College and Research Libraries


RAYMOND L. CARPENTER 

Two-Year College 

Libraries: A Comparative 

Analysis in Terms of 

the ACRL Standards 

The analysis of 1977 HE GIS data for two-year-college libraries in terms of the 
1979 ACRL Standards shows that a majority of these libraries do not meet the 
standards in respect to nearly all the variables available for study . HE GIS data 
do not include measures of some important factors such as space and equip-
ment, and not all data are gathered in terms that match the Standards' defini-
tions. I ncr eased financial support is needed to bring the libraries of the nations 
two-year schools up to standard. 

THE QUANTITATIVE STANDARDS for two-
year college libraries completed in 1979 by 
the Junior College Libraries Section of the 
Association of College and Research Li-
braries (ACRL) constitute the current guide-
lines for planning and evaluating learning re-
source centers or libraries for those higher 
education institutions known variously as 
junior colleges, community colleges, and 
technical institutes. 1 This study presents a 
profile of the libraries of these institutions in 
terms of those variables included in the Stan-
dards for which there are measures available 
in the 1977 Higher Education General Infor-
mation Surveys (REGIS), the most recent 
data available at the time of this analysis. 
The REGIS survey of libraries is supple-
mented with information from the surveys of 
enrollment, finance, and staff. All four sets of 
data were obtained in machine-readable 
form and analyzed with the Statistical Anal-
ysis System (SAS). Major financial support 
for computation services was provided by the 
Junior College Libraries Section of ACRL 

Raymond L. Carpenter is professor, School of 
Library Science, University of North Carolina at 
Chapel Hill. 

with additional assistance from the Compu-
tation Center and the School of Library Sci-
ence of the University of North Carolina at 
Chapel Hill. 

The maximum number of usable cases (in-
stitutions) in the REGIS surveys is 1,146, 
only one fewer than the total listed in the 
Carnegie Commission on Higher Education's 
Classification of Institutions of Higher Edu-
cation. 2 This nearly perfect coincidence of to-
tal numbers suggests that in the aggregate we 
have an excellent approximation of the uni-
verse of two-year institutions. However, 
some of the schools listed by the Carnegie 
Commission were no longer in existence or 
failed to report at the time of the 1977 HE GIS 
studies, and a few new institutions appeared 
between the time of the compilation and the 
REGIS studies. Nonetheless, the institutions 
analyzed in this study clearly constitute over 
95 percent of the total in the U.S. Thirty-six 
institutions counted as two-year schools by 
REGIS did not report adequate or reliable 
data and were eliminated completely from 
the analysis. As the total Ns in the various 
tables show, fewer than 1, 146 schools pro-
vided responses for all questions in the sur-
veys; rarely were there fewer than 1,100 us-

I 407 



408 I College & Research Libraries· September 1981 

able responses. Responses were inspected and 
"cleaned, before being taped and analyzed 
by the author. In sum, the 9-ata are quite 
complete and valid. 

The major limitation of this study lies in 
·the fact that the REGIS studies did not query 
institutions about all of the variables speci-
fied in the Standards. Missing are data about 
the physical plant (space) and equipment dis-
tribution. Moreover, the REGIS query about 
recorded materials does not make a distinc-
tion, as does the Standards statement, be-
tween "motion pictures and videotapes, and 
"other recorded materials ... Consequently, 
the specificity called for in the Standards can 
only be estimated from the REGIS responses 
that reflect numbers for all types of recorded 
materials. An additional limitation on the ac-
curacy of our assessment of recorded-
materials holdings can be attributed to a spe-
cial and fundamental problem in reporting 
this class of resources. Recorded or audiovi-
sual materials are probably undercounted as 
they are sometimes controlled entirely or in 
part by an agency or department in the insti-
tution other than the library. Such holdings 
are in effect unreported if the institution fails 
to take account of such departments when 
polled by REGIS. The extent to which this 
introduced undercounting is impossible toes-
timate. 

The Standards do not differentiate be·-
tween public- and private-controlled 
schools, but institutions vary considerably in 
respect to this type of control, as will be ap-
parent in examination of the following ta-
bles. Many of the standards are expressed in 
terms of the size of full-time student enroll-
ment (FfE). In order to understand how 
well the nation's two-year schools meet the 
Standards, table 1, showing the distribution 
of schools in terms of FfE size and type of 
control, is important. Private institutions are 

TABLE 1 
STUDENT ENROLLMENT SIZE 

BY TYPE oF CoNTROL 

Total Private 
FTE Students (1,146) (235) 

Less than 1, 000 32 % 82% 
1,000<3,000 34 16 
3,000< 5,000 11 2 
5,000< 7,000 7 2 
7,000 < 9,000 5 2 
9,000 or more 10 2 

Public 
(911) 

19 % 
39 
14 
9 
6 

13 

relatively smaller- only 2 percent have more 
than 3,000 FfE students as compared with 
42 percent of the public institutions of this 
size. 

These percentages vary a bit from table to 
table due to different rates of response to par-
ticular questions. Thus, the numbers in pa-
rentheses in each of the following tables iden-
tify the number of libraries reporting for the 
variable in the respective table. 

As only five privately controlled schools 
have enrollments of 3,000 or more, private 
institutions larger than 3,000 FfE students 
are summarized collectively in each table by 
the footnote denoted by an asterisk. Few 
schools have enrollments over 11,000, and in 
order to compress the data for readability the 
tables with data expressed in terms of enroll-
ment limit the upper level to 11,000 FfE. In 
those tables the row labeled < 11,000 repre-
sents institutions with FfE of 9,000< 11,000 
FfE students. 

One of the most salient features of the stan-
dards for two-year schools is the specification 
of "minimal, and "good, levels for each cate-
gory of FfE for several variables. These 
levels are noted in the relevant tables by the 
letters M (minimal) and G (good) with the 
numerical value in parentheses called for at 
these levels by the Standards. For example, in 
the table on professional staff, the "M (2)" for 
the fewer than 1,000 FfE students category 
indicates the minimum number of profes-
sional staff required to meet standards in 
schools of this size. The table shows that 30 
percent of private and 43 percent of public 
schools have at least two professional staff 
members, the "minimum, level requirement, 
while only 2 percent and 5 percent respec-
tively, have four or more professionals, the 
"good, level requirement. 

In tables 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 
17, all columns do not sum to 100 percent due 
to rounding. 

STAFF 

The Standards document specifies differ-
ent numbers for professional and support 
staff. Tables 2 and 3 show the distributions 
for each of these categories of staff at the min-
imal and good levels for each FfE student 
group. 

Considering that nearly two-thirds of the 
schools have fewer than 3,000 FfE student 



Two-Year College Libraries I 409 

TABLE2 
PRoFESSIONAL STAFF 

Total 
ITE Students (1,146) 

<1,000 M(2) 36% 
G (4) 3 

1,000 < 3,000 M (2.5) 49 
G (4) 21 

3,000<5,000 M (3.5) 56 
G (6) 9 

5,000<7,000 M (6) 25 
G (8) 7 

7,000<9,000 M (7) 34 
G (10) 12 

< 11,000 M (8) 48 
G (12) 25 

Median 2.5 
Mean 3.4 
90th percentile 6.5 
lOth percentile 1.0 

Private Public 
(235) (911) 

30% 43% 
2 5 

16 52 
3 23 . 56 

9 
23 

6 
33 
10 
48 
25 

1.0 3.0 
1.5 3.9 
3.0 7.3 
0.1 1.0 

< l.OProf. 
Staff 

13% 

5 

0 

0 

1<2.0Prof. 
Staff 

51% 

23 

8 

0 

2 

0 

•ofthe4 private schools with ITE 3,000<9,000, one is at M, two at G level. 

TABLE3 
SuPPORT STAFF 

Total Private 
ITE Students (1,146) (235) 

< 1,000 M (4) 4% 2% 
G (6) <1 0 

1,000<3,000 M (5) 15 0 
G (10) 1 0 

3,000<5,000 M (9) 15 . 
G (18) 1 

5,000<7,000 M(l5) 5 
G (24) 2 

7,000<9,000 M (17) 15 
G (30) 0 

< 11,000 M (19) 29 
G 36 4 

Median 3.0 0.5 
Mean 4.6 1.0 

*Of the 4 private schools with ITE 3,000 < 9,000, one is at M level. 

enrollments, the majority do not meet the 
minimum professional staff criteria. How-
ever, public institutions fare consistently bet-
ter than their privately controlled peers in 
respect to both minimum and good levels of 
professional staffing. The extent to which the 
minimum of two professionals for the small-
est schools is not met is reflected in the two 
right-hand columns. There we find that 13 
percent of the schools with fewer than 1,000 
FTE students and 5 percent of schools with 
1,000-3,000 students have fewer than one 
professional. Of the 1,000-3,000 FTE group 
(39 percent of public schools are of this size), 
23 percent have between one and two profes-
sionals. A comparison of the medians and 
means for private and public institutions is 
further indication of their disparity in respect 

Public <l~t~r;rrt 1<\~J{port (911) 
6% 43% 53% 
1 

17 12 60 
1 

15 3 30 
1 
4 1 17 
2 

16 0 7 
0 

29 0 2 
4 

3.5 
5.5 

to this important variable. 
The inadequacy of support staff is greater 

yet; neither private nor public institutions 
come up to mark to any significant degree. 
Even among the group of schools with 
3,000-5,000 students, of which 56 percent 
met the minimum standard for professional 
staff, only 15 percent meet the support-staff 
standards. Moreover, 30 percent of this 
group have fewer than four support-staff 
members, less than half the number required 
for their minimum level. Comparing the 
data from tables 2 and 3 for all sizes of schools 
suggests widespread understaffing in general 
and a serious deficiency in developing 
professional-support-staff ratios. Consider 
the schools with fewer than 1,000 students: 
36 percent have two or more professionals, 



410 I College & Research Libraries· September 1981 

but 43 percent have less than one support-
staff member. 

Implied in the minimums for professional 
and support staff are ratios ranging from 1:2 
to about 1:2.5 professional to support staff for 
the several enrollment groups. Table 4 pro-
vides a summary of professional:support ra-
tios by type of control. 

Table 4 amplifies the relationships implied 
in tables 2 and 3. The Standards for staff im-
ply that there should be at least two support 
staff for each professional. Assuming that the 
minimum ratio of professional to support 
staff should be 1:2, calculations conclude 
that 79 percent of all schools fall short of this 
"standard" (92 percent of the private and 77 
percent of the public schools). The means and 
medians point up the differences between the 
schools by type of control, public institutions 
being far more favored- although 31 percent 
of them have less than one support staff for 
each professional. 

Student assistants constitute a special fac-
tor in support of library services. If 500 hours 
can be considered as a rough equivalent of 
twelve full-time weeks of work (forty hours 
per week) , over one-third of the schools lack 
this level of support (table 5). The median 
hours for all institutions would produce one 
full-time "equivalent" staff member for forty 

TABLE4 
RAno oF PRoFESSIONAL TO SuPPORT STAFF 

Ratio Total Private Public 
Prof. : Support (1, 111) (2 14) (897) 
<1 :0 .5 19 % 49 % 12 % 
< 1:1.0 19 20 19 
< 1:1.5 27 16 29 
<1 :2.0 14 7 16 
<1 :3 .0 14 7 15 
1:3.0 or more 7 2 8 
Median 1:1.04 1:0.50 1:1.24 
Mean 1:1.30 1:0.64 1:1. 46 
Minimu m 1:0 .0 1:0.0 1:0.0 
Maximum 1:20.0 1:3.5 1:20.0 

TABLE5 
HouRS OF STUDENT AssiSTANCE, ANNUAL 

Total Private Public 
No. of Hours (1,051 ) (186) (865) 
<500 35 % 36 % 34 % 
<2,000 19 31 17 
<6,000 28 28 28 
< 10,000 10 3 11 
10,000 or more 8 2 9 
Median 1,600 1,150 1,830 
Mean 3,360 1,860 3,690 

weeks a year. While student assistants may 
perform many important tasks, the extent to 
which they can be counted on for continuous 
and skilled service is open to question in 
counting such employees as support staff. 

CoLLECfiONS 

The Standards for collection size refer to 
written and recorded materials. The HEGIS 
inquiry and the Standards statement do not 
coincide precisely in terminology and defini-
tions for the various kinds of materials. The 
distribution of periodical subscription titles 
as reported to HEGIS appears in table 6. 
"Other written materials" as called for in the 
Standards are represented in table 7 as the 
number of volumes held as reported by HE-
GIS. HEGIS does not distinguish as do the 
Standards between "motion pictures and vid-
eotapes" and "other recorded materials"; ta-
ble 8 thus represents as "audiovisual" titles 
the best approximation of the Standards. 

While a majority of neither public- nor 
private-controlled schools have the number 
of periodical titles called for in the Standards, 
public institutions greatly exceed the private 
institutions; at least twice as many meet the 
minimum as well as the good levels. Note that 
nearly a quarter of all schools have fewer 
than 100 titles. 

The size of the book collection is also below 
standard in most institutions, but private 
schools, of which 82 percent have fewer than 
1,000 FTE students, do somewhat better 
than the public schools, as nearly a quarter of 
them meet the "good" level. As in the case of 
periodical subscriptions, a quarter of all 
schools fall well below half the minimum for 
the lowest FTE group, holding fewer than 
10,000 volumes. 

In table 8 all "recorded materials" are rep-
resented by the HEGIS count of the number 
of audiovisual titles: "audio recordings, mo-
tion pictures, filmstrips, slides, overhead 
transparencies, videotapes, videodiscs, 
mixed media (multi-media) , kits, etc; ex-
clude microforms."3 The HEGIS count is a 
close approximation of the Standards ' inten-
tions , but its count does not distinguish be-
tween "motion pictures and videotapes" and 
"other recorded materials" as does the Stan-
dards statement. Consequently, in order to 
maximize the effect of the Standards, theM 
and G levels in table 8 constitute some of the 



Two-Year College Libraries I 411 

TABLE6 
PERIODICAL SuBSCRIPTIONS 

Total Private Public 
FTE Students (1,146) (235) (911) 

< 1,000 M(200) 37% 25% 50% 
G (300) 12 6 19 

1,000<3,000 M (300) 41 8 44 
G (500) 7 0 18 

3,000<5,000 M (500) 24 "' 24 
G (700) 5 5 

5,000< 7,000 M (700) 8 7 
G (800) 5 4 

7,000<9,000 M(710) 22 22 
G (860) 3 3 

< 11,000 M (720) 36 36 
G (920) 17 17 

Median 280 150 330 
Mean 350 150 410 
90th percentile 630 280 670 
lOth percentile 90 20 150 

•of the4 private schools with FTE 3,000<9,000, none is at M level. 

TABLE7 
BooK CoLLECTION SrzE (VoLUMES) 

Total Private Public 
FTE Students (1,146) (235) (911) 

< 1,000 M (20,000) 43% 47% 39% 
G (30,000) 18 23 13 

<3,000 M (30,000) 33 19 35 
G (50,000) 6 3 7 

<5,000 M (50,000) 21 * 21 
G (70,000) 3 3 

<7,000 M (70,000) 10 7 
G (85,000) 2 1 

<9,000 M (82,000) 12 12 
G (109,000) 2 2 

< 11,000 M (94,000) 24 24 
G (133,000) 8 8 

< 10,000 vols. 12% 28% 8% 
< 20,000 vols . 20 25 19 
Median 27,300 18,900 30,000 
Mean 33,900 20,700 37,300 
90th percentile 64,600 41,400 69,700 
lOth percentile 9,000 2,200 11 ,500 

•of the 4 private schools with FTE 3,000 < 9,000, one is at M, one at G level. 

TABLES 
AuDIOVISUAL TITLES 

Total Private 
FTE Students (1,069) (200) 

< 1,000 M(365) 76% 68% 
G (1,475) 40 31 

1,000<3,000 M (1,475) 59 26 
G (3,550) 26 7 

3,000 < 5,000 M (3,550) 46 * 
G (6,050) 29 

5,000 < 7,000 M (6,050) 38 
G (9,750) 17 

7,000<9,000 M (6,096) 50 
G (10,860) 21 

< 11,000 M (6,142) 40 
G (11,970) 25 

Median 2,140 730 
Mean 4,660 1,530 
90th percentile 10,900 3,970 
lOth percentile 253 39 

•of the 4 private schools with FTE 3,000< 9,000, two are at M, one at G level. 

<100 
Titles 

24% 

9 

2 

2 

0 

1 

< 10,000 
Volumes 

25% 

9 

4 

1 

0 

2 

Public 
(869) 

83% 
49 
62 
28 
47 
30 
37 
16 
49 
22 
40 
25 
2,600 
5,370 

12,100 
400 

<200 
Titles 

38% 

17 

6 

4 

0 

0 

<20,000 
Volumes 

32% 

24 

10 

6 

2 

< 100 
Titles 

9% 

6 

2 

1 



412 I College & Research Libraries • September 1981 

Volumes 

Median 
Mean 

TABLE9 
MATERIALS OTHER THAN BooKs, 
PERIODICALS , AND AuDIOVISUALS 

Total 
(1,078) 

1,560 
7,090 

Private 
(186) 

264 
2,890 

Public 
(892) 

2,080 
7,970 

"motion pictures and videotapes" and "other 
recorded materials" values called for in the 
Standards. For instance, schools with enroll-
ments (FTE) of fewer than 1,000 are ex-
pected (in the Standards) to have 15 units of 
"motion pictures and videotapes" and 350 of 
"other recorded materials." Table 8 has com-
bined these to indicate that 365 audiovisual 
units are required for the minimum level. 

Although the data do not account for the 
degree of specificity accounted for in the 
Standards- distinguishing counts of motion 
pictures and videotapes from counts of other 
types of recorded materials- they do show 
that the holdings are much closer to standard 
than are either periodical subscriptions or 
books as reported in the previous two tables. 
Public institutions outrank private ones-
nearly half of the public schools with the 
smallest enrollment attain the "good" level, 
and nearly two-thirds of public schools in the 
modal FTE group of 1,000-3,000 are at the 
minimum level. The difference between pub-
lic and private schools reflected in their me-
dians points up the magnitude by which each 
type exceeds the standards. 

Because the reporting of other kinds of ma-
terials is less consistent in respect both to reli-
able enumeration and consensus about defi-
nition, table 9 reports simply the median and 
mean volumes held. As the Standards call for 
no more than 350 units for schools with FTE 
of 1,000-3,000 and 1,200 for the 3,000-5,000 
FTE category, most of both private and pub-
lic institutions presumably meet the mini-
mum standards. Note, however, the extraor-
dinary difference between the mean and the 
median for private schools. Holdings of this 
kind vary so greatly that one may question 
the reliability of reporting, perhaps largely 
due to lack of any reliable inventory in many 
schools. 

The Standards call for annual acquisition 
of 5 percent of the existing collection. The 
best indicator available for this in the HE GIS 
database is the annual acquisition rate for the 
book-stock part of the collection. Conse-

quently, table 10 tells us only about book-
stock additions, not about the important col-
lections of "recorded materials" (HE GIS does 
not inquire about this). On average (that is, 
comparing medians and means), private 
schools barely meet the standard. Public 
schools, in spite of 31 percent falling below 
the 5 percent mark are about 50 percent bet-
ter off. 

BuDGET 

The Standards state that" a fully developed 
Learning Resource Program will usually re-
quire from 7 to 12 percent of the educational 
and general budget of the institution, 
whether these are separately identified as 
learning resources or diffused in a multiple 
number of accounts. "4 The extent to which 
learning resources programs are funded be-
yond the budgets reported to HEGIS is not 

TABLE 10 
PERCENT OF BooK STOCK ADDED 

(STANDARD: 5 o/o OF THE COLLECTION 
SHOULD BE ADDED YEARLY) 

Percent Total Private 
Added (1,146) (235) 

<4 % 23% 43% 
<5 % 14 17 

cumulative% 
under5% 

(37) (60) 

<7 % 22 15 
<10 % 19 12 
10% or more 22 14 

cumulative 5 % (63) (41) 
or more 

Median 6.1 o/o 4.6% 
Mean 8.8 6.9 

TABLE 11 
LIBRARY EXPENDITURE AS A PERCENT 

OF INSTITUTIONAL EXPENDITURE 
(STANDARD: 7-12%) 

Library's 
o/o of 
Institutional Total Private 
Budget (1,107) (217) 

<3% 30% 35% 
<4% 22 20 
<7 % 37 32 

cumulative 
less than 7% 

(89) (87) 

7<13% 9 11 
13 % or more 1 3 

cumulative (10) (14) 
7% or more 

Median 3 .9% 3.7% 
Mean 4.5 4.8 

Public 
(911) 

18% 
13 

(31) 

24 
21 
24 

(69) 

6.5% 
9.3 

Public 
(890) 

29% 
23 
39 

(91) 

9 
1 

(10) 

3.9% 
4.4 



known. Thus, table 11 relies on reports of , 
those 1,107 institutions that had at least one 
identifiable resource agency- in nearly all 
instances a library or learning resource cen-
ter. In other words, two-year institutions 
may be funding their learning resources pro-
grams at a higher level than the table indi-
cates if there are sources of funding not re-
ported because they were not polled. 
Nonetheless, given that less than 4 percent of 
the total number of institutions failed to re-
port, we can probably assume that most insti-
tutions fall well below this budgetary stan-
dard. The difference between public and 
private schools is negligible. Collectively, 30 
percent allocate less than 3 percent, and 52 
percent allocate less than 4 percent of their 
institutional budgets to the library or learn-
ing resource center. Such budgets must be 
more than doubled to begin to meet the bot-
tom level of this standard. 

Tables 12, 13, and 14 provide further in-
sight into the budgetary situation. 

Library budgets are extremely modest, 
even in the smallest schools. That is, 82 per-
cent of private-controlled schools have FTE 
student enrollments of fewer than 1,000, and 
table 12 shows that 5 percent of private 
schools have total operating budgets of less 
than $35,000. Public schools fare better, but 
with their larger enrollments this is to be ex-
pected; even among this group nearly a quar-
ter have less than $75,000 a year. 

The pattern of differences between private 
and public schools is demonstrated again in 
the findings about materials and personnel 
expenditures. While the much smaller 
budgets of private schools can be attributed 
to their smaller enrollments, the size of the 
differences shown in the percentage distribu-
tions and in the averages is very large. Given 
the very limited total budget it is not surpris-
ing to find that over half of the private schools 
spend less than $10,000 on materials, and 
about a fourth of public schools spend less 
than $20,000. Given the small number of 
staff, the salaries and wages budgets are un-
surprising. Troubling, if not surprising, how-
ever, is the question as to how an institution 
of any enrollment size can provide services 
and materials with such limited funding. 

SERVICE 

Although there is no position taken in the 

Two- Year College Libraries I 413 

Standards regarding the amount of time the 
library should be accessible to users, the HE-· 
GIS data afford rudimentary but fundamen-
tal information on this subject. Table 15 
shows that the average hours open per week is 
similar in public and private schools, al-
though a quarter of the private schools pro-
vide access fewer than fifty hours a week as 
compared with 5 percent of public schools. If 
the 80 percent of schools open between fifty 
and seventy-five hours a week are on a seven-

TABLE12 

ToTAL LIBRARY OPERATING EXPENDITURES 

Total Library Total Private 
Budget($) (1,146) (235) 

<35,000 15% 54% 
<75,000 22 37 
< 150,000 28 8 
<250,000 16 1 
250,000 or more 18 1 
Median $102,000 $34,000 
Mean 166,000 42,000 

TABLE13 

MATERIALS BUDGETS 

Total Private 
Materials($) (1,146) (235) 

<10,000 16% 55% 
<20,000 22 34 
<40,000 30 9 
<75,000 22 2 
75,000 or more 11 0 
Median $27 ,000 $ 9,000 
Mean 39,000 11,000 

TABLE14 

SALARIES AND WAGES BuDGETS 

Salaries Total Private 
and Wages($) (1 , 146) (235) 

<20,000 16% 56% 
<40,000 23 34 
<75,000 21 7 
< 100,000 11 1 
100,000 or more 30 2 
Median $55,000 $18 ,000 
Mean 99,000 23,000 

TABLE15 

HouRS OPEN PER WEEK 

Number of Total Private 
Hours/Week (1 ,145) (235) 

<50 10% 26% 
50<75 80 63 
75 or more 10 12 
Median 64 62 
Mean 64 59 
Minimum 10 10 . 
Maximum 168 168 

Public 
(911) 

5% 
18 
34 
20 
22 

$133 ,000 
198,000 

Public 
(911) 

6% 
18 
36 
27 
13 

$33,000 
46,000 

Public 
(911) 

6% 
19 
25 
13 
37 

$ 75,000 
118,000 

Public 
(910) 

5% 
85 
10 

64 
65 
13 

168 



414 I College & Research Libraries· September 1981 

day schedule, they presumably are accessible 
approximately eight to ten hours a day. The 
extent to which these hours of access are in the 
evenings or on weekends and times that em-
ployed students may need to use the library 
cannot be determined with the data availa-
ble. 

The appendix to the Standards consists of 
nearly seventy users' services for which statis-
tics might be collected. The REGIS data fur-
nish measures for estimates of two important 
factors in the list, reference services and cir-
culation. 

The figures in table 16 do not provide the 
kinds of distinctions called for in the Stan-
dards. For instance, they do not tell if the 
service consists of "extensive assistance" or if 
the service was to particular user groups such 
as the physically handicapped. 5 In order to 
interpret the table accurately, note that the 
percentage distributions are for the number 
of reference and directional transactions per 
FTE student. The REGIS questionnaire does 
not inquire about the type of user, conse-
quently such other users as faculty and staff 
are in effect not counted in the tabulation. If 
the number of the total population of users 
was known and used as the divisor, the num-
ber of transactions would be smaller than 
represented in the table. The means and me-
dians of the public and private schools differ 
greatly- private schools provide on average 
about three and a half times as many transac-
tions as the public ones. 

As in the previous table, the total figures in 
table 17 (in this case, loans) are divided by the 
number of FTE students. Other users are not 
included; thus, the data are somewhat in-
flated. Again the private schools show, on 
average, higher usage than those under pub-
lic control. Considering the total school pop-
ulation, the table shows that 55 percent of 
them lend fewer than eight items per year per 
student. This number would be lower if the 
number of faculty, staff, and other users was 
included in the divisor. In sum, the circula-
tion data suggest a low rate of use. 

SuMMARY 

The analysis of the 1977 REGIS data to 
determine how closely learning resource cen-
ters in two-year colleges meet the ACRL stan-
dards may be summarized briefly as follows: 

1. Staff. A majority do not meet profes-

TABLE16 
REFERENCE AND DIRECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS 

PER FTE STUDENT PER WEEK 

Number of Total Private Public 
Transactions (991) (197) (794) 

<0.1 42 % 17 % 48 % 
<0.5 44 50 43 
< 1.0 9 18 6 
1.0 or more 5 15 3 
Median .13 .30 .11 
Mean .36 .82 .25 
lOth percentile .03 .06 .03 
90th percentile .64 1.7 .48 
95th percentile 1.07 2.9 .73 

TABLE17 
ANNUAL LOANS PER FTE STUDENT 

Number T otal Private Public 
of Loans (1, 130) (224) (906) 

<4 24 % 26 % 24 % 
<8 31 12 36 
<12 20 16 21 
<20 14 18 13 
20 or more 11 28 7 
Median 7 10 7 
Mean 14 36 9 
lOth percentile 2 1 2 
90th percentile 21 53 17 

sional or support-staff standards. Public 
schools are more nearly up to standard for 
professionals than are private schools. Both 
fall far short of recommended support-staff 
levels. 

2. Collections. Public institutions come 
closer to having the number of recommended 
periodicals than private ones, but a majority 
of both falls below the standard. About 25 
percent have fewer than 100 periodical sub-
scriptions. 

While book collections are more nearly up 
to standard in private schools, a majority of 
both falls short of recommended levels. Col-
lections generally are small: 57 percent have 
fewer than 20,000 volumes. 

The standards for audiovisual titles are 
more nearly reached by both private and 
public schools than for other materials. 

The standard referring to collection devel-
opment, as measured by percent of book 
stock added, is unevenly met. Forty-three 
percent of private schools add less than 4 per-
cent; 41 percent add 5 percent or more, the 
standard level. Only 18 percent of public 
_§chools add less than 4 percent, and 69 per-
cent meet the 5 percent level, with nearly 
one-fourth adding 10 percent or more. 

3. Budget. The recommendation that in-



stitutions allocate from 7 to 12 percent to 
learning resource centers is rarely satisfied. 
Only 14 percent of private and 10 percent of 
public schools' libraries receive 7 percent or 
more of their institutions' budgets. 

Assuming that the Standards are, in gen-
eral, useful measures for evaluating and de-
veloping library resources and services, and 
that the REGIS data provide a reasonable 
approximation of the status quo, most li-
braries are below the standard· for nearly all 
factors. Further, improvement in data gath-

Two- Year College Libraries I 415 

ering and analysis is necessary to afford a full 
and more precise measure of libraries in 
terms of the ACRL Standards. However, sev-
eral of the most important factors in the Stan-
dards are measurable, as reflected in this 
study, and the shortcomings are fairly clear. 
Assuming that management policy and prac-
tice would be effective and efficient, the allo-
cation of considerably more funds is probably 
the key factor in bringing these learning re-
source centers and libraries more nearly up to 
the levels specified in the Standards. 

REFERENCES 

1. "Draft: Statement on Quantitative Standards 
for Two- Year Learning Resources Programs," 
College & Research Library News 40:69-73 
(March 1979). 

2. Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, A 
Classification of Institutions of Higher Educa-
tion (Berkeley, Calif.: The Commission , 1976) . 

3. U.S. Department of Health, Education and 
Welfare, Education Division, "Higher Educa-

tion General Information Survey and Library 
General Information Survey, College and Uni-
versity Libraries- Fall, 1977" (Questionnaire) 
(Washington, D .C.: The Department, 1977), 
p.2. 

4. "Draft: Statement on Quantitative Standards ," 
P.70. 

5. Ibid., p.73.