ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 1064 / C&RL News Long-distance library service for a graduate school By Andy Corrigan Public Services Librarian, College o f G raduate Studies University o f W est Virginia Many graduate students receive services and materials by phone and mail. W est Virginia has a long history o f econom ic trouble. E ven recen t tim es have b een m arked by chronic high unem ploym ent. St w rap around many com m unities like th e C hinese wall, keeping hard tim es at hom e and prosperity out. T hese com m unities n eed education, including graduate program s for th e continuing education o f th e ir teachers, counselors, and business m anagers. F o r 17 years th e University o f W est Virginia College o f G raduate Studies (COGS) has b een chipping away at this problem , bringing innovative graduate program s to students working and living in com m unities throughout th e southern and c e n ­ tral regions o f th e state. Library services for many o f these graduate stu ­ dents are provided from a distance. Thus, th e COGS library, known as Inform ation Services, has evolved into an operation radically d ifferent from traditional libraries serving graduate program s. In short, Inform ation Services delivers. Students and faculty at a distance can mail or call in requests for bibliographic searches and books, journal articles, or docum ents. T he requests are quickly processed at th e library and th e req u ested m aterial is sent back through th e mail. W hile these services involve assistance from new library te c h ­ nologies, Inform ation Services relies most heavily ee on th e telep h o n e and th e good old U nited States Postal Service. p hills The college Today, th e University o f W est Virginia College o f G raduate Studies offers m aster’s degree p ro ­ grams in education, behavioral science, business adm inistration, hum anities, and engineering. E n ­ rolled are 3,000 students from 46 o f th e state’s 55 counties. T h e largest percentage o f th ese students, 76%, are enrolled in education courses. M any are already teachers. T he m edian age for CO GS students is 36. M ost o f th em work full-tim e and are enrolled in th e college part-tim e. Tw o-thirds o f th e total enroll­ m e n t are stu d e n ts living o u tsid e o f K anaw ha County, w here CO GS is based on th e cam pus o f W est Virginia State College (WVSC) in Institute. T he COGS/W VSC cam pus is n ear th e c e n te r o f th e state, located nine miles w est o f C harleston, th e state capital. E ach sem ester, about 150 CO GS courses are offered at th e In stitu te cam pus. T he college offers nearly as m any courses out o f branch offices and m ore th an 20 course sites at strategic locations around th e state. T hese locations include Beckley December 1990 / 1065 College campus in Beckley, the Concord College campus in Athens, the Bluefield State College campus in Bluefield, the Glenville State College Nicholas County C enter in Summersville, and the School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg. In recent years COGS has cooperated with other West Virginia colleges and universities to offer graduate-level teleconference courses over an educational satellite network. Also, about 120 stu­ dents are enrolled in a cooperative doctoral educa­ tion program offered jointly by COGS and W est Virginia University. Information services At COGS, non-traditional free library services for students and faculty at a distance include: • phone-in reference service via a toll-free num ber and PC access to the library’s online cata- log; • liberal distribution o f specialized com puter­ generated bibliographies (at least one available to each student p er course p er semester); • delivery by mail o f books and copies of journal articles or docum ents owned by the library and “automatic” access to interlibrary loan for items not owned; • an electronic bulletin board over which stu­ dents can retrieve library information; • reserve collections at 15 regular sites. Alterna­ tive sites can be arranged, too. Information Services helps provide traditional library services at the Drain-Jordan library on the Institute campus. The library is operated jointly and shared by COGS and WVSC, which are sepa­ rate institutions. The Drain-Jordan library houses the com bined collections o f COGS and WVSC, which include 230,000 book volumes and 2,000 journal titles. A VTLS online catalog, 14 microfilm printers, and three paper copiers help visitors to quickly find, check out or make copies o f items for educational use. The reference area offers access to nine biblio­ graphic or informational databases at four C D - ROM workstations. The C D databases include ERIC, PsycLit, Sociofìle, ABI-Inform, MLA, Agri­ cola, Dissertation Abstracts, County and City D ata Book, and U.S. Census data. Students visiting the library often live hours away and drive through many miles o f steep, twisting hollows to get there. Librarians work to make these visits as productive as possible, recognizing that returning to the library the next day is not an option for many students. The two colleges have separate staffs serving the library. Inform ation Services (COGS) librarians share general reference duties with their WVSC colleagues in addition to providing specialized services for graduate students at the library and at a distance. T he WVSC librarians often provide general help to COGS students in the library and, ideally, refer them to Information Services librari­ ans for searches or help in obtaining materials from outside sources. The COGS students using long-distance library services can accomplish most o f their research without actually traveling to the library. Still, Infor­ mation Services encourages its students who can to make the trip at least a few times, if only for the hands-on experience. Information Services collects material to sup­ port CO GS’s graduate programs. The WVSC li­ brary collects to support its college’s undergradu­ ate programs. The two library organizations within the same building have different missions and provide different levels o f service for their students and faculty. The combination is cost-effective and provides the library with more material and staff than each organization could provide alone. The Information Services staff at the Drain- Jordan library includes two professional librarians. They are assisted by five full-time technical staff, and three part-tim e docum ent delivery assistants. One other librarian and two part-tim e secretaries staff a small Information Services office at the college’s busiest extended campus site in Beckley. There, students 70 miles from the main library can m eet face to face with a librarian to discuss their research, use a small collection, and have their requests for books and articles quickly transm itted by fax to Institute. Students learn about the college’s specialized library services from th eir instructors or from bibliographic instruction provided by COGS li­ brarians. The librarians sometimes travel to distant sites to teach instruction sessions. Inform ational handouts, often com bined in packets, are widely distributed to students. H and­ outs include a general troubleshooter’s guide to using th e library at a distance; lists of library serv­ ices and cooperating libraries; directions for dialing into the online catalog or electronic bulletin board; and more than a dozen updated guides for choosing research materials in specific subject areas. Access to knowledge To provide students, regardless of their proxim­ ity to the library, with knowledge o f the range of material available on their research topics, each is offered “one free” bibliographic com puter search p er course p e r semester. The offer o f one is flexible. No formal system exists for charging students for more than one search. The idea has been to dis­ courage misuse o f the service, which so far has not been a problem. Searches result in a printout listing citations and abstracts for material relating to a student’s topic. Librarians produce the printouts searching the 1066 / C&RL News online catalog, C D -R O M databases in th e library, or any o f th e h u n d red s o f databases available through Dialog or BRS. Students can req u est searches over th e phone or by filling out and mailing in an “InfoSearch” re ­ quest form. These forms are available from the library and at course sites. T he printouts are g en er­ ally m ailed back to th e students w ithin 24 hours. D uring FY1989-90, th e two COGS librarians at Institute filled 456 search requests. Because some topics req u ired inform ation from m ore than one database, th e requests actually req u ired 610 sepa­ rate searches. N um bers o f annual search requests over th e ten- year period since 1980 ranged from a low o f 210 in 1981-82 to a high o f 721 in 1986-87. T he annual average was 427. Public access to C D -R O M d ata­ bases, particularly E R IC and PsycLit, has red u ced th e n u m b e r o f searches req u ested by students living n ear or traveling to th e library in Institute. Students use th e toll-free phone n u m b e r to contact COGS librarians to discuss searches, re ­ search problem s or for answers to ready reference questions. O n occasion, students living n ear one o f several academ ic libraries in central and southern W est Virginia are referred to item s identified in collections n ear them . These libraries have agree­ m ents w ith Inform ation Services to allow access to CO GS students. T heir holdings can be searched from Institute by dialing into a statewide VTLS network. We deliver T he Inform ation Services docum ent delivery staff mails m aterial from th e library directly to students and instructors living m ore th an 20 miles from Institute. T he heavy volum e o f requests d u r­ ing peak periods makes th e job difficult. It is not uncom m on to see o th e r staff m em bers, including librarians, chipping in to “get th e mail o u t.” Library users at a distance fill out req u est forms for th e item s they need, having obtained th e ir bibliographic inform ation from a co m p u ter search, an instructor’s reading list, or from previous re ­ search. They mail th e req u est forms to th e Institute w here docum ent delivery workers find th e items, package them , and mail th em to th e u ser’s hom e or work address. W hen a book is requested, th e entire book is m ailed and a retu rn label is enclosed in th e parcel. W hen the request is for a journal article or E R IC docum ent, a p ap er copy is m ade and mailed. Students are allowed to request up to 25 item s p e r class p er sem ester. T he limit is waived for students preparing a m aster’s thesis or a dissertation. T he docum ent delivery staff includes one full­ tim e and two to th ree part-tim e workers. T hey can find, process, and mail m ore than 200 requests a day during m id-sem ester periods. T hese busy workers processed 12,619 requests for item s during FY1989-90. Since 1980 th e an­ nual total for docum ents delivered has ranged from a previous high o f 11,749 in 1986-87 to a low o f 7,300 in 1983-84. T he annual average during th e 1980s was 9,359. D uring th e second half o f th e decade th e num bers increased about 25% over th e average for th e first 5 years. This was probably due to im proved access to bibliographic inform ation. T he im provem ents included th e provision o f C D - databases at th e D rain-Jordan library and o f an E R IC w orkstation th at has b een m oved around to several distant course sites. E ach item req u est form has a line on which students w rite th e last date they could receive the item and still use it. Item s not available at the D rain -Jo rd an library are autom atically sought through interlibrary loan or docum ent suppliers if enough tim e is available. O n each bibliographic printout, a librarian underlines in re d item s ow ned by th e library. T he docum ent delivery staff can usually send out a req u ested article or book avail­ able at th e library w ithin 24 hours o f receiving its request. T h eir goal is next-day service. Library users are cautioned th a t obtaining m aterial not ow ned by th e library from o th e r sources can take te n days to two weeks. Recognizing th a t graduate research dem ands access to m aterial beyond th a t w hich CO GS and WVSC have collected, Inform ation Services b o r­ rows heavily from o th e r libraries using th e O C LC interlibrary loan subsystem. Its IL L technician routinely processes 300 or m ore O C L C transac­ tions a m onth during m idsem ester periods. Two- thirds o f these transactions are borrow ing requests sent to o th e r libraries. To reduce reliance on inter- library loan and com ply w ith copyright limitations, articles from journals not ow ned are routinely purchased w hen available from com m ercial docu­ m en t suppliers. O th er library organizations are offering docu­ m en t delivery, too. C entral Michigan University’s O ff-Cam pus Library Services also mails library m aterial to stu d en ts.1 Fax networks have b een set up by m any libraries to reach students o r patrons in rural areas. N otable am ong these is an ambitious academ ic program initiated by E astern O regon State College and state library projects in M ontana and W ashington state.2 1Virginia W itucke, “O ff-cam pus Library Serv­ ices: L ea d in g th e W ay,” College & Research Libraries N ew s 51 (M arch 1990): 252-256. 2Patricia J. C utright and T erry Edvalson, Online Reference a n d D ocum ent Delivery Service Library N etw ork (W ashington, D.C.: Am erican Association o f State Colleges and Universities, 1988), available as E D 306926; M ary M oore, “F ax,” A m erican Libraries 19 (January 1988): 57-64. December 1 9 9 0 / 1067 Somehow at CO GS, however, long-distance delivery o f library services seems less technical and more d ep en d en t on a small cast o f dedicated char­ acters. Providing library materials to students at a distance was a challenge posed to th e library w hen COGS was ju st getting started. Inform ation Serv­ ices was built on tight budgets over many years by Dr. Sue Forrest. It was built around th e college’s mission o f distance education. It is difficult to separate the exact costs for Inform ation Services’s distance com ponents. An­ nual postage fees, salaries for th e docum ent deliv­ ery staff and expenses for photocopies and enve­ lopes roughly total around $30,000— about 12% o f an overall budget o f $359,359. N ot included in the percentage are expenses for bibliographic searches and interlibrary loans incurred for distance stu­ dents. These expenses are not separated from those for local students. T he percentage o f tim e spent by librarians m anaging docum ent delivery or by other staff chipping in to help on busy days could also be factored in, if th e inform ation w ere easier to calcu­ late. It is clear, however, th a t docum ent delivery requires a substantial portion o f a relatively small budget. D esp ite its b u d g e t lim itations, In fo rm atio n Services does not charge students fees for docu­ m ent delivery. In fact, it does not directly charge students for any o f its services. P art o f th e reason is that staff tim e is not available to handle th e ac­ counting which fees would require. A nother p art is the reasonable philosophy th at in W est Virginia distance can be prohibitive enough to learning, w ithout tacking on service charges above th e cost o f tuition and regular fees. Conclusion Inform ation Services could not serve th e college it supports w ithout its delivery com ponent, and periodic surveys have shown th at its long-distance users appreciate very m uch th e service and the efforts o f those involved. Professionally, th e library offers a satisfying sense th at its staff is bringing valuable inform ation to im portant people in areas w here such inform ation had not been accessible. T he college has fax machines at six sites includ­ ing Inform ation Services at Institute. T he library’s use o f fax technology is lim ited to speeding requests for m aterial to th e main library w hen possible. Many students still m ust travel considerable dis­ tances over difficult terrain to reach these fax sites, or o th er locations w here fax machines are available. G etting to class can be difficult enough. While at least one day slower than fax transmission, the postal service has proven itself reliable and egalitar­ ian. Few COGS students are likely to own a fax machine, b u t each one owns a mailing address. T he librarians at Inform ation Services are study­ ing ways to continue to improve distance access to th e library, and to m eet a dem and for increasing num bers o f materials. Plans include expanding the inform ation available through dial-up access to the library, providing library instruction by teleconfer­ ence and building on cooperative efforts with other W est Virginia libraries and schools. ■ ■ Improved academic libraries statistics Forty-three librarians, 33 state higher education administrators, and eight federal officials m et in Chicago on O ctober 18 and 19 to work out details of a plan to im prove th e quality and tim eliness o f national academ ic library statistics. Key com po­ nents o f this plan are cooperation betw een state higher education adm inistrators and librarians and use o f a new software package. O rganized by an Advisory C om m ittee o f seven representatives from ACRL and th e Association o f Research Libraries, the m eeting was funded by th e National C e n te r for Education Statistics (NCES) through a coopera­ tive project with th e National Commission on Li­ braries and Inform ation Sciences (NCLIS). This was th e first national m eeting o f state IP E D S Coordinators and th e academ ic librarians o r state library staff who will work w ith th em to prom ote prom pt responses from libraries and to assist in resolving errors discovered w hen editing com ­ pleted questionnaires. T he m ost recen t national collection o f IP E D S data from academ ic libraries took place in th e fall o f 1988 and a summary report was published in Sep­ te m b e r 1990 by th e G overnm ent Printing Office. T he new plan will enable N CES to publish data collected in th e fall o f 1990 by August 1991— cutting in half th e tim e it took for publication o f the 1988 data. N C E S officials atten d in g th e m eeting w ere Samuel Peng, D irector o f th e Postsecondary E d u ­ cation Statistics Division, Larry LaM oure, C oordi­ nator o f th e Library Statistics Program and Art Podolsky also o f th e Library Statistics Program, Bill F reund, C hief o f th e Institutional Studies Branch, and Charles Length o f th e N C ES/State H igher E d u catio n Executive O fficers C om m unication Network. P e te r Young, Executive D irector o f N CLIS, acted as a facilitator. Mary Alice H edge Reszetar, Associate Executive D irector o f NCLIS, and John Lorenz, also o f NCLIS, coordinated arrangem ents. Also present w ere Mary Jo Lynch o f ALA’s Office for Research who is Project D irector and Mary Ellen Davis o f ACRL, Assistant D irector. ■ ■