Delivering information technology services to the university community is a complex and decentralized activity at Michigan Tech. The Goal 6 Committee investigated and evaluated delivery of library and computing services. Each will be addressed separately in this chapter.

This chapter draws primarily on the Goal 6 Committee Report [6.2B8], the Library Self-Study [2.6F5] and the Information Technology Self-Study [2.6H9]. Please see these reports for more detailed information.

LIBRARY

Purposes

Michigan Tech has a single central library, the J. Robert Van Pelt Library (hereafter referred to as the Library). Its vision to be a campus-wide center for advancing information management initiatives, technologies, and resources is consistent with the University mission to educate its students to meet the changing needs of a technological society and to provide inhabitants of the State with scientific knowledge to promote the welfare of Michigan’s industries. Whenever feasible, the Library has decided to select electronic access over ownership for research materials. The Library, by providing access to information, is instrumental in enabling freedom of inquiry for faculty and students.

Resources and Accomplishments

The Library has qualified professional staff and is effectively organized to deliver library services to the University community and State residents. The University’s commitment to the library is demonstrated by library funding that keeps pace with the growth of the University’s General Fund. Nonetheless, the escalating cost of serial publications (the mainstay of an engineering and science university library) and technology for automation and electronic access, the demands generated by graduate program growth, and limited physical space all make it difficult for the library to meet all of the University’s purposes. The library is responding to these inadequacies by innovative use of electronic resources and document delivery. MTU’s peer institutions have been experiencing these same challenges with respect to building and maintaining quality research libraries.

Administrative Structure

Library administrative and professional staff are well-organized and well-qualified. The director and 11 professional staff hold masters degrees in library science. Five professional staff have retired since 1990, and vacancies were filled through national searches. To reflect the importance of technology to library services, a restructuring in 1994/95 created clearly defined career paths in either automated and technical services or research services. An assistant director was designated for each area.The balance between professional (16 positions) and support staff (17.5 positions) is consistent with other State-supported Michigan universities. The library depends somewhat less on student workers (24% of total staff) than other Michigan university libraries (36%). A 1993 user survey rated staff performance highly (4.2–4.5 on a 5-point scale).

Financial Resources

Since 1988/89, library expenditures have increased 47% to $2,719,000. However, library expenditures as a percentage of total University expenditures remains flat at 2.6%, compared to our eight benchmark institutions, the Library ranks third in percentage of total expenditures, and seventh when comparing dollars expended per full-time-equivalent student (FYES). The library receives additional funding through gifts, such as $6,000 from Friends of the Van Pelt Library in 1997 for the undergraduate collection, and $12,900 from the Minority Programs Task Force in 1988–91 for materials relevant to African- and Native-American experiences.

Compared to libraries at other Michigan state-supported universities, the Library spends more on materials and less on salaries and wages as a percentage of library expenditures. We spend 50% on materials (Michigan average is 35%)—the highest percentage in the State—and 36% on salaries and wages (Michigan average is 49%). Although the director and some professional staff receive competitive salaries, the lower expenditures may impede the library’s ability to attract and retain high quality staff.

The Library Collection

Although the Library’s expenditures for acquisitions have grown by 57% since 1989, the collection has grown by only 9%. This reflects in part the exceptional inflation in the cost of scientific journals and monographs—an average of 12% annually over the past four years. In response, two cancellation projects in 1986 and 1991 reduced the number of journal subscriptions by 1,000, and a third is being considered. Eighty-eight percent of the library’s materials budget is dedicated to serials. This is the highest percentage allocation for serials in the State (Michigan average is 50%); at $179 in serials expenditures/FYES, it ranks second only to the University of Michigan at $211/FYES. The explanation for this pattern is simple: the library’s collection serves the purposes of an engineering and science research university. Research in engineering and science is documented in serial publications more than in monographs, and MTU library collection policies reflect this bias.

While serials expenditures are high, our expenditures on non-serial collections is second lowest in the State at $24/FYES, compared to a high at the University of Michigan of $149/FYES. It is estimated that $200,000–$500,000 would be required to redress weaknesses in the books collection. The strong emphasis on journals and serials makes the Library more labor-intensive than collections based on monographs and books.

The total library collection is approximately 780,000 volumes, half of which are government documents. The remaining 390,000 volumes represent 154,000 individual titles (both monograph and serial or continuation titles). The collection also includes 447,000 microforms. The Library is a selective Federal repository for government publications. Documents are selected to support the missions of many academic departments and to reflect the interests of the residents of the First Congressional District of Michigan, which fulfills a University purpose of serving the general public. In addition, the MTU Archives and Copper Country Historical Collection is a nationally recognized depository of historical documents on copper mining.

The acquisition and maintenance of library materials is a primary task of all university libraries. The nature of the collection is undergoing a transformation. Historically, the Library collected undergraduate- level materials necessary to train engineers for positions in industry. A manual comparison of library holdings to citations in Books for College Libraries III undertaken between 1989 and 1995 [2.4B5] showed that the undergraduate holdings of the library strongly mirror MTU’s traditional areas of study in the sciences and technology (with match rates of 50%–55%) and particularly in geology and engineering (match rate of 72%). Departmental self-studies and a student survey suggest the undergraduate collection is satisfactory.

However, in the past decade, new and expanded graduate programs, heightened expectations for faculty research, more international representation, interdisciplinary programs, and new curricula in social sciences and humanities all require a significantly different kind of collection. Because of the smaller size and relative youth of the non-science programs, the library collection is weaker in these areas. To insure that limited funds are directed to the most critical collection needs by active faculty, the library employs an active faculty-liaison system and a faculty-driven University Library Committee to assist in decisions about book and serial purchases. Nonetheless, the Goal 6 Committee judged collections to be insufficient to meet the stated research and educational purposes of the University. Thirty-nine percent of graduate students surveyed in 1996 were not satisfied with the library [2.8C] and nine departments, five of them PhD granting, cited the research and graduate collections as inadequate [6.2B8]. Faculty gave the Library low ratings on the Faculty Survey [6.2B4]. This was a concern of the NCA Evaluation Team in 1988, and unfortunately it remains a concern of the University today.

In response, the Library has expanded interlibrary loan and document-delivery services and developed electronic formats for access and delivery of library materials. The Library has tripled the number of interlibrary loans since 1988 and become a net borrower of materials. This shift from ownership to access is not cost-free (see below).

Automation and Computerization

The Library has changed substantially in the area of computerization. Since 1988, it has had relationships with three separate library automation vendors and now works in a development partnership with Endeavor Information System Inc. (EISI), which provides the Voyager automation system. Voyager was fully operational in 1995. It provides on-line, WWW-based access to the library catalog and an internal information-management system which automates and streamlines acquisitions, volume check-in of serials, and reserve materials. This new automated management system will allow the library to gather data to analyze collection use and needs.

A key feature of the Library is its ability to deliver information remotely. In addition to information provided by Voyager, the library also provides remote access to selected databases (some full-text) via the WWW. While some information is difficult to distribute due to the use of multiple operating systems on campus (see "Computing" below), other information is too costly to distribute remotely. Some peer institutions are ahead of the Library when it comes to availability of electronic databases and information technology training. The Library has no interactive electronic classroom in which to train users in the latest information-management techniques, and it is difficult to schedule training in departmental computer laboratories because of heavy usage. Nonetheless, by June 1997 all but two of the Library’s electronic databases were available over the WWW to campus users on their desktops. Information Technology is helping the library to address technological problems.

The widespread belief that access to electronic resources will bring cost savings has not materialized. While hardware costs continue to fall, the costs of maintaining, supporting, and reinvesting in up-to-date hardware continues to rise. Vendors of electronic materials usually price their products higher in order to protect their interests. As a result, expenditures for electronic collections, nonexistent in 1985/86, were $65,000 in 1996/97 [6.2B8, Note 4]. Hardware and training for library staff also has associated costs.

Support Services

In addition to providing access to collections for teaching and research, the Library provides numerous support services, such as bibliographic instructional programs for students and teaching assistants, a copy card system, a Career Resource Center with job-hunting materials, extended archives hours, a library web site to deliver resources to users, and group study space for student teams. All of these services are new since 1988.

Space

The library building constructed in 1966, suffers from a shortage of space. With 49,000 square feet of space, the library building is full to capacity. In 1995 the Program Statement for the Library Building Program estimated a shortfall of over 75,000 square feet of assignable space and stated, “The thirty-year old building is inadequate for library purposes regarding space, information technology, service and environmental issues. It cannot carry out the mission of the library and the University” [2.4C4]. ABET evaluators cited the lack of study and storage space in the Library as a problem [6.3B and 6.3A] and in 1996, journals stored off-site were attacked by an outbreak of mold. Emerging technologies also require appropriate space. In addition to space concerns, the building has problems with heating and cooling and the furniture should be upgraded.

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