Wilcox Library Principles/Goals
1. Instruct students in retrieval, evaluation, analysis and ethical use of information.
Performance Indicator – Library faculty provide instruction in a number of settings and different learning platforms.
Jennifer Sterling conducted 44 instructions sessions with 1.082 students attending this academic year. She has authored 27 course and subject specific LibGuides containing instructional tutorials available online to William Penn University Students on and off campus through a proxy server.
Mandy Easter and Helen Dagley provided on site instruction to CWA students and faculty on our West Des Moines/Clive campus. They answered 709 reference and equipment questions.
Performance Indicator – The library faculty support the library mission by equipping students with the skills to discover, access, use and evaluate information in support of academic achievement.
We conducted a user satisfaction survey in the fall of 2013 and found that 81% of the students were very to extremely satisfied with checking out materials at the library. Over 74% of the students were able to find what they need at the library most to all of the time. However, our circulation statistics fell from 76,944 to 52,439 with the largest decreases in online materials. Our webpage views were significantly lower than last year, from 79,399 down to 37,190. Our users had a difficult time finding our homepage. In the summer of 2013, IT inadvertently deployed a new operating system that wouldn’t allow for network user permission to be correctly installed resulting in our computers using MSN as the homepage. This problem was fixed in June 2014. It was simply one of those issued that negatively impacted the delivery of library services and you couldn’t do anything about it but I believe it had a negative impact on usage of our online resources.
Outcome - Student will be able to conduct a literature review in their major field of study, analyze results, and construct a course project display.
Jennifer Sterling conducted an information literacy assessment during the spring 2014 academic poster session. This provided an opportunity to evaluate student’s work using a rubric and scoring students on a variety of measures. The students were asked if a librarian had conducted an instruction session in their composition classes. All students who were evaluated used library resources, and that was a positive finding. However, the students who had library instruction at William Penn University scored only slightly higher on our rubric then the students who had not. Overall this was a time consuming but extremely worthwhile assessment of our instruction program.
Outcome – Students will be able to choose from a variety of instruction options available virtually.
Instruction tutorials are available from the library website using the content management system LibGuides. Our LibGuides were accessed 39,196 times up from 3,845 in 2012/2013. The LibGuides are embedded into the Eagle and Moodle LMS.
2. Provide a physical space for reading, research and learning for the Penn Community.
Performance Indicator – The library will be equipped with functioning technology and wireless access.
In the fall of 2013 the Information Services Department upgraded the Library’s wireless access points for better reliability and speed. We still have issues but most result from the students inadvertently logging into the wrong network. We will work with IT to provide better user instructions. Additionally, based on comments from our User Satisfaction Survey and usage statistics we have recommitted to provide laptops to students for in library usage.
Performance indicator – The library will be well maintained and furnished and provide an atmosphere welcoming to all students and conducive to all types of learning.
We want to provide a physical space that allows for collaborative learning and private study areas. To that end, we painted and upgraded the flooring in the lower level. Purchased new furniture that could be reconfigured anyway the students wanted, and provided several new white boards throughout the building.
Outcome – Students value the library as a physical space that promotes study and learning.
85% of the students are able to find a quiet study space and 87% of the students find areas for group study in the library. The library appears neat and well kept to 95% of the students. Based on comments we received in our User Satisfaction Survey about noise, we did email the athletic coaches and ask them to tell their students to pipe down.
3. Acquire and maintain collections and resources aligned with the academic curriculum.
Performance Indicator – The library builds a collection of materials in a variety of formats accessible at point and place of student needs.
The majority of our resources are spent on materials available online to ensure access to all students. Despite that our database and ebook expenditures are the lowest or near the lowest of our peer group.
|
Database Expenditures |
|
Ebook Expenditures |
|
|
Wartburg |
$183,922.00 |
Loras |
$10,206.00 |
|
Simpson |
$118,426.00 |
Wartburg |
$10,156.00 |
|
Coe |
$94,328.00 |
Coe |
$9,407.00 |
|
Loras |
$86,446.00 |
Wm Penn |
$3,543.00 |
|
Wm Penn |
$76,246.00 |
Simpson |
$0 |
Our expenditures on audio visual materials are the highest of our peer group. This is due to a resource we purchased called Films on Demand. This service provides streaming rights to over 19,000 titles and is accessible through the proxy server to students irrespective of location. This resource has generated the more positive feedback from faculty than anything else we purchase. It has proven especially helpful to our nursing and online programs.
| Audiovisual Expenditures | |
| Wm Penn | $18,989.00 |
| Coe | $11,603.00 |
| Loras | $5,470.00 |
| Simpson | $2,796.00 |
| Wartburg | $0 |
Performance Indicator – The library expends sufficient resources to build a collection to support the student’s research needs.
This year we added three new databases to our collection including Oxford Music Online, Education Source and Psy Test. We also used a Patron Driven Acquisition program to add new ebook titles in Exercise Science. As is the nature of the program we will only spend the money if they books are viewed by students and faculty. Overall our budget is very tight and low in comparison to peer institutions.
| Total Budget | |
| Wartburg | $1,230,882.00 |
| Coe | $1,023,864.00 |
| Simpson | $830,623.00 |
| Loras | $510,053.00 |
| Wm Penn | $295,000.00 |
|
Per Student Library Expenditure |
|
| Coe | $773.00 |
| Wartburg | $732.00 |
| Simpson | $470.00 |
| Loras | $347.00 |
| Wm Penn | $193.00 |
Outcome – Students consider access to collections and resources sufficient to support their educational and research needs.
We found, from conducting our User Satisfaction Survey that 80% of students found what they needed in books, 72% in ebooks, 74% in journals, and 74% in films. We need to improve on this. Based on comments from the survey, we did enlarge our collection of DVDs and current fiction.
4. Create discovery tool interfaces that access all collections and resources at point and place of need.
Performance Indicator – The library deploys a content management system that organizes information for ease of access and retrieval.
Two years ago we began using a new content management system to create our website and that has allowed us to make changes easily and provide an organized, clean interface. We haven’t been able to provide a federated search engine.
Performance Indicator – The library has the technological foundation to support ever evolving modes of information access and retrieval.
One of our strategic initiatives is to migrate to a new integrated library system with a robust discovery tools that would provide a federated search engine interface for students and faculty.
Outcome – Students can access collections and resources needed to successfully complete their course assignments from any location.
With the majority of our budget expended on online resources, students now have access to the vast majority of our resources online, available 24/7 from any location. We are in a good position to provide services to students in our growing online programs.
Outcome – Students choose the library web site to begin their course assignments.
This is a big problem for us. Only 29% of our users begin an information search from the library website with the majority, 67% using Google.
5. Provide user-centered services, in all environments, to Penn students and faculty.
Performance Indicator – Library faculty and staff will continually engage in professional development opportunities to improve knowledge and skills.
Angela Crist
Iowa OCLC Users Group
Julie Hansen
Fundamentals of Preservation
Iowa Private Academic Library Group
Chris Kock
Iowa OCLC Users Group
Nic Steel
Introduction to Cataloging
Jennifer Sterling
Getting More Active Learning into Your Classroom
Performance Indicator – The Library will employ sufficient number of educated staff to provide excellent service to students and faculty.
This is a problem area for us. We have a large number of services hours over the year and during finals we extend our hours. Our staffing levels are the lowest of our peer group. This has to be our one our biggest headaches, every morning you wake up and hope you have enough staff to make it through the day. We tried for the last two years to hire student workers at a higher rate of pay to help cover the nights. Out of 12 students, only 2 showed up consistently to work their shifts.
|
Number of staff |
|
Average weekly hours of operation per year |
|
|
Coe |
10.5 |
Wm Penn |
79 |
|
Wartburg |
10 |
Coe |
77 |
|
Loras |
7.8 |
Simpson |
76 |
|
Simpson |
7 |
Wartburg |
73 |
|
Wm Penn |
4.9 |
Loras |
70 |
Outcome – Students will express high levels of satisfaction with library services.
99% of students, who use the library, agree to strongly agree that the library has helped improve their academic performance and 97% indicate that the library is important to their academic success. This is terrific, but this only represents students who use the library. We need an assessment vehicle that would allow us to find out how all students view the library.
6. Collect, preserve, digitize and provide access to the historic record of William Penn.
Performance Indicator – The library has a safe physical environment dedicated to the preservation of archival material.
We are waiting to move part of the collection to new rooms. Approximately two thirds of the collection still needs to be re-housed into acid free boxes. We did have a volunteer who re-housed all of the scrap book collection, catalogs and yearbooks.
Performance Indicator – The library makes original source material, pertaining to the history of the university, digitally accessible.
Our volunteer digitized several fine arts and student photos for our digital archives.
Outcome - Researchers are provided with the information they needs for the Wilcox Library Archives.
William Penn University celebrated 140 years in the fall of 2013. The archives provided photos for banners and created place mates with historic details for the homecoming banquet. I made 4 presentations on the history of the college with 178 people in attendance. 749 photos were used from our Digital Archives and I answered 130 archive reference questions.