Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2018 18:50:32 +0000
To: Steven Dunlap <sadunlap_at_stanford.edu>, Lisa Wallis <l-wallis_at_neiu.edu>, "colldv_at_lists.ala.org" <colldv_at_lists.ala.org>
We just had a (“10-year” accreditation) visit from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC; and BTW in 2012 it and the K-12 side dropped the overarching name North Central Association) which covers 19 states (probably part of the reason for not using “North Central” now). I was involved with our visits in 1997 and 2007 but this was the first time after implementation of separate visits by regional and special accreditors, the latter in our case being the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) whose team visited last October. Our president (or other administrator) said that ATS Standards are the longest at roughly 100 pages and the next-longest among special accreditors was in the field of law, with standards of about 40 some pages as recall. Although ATS has a whole section on the library in its Standards and HLC has none, both teams (neither happened to have a librarian) wanted one-on-one meetings with me as Library Director, and those went well though ours is a relatively small “working collection” and we have to be especially parsimonious re serials subscriptions though we do have considerable database access thereto (the 4 full-time Staff under me is for sure our top asset). Here’s a link to ATS & its Standards: https://www.ats.edu/accrediting/standards-and-notations. No titles are mentioned (unlike with the chemistry standards), and in a couple of years there will be a ten-year revision, the last being 2010-12. Rumor has it that the Standards may be shortened somewhat and definitely will address online education and online/residential hybrids to a much greater extent. BTW, both ATS & HLC teams were very cognizant of “both/and” versus “either/or”—such as both digital and print library resources, both online and residential students, etc. Jim James C. Pakala jim.pakala_at_covenantseminary.edu<mailto:jim.pakala_at_covenantseminary.edu> Library Director Phone: 314-434-4044 x4101; Fax 314-434-4819 Covenant Theological Seminary 12330 Conway Road; St. Louis, MO 63141-8697 From: colldv-request_at_lists.ala.org [mailto:colldv-request_at_lists.ala.org] On Behalf Of Steven Dunlap Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2018 12:20 PM To: Lisa Wallis; colldv_at_lists.ala.org Subject: RE: [ALCTS-colldv] Degree accreditation requirements Not directly addressing your question but this may prove of interest. I recall in my serials librarianship class some 30+ years ago the professor explained to us that Elsevier (and maybe others) found specific titles listed in accreditation requirements then targeted those titles for acquisition. We know what came next. I have not seen any evidence as to the reason for not listing specific titles but I do know from having to review WASC accreditation requirements in my previous job that specific titles no longer appear in those requirements (if they ever did). I suggest a possible reason for not listing specific titles anymore comes from this history. If anyone has served on any of the committees in an accreditation body or has any additional information in support of this hypothesis I would be interested to hear about it. [lane-logo-med] Steven Dunlap Associate Director for Resource Management Lane Medical Library & Knowledge Management Center Information Resources & Technology (IRT) Stanford University Medical Center 300 Pasteur Drive, L109, Stanford, CA 94305-5123 sadunlap_at_stanford.edu<mailto:sadunlap_at_stanford.edu> 650.721.4200 (phone) 650.725.7471 (fax) http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4438-3966<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Forcid.org%2F0000-0003-4438-3966&data=01%7C01%7Clinh.ngu%40mheducation.com%7Cae19807f4b994bcb055a08d556ba5971%7Cf919b1efc0c347358fca0928ec39d8d5%7C0&sdata=H3T6Hky6PNjB0dhgHNAlA7yUIRFB7VlBSyh4ytdS9%2Fk%3D&reserved=0> Does anyone know of a resource that gathers the various *degree* accreditation requirements that are specific to library resources? I'd like to know which accrediting bodies list titles to which a library must subscribe. One that I've found is the American Chemical Society's Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures for Bachelors Degree Programs which states: "An approved program must provide immediate institutional access to no fewer than 14 current and archival, peer-reviewed journals whose subject matter spans the chemical sciences. At least three of the journals must have a general focus (for example, Science, JACS, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Chemistry – A European Journal, Chemical Communications, etc.), and at least one must come from each area of analytical chemistry, biochemistry, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, physical chemistry, and chemistry education." Has anyone else come across language that is this specific?
