Research: Bigger Role for CC Libraries?

A new Ithaka S+R research project aims to determine whether campus libraries could do more to help community-college students complete their studies. The first phase of the project discovered that libraries and students aren’t always on the same page.

For libraries, “student success” often has been defined by measurable academic data, such as the number of students who attain degrees or certificates, according to EdSurge’s account of the project. On the other hand, researchers found students viewed success in school in terms of personal satisfaction with their work and their lives—a much more nebulous goal.

However, when students were asked about ongoing challenges, their answers provided some insights into how libraries could lend a hand to help them. Many students reported that applying for financial aid was confusing and they were having trouble paying for normal living expenses. Quite a few students were working parents who said they struggled to find affordable care for their kids so they could attend classes or study.

The second phase of the research project is looking more closely at how some campus libraries are already addressing these problems, either directly or indirectly. For example, one library provides private study spaces where students can do classwork while their children play, so they don’t have to pay a sitter. Another library tackles the problem from a different stance, requiring all first-year students to meet with a librarian to review library services to ensure they’re aware of available resources and won’t be intimidated to ask for help.

The final report is expected to be out in mid-2019.

Finding a Way Around E-Textbooks

Some tout digital media as the answer to reducing the cost of print textbooks, but students aren’t all that thrilled with the available e-book alternatives. Joanna Cabot, a senior writer for TeleRead, has an idea.

In a recent column, she suggested that the current textbook models should be replaced with a pay-for-access model where students are charged a fee to use digital content from the college’s or university’s library database.

“It’s almost like Kindle Unlimited for academic articles, in a way,” she wrote. “In the Kindle Unlimited model, I can access every byte of the available library, as much as I want to, while I am paying.” Cabot is currently taking a course which uses library materials instead of a textbook.

In this model, course materials would be replaced by articles available through a library’s subscription service. Instructors list suggested readings on the syllabus with a reference code that is pasted into the search bar to access a PDF of the article. The library database can also be used to research information by subject or keyword, as long as the student paid the subscription fee.

“I think this is a surprisingly elegant model,” Cabot continued. “Now that I’m doing my ‘work’ on a proper computer instead of a tablet, it doesn’t bother me to have multiple browser tabs open. It’s easy to fire up the course message board, open a second tab, and load the library database. I like not having to buy a paper textbook and not having to be ripped off by an overpriced and DRM-hobbled digital effort to copy one. I feel that we are getting more current information by not limiting ourselves to one book source, and since these are not free articles we’re using—the university pays for its various subscriptions—nobody is getting cheated out of their fair due here.”

Rider Provides Freshman Textbooks

Freshmen at Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ, are getting a break on their first year of textbooks through the school’s Textbook Reserve Program. The pilot provides students with access to most freshman-level courses via the school’s library.

The libraries on the school’s Lawrence and Princeton campus now have more than 100 books available for freshmen to use. Students present their ID to a librarian at the circulation desk to sign out the textbook for up to two hours, but they can’t take reserved books out of the library.

“If this can help offset hidden costs that students might not have anticipated, we’ll be able to retain more students,” said President Gregory Dell’Omo in an article for NJ.com. Dell’Omo brought the idea from Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, PA, where he served as president until taking over Rider at the beginning of August.

Robert Morris had more than 1,800 textbook signouts in the first semester the program was offered with a total of 10,000 during the first two years.

An added benefit for Dell’Omo is that the program drives students into the library. The goal of the Textbook Reserve Program is to expand it to upper-level courses.

“It’s not replacing people buying new books, it’s not going to cover every single book over time,” Dell'Omo said, “but it helps ease some of the financial burdens that students incur.”

Research Authors Lean Toward Open Access

Academic researchers appear to be warming to the idea of publishing their articles in open-access journals rather than subscription-only publications. It’s a trend that would also make libraries and legislators very happy.

The results of the second annual Taylor & Francis Open Access Survey showed a rising number of journal authors agree or strongly agree that open access on a website or online repository provides wider circulation and higher visibility than traditional subscription journals. These authors want to attract more eyeballs to their articles and are willing to give up some control to get it.

Almost half of the 7,936 respondents (who had published a total of 28,219 articles in the past year) were amenable to publishing their work openly as “green open access,” which usually involves the original article version submitted for publication and not the reviewed, edited version.

Some 71% wouldn’t mind if their work was reused for noncommercial purposes without their permission, as long as they were credited and the user followed whatever Creative Commons license had been applied to the article. Of those who had placed an article in an open repository, 46% did so out of a strong sense of “personal responsibility to make my work freely available.”

Legislators at the federal level have been pushing for more open access to research journals, at least those featuring research underwritten by tax dollars or performed using tax-supported campus facilities or materials.

Libraries, especially those that serve a largely academic clientele, are concerned about the increasing subscription costs for journals, both print and digital, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Many campus libraries, such as the one at Cornell University, have had to cut back on subscriptions.

Yale Experimenting with Google Glass

Yale University is set to rent out Google Glass devices through its Bass Library in the fall. The program is a partnership between the Instructional Technology Group, the Student Technology Collaboration, and the library.

Students and faculty are being asked to propose fall-semester research and teaching projects using the device. Library staff is working on ways to use the devices, such as assisting handicapped library patrons and as a scanner to fill student requests from the book stacks.

Google Glass caught the attention of the university last fall when Henry Furman, a senior quarterback on the football team, wore the device during a team practice. The feed Furman recorded was turned into a video that gives fans a quarterback’s perspective of the game.

Academic Libraries Seek LMS Integration

Campus libraries are still popular places where students can go to study and work on papers while mixing in a little socializing. One thing most of those students won’t do during a trip to the library is open a library book. They’ll do that later—online.

As Campus Technology notes, academic libraries are experiencing a shift in how they provide materials to students for research and course readings. More students (and also faculty) are accessing the library’s collection through e-reserves.

Students may not be all that crazy about studying from a digital textbook, but they do find it much more convenient to go online from the comfort of their own laptops to tap into the library’s materials to gather information for a project or to read something their professor has placed on reserve for the class. For research, in particular, print books are too cumbersome.

From the perspective of librarians, though, there is one major hurdle: learning management systems. Far from being dismayed at the move from print to digital usage, campus libraries are eager to accommodate students online. They’d like to be able to integrate their e-reserves with the school’s LMS to create a one-stop-shopping location, so to speak, for student reading materials. At the very least, libraries want their catalog to be incorporated in the LMS search function to show students and faculty what’s available through the library.

However, library systems and learning management systems are not always fully compatible. Some schools required extensive customization to get both systems to work together, while others created an LMS from scratch in order to build in access to the library. Still others opted to develop library guides that could be placed within the LMS.