I frequently collaborate on accreditation reports, assessments and
self-studies, for both regional accreditation, such as SACS, Southern
Association of Colleges and Schools; and programmatic accreditation,
such as AACSB, Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business,
for the College of Business; NCATE, National Council for Accreditation
of Teacher Education, for the College of Education; ACEJMC, the
Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication,
for journalism mass media school, etc. Generally speaking there is some
portion of the self-study or the assessment that will ask specific
questions about library holdings. It is fairly typical to be asked to
provide the number of titles by call number range. Lists of journal
titles are also frequently requested, and in some cases, such as
chemistry, a core subscription base is required. I always include
information about electronic holdings, whether I have been asked to do
so or not. If I have access through an aggregator, I often include
these, but always separately, and described as accessed through an
aggregator. From the perspective of the accrediting body this shows
that the library has an ongoing financial and collection development
commitment to the discipline/area of study. You may also be asked to
provide information on the amount of money spent and/or allocated by
discipline/subject over the past three to five years, or the
acquisitions commitment. For many years there was a more direct
connection between title counts and accreditation, and in ye olden days
there were formulas that you could use to show that you had an adequate
collection by the numbers. This is mostly outdated, and esp. with
regional accreditation they are more interested in measurable inputs and
outputs, but you may still be asked to give the numbers of titles per
FTE faculty or student, or the numbers added per year per FTE faculty or
student. Generally speaking the standards have become more
qualitative and less quantitative. I now use data from surveys and
focus groups, combined with more quantitative data, for collection
assessments. For accreditation, you will need measurable outcomes,
combined with something fixable, i.e. you set a goal that says that as a
result of some action, some measure will improve or increase, such as
increased satisfaction with the collection based on survey results.
ACRL used to have quantitative standards for college and university
libraries, including the old Formula A for collection size. I still use
this to give me a rough idea of "bottom line" numbers for collection
size, which I combine with a modified conspectus method.
Now they have qualitative standards, found here
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/standardslibraries.cfm
with some excerpts below. You can see that there is wording you can use
to support your position.
Resources
The library should provide varied, authoritative and up-to-date
resources that support its mission and the needs of its users. Resources
may be provided onsite or from remote storage locations, on the main
campus and/or at off-campus locations. Moreover, resources may be in a
variety of formats, including print or hard copy, online electronic text
or images, and other media. Within budget constraints, the library
should provide quality resources in the most efficient manner possible.
Collection currency and vitality should be maintained through judicious
weeding.
Questions:
1. What criteria are used to make decisions about the acquisition,
retention, and use of print, electronic, and media resources? How does
the library select resources for its users?
2. What is the role of the classroom faculty in the selection of
library resources and in the ongoing development and evaluation of the
collection?
3. Does the library have a continuing and effective program to
evaluate its collections, resources and online databases, both
quantitatively and qualitatively?
4. Do print, media, and electronic resources reflect campus
curricular and research needs?
5. Does the library have sufficient user licenses for its
electronic resources so that on-site and remote users can be
accommodated?
6. How are consortium purchasing and licensing agreements utilized?
7. If the library has responsibility for collecting and maintaining
the institution's archives, how does it address these responsibilities?
8. How do the library's collections and online databases compare
with its peers?
9. Does the library maintain the currency and relevancy of the
collection through a judicious weeding program?
Some typical measures from the standards above are, input:
* Ratio of volumes to combined total student (undergraduate and
graduate, if applicable) and faculty FTE.
* Ratio of volumes added per year to combined total student and
faculty FTE.
* Ratio of material/information resource expenditures to combined
total student and faculty FTE.
* Percent of total library budget expended in the following three
categories:
1. materials/information resources, subdivided by print,
microform, and electronic.
Output:
* Ratio of circulation (excluding reserve) to combined student and
faculty FTE.
* Ratio of interlibrary loan requests to combined student and
faculty FTE (could be divided between photocopies and books).
* Ratio of interlibrary loan lending to borrowing.
There is a new draft standard, found here
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/standards_libraries_.pd
f
5. Collections: Libraries provide access to collections that are
sufficient in quality, depth, diversity, format and currency to support
the research and teaching mission of the institution.
5.1 Libraries provide access to collections aligned with areas of
research, curricular foci or institutional strengths.
5.2 Libraries provide collections that incorporate resources in a
variety of formats, accessible virtually and physically.
5.3 Libraries build and enhance access to unique materials with rich,
accessible, digital collections.
5.4 Libraries have the IT infrastructure to collect, organize, provide
access to, disseminate, and preserve collections needed by users.
Which you can see is very vague, and emphasizes access rather than
holdings.
Personally, I think ongoing collection assessment is very important,
whether it shows holdings or access, and working with faculty on
accreditation assessments is one of the best ways to promote the
library. Also, it is a great way to remind faculty and administration
that want to start new academic programs, new degrees, etc, that they
need to include library resources and financial commitment for those
resources in the costs of the new programs.
Patricia
Patricia Pettijohn
Head, Collection Development & Technical Services
Nelson Poynter Memorial Library
University of South Florida St. Petersburg
140 7th Ave. South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
727-873-4407
ppettijohn_at_nelson.usf.edu
From: acqnet-l-bounces_at_lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:acqnet-l-bounces_at_lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of
acqnet-l_at_lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Thursday, May 05, 2011 5:31 PM
To: acqnet-l_at_lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [ACQNET-L] Library subscriptions and accreditation
We've been working on selling our campus on the idea of access vs.
ownership as a way of reframing discussions about what we subscribe to.
In particular, we've promoted this as a way to contain costs. We've had
a lot of constructive comments and pretty good buy-in so far, but one
question has me a bit stumped. Some programs will mention that their
accreditation process includes a list of core journals that they need to
subscribe to. Since we can get any article faculty or students need,
I'm not sure why a subscription is so important. In other words, the
idea that a library needs to have certain journals seems to date from an
earlier era. Do any of you have experience in communicating with
accrediting bodies about this requirement? Any other experiences that
might be relevant?
Hopefully I've provided enough context for my question, but if you have
any questions for me, please let me know.
Thanks,
Jeff Purdue
Collection Development Librarian
Western Washington University
516 High Street
Bellingham, WA 98225-9103
Jeff.Purdue_at_wwu.edu
(360) 650-7750
(360) 650-3954 (fax)
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Received on Sun May 22 2011 - 19:51:00 EDT