ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 5 0 6 / C&RL News ■ July/August 2002 College & Research Libraries news Computer manuals in the academic library collection Improving accessibility by Tim Klassen and Steve Bischof G etting help with com puter problem s, or learning h o w to use new com puter pro­ grams, is one of the major challenges fa both librarians and our users. One of the many interesting ironies of the Internet age is the grow th in print publishing of third-party soft­ w are manuals. Third-party published com ­ pu ter m anuals1 are a pop u lar w ay to get the help that those infam ously unhelpful m an u ­ als (w hich com e w ith m any software titles or, as is increasingly the case, d o n ’t come with software) often fail to provide. In a brief survey2 I conducted on the elec­ tronic list W eb4lib, m em bers w e re asked which m ethods they preferred for getting help with com puter questions. Supplied m anuals w e re th e p re fe rre d m eth o d , fo llo w ed by online help and third-party manuals, and fi­ nally, W eb-based online help. O n the other hand, w hen asked which re­ sources w ere most helpful, third-party com ­ puter manuals came in first by a w ide margin followed by built-in help, then manuals, and finally W eb-based online help. Ninety-five per­ cent of the respondents thought it was appro­ priate for libraries to buy these manuals, and the libraries of 79 percent of respondents did buy them. Interestingly enough, only 18 percent of respondents indicated that their libraries col­ lect the manuals that come with s o ftware. cin Clearly, third-party com puter m anuals do have a place in academ ic libraries and an ar­ g gum ent can also be m ade for supplied m anu­ als. However, for academ ic libraries and tra­ ditional collection developm ent policies, these types of m anuals can b e problem atic because they ten d to have a short half-life in terms of the value of the information, and they ten d to be a very attractive target for pilferage. Due to the theft issue and the timeliness of the information, these items have, in my experience, often b e e n p laced on reserv e seven-day loan or placed in the reference col­ lection. Both of these locations are problem ­ atic because: • A reserve location does not allow for browsing, w hich w ould seem to be especially im portant w ith these types of books. People using com puter m anuals ten d to be those looking for a solution to a kno w n problem or novices w ho are looking for an introduc­ tion to the program in question. • For the solution seeker, being able to brow se all the available m anuals on a given piece of software is probably m ore helpful than having to search the catalog and then ask for all the appropriate books (w hich can b e m ore trouble because of the limits that m any libraries place on the num ber of re ­ serves circulated). About the authors Tim Klassen was fo rm e rly science lib ra ria n a t Wesleyan University Library and is cu rre n tly science a n d he alth sciences reference librarian a t Southern Connecticut State University, e-mail: klasset@southernct.edu and Steve Bischof is science librarian a t Wesleyan University Library, e-mail: sbischof@wesleyan.edu mailto:klasset@southernct.edu mailto:sbischof@wesleyan.edu C&RL News ■ July/August 2002 / 507 • For the novice user w ho wants an intro­ duction, the same problem applies, how to find the book at the appropriate level with­ out browsing? • A reference location opens up the o p ­ portunity for browsing but restricts the use of the book too much. Computer books are best used with the com puter program, i.e., in a dorm room, com puter lab, or faculty office. W hen I came to Wesleyan as the science librarian, I discovered that com puter m anu­ als w ere handled in the same way here as they w ere at the library I had just left. I d e ­ cided that there had to be a better way. The c o lle c tio n Based on the assum ptions that third-party com puter manuals w ere indeed a valuable resource for our users and that the library should be providing access to them, w e de­ veloped the “Current Interest Collection” with the following guidelines: • All material w ould be available on seven- day loan with high reserve level fines to en­ courage the rapid recirculation of the material. • Manuals w ould be on public-accessible shelving, thus browsable. • We would try to inventory and evaluate sta­ tistics on the collection regularly to determine which areas to buy in and to regularly weed the collection so it wouldn’t grow out of control. • We w ould accept a certain level of pil­ ferage, if it occurred at all.3 • We w ould advertise extensively around the cam pus to draw in users, particularly in dorms and com puter labs. • We would solicit first-party software manu­ als for location in this collection from the university’s Academic Computing Services. For the most part, these would be manuals for soft­ ware that didn’t have much or anything avail­ able in the way of third-party manuals. Good examples w ould be scientific computing pack­ ages used in teaching and lab work. • Manuals of all types would be purchased, including highly theoretical manuals as well as visual manuals. In particular, w e w ould purchase all appropriate m anuals in the fol­ lowing series: O ’Reilly Nutshell books, Visual Quickstart Guides from Peachpit Press, and Easy m anuals from Que. (We did not buy “D u m m ies” or 7 ó/zoí” manuals, which was a personal aesthetic choice that is probably open to debate.) The scope of the collection was defined as supporting productivity and scientific soft­ w are used in the university, program ming software both for the Web and for com puter classes, and Web-style manuals. We w ere not supporting administrative computing. C irc u la tio n fig u re s The collection was established in 1998 and located near our new books shelf. It was briefly evaluated in the sum m er of 1999 with a m ore in-depth evaluation taking place in tire spring of 2001. As the results4 below show, the collection has b e e n a great success: • Average circulations w ere 6.57, with the m edian being 2. • Average circulation for books that cir­ culated was 10.64, with the m edian being 6. • 62 percent of books circulated. • For the year 2000, five of the libraries’ top ten most circulated books were from this col­ lection, for 1999 and 1998 the figure was four. For the collection from 1998 to 2000, the 406 books that w ere in the collection at some time during that period circulated a total of 2,671 times, with a total of 1,171 of those usages being renewals. N o. o f N o. o f c ir c u la tio n s b o o k s 0 155 1 50 2 23 3 20 4 19 5 19 6-9 42 10-20 49 21-30 17 31 or more 19 T otal 2 ,6 7 1 4 0 6 Note: Column total accounts f o r seven d u ­ plicate titles included in circulation count. Usage o f th e c o lle c tio n b y b o o k ty p e In order to determine w hat types of material to purchase for the collection, materials were di­ vided by type and statistics were generated for each type. The following table summarizes the results of this analysis with the categories listed in order of most popular to least popular: 508 / C&RL News ■ July/August 2002 C a te g o r y N o . N o . N o . N e v e r A v e r a g e N o . o f B o o k s o f C irc s C ir c u la te d o f C irc s G eneral Unix 8 142 0 17.7 Matlab 15 345 4 16.3 N etw orking Protocols, 10 l6 0 2 16 e .g , TCP/IP, Novell, etc. M athem atica 22 332 9 15.1 C++ 19 237 4 12.5 P hotoshop 13 139 4 10.7 HTML, e .g , HTML, XML, 20 189 2 9.5 DHTML, etc. Web Program m ing, e .g , 37 339 6 9.1 Perl, Java, etc. W eb Editors, e .g . 20 147 5 5.5 Frontpage, D ream w eaver, etc. Style/illustration, e .g , h o w to 53 294 12 5.5 create effective Web pages, GIFs, Animation, etc. OS, e .g , MacOS, W indow s 98, 14 69 6 4.9 NT, etc. Linux OS 15 71 5 4.7 Microsoft Office Software 35 138 15 3.9 C ontent of Web, e .g , subject 19 24 4 1.2 guides, search engines, etc. Scientific Com puting Program 30 17 20 .6 Manuals, e .g , IDL, Code Warrior, S-Plus, H yperchem , etc M isc, e .g , GIS, Illustrator, 76 28 57 .4 FileMaker, Palm, Year 2000, etc. T o ta ls 4 0 6 2 ,6 7 1 1 5 5 The results sh o w that th e m ost p o p u lar m aterials w e re for program s that w o u ld be u se d by fairly sophisticated c o m p u ter users, for exam ple, Unix, program m ing, Linux, a n d C++, w hich d o n ’t ten d to com e w ith m an u ­ als. Also highly u se d w ere th e b o o k s that su p p o rt softw are that is u se d to create Web pages, such as Photoshop, HTML guides, and W eb editor m anuals. We w ere d isa p p o in te d w ith the veiy low usage of the scientific com puting m anuals. N onetheless, w e will k e e p these m anuals in the collection as they cost us nothing but cata­ loguing a n d storage space, a n d w e a n d aca­ dem ic com puting consider them an im por­ tant resource. Also surprising w as th e fairly low usage of the m anuals for the highly u se d Microsoft office products. We often hear from faculty that the students are n o t as proficient at using th ese program s as they w o u ld like them to be. It’s possible that the students are struggling w ith the m anuals that com e with th e softw are a n d d o n ’t b o th er to seek help. It’s also possible that w e n e e d to do m ore to publicize th e collection to o u r u n d e rg ra d u ­ ates. W h o 's u s in g th e m ? Finally w e d ec id e d to se e w h o w as using the material. O ur results sh o w that th e biggest users w ere graduate students w ith 63.5 p e r­ cent of circulations. This is not surprising given that the m ost p o p u la r types of m aterial w ere th o se that w o u ld b e u s e d by the m ore a d ­ v an ced users a n d that grad students ten d to b e a highly m otivated group o f students. Also interesting w as th e high usage rate by faculty (6.6 percent), given the rep u tatio n o f faculty as being users w h o are reluctant to seek help. U ndergrads w ere 22.4 p e rc e n t o f th e users, a C&RL News ■ July/August 2002 / 509 fairly low num ber given the proportion of undergraduates to either faculty or graduate students. The other 7.5 percent of circulations are interlibrary loan and staff. C onclusion The circulation data for this collection shows that these types of materials achieve high cir­ culation figures and certainly break out of the traditional 80/20 m odel of library circula­ tion. There is definitely a n e e d for third-party m anuals, particular for highly technical soft­ w are that d o e sn ’t tend to com e w ith m anu­ als. U nfortunately those w h o n e e d the help the most, undergraduates, appear to b e the least likely to use the collection. It w ould be interesting to look further at usage to deter­ ( “The library takes the le a d ” c o n tin u e d fr o m p a g e 5 0 0 ) o u r p o lic y w a s la c k in g , a n d , w ith th e a u th o r ’s p e rm iss io n , w e u s e d it as o u r m odel. R ather th a n listing a v a g u e s ta te ­ m en t that illegal activity is p ro h ib ite d , s p e ­ cific actions are listed in the R utgers’ policy as b e in g illegal by fed e ra l a n d state sta t­ utes, e.g., “to m ak e m o re c o p ie s o f so ft­ w a re th a n a llo w e d by licen se or to view , d o w n lo a d , distribute, or p o ssess child p o r­ n o g rap h y . . . . ” A su b c o m m itte e of th re e librarians w as sele c te d to actually w rite WSU’s policy. The first draft w as c o m p le te d in A ugust 2000 a n d w as se n t to all m em bers. T he full com ­ m ittee m et to d iscuss c h a n g es a n d s u b s e ­ q u e n t drafts w e re sen t as e-m ail a tta c h ­ m ents. I k e p t m eetin g s at a m inim um until th e final w ra p -u p session. After eight drafts, th e final d o c u m e n t w as c o m p le te d a n d u n a n im o u sly a p p ro v e d by th e full com m it­ tee in N o v e m b e r 2000. By fall 2001, all levels of the university administration h ad accepted the policy. It has m ade its w ay through the Faculty Senate Li­ brary Committee, university counsel, several vice presidents, a n d the president of the uni­ versity. In line with the com m ittee’s recom ­ m e n d a tio n to c o n s o lid a te all u n iv e rsity Internet and information policies, Jackson has b e e n appo in ted chair of the University Tech­ nology Subcom mittee to Review WSU Tech­ nology Policies. m ine how the usage of the various catego­ ries of materials reflects the user type. N o tes 1. Third-party computer manuals are defined as those published by organizations other than the manufacturer or distributor of the software. 2. S ee h t t p : / / w w w . s o u t h e r n c t . e d u / ~klassen/web41ibsurvey.html for a summ ary of the results of this informal survey. 3. So far, losses have b e e n negligible. 4. Statistics w ere gathered from our SIRSI Webcat in spring 2001 and w ere analyzed by hand. They should not be considered rigor­ ous statistics as som e data w as unavailable and it is not the p urpose of this article to be a rigorous accounting of ho w these books w ere used. ■ The creation of the university-wide Internet policy was a lengthy process, especially for the library representatives involved. Three key elements helped us to succeed: involving all the technology centers on campus, the thor­ oughness of our research, and maintaining a relaxed team atmosphere with a common goal. W hat happens w hen the library takes the lead in creating the university’s Internet policy? At Wichita State University the result is a uni­ form Internet-use policy that preserves intel­ lectual freedom and protects individuals’ right to privacy.3 N o tes 1. Janis Dybdahl, “Internet use policy: som e features to consider.” Colorado Librar­ ies (1999) 25:43-7. 2. “Acceptable use policy.” Rutgers Uni­ versity, available at http://rucs.rutgers.edu/ acceptable-use.htm l; accessed 2002, Ju n e 10. See also, “Acceptable use guidelines.” Rutgers University, available at http://rucs.rutgers.edu/ acceptable-use-guide.htm l; accessed 2002, Ju n e 10. 3. The author thanks the m embers of the Ad Hoc Committee to Develop a Policy on Internet Access and Pornography for all of their hard work. Thanks to David Duncan, Ted Naylor, and Sandy MacGill for drafting the policy. Special thanks to Janet Brown, Ted Naylor, and Kristen Sen for their roles in pre­ senting th e policy for the Kansas Library Association. ■ http://www.southernct.edu/ http://rucs.rutgers.edu/ http://rucs.rutgers.edu/ 510 / C&RL News ■ July/August 2002