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New survey results
from the CIC project, "Transformation
of College Libraries," indicate that chief academic officers
and library directors agree on many issues related to traditional
library operations, but diverge somewhat on uses of library space
and governance issues. The library project, organized by CIC in cooperation
with the Council on Library and Information Resources and funded by
the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, was launched last fall to
help position libraries to enhance student success in learning, and
to assist libraries in addressing the implications of technological
developments.
Based
on the results of the national survey, CIC has scheduled a workshop
to be held September 19-21 in Columbia, MD, to help reposition libraries
to enhance student success in learning. All CIC member institutions
have been invited to apply for support to send a team to the workshop.
The
survey, which received responses from 142 chief academic officers (CAOs)
and library directors at CIC member institutions this winter, showed
that the two groups express strong agreement on many issues relating
to library operations. Both groups endorse the potential of libraries
as active partners in fostering effective teaching and learning, although
traditional concepts of the library may impede thinking about where
and how library staff may work as educators, about some uses of library
space, and about governance issues that bear on realizing the full value
of libraries to teaching and learning. (See box for findings and recommendations.)
"The
library project has its roots in the rethinking of libraries emerging
among some of its members and elsewhere in higher education," said
CIC Senior Advisor Scott Bennett, Yale University Librarian Emeritus,
who co-chairs the library project with CIC Senior Advisor Rita Gulstad,
Dean of Extended Studies and Learning Resources at Central Methodist
College (MO). Bennett added, "In recent years, especially as
information technology has transformed library services and as higher
education has embraced ideas of active learning among students, many
colleges have begun to think of the library not simply as a service
organization but as a quite active partner in teaching and learning.
Academic librarians are increasingly joining with faculty members, information
technology specialists, and student services staff in collaborations
that can enhance teaching and learning. CIC's library project aims to
foster such developments."
Gulstad
noted that "the library project aims at the gap between traditional
and more forward-looking thinking about academic libraries." Positioning
libraries to enhance student success in learning—and thereby to
improve student retention and graduation rates, among other things—will
be a central concern of the September workshop. It also will provide
practical help to teams of academic administrators, library directors,
faculty members, and other academic professionals who wish to increase
the impact of libraries on teaching and learning.
Topics
to be addressed include re-conceiving library space as educational space;
managing library operations and budgets to gain leverage for good teaching
and learning; and addressing the administrative and governance issues
inherent in transforming the library into an educational as well as
a service operation. Sessions will include "The Library as an Instrument
in Teaching and Learning," "Information Literacy as an Element
of a Liberal Arts Education," "Institutional Priorities: Where
do Libraries Fit?," "Planning a Comprehensive Program in Information
Literacy," "Strategies for Implementation of a Successful
Information Literacy Program," and "The Library Physical Space
as a Place for Learning."
CIC
has established an advisory committee for the project that includes
Michael Bell, provost of Elmhurst College (IL); Larry Hardesty,
library director at Austin College (TX); Patricia Matthews, IHM,
vice president for academic affairs of Marywood University (PA);
and Susan Perry, former library director at Mount Holyoke College
(MA) and presently a program officer at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
and at CLIR. For questions or more information about CIC's library project,
contact Scott Bennett (sbennett@cic.nche.edu)
or Rita Gulstad (rgulstad@cic.nche.edu).
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Findings
and Recommendations of Library Survey
During
the winter of 2001-02, CIC surveyed opinions among the chief academic
officers and library directors of CIC institutions on a number
of library-related issues. Among the findings and recommendations:
Finding:
Both CAOs and library directors strongly endorse the traditional
roles of library professionals as exercised within the library.
Library directors endorse stronger teaching roles for librarians,
including in-classroom instruction. They consistently understand
the governance issues that bear on such a teaching role more clearly
than do CAOs.
Recommendation: A clearer,
more forcefully articulated vision of the teaching role of library
staff, both in the library and outside it, and of the teaching
and learning uses of library space is necessary.
Finding:
Both CAOs and library directors give as high or higher priority
to traditional library operations, including shelving the collections,
as they do to supporting learning-oriented activities of students
and the teaching function of librarians.
Recommendation:
To strengthen significantly the educational impact of libraries,
some reconsideration of library priorities is needed.
Finding:
Although both understand the importance of collaborative learning
among students, that agreement begins to fray when questions about
the adequacy of campus space and information technology support
for such learning or about the desirability of providing library
space for such learning are asked.
Recommendation:
Library services and space need to be aligned more closely with
the most successful learning behaviors of students.
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Independent
The Council of Independent
Colleges
One Dupont Circle NW, Suite 320 • Washington, DC 20036
tel:
(202) 466-7230 • Fax: (202) 466-7238 • e-mail: mailto:cic@cicnche.edu • www.cic.edu
Last updated: July 5,
2002
Copyright © 2002 The Council of Independent
Colleges |
