SECTION 11: LIBRARY
AND LEARNING/INFORMATION RESOURCES
11.1 LIBRARY AND LEARNING/INFORMATION RESOURCES [CR]
The institution provides adequate and appropriate library and learning/information resources, services, and support for its mission.
JUDGEMENT
Compliance 
Non-Compliance Partial Compliance
NARRATIVE
North Carolina A&T State University provides its students, faculty and staff adequate and appropriate library and learning/information resources, consistent with its mission.
The university provides access to library collections through ownership, subscriptions, and consortial agreements, which provide adequate and appropriate support for the research, educational, and public services activities of the institution.
The mission of the Bluford Library, as stated in its strategic plan, is to support and advance academic scholarship and research at N.C. A&T through services, collections, technologies, expertise and spaces.
The library resources serves all levels of students, from undergraduates to doctorates, and the faculty who teach them and guide their research. This includes students and faculty in all academic disciplines offered at the university. The library ensures that individuals have access to global trusted information resources that equip them with the knowledge to provide solutions to society’s challenges. The library is an essential partner in the university’s pursuit of transformative teaching and learning, civic outreach, interdisciplinary research and innovative solutions to global challenges. The library also collects, preserves, and disseminates the history and culture of the university community.
Learning and Information Resources
The library’s Collection Development Policy works as a guiding tool to meet collection goals; it informs the university community about the principles by which materials are selected and provides guidance about how collections funds are expended. The policy also helps outline the library’s commitment to support current and future research and teaching through innovative models of outreach and scholarship.
The library provides collections of current books, periodicals, and reference materials, which are readily accessible to students and faculty, and are sufficient in scope to support the academic curricula and the research initiatives of the university. The library provides access to full text databases, e-journals, e-books, government documents and audiovisual materials.
Library Collections
The library collection includes 631,030 print monographs, 19,229 print journals, 545,422 electronic books, 68,078 electronic journals, and 234 discipline-specific and interdisciplinary databases (http://www.library.ncat.edu/dbm/). The collection is available seven days a week, through the library’s website (http://www.library.ncat.edu/). The website provides access to the library’s catalog and the catalogs of libraries worldwide. Electronic resources are available on campus and off campus, 24 hours a day to authenticated users (students, faculty and staff).
To ensure continuous growth of the print and electronic collections, the library holds long-standing consortia memberships and resource sharing agreements in the following organizations to leverage its ability to acquire and borrow resources: The Carolina Consortium.pdf , NC LIVE, LYRASIS, and the Triad Academic Library Association (TALA). Participation with these groups has enabled the library to acquire additional resources for patrons and create physical spaces for studying and research collaboration for faculty and students with funding savings.
The Carolina Consortium enables libraries in North and South Carolina to use their bulk purchasing power to obtain favorable pricing on a variety of electronic resources that are of significant interest to the scholarly community and the general public. NC LIVE serves all North Carolina libraries with equitable access to a core selection of digital content and services, and has saved the state millions through its collaborative efforts. LYRASIS supports enduring access to shared academic, scientific and culturalheritage through leadership in open technologies, content services, digital solutions and collaboration with archives, libraries, museums and knowledge communities worldwide. The Triad Academic Library Association extends student borrowing privileges to all of the thirteen public and private colleges and universities that serve the Piedmont Triad area of North Carolina.
The library currently participates in a University of North Carolina System-wide shared evidence based e-book acquisition pilot program, which gives participating institutions access to over 21,000 high quality online books published by Wiley, and will result in the purchase of nearly 3,000 of the most heavily used titles. And, the library is currently a participant in state-wide efforts to analyze print holdings across the entire University of North Carolina system libraries. Moving forward, the library is examining shared print strategies as a cost savings measure. In the future, Bluford Library plans to shift from emphasis on local provisioning of library collections and services to increased reliance on a cooperative infrastructure, collective collections, and shared technology platforms.
Library Services
The library provides new and innovative as well
as some more traditional services to meet the needs of the university
community. A full range of traditional and innovative services are available to
faculty, students, and staff. These services include online loan renewals,
information literacy instruction, curated research guides,
interlibrary loans, course reserves, scholarly communication initiatives,
workshops, and distance learning services. The library provides
information about services on its website (http://www.library.ncat.edu/services).
Notable services that support the mission of the university and library are
scholarly communications and course-tailored information literacy instructions.
These two services support the university’s mission and strategic vision.
The Scholarly Communications service, an emerging service area in academic
libraries, aims to assist faculty with the creation, transformation,
dissemination and preservation of knowledge. The library offers scholarly
communication support through workshops and individual consultation in the
following areas: data management, research impact, e-publishing, open
educational resources and copyright.
Course-tailored information literacy instruction is provided by librarians in consultation with faculty on the topics of information discovery/retrieval, research planning, and citation management. Workshops are offered on topics including library research, citation management, literature reviews, plagiarism, copyright and grant searching.
Adequacy and Appropriateness of Library Collections and Services
The adequacy of collections is illustrated by the number of locally held resources, the strength of cooperative collections, and the fact that librarians and faculty work collaboratively to ensure broad and balanced discipline coverage. In addition to the user-driven acquisition plans, which ensure that the library acquires resources that are in demand, other indicators of adequacy include the number of times resources are used and circulated. And, very importantly, adequacy and appropriateness of library materials is illustrated in the process that the library uses to update its collection. To ensure that each degree program has adequate materials, librarians are assigned as liaisons to each college. That ensures that they are in regular contact with department chairs and faculty members to understand the needs of the various colleges. Also, at any time faculty, staff and students may request that the library acquires a book, journal or subscription by sending an email to libacq@ncat.edu. The library has purchased every book that faculty have recommended in the last five years.
Furthermore, each time a new degree program is proposed, the department must include in the proposal information on the library resources that are available to support the new degree (see example for the new BS in Healthcare Management). As the proposal is developed, a senior administrator from a College contacts the Dean of Library Services directly and asks for a collection assessment. If the existing collection is inadequate for a new program, the library and college dean work collaboratively to identify funding to purchase the additional materials that are needed.
The library also utilizes the LibQUAL+ survey tool biennially as a continuous means to improve services and collections. LibQUAL+ is a standardized assessment instrument that gauges customer perception of service and quality in providing information resources and services. The overall scores on LibQUAL+ allows the library to assess the desired level of service and the perceived level of services to further determine if it is meeting its goals. The results of the 2017 and 2019 LibQUAL+ Surveys are provided.
In conjunction with the LibQUAL+ survey, the library determines whether the patrons’ needs are met with usage metrics, ownership of academic titles and other prominent disciplinary resources, interlibrary loan requests, and subjective feedback from constituents to assess how the collection and services are serving the university community. A Student Advisory Board meets once a semester to discuss the collections, programs, services, and events provided by the library (Meeting Notes).
A more thorough assessment of the library services is provided in Section 8.2.c.
Service to Distance Education
Bluford Library offers equitable services to distance education students and faculty. Library personnel may be called for assistance or contacted 24/7 via an email to: (ask@ncat.libanswers.com). Students and faculty have access to all of the library’s databases and electronic books and journals. Books in the library’s stacks can be searched in the library’s online catalog and mailed to distance education users free of charge.
Bluford Library provides collections and learning/information resources and services that are comprehensive and appropriate to support its teaching, research and service mission. N.C. A&T is in compliance with this core requirement.
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS:
1. Bluford Library’s Strategic Plan
2. Bluford Library Collection Development Policy
3. Bluford Library Collection—Materials List in Its Collection
4. Carolina Consortium Website
7. Triad Academic Library Association (TALA) Borrowing Agreement
9. BS in Healthcare Management New Program Proposal
10. LibQUAL Survey Results
a. 2017
b. 2019
11. Student Advisory Board Meeting Notes