title, subject, keyword, etc.) in both basic and advanced search modes; place online recalls; link to full-text when available (through imbedded URLs); and view personal account information. The “Collections” portion of the e-Library provides access to the contents of some 58,000 electronic journals; over 1,700 regional, national, and international newspapers online; 600 electronic books, 278 online indexes and abstracts, and several thousand recommended and scholarly websites arranged by subject. The “services” portion of the e-Library provides interactive forms allowing users to request assistance or interact with staff at a variety of service points. Online services include the ability to view personal account information (book loans, overdue fines, etc.); submit interlibrary loan requests; contact subject specialists by email or synchronous chat; submit an e-Reserve list (for faculty) or view e-Reserve material; request that items be purchased for the collections; recall an item checked out to another user; or schedule a library video for classroom use. A third major section of the e-Library, “Classes & Tours,” provides access to instructional support services (described above), including the online tutorials for the mandatory Library 160 course. A fourth major section showcases “Art & Exhibits,” both physical and virtual, in the Library.

A recent and major new addition to the e-Library (implemented in 2003) is Multi-search. Multi-search is a combined “discovery and delivery” tool designed to simultaneously search multiple collections and return results in a single presentation. Within the list of search results, duplicate records can be removed, and the remaining unique records can be sorted and manipulated in a variety of ways. Whenever possible, search results include the delivery of full-text. Multi-search works much like an Internet search engine, but instead of trawling the web, it searches a variety of reputable collections targeted by library professionals, including commercially-licensed indexes and abstracts, full-text databases, online journals, library catalogs, and quality-assured websites. Currently, 111 extensive collections can be searched simultaneously using Multi-search, including the Iowa State Library Catalog, Elsevier’s Science Direct, Expanded Academic ASAP, the Ingenta article database, and Web of Knowledge. Users can choose to search all available collections, or can narrow their focus by searching pre-defined, subject-based “profiles” in such topical areas as Agriculture & Life Sciences, Business & Company Information, or Engineering & Computer Science. Multi-search is one of the few tools of its kind that combines the convenience of a Google-like search engine with the rich content of library and commercial databases.

In FY05, the e-Library had over 13 million visitors and the physical facilities had over 1.54 million, for a total of over 14.5 million visits or uses of the library system.

The Library provides 3,080 seats for general patron use, including 2,668 in Parks Library and 412 in the branch facilities. One hundred-nine private study rooms (most of them double-occupancy) are available to faculty, graduate students, and professional and scientific staff who require intensive research use of the collection over a period of time. Six group study rooms are available to students on a sign-up basis. The Library’s general collection is available on open stacks in all locations. Books and serials are shelved according to the Library of Congress Classification System. The Library system supports 250 public-access computers, some deployed throughout study/stack space, and others concentrated in library computer labs.

The popularity of electronic resources and the ease of remote, web-based services has led to an appreciable decline in the use of physical library facilities and the circulation of materials. In FY05, visits to the physical library facilities numbered 1.54 million (down 18% over the last five years). Comparisons with other academic and research libraries are difficult, as turnstile counts and other measures of physical building use are not routinely reported to professional organizations. The total number of items circulated by the Iowa State Library numbered 301,543 in FY’05, down 24.5% in the last five years. In the latest eight-year period for which comparison data is available (1995-2003), total circulation at the Iowa State Library decreased by 41.3% (from 579,298 to 321,503), while the median total circulation for ARL libraries decreased by 17.5% (from 578,552 to 477,317). One major factor in this decline is the steady decrease in the number of "in-house" loans, i.e., short-term loans of unbound periodicals, and of books and journals placed on course reserve. Between 1995 and 2005, the number of short-term, in-house loans (which figures in the total circulation count reported to ARL) dropped from 282,482 to 47,581. This reflects the fact that the vast majority (more than 80%) of course reserve material is now available online, and likewise that a growing number of print periodicals have been replaced by their electronic counterparts.

The Library has participated three times in the ARL-sponsored LibQUAL+ survey (in 2001, 2003, and 2005) and plans to continue the survey on a biennial basis. As a standardized survey of expectations and perceptions regarding library service quality, LibQUAL+ allows us not only to compare how users rate various services over time, but also to see how the Library’s ratings compare to those of other libraries, particularly those in the ARL cohort. Survey results from 2003 (the last year for which comparison data have been analyzed) demonstrate that the Library’s overall ratings of user satisfaction are slightly higher than the average for the 66 participating ARL libraries. Detailed survey data suggest that the Library’s current service strengths lie in the specific areas of “Affect of Service” (knowledge, courtesy, and responsiveness of employees) and “Library as Place” (physical facilities that are quiet, comfortable, and conducive to study). In the two remaining dimensions of service quality, “Access to Collections” and “Personal Control,” the Library has noted somewhat larger gaps between users’ expectations and perceived levels of service–suggesting that additional efforts and resources continue to be needed in these areas. This pattern, too, was consistent with findings across the entire ARL cohort: users desire more electronic resources (particularly full-text journals), and expect to access them independently, both within the library and from remote locations.

In the fall of 2003, a library committee was established to plan and conduct formal usability testing of the e-Library website. With approval from Iowa State’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) to conduct testing of human subjects, this group began by conducting a web-based survey of e-Library users to determine what features/components of the website were most important and/or heavily used, as well as the relative ease/difficulty with which they were accessed. Using data from this preliminary survey, the team then developed an eight-question, 30-minute “hands-on” test to evaluate the usability of the e-Library website. In 2004, the team recruited four undergraduate students, six graduate students, and four faculty members to participate in usability testing. Tests were conducted on a workstation equipped with CamtasiaTM software, to track the user’s cursor/keyboard actions and to audio-record all dialogue for playback and analysis. Initial test results have prompted the Library to make significant changes to the e-Library homepage in the summer of 2005 (introducing a “Find Articles” module, and revising the pages devoted to library instruction). The library’s current goal is to establish a routine procedure for usability testing (10-12 individuals per year), using student and faculty volunteers chosen to represent a broad spectrum of backgrounds, skill levels, and interests. Feedback from usability testing will be used for continuous improvement of the e-Library website.

As reflected in the library’s current strategic and operational planning documents, the following represent major goals and challenges to be addressed in the near future:

Learning and Teaching

• Expand the information literacy component of the Library’s teaching program   (with emphasis on Library 160), to enhance students’ critical thinking, creative   abilities, and communication skills.
        - Continue to assess and improve all facets of the mandatory Library 160         course, including pedagogy, course delivery, and student learning.
        - Make more systematic use of the Association of College & Research         Libraries’ (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher         Education(ILCSHE) to evaluate and improve the Library 160 course and         the Library’s overall instruction program.

• Expand, assess, and continuously improve the Library’s reference services, with emphasis on electronic reference.

• Expand and improve the Library’s physical and technological infrastructures to support new modes of learning and teaching. This includes new types and combinations of space, furniture, electrical wiring, and wireless data access in Library facilities.

• In support of research, continue to grow the library’s collections of online information resources and to make them available anytime and anywhere. This includes both purchased content and resources digitized in-house. Develop broader strategies, in consultation with the faculty, to assess the extent to which the collections are serving the research and curricular needs of the campus community.

• Continue to develop a robust digital assets management system (DAMS) that can seamlessly integrate with the campus authentication and authorization environment through a single sign-on; provide for easy ingest of digital objects from faculty, using web-based tools and templates; handle rights management issues; handle preservation and archiving issues; and integrate with any future institutional repository at Iowa State.

• Create mechanisms that ensure efficient and straightforward access to journal   literature.
        - Continue to expand and improve user access to electronic full-text, with         seamless linking between citation and full-text databases.
        - Continue to develop an effective federated search engine, allowing “one         search” access to multiple research databases.

Professional Practice, Outreach, and Extension

• Continue to participate in national-level efforts to recruit science, technology, and medical (STM) librarians into the profession, to deal with current and anticipated shortages. This will build on our current involvement in the Program for University Librarians in the Sciences (PULS), funded by a 2004 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

• Continue to develop, document, and publicize a more systematic approach to outcomes assessment for all library services.

• Based on data gathered from user surveys and other types of assessment, continue to provide user-centered service enhancements such as online renewal of loans, alert services, and additional electronic request forms.