Site Team Report

10. Information Technology

As Michigan Tech has placed an increasing emphasis on its research and graduate education missions, the library has become less and less able to support the University's mission. It was developed as a library to support undergraduate education and a few very focused areas of research. Today the research mission of the University has grown and diversified and the undergraduate mission has broadened. The library has not had the resources to allow it to support these changes by making appropriate additions to its collections of materials.

In the report of the 1988 accreditation visit to Michigan Tech, the first concern listed was that "it does not appear that the library is supported at a level consistent with the University's aspirations for an expanded graduate/research mission." The November 1997 self-study states that "the library remains a challenge." Although there has been an increase in the acquisitions budget during the 10 years since the last accreditation visit, the increase was not sufficient to meet the increased costs of serials in the sciences and engineering as well as the need to establish collections in areas of research and graduate education that are new to Michigan Tech.

Earlier planning suggested that new electronic technologies would allow less expensive, but timely, access to scientific journals and important information databases. Unfortunately, as such capabilities developed, they proved to be at least as expensive to acquire and maintain as the print versions. The newer technologies are more convenient for some purposes, more comprehensive in some ways, and provide routes to locating information that do not exist when print materials are used. On the other hand, the print versions are more convenient for some purposes, such as browsing over a broad range of articles in a journal.

All universities are struggling to acquire the new technologies, to make them available to their users, and to promote user capability for their effective exploitation. The library at Michigan Tech is no exception. After some initial difficulties, the library has provided a useful on-line catalog and user access to electronic information and search capabilities via the web. Similarly, requests for interlibrary loan can now be made on-line. The capability for document delivery services exists but they are not available due to staffing limitations. Clients indicated in a survey that they were not willing to pay special fees for delivery services.

Like most other university libraries, the Michigan Tech library responded to escalating costs of materials by canceling many serial titles. The library users have been consulted in cancellations and faculty in departments have strong influence over what new materials are acquired. Nonetheless, both faculty and graduate students commonly complain that the journals or other materials they need are not owned by the library. Other ways in which the library accommodated increased serial costs are apparent in the high percentage of the library budget that is used for acquisitions as compared to personnel and the very high portion of its funds used for serials acquisitions as compared to monographs.

The library facilities are inadequate both with regard to total space and type of space. The library contrasts with much of the rest of the campus facilities in that it is not as attractive and well-maintained as most. Undoubtedly this is due, in part, to the very heavy traffic that it receives. In part it is due to unattractive interiors and to space that does not lend itself to current needs. In the near future the library expects to acquire some additional space that will be used for compact shelves. This will allow it to rearrange some of the current collection and improve use of space if funds are available to support these changes.

New types of space that are needed include study space for students who are working as teams on class assignments and training space in which library personnel can train students and others in the effective use of electronic sources of information. This space would allow a more aggressive program for educating faculty and graduate students on the use of modern tools for literature searching and accessing that literature.

The library is an important resource for students at all levels; it is essential to researchers. When it is unable to serve its mission, the entire university community suffers. A major concern is that only slight progress in improving the library over the past 10 years is evident. The university cannot afford to allow another 10 years to lapse before making very significant strides toward providing the resources that are required to allow the library to play its important role in supporting the university's mission and vision for itself. If the recovery of indirect costs increases with increased sponsored funding for research, it will be important to recognize that a portion of those indirect costs are in the library and the library should receive those funds to improve access to needed research materials.

Consequently, Michigan Tech plans to request as part of its fiscal year 1999 capital budget a $65 million project to expand and refurbish the library and a nearby building to create a Center for Integrated Learning and Information Technology. This project, which includes 30,000 gross square feet for the library addition and renovation of 81,000 square feet in the library, is projected to be completed by 2002. A required report on progress in meeting library needs, including physical space and collections for undergraduate and graduate education, due in 2003, is recommended.

Academic computing is considered an individual issue at Michigan Tech. It is supported by the individual colleges and departments, and is thus highly decentralized. Each department is responsible for supporting the needs of its own students and faculty. Students are charged departmental fees, and most departments have a computer advisory committee that includes students.

To formulate campus-level policy and coordination, the Provost has established the Computer Advisory Committee (CAC), composed of members from the administrative computing group, system administrators, and others. The CAC is an advisory group to the Computer Executive Committee (CEX). This latter committee is chaired by the Provost and makes decisions on what systems projects to support, what system to develop, what hardware to procure, what fees to approve. The CEX does reject recommendations from the CAC from time to time. For example, a high performance computing proposal made by the CAC was turned down by the CEX. Units are now contracting for high computing capability on their own.

Each Department has a system plan, including its fee structure, that is submitted and reviewed by a subcommittee of the CAC with the support of the Information Technology group. All fees are reviewed annually by the CAC and recommended to the CEX for approval. Students are charged a basic computing access fee and in addition may be charged course-related computing fees.

The largest subcommittee of the CAC is the System Administrators committee. The importance of hiring and retaining well qualified systems administrators is critical to the success of this decentralized structure. These positions have high turn over, and the University does recognize it is functioning as the first job training ground "farm team" for developing system administrators.

The Information Technology area has moved through many reorganizations to its present highly decentralized structure. This structure gives the maximum amount of flexibility to units to have the type of technology that is customized to their needs. This carries the risk that units which are financially less well off or quite small may not develop systems or may be more subject to the risks of losing qualified information technology personnel.

The Information Technology group, headed by a Vice Provost, develops and manages the core University wide administrative systems. The central Information Technology group will assist a unit on implementing a new system but will not do continuous support. The unit must provide this and cover the cost.

The University does not feel it should be developing its own administrative software systems. This would be an increased expenditure and time consuming activity. The risk because of personnel turnover would also be larger. The Banner system or another system which is considered one of the major core systems for the organization needs to be implemented to support the grants management needs. They are currently patching existing systems to deal with grants management issues such as encumbering payroll. This is a serious concern as the grants activity of Michigan Tech increases. It is vital that the University develop an information technology infrastructure that can be responsive to the needs both of the institution and external funding agencies. [Concern 3]

The training needs of the organization are handled primarily outside of the organization. The use of the interactive class rooms and core systems is handled by internal staff and may require additional resources to bring all areas to the same level of understanding.

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