Oakland University’s Kresge Library faces the standard responsibilities of all academic libraries. Regardless of the medium of the information source—books, periodicals, electronic data bases—libraries must complete three steps to make that information available to its patrons. First, the information must be acquired through either purchase or lease. Second, the information must be cataloged so that it can be searched. Third, patrons must be trained in how to use the cataloging system. Each of these tasks costs money. It is this fundamental issue of money that affects Kresge Library today.
The Provost’s office furnished our committee with the complete list of peer and aspirant peer institutions. (included in the handouts for the March 15, 2001 meeting) We have identified three peer institutions and four aspirant peer institutions, and will compare Kresge Library’s performance against these peers and aspirant peers. These comparative schools were chosen because they are used as common reference points by the administration. The data we will be using comes from the Association of College and Research Libraries’s 1998-1999 report (the most recent year from which we could get complete statistics).
Slides #3, #4, and #5 provide a graphic description of the comparison of three of the most important measures of a library collection—expenditures for collection, volumes, and current serials. As you can see, Oakland consistently ranks below both our peer and aspirant peer institutions in all of these categories. The most striking disparities occur in the area of current serials, a reflection of the rounds of journal cuts over the last five years.
Slides #6 and #7 provide a graphic description of the allocation of human resources to the library. In a pattern similar to collections allocations, Kresge Library fares badly in a comparison to the peer and aspirant peer institutions.
However, as you can see by slides #8 and #9, the size of Oakland University’s student population is greater than that of two of its peers (and nearly as great as the third). Moreover, the graduate student population is not only greater than that of two of the peers, but greater than that of two of the aspirant peers. These figures comparing graduate student FTE are particularly important since these students normally place a greater per capita demand on library collections than undergraduate students.
The combination of these statistics will have important implications for the instructional mission of the university. I have selected two key areas of service that have been affected by these patterns
Over time the library staff at Kresge has been asked to deliver instruction in library research methods to more students with a smaller number of professional librarians (See slide #10). RHT 160 has had a traditional three hours of instruction in library use; however, this year because of staffing shortages, the training has been reduced to 2 hours. It is entirely possible that this training will have to be eliminated completely. It is also a possibility that the library will have to restructure its service of conducting specialized instruction for subject classes.
The shortage of books and serials in the library has resulted in a higher use of ILL for borrowing. (See slide #11) Note the substantial disparity between items borrowed and items loaned, this is an indication of the weakness of the collection’s ability to serve student needs. Also the cost is not described by these figures. The bill for the most heavily used interlibrary loan service (Advanced Information Consultants) rose from $4,890.00 in FY 94 to $37,968.08 in FY 99. Although some of this increase can be explained by a proportionally higher use of AIC, nonetheless, it indicates an important expense for the library. This expense is made to get access to information for one patron, and generally only for a brief period of time. ILL does not constitute a long-term improvement to the library’s collection, but a stop-gap measure.
As you can see in the broad comparisons to our peer and aspirant peer institutions on slides #12 and #13, we do not do well. In particular, we fall substantially behind our aspirant peer institutions in nearly all categories.
The implications for this comparison can be seen in a number of specific areas. (See slide # 14) Oakland University was the last public university in Michigan to subscribe to JSTOR. When it was finally made, the subscription was not purchased out of the general collections budget, but rather was paid for out of the library gift funds (thereby substantially depleting Kresge’s financial reserve). No major engineering index existed at Kresge between 1991 and 2000, despite the existence of graduate programs in the School of Engineering and Computer Science. Our students have become heavily reliant on ILL services, using them more frequently than faculty members. Seven graduate programs have been added to the curriculum for which library resources were deemed inadequate by the university. Despite the specific designation of monies to improve library resources for the Ph.D. in Counseling, the Ph.D. in Early Childhood, the Ph.D. in Educational Leadership, the M.S. in Software Engineering, the Ph.D. in Applied Math, the M.S. in Adult Health, and the M.S. in Nursing, a substantial portion of that money ($20,188) has not been received by the library.
Three major factors have brought us to this position. (See slide #15) There has been no increase in the library’s base budget since FY94. Funding set aside for collection development in specific areas has not been received by the library. There has been a 40% inflation rate within the publishing industry since 1994.
The Senate Library Committee has made three recommendations to the administration. They are:
Recommendation #1:Conform to the NCA recommendations of 1989, 1994, and 1999 that Kresge Library should receive automatic annual increases to its base budget to compensate for library inflation rates
Recommendation #2: Money appropriated for new academic programs be delivered to Kresge Library immediately after Board of Trustees approval of the program and before admission of students into the program
Recommendation #3: To keep Kresge Library in compliance with the goals of the OU 2010 Profile, the library budget of FY10 should be double the current budget. This increase should occur in regular annual increments to both the materials budget and the positions budget.
2. Response of the Senate Planning Review Committee
To: University Senate
From: Senate Planning and Review
Frances Jackson, Chair
Re: Report of the Senate Library Committee
The SPRC was asked to review the report and recommendations coming from the Senate Library Committee (SLC). The report was discussed at the latest meeting of SPRC.
The presentation to the University Senate made a compelling argument that the library is in a crisis situation. The fact that the library budget has remained flat since 1994 is cause for embarrassment for this faculty and OU administration. No academic institution can make legitimate claims to academic quality with the conditions that exist with Kresge Library. Unfortunately, while this may have been the first such report that Provost Esposito has heard, those of us who have been on this campus for some time recognize that this situation is not new. There have been at least three North Central recommendations about the library, which apparently were not taken seriously by OU administration and the Board of Trustees. That neglect brings us to the current crisis.
The SLC makes three recommendations in its report. There was unanimous support for all three recommendations. However, we make one further plea. SPRC asks that the Senate adopt a motion that will state in essence, that after this academic year, the Senate will not approve any further academic programs until a comprehensive, long-range plan has been developed and presented to the Senate that ensures the long-term viability of the Library. This long-term plan must include a line item for additional library resources when new programs are approved. Library resources are as important as personnel support when new programs are proposed. If the university cannot provide the resources for new programs, then the Senate must question its own role in participating in a process that does not provide a quality outcome.
Obviously, the neglect of almost 10 years cannot be erased overnight. But there should be a long-term plan that ensures the library will receive the resources it needs to undergird the academic mission of this university. If the Senate fails to hold Provost Esposito, President. Russi and the Board of Trustees accountable for this appalling state of affairs, then there is no legitimacy to our own existence as a governing body.