The Changing Environment at The Claremont Colleges

1. Enrollment growth
2. New academic programs and changes in curricular emphasis
3. Changes in delivery of instruction
4. Collaboration within CUC and with The Colleges
5. Cost containment
6. High expectations
7. Student body changes

The Environment Beyond The Colleges

1. Technology issues
2. Collaboration and partnerships
3. Cost containment
4. Publishing

1. Enhance the academic experience of students...
2. Improve faculty understanding of how the Libraries and librarians can enhance student learning...
3. Integrate library information resources and services...
4. Strengthen our digital library presence...
5. Extend bibliographic control ... in the online catalog.
6. Preserve the Libraries collections...
7. Ensure that the Library Buildings are comfortable, inviting places...
8. Formalize the College Archive function of the Libraries.
9. Manage and maintain resources...

1. Staffing
2. Collections
3. Digitization
4. Access to collections
5. Preservation
6. Facilities and equipment planning
7. The Colleges' archives

The Libraries are the major academic support institution for The Colleges. More than providers of information in a broad spectrum of traditional and electronic formats, we are partners with The Colleges in learning, teaching, and research. Our key role in this partnership is to guide our users in acquiring, analyzing, and using information for a variety of purposes. As a result, we must anticipate and actively respond to the changing environment for these colleges, CUC, and higher education in general. Our actions are influenced by a number of factors; several of these are listed below.

The Changing Environment at The Claremont Colleges

1. Enrollment growth

   As the number of students enrolled at The Colleges increases, there is a corresponding increase in the numbers of students and faculty who require library services. Examples of the impact of this growth in enrollments are more students to instruct in the use of library and information resources, more courses to support with reserve and other materials, an increasing number of informational and reference questions to answer, and more students competing for library workstations, study space, and collaborative workspace.

2. New academic programs and changes in curricular emphasis

   The Libraries recognize the strategic importance of coordinating our planning with the growth, change, and new directions that take place at The Colleges. When new academic programs are being planned at The Colleges, it is imperative that there be a corresponding recognition of their impact on the Libraries. For example, the addition of the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences, with its campus currently located on a site away from the other colleges, has placed additional demands on Libraries collections and services. There are new academic emphases to support at the graduate level with journals and other resources along with a new set of faculty and students located at a site distant from the campuses. At the same time, KGI with its financial commitment to library collections and staff positions provides an opportunity to increase the totality of information resources available to The Colleges as a whole.

3. Changes in delivery of instruction

   Technology is changing how faculty members think about teaching and learning as well as how and where instruction is delivered. It has also created greater opportunities for collaboration between faculty and the Libraries. Interactive learning modules such as WebCT can integrate with current library programs and services such as electronic reserves and electronic reference. In addition, distance learning programs introduce new challenges for the Libraries in providing services to students and faculty who are seldom, if ever, on the Claremont campuses.

   New demands are placed upon library resources by programs that take place either outside the traditional academic year or in partnership with other institutions. An example of the former is that we see increasing numbers of students on campus during the summer when we offer minimal services. However, perhaps most challenging are programs developed by one or more of the Colleges in cooperation with or for other institutions or agencies. These can result in demands for library services without involvement of the Libraries in planning for this and with no clear understanding by the College of the potential impact on library programs and services.

4. Collaboration within CUC and with The Colleges

   We need to be continually aware of opportunities to collaborate with other units in CUC as well as at The Colleges. At CUC, for example, cooperation between the Libraries and CUC Office of Information Services or between the Libraries and Huntley Bookstore may benefit each unit. With Financial Services, we are exploring ways to reduce duplication of effort in paying for library materials. We will also seek opportunities to partner with faculty and educational technologists to improve teaching at the Colleges; for example, our expertise would be valuable in organizing and providing access to the various digital and media resources faculty develop for teaching.

5. Cost containment

   One of the underlying principles of the Group Plan is using economies of scale as a means of leveraging the investment in consortia programs and services such as the Libraries. This has worked well and as a result, library resources and services are much expanded beyond what each of the colleges would be able to fund individually. However, we are experiencing increasing pressures for library services and staff to go to where our customers are. We will need to be aggressive in expanding our virtual delivery of library services and resources. At the same time, we have four buildings where we offer services and where our customers expect to find staff who can assist them. Having four physical locations requires funding for the costs of the buildings and for the staff who are available to provide services.

6. High expectations

   The expectation driving library services at this point is that we should be able to deliver any and all services to a student or faculty member no matter where s/he is located. While we are making progress, we still have a long way to go before this is a reality. Similarly, we are not always successful in promoting a clear understanding of the nature and mission of the Libraries. Many faculty members, particularly ones who have been in Claremont for several years, believe that the Libraries should provide resources at the depth and breadth found in research libraries. However, neither our staff resources nor our collections, especially the journals subscription list, have historically supported this contention.

7. Student body changes

   As the student body becomes more diverse, so do our primary customers as well as an important pool of workers—students who work for us. Sensitivity to cultural and ethnic differences among our staff is necessary. We must also be understanding of differing learning styles, varying levels of computer and information literacy, and wide-ranging expectations for and uses of library facilities.

The Environment Beyond The Colleges

1. Technology issues

   Technologies used for delivery of information and library services are changing more quickly than any of us could have imagined only three or four years ago. Choices have to be made even when all the necessary information may not be at hand; to do otherwise is to be left behind and become irrelevant. Most important, however, is developing not only an understanding of technology but also an understanding of what differentiates the Libraries from any other electronic services provider. Not only will a more technologically capable staff be essential, but staff will also need to be cognizant of a wide range of legal and other issues related to the use and provision of technology and resources.

2. Collaboration and partnerships

   Libraries are increasingly using partnerships to enhance and expand the resources and services they offer. Collaboration occurs from the local to the national level and crosses all types of libraries. Consortia such as SCELC for licensing electronic resources, Link+ for the delivery of needed books to our users, and organizations for management of potential digital library projects are just a few examples.

3. Cost containment

   There is no reason to expect a slowdown in the rate of price increases for library materials, especially journals and electronic services. Careful analyses will be necessary to make reasonable choices in electronic materials. This will be complicated by the necessity to consider legal issues of licensing and by the fact that we may, in fact, have already paid for the information in another form. The electronic environment also raises issues of preservation in new formats, technical support, equipment, network fees, fees for future access, and related costs not usually associated with the more traditional aspects of library services and collections.

4. Publishing

   It will be several years before there is stability in the publishing arena. A disturbing trend is the takeover of smaller publishers by others with which the library world has had, at best, an uneasy relationship. Perhaps more troubling is that many of these same publishers are becoming not only the "source" of information, but the "owner" of much of that information as well. As a result, the number of choices for obtaining information may diminish significantly, leading to even greater price increases for access to information. Complicating matters further are the attacks on "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976 and assertions that electronic publishing is fundamentally different than publishing in paper. At the very least, the selection of information resources, especially in the electronic arena, is becoming more complex. It is necessary both to compare content and price of available databases and to understand and negotiate complicated license agreements that may contain clauses for which ensuring compliance is very difficult.

Library programs and services have been traditionally divided into those that users see and those that are behind the scenes. In the former category are such activities as circulating books, providing reserve materials, answering reference and directional questions, teaching about research methods and sources as well as how to use library resources and services, and providing materials through interlibrary loan or document delivery. In the latter category are activities such as ordering materials; organizing, cataloging, and preparing those materials for use; preserving collections; and providing and maintaining the technological infrastructure. Activities in both categories are directed toward fulfilling the mission of the Libraries.

We are fully cognizant of the many challenges we face as we continue to strive for full integration of the Libraries into the learning, teaching and research process at The Colleges. These challenges include the following:

Technology and our community

In today's technology-driven world, with our students and faculty becoming more computer savvy, we must respond to their needs on a number of levels. On one level, there are increasing pressures to provide means for our users to become more self-sufficient by requesting materials from other information providers, managing their library accounts, accessing full text library materials, etc. We have made substantial progress in establishing a digital library. Already in place are a robust integrated library system, a continually evolving web presence for our users and for staff, electronic reserves for our students, and considerable monographic and journal resources in electronic form. In addition, we have begun to experiment with digitizing some of our special collections and offering online reference services. To meet the increasing demands of the digital library environment and to provide efficient services, information systems that are more sophisticated than our current ones will be necessary.

On another level, differing expectations from computer literate constituencies result in greater challenges in instruction. Being computer literate is very different than being information literate--knowing and understanding how to access information, analyze it for credibility and reliability, and use it effectively. Our challenges include convincing web searchers that finding information in a research database may require new and different search techniques as well as guiding students to select the most appropriate among the many available resources even when that means choosing paper over electronic. A key to meeting these challenges will be our ability to improve faculty understanding of how the Libraries fit into the instructional process, specifically how collaboration can occur at different levels and how it can enhance learning.

Multiplicity of formats

Information can be obtained in an increasing number of traditional and innovative formats. The amount of information available in electronic form alone is staggering and includes important scholarly Web sites that are being developed on The Colleges' campuses. A growing number of faculty are requesting audio and video resources to support their teaching. At the same time, print publishing has not diminished, and paper will continue to be the medium for disseminating certain types of information in the foreseeable future.

In The Colleges community there is a natural tension between those who believe that we should focus on traditional resources and those who believe that unless we move more aggressively into the electronic arena, opportunities will be lost forever. Although generalizations are becoming less valid with the passage of time, this tension is evident to some extent in the differences in perceptions between long-term faculty and newer appointments and between those faculty members in the humanities and those in the sciences.

Digital library initiatives

We have begun to consider how we can contribute to digital library initiatives throughout the state and the nation. One local project, the San Gabriel Mission Matrimonial Investigations, has been completed; and another, the Wheeler Scrapbooks, is substantially done. These projects serve at least two purposes. First, they broaden access to these important collections through their presence on our Web server. Second, they play an important role in preserving these heavily used collections by providing web access to these documents while limiting their actual handling. Because standards have not yet been agreed upon for archival quality digital images, this arena will change rapidly in the next few years.

To ensure universal and continued access to multi-media and image collections, we must become more involved in the organization of materials developed on our campuses for use in course-related applications. One possible model for this is the Merlot project. (http://www.merlot.org) Full participation in these projects requires sufficient staff with technical expertise in emerging technologies and the use of descriptive metadata. In addition, we must take the lead in obtaining commitment from the colleges for collaborative projects to make "home grown" digital collections useful across the campuses. Development of "A Claremont Digital Library" integrated with gateways to other similar sources of information is an exciting prospect. Successful projects will increase the likelihood that students and faculty are able to find out what exists in Claremont (thus reducing duplicative effort and expense) and that they are able to make ready use of identified objects or materials.

Necessary and continuing reliance on paper collections and archives

Even though newer technology has become integral to library services and resources, we must remember the importance of our traditional collections. We must also acknowledge and promote the necessary and continuing reliance on our traditional paper collections and archives. Books, whether found in our local collections or delivered to our users from the collections of our partner libraries, remain valued resources for our students and faculty. Just as valuable are our paper journal collections. In order for our traditional collections to be thoroughly accessible, we need to continue to work on projects designed to ensure adequate control over them.

Other paper collections of special importance are the archives of The Colleges. These are the official stories of their founding, roles in educating their students, and contributions to the scholarly community. Technology has a potential role to play in an archives program for the Colleges, but more important for the immediate future is agreement on the nature and extent of archives programs for the institutions, individually and collectively.

Service to our community

Overarching all our programs and services is the question we continually ask ourselves, "How well do we meet the needs of our users?" From past reviews and comparisons with similar institutions, we know that there are at least three areas in which improvements are necessary.

The first area requires focus on two facets of our collections and their support of academic programs: 1) Because we are not actively involved in academic program planning at any stage at any of The Colleges, new programs and emphases are developed or existing ones are discontinued and changes in faculty occur with little thought about necessary library resources and support, and 2) Our journal subscription lists are small compared with other libraries that support graduate programs.

The second area involves collaborating with faculty on enhancing learning; small inroads are being made here. We now reach the majority of first year students and regularly teach a number of instructional sessions for upper level courses.

The third area focuses on how well we meet the students' needs for space for study, research, collaboration, and reflection. We need a better understanding of how each of our buildings is used with an eye toward hours and staffing appropriate to needs and expectations.

These are listed in priority order. Some are interrelated, for example instruction and academic program planning as well as digitization programs and preservation.

GOAL 1. Enhance the academic experience of students by working to incorporate library services and resources into their everyday lives.

Subgoals:

1. Enhance outreach programs to ensure that students are aware of services and programs.
2. Identify programs and services that are especially important to students and expand upon these as appropriate and feasible.
3. Continue to develop an understanding of the differing needs of graduate and undergraduate students and explore ways to meet each effectively.

GOAL 2. Improve faculty understanding of how the Libraries and librarians can enhance student learning throughout the curriculum.

Subgoals:

1. Develop an information/research literacy curriculum for library instruction with standards and objectives for each level, first-year undergraduates through graduate students, and collaborate with faculty to integrate these standards and objectives into classroom instruction.
2. With faculty, explore ways of integrating point-of-need research assistance into classes; e.g., having librarians participate in class discussion lists (WebCT, etc.).
3. Collaborate with selected faculty to develop individual courses and other projects, which can serve as models.
4. Identify and use more effective ways to inform faculty of Libraries' services that can enhance student learning.

GOAL 3. Integrate library information resources and services with academic program planning at each of The Colleges.

Subgoals:

1. Through work with the Deans of Faculty, link library staff with appropriate curriculum or academic planning groups in each College.
2. Develop and build on faculty relationships with individual faculty and through the field groups or other appropriate cross-College groups.
3. Expand library staff awareness of proposed, newly implemented or discontinued academic programs.
4. Pursue knowledge of resources that could support proposed or planned programs.
5. Monitor materials budget structure to ensure its responsiveness to the curriculum and curriculum changes.

GOAL 4. Strengthen our digital library presence by digitizing appropriate libraries materials and exercising leadership across the campuses to bring together disparate resources for effective access.

Subgoals:

1. Develop a viable digitization plan for library collections that enhances access to content and/or preserves the physical object.
2. Identify library collections that can make a significant contribution to scholarship if more widely available.
3. Develop expertise in managing digital library collections and infrastructure.
4. Provide active leadership in identifying and organizing digital library collections on the campuses, e.g., image collections, statistical data sets, streaming video, etc.
5. Identify and participate in cooperative or shared digitization initiatives, e.g., the Online Archive of California.
6. Procure grant funding when appropriate for digital projects.

GOAL 5. Extend bibliographic control to those titles in the Libraries' collections that lack records in the online catalog.

Subgoals:

1. Identify and prioritize the titles and collections that require cataloging or retrospective cataloging.
2. Develop strategies for implementing the projects: estimate costs, identify staffing needs, and identify other necessary resources.
3. Identify sources of support.
4. Develop a project schedule and implement as funds are available.

GOAL 6. Preserve the Libraries collections for current and future library users.

Subgoals:

1. Gather information on current preservation practice and policy, including applicability of new technologies.
2. Finalize the preservation plan, including identifying staff and other resources needed.
3. Identify sources of support, including supplemental funding.
4. Prioritize elements of the plan and implement as funds are available.

GOAL 7. Ensure that the library buildings are comfortable, inviting places for students, faculty, and staff and that they provide accessible accommodations for our collections and services.

Subgoals:

1. Review current uses of each building with an eye toward unique characteristics or uses.
2. Develop a comprehensive facilities plan taking into consideration user-specified needs as well as needs for appropriate spaces for services and staff.
3. Review furnishings and equipment in each building for appropriateness and functionality and develop necessary life cycle and replacement plans.
4. Plan for contingencies based on shelving capacity being reached within four years.

GOAL 8. Formalize the College Archive function of the Libraries.

Subgoals:

1. Develop a position paper on the appropriate role for the Libraries in organizing and maintaining college archives, including statements on current policies and practices followed for each of the colleges.
2. Working with staff at each of the colleges, develop an appropriate archives plan for each college.
3. Obtain agreement from each college, including expectations and level of support and commitment from the college.
4. Revise plans for each college consistent with support and expectations.
5. Work with staff from each college, prioritize elements of each college's plan and implement each plan as funds are available.

GOAL 9. Manage and maintain resources in a manner that enhances the ability of the Libraries to fulfill its mission.

Subgoals:

1. Continue to develop a service oriented and technologically proficient staff.
2. Ensure that we have the right number of staff with critical skill sets in areas of strategic importance; identify any gaps and recruit and/or develop staff to fill these gaps.
3. Align fiscal resources with strategic objectives.
4. Provide management structures and tools that facilitate decision-making and encourage communication.
5. Sustain and expand as appropriate the software, hardware, security, and network infrastructure that serves as the backbone for the Libraries' provision of technology-related and -dependent services.

The capital campaign for the Libraries has allowed us to make significant progress toward several goals over the past six years. Our networking infrastructure, classrooms, and multimedia room resources are in good shape; the Honnold building was recently renovated; and grant funds (from the Ahmanson, W. M. Keck, and Weingart Foundations) have supplemented our staffing, the materials budget, and support for specific programs such as instruction. As we will expend the last of the major grant funds by the end of 2002, it is essential that we build upon our successes by finding ways to fund those programs considered key to continuing excellent services and resources.

For all goals, except Goal 8, some funding is currently being provided by The Colleges. Goal 8 (Formalize the College Archive function of the Libraries) has not been funded by either external funds or by The Colleges. For all nine goals, careful consideration must be given to the possible opportunities for fundraising both within CUC and more broadly for The Colleges collectively.

For all goals, except Goal 8, the most important support will be continued agreement and ongoing commitment from The Colleges. For Goal 8, this support must be established. Beyond that, each of these will have specific resource needs as enumerated below.

1. Staffing

   From a general standpoint, the adequacy of staff resources to address services to students (Goal 1), partner with faculty on instructional programs (Goal 2), and develop collections targeted to the curriculum (Goal 3) can be assessed based on staffing levels in comparable institutions. The Libraries' level of staffing, when viewed in terms of the numbers of students served, is below that of our peer institutions. A reasonable objective is to improve the ratio of students to librarians from 237 to 1 to no more than 180 to 1. This would allow the addition of subject specialists in targeted disciplines. The Libraries' subject specialists, working in collaboration with faculty, are the key to effective research assistance, instructional programs, and successful collection development. At the same time, we will need to maintain the ratio of supporting staff, including part-time temporary staff, to librarians at no less than 3 to 1.

   Aside from the adequacy in numbers of staff, there are two other critical issues in developing staff resources (Goal 9). One is compensation; the other is funding for professional development. Any review of staff resources must also assess compensation to ensure equity, fairness, and competitiveness in the marketplace. Continued progress is needed in the next three years to ensure that additional gains are made in providing compensation at appropriate levels in the CUC salary grades and that the progress of the past six years is not lost. Of particular concern also are the wage scales for part-time temporary employees where budget increases have not kept pace with increases in the minimum wage. Developing and maintaining the library staff's technological knowledge and skills as well as currency in such critical areas as legal issues affecting libraries and assessing library resources and services is essential to continued improvement in delivering library services. Human resources literature suggests that funds comprising no less than 2% of our salary budget should be devoted to staff development; additional funds are needed to meet this target.

2. Collections

   Recent increases to the materials budget have not been adequate to cover inflation, and this pattern will significantly impair our ability to provide adequate materials for our users. In particular, to maintain our current periodical and database subscriptions without affecting our ability to purchase books and other materials will require additional increases to the materials budget. In addition to inflationary increases, supplements will be required to support new and growing programs as well as respond to requests for materials in a variety of formats. (Goal 3) The additional monies needed will continue to be determined by analyses completed by subject specialists in collaboration with faculty.

3. The digital library

   Ongoing funds for staffing, equipment, and outsourcing are needed in order to continue progress in special collections projects and to begin other digital initiatives. (Goal 4) In particular, to prepare ourselves to take a leadership role in organizing digital collections across the campuses, we must better understand the collections on each campus, determine the requirements for effective access and use of these collections by The Colleges, and identify sources of funding.

4. Access to collections

   The Libraries will need to continue to seek the ongoing funding required to carry out the essential work of expanding access to our collections through bibliographic control and the organization of the collections that have yet to be represented in our online catalog. (Goal 5)

5. Preservation

   Weingart funds in support of Goal 6 will be depleted by December 2002. As we proceed with working through the preservation priorities established by our planning group, we must identify additional resources to ensure continued progress toward this goal. (Goal 6)

6. Facilities and equipment planning

   The necessity of providing services in and maintaining four library buildings affects to some extent the economies of scale possible. Goal 7 will require careful analysis of use patterns and development of plans that have the support of each college community; of particular note is the work needed to establish a timetable and plan for any changes at Sprague Library. An additional resource consideration is the fact that although the renovation of Honnold has resulted in a much-improved building, renovation funds did not include furnishings. Much of the furniture in Honnold, and in the other library buildings, is outmoded and inconsistent with current uses. Changes in technology will necessitate the upgrade and replacement of computing equipment, software, and infrastructure (Goal 9). Equally important is the necessity for continued planning for collections space. At the current rate of growth, shelving space is rapidly becoming inadequate. A coordinated plan will need to consider the impact of electronic resources and how they affect space needs.

7. The Colleges' archives

   Resources for Goal 8 are a separate category, as the Libraries are not currently funded to support archives programs at The Colleges. When plans are developed, it will be necessary for each College to determine the level of support necessary for archives services they desire. An alternative and more desirable outcome is a new cooperative venture that recognizes the importance of archives at all eight institutions and defines an agreed-upon role and funding for the Libraries.