Core Requirement 2.9
The institution, through
ownership or formal arrangements or agreements, provides and supports student
and faculty access and user privileges to adequate library collections and
services and to other learning/information resources consistent with the
degrees offered. Collections, resources,
and services are sufficient to support all its educational, research, and
public service programs. (Learning Resources and Services)
aCompliance___Partial Compliance___Non-Compliance
Narrative:
Lawson State Community
College’s library and other learning resources are adequate to support the
College’s mission and curriculum.
Libraries are located on the Birmingham Campus and the Bessemer Campus. The Library/Learning Resource Center meets
the purpose and objectives of the college and strives to meet the standards and
guidelines of the American Library Association. Lawson State Community College,
through ownership, provides all segments of the college community with an
adequate library collection of books, audio-visual materials, equipment,
periodicals and electronic resources that are consistent with the programs and
degrees offered on multi-campuses (Library
Annual Holdings 1999-2009). In addition to
resources, the library offers services such as interlibrary loans, document
delivery, internet compatible computers and access to electronic databases and
other online resources. The library has 57 computers available for research and
student use.
Faculty members directly
participate in developing the library collection. A majority of the new
materials added to the collection either is recommended for purchase by faculty
members or is reviewed by the faculty prior to the purchase. The library holds
cooperative agreements with the Lister Hill Library at the University of
Alabama at Birmingham, the Birmingham Public Library, Miles College, Bevill
State Community College, Jefferson State Community College, Samford University
and Birmingham Southern College Libraries (Cooperative Resources
Exchange Agreements). These cooperative agreements allow LSCC
students access to the collections, facilities and services of the above
libraries with official school identification.
These additional collections and resources along with the College’s
holdings are sufficient to support all of the educational programs. (Minutes
about Cooperative Agreements) All cooperative
agreements are evaluated periodically to determine whether or not the
agreements continue to meet the needs of Lawson State Community College and its
constituents. Minutes from the meetings are maintained in the office of
the Director of Libraries/Learning Resources Center. These discussions
prove to be of utmost importance in the planning and evaluation process of the
Library. The College participates in the Alabama Virtual Library (AVL) (AVL website) Alabama’s statewide consortium, funded by the Alabama
Legislature. AVL provides online databases for publicly funded K-12 schools,
public libraries, two-year college libraries, and university libraries in Alabama.
The AVL databases include EBSCOHost, FirstSearch, a selection of Gale Products,
and School Improvement Research Series (SIRS). Through the library’s website,
users can search online databases and library holdings which include electronic
books and journals.
The College is a
Southeastern Library Network (SOLINET)
Associate member. SOLINET provides the College with the benefits of regional
library cooperation through the sharing of resources and expertise, forums for
library collaboration, and access to cost effective programs and services such
as preservation, electronic databases, library products, workshops and
consulting. SOLINET also provides the College with the Online Computer Library
Center (OCLC) which is designed to help libraries streamline the bibliographic
database. The College has access to more than 20,000 ebooks through the SOLINET
Shared Collection III,IV, V and VI which features holdings in computer science,
literature, history, reference and a large variety of other categories.
WorldCat, the OCLC online catalog, is accessible to LSCC librarians, students,
faculty and staff through the Alabama Virtual Library and is used in
cataloguing library resources. OCLC further enables the College’s library to
borrow and lend materials through OCLC’s Interlibrary Loans which provide
access to the collections of over 50,000 libraries worldwide. OCLC Union
Listing also allows the College to develop cooperative collections and use
shared holdings to increase access to library resources.
The College annually
evaluates the library through a number of surveys. The results of the surveys
are used to improve resources and services. These evaluations demonstrate that
the library is meeting the needs of students and faculty. Moreover, the library
staff annually submits planning goals and objectives that report assessment
outcomes and plans for the future. The following table provides a summary of
the results of the User Surveys (Library Surveys).
|
Area Surveyed |
Percent of those
indicating Satisfaction |
|
Library collections |
90.7% |
|
Library hours |
89.3% |
|
Library staff |
88.3% |
|
Physical facility |
83.0% |
|
Atmosphere |
83.5% |
|
Computer availability |
88.3% |
The library ensures that
collections are consistent with degree programs through collaboration between
faculty and librarians. Hot Topic Questionnaires (Hot Topics Sample) indicating informational needs of specific departments, Library
Request Forms (Library
Request Sample), suggestions as well as
recommendations from library committee members are also means of ensuring that
the collections’ support the curriculum.
Each unit in the instructional division has a library liaison assigned to
it to assist with acquisitions in the subject area. National accrediting of
specific disciplines, benchmarking to American Library Association of Research
and College Libraries (ACRL) standards and the National Center for Education
Statistics Academic Library peer comparison assessment are other means of
indicating the collections are adequate and meet the need of students, faculty,
staff and community. The National Accrediting Agencies for Automotive programs,
Nursing and Business departments include a review of library resources as part
of their accreditation process; thus, ensuring library resources are sufficient
to support studies in their disciplines (NCES
Statistics).
Faculty and student
surveys provide additional evidence of the adequate resources and services
offered by the library. Results of surveys are used to improve services and
augment resources of the library.
The libraries are open
62 hours per week with reference, open access computers, and circulation
services during open hours. The
libraries are open at both campuses for student and faculty access Mondays
through Thursdays from 8:00 a.m. – 8:30 p.m.; on Fridays from 8:00 a.m. – 4:00
p.m. and on Saturdays from 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Documentation:
|
Documentation |
Location |
|
Library Holdings |
|
|
Cooperative Agreements Minutes |
|
|
Library
Agreements |
|
|
Alabama
Virtual Library |
|
|
SOLINET |
|
|
Library
Surveys |
|
|
Hot Topics Sample |
|
|
Library Request Sample |
|
|
Hot
Topics Questionnaires |
|
|
NCES |