Bill Rueter Jr.
February 2, 2010
INFO 520 – Library Field Trip
Bucks County Community College
Nestled in Newtown, Pennsylvania, adjacent to Tyler State Park, Bucks County Community College (BCCC) is a bustling two-year institution. On the day of my visit, the parking lot looked as though it had recently eaten a mighty Thanksgiving dinner of automobiles, and students made several passes around before settling on spots in far-off corners of the bucolic campus. Dozens of small packs of students hustled towards the small cluster of buildings, motivated to move quickly by the freezing air that, when swallowed, tasted like a cold glass of water. Indeed, with 9,572 students, about 43% of which are full-time and 57% part-time,[1] BCCC seemed to be thriving as an affordable alternative to four-year colleges for high school graduates, and as an option for adults looking to continue their education.
The library reminded me of a house with a large family – it was bustling and lived-in, and yet it offered both literal and figurative warmth on an otherwise harsh winter morning. It is not the kind of library where one feels overwhelmed, lost, or intimidated, either by sheer size or mere aesthetics, but where one feels at home, and where the feel and pace of the place made it clear that things are getting done and people are getting along. At one table, an ear-phoned student sits and reads quietly. At another, three students whisper in collaboration, as they peer at the same laptop screen, while at another rests a partly pieced-together community puzzle that is there for any patron to contribute to as they walk by. “It’s very popular. See?” said Linda McCann, the Director of Library Services, as a woman stopped momentarily to work on the puzzle. It is a whimsical ornament on an otherwise thoughtfully constructed canvas.
Linda is tasked with overseeing the community college’s busy library system, which in addition to the main branch in Newtown that I visited, includes two smaller branches: in Perkasie in Upper Bucks County, and in Bristol in Lower Bucks County. She manages a large library staff, many of whom rotate throughout the week among the three branches. Under her direction, she has six full-time librarians, who are supplemented by fifteen part-time librarians, ten student employees, and four per diem workers.[2] The full-time librarians are each assigned to a particular role within the BCCC library: collection management, information literacy, digital resources, online learning, news media, or emerging technologies.
The Bucks County Community College Library does not currently have a written collection policy. I only had a moment to speak with the Collection Management Librarian, Marzenna Ostrowski, who told me that the policy was being rewritten and so is not presently on the website. She did tell me, however, that the general focus of the collection policy is to support the curriculum. In fact, supporting the curriculum is the primary focus of the library’s entire operation. Each full-time librarian, including the Library Director, serves as an “academic liaison” to specific academic departments to assist with library and research questions. One librarian is the liaison for the behavioral and social science departments; one is for the math, science, and technology departments; one is for visual arts, communications, and music; one is for business; one is for health, physical education, and nursing; and one is for language and literature. Linda feels that by focusing their attention on specific fields of study, the librarians become increasingly comfortable with research strategy and methods in those fields.
The focus on curriculum is also evident in the Information Literacy (IL) program. A large room in the BCCC library, with modern, interactive learning amenities, is devoted to this program, which requires that a teacher at the college first have a specific topic that her students will have to research using library resources. The IL program allows the college’s library to demonstrate: “how to evaluate Internet search results; how to navigate the BCCC Library Web page; when and how to use Interlibrary Loan for retrieval of books and journal articles not owned by BCCC; when and how to use online chat systems, IM-a-Librarian and Ask-Here-PA: how to use Access Pennsylvania to find resources in 1400+ Pennsylvania libraries; how to develop an effective strategy for your assigned research; how websites are different from articles found in library databases; and the ethical use of printed and electronic information” (BCCC Newtown Campus Library Faculty Guide Brochure). The diversity of the instruction provided at the Information Literacy sessions demonstrates the importance of having librarians that are well versed not only in traditional research methods, but in cutting-edge technology and ethical issues as well. To accommodate the needs of a burgeoning online learning program, the college created the Embedded eBrarian Program, in which “a member of the library faculty is present in your online course space to help…students with a specific research assignment just as in a traditional face-to-face Information Literacy session” (BCCC Library Embedded Ebrarian Program Brochure).
The librarians at BCCC, two of whom are Drexel University MLIS graduates, work at all three of the community college branches because, as Linda said, it creates “consistency” among the three libraries in both style and substance. She beamed as she handed me the industry newsletter revealing that The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) recognized the BCCC library’s consistency, among other things, by awarding it the 2010 Excellence in Academic Libraries Award in the Community College category: “’The selection committee was impressed with the library’s commitment to areas often underrepresented in community college libraries, including fundraising and development,’ said Julie Todaro, chair of the 2010 Excellence in Academic Libraries Selection Committee and Dean of Library Services at Austin Community College. ‘In addition to demonstrating excellent public relations and marketing efforts, the library also provided a solid assessment of programs and services. Their productive partnership with IT was also noteworthy’” (Free). Their “partnership with IT” was evident throughout my tour and conversations at the library. I saw stacks of books, yes, but we only walked passed them briskly on our way to the tutoring center or Learning Resources office. In the application for the ACLC award, BCCC’s entry form noted that it is “a part of the community of Learning Resources, interconnected and interdependent, all calling the Library their physical home” (2010 ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award Program Entry Form). In addition to simply validating the work they have been doing, the award comes with $3,000, special recognition at the ACRL/LLAMA joint awards program during the 2010 ALA Annual Conference in Washington D.C., and, of course, a plaque.
The ACRL award is a testament to the BCCC library feeling comfortable in its own skin, and the library finds support from two cooperative organizations: the Tri-State College Library Cooperative (TCLC) and the Pennsylvania Community College Library Consortium (PCCLC). The library director feels that the memberships in these organizations allow BCCC to exchange ideas and experiences with libraries that have similar curriculums, missions, problems, and resources. The TCLC includes libraries from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware and it aims to “facilitate the exchange of information among participants, encourage participants to share their library facilities, develop mutually supportive collection development/resource sharing programs, maintain and encourage communication and cooperation among the participants, and develop other mutually advantageous programs and activities” (Tri-State College Library Collective).
The digital collection on the library’s website is not spectacular, but it is more than adequate. JSTOR and LexisNexis are available, for example, and the library director seemed satisfied that the online collection meets the needs of the school’s curriculum and its students. I asked her what she would do to improve the library with a grant or donation, and she hesitated. I asked if hesitation meant that the library has no single glaring need, or that there are too many, and choosing one is difficult. As a student in the archival studies concentration, her answer intrigued me. Bucks County Community College’s library has been collecting the local newspaper, the Bucks County Courier Times for many years, and most of it is on Microfilm. With a grant, Linda would digitize her Courier Times collection, eliminating the need for five microfilm readers, and making the collection more accessible to users. BCCC does not have an archive, although they do have a small amount of archival material, such as World War II era maps, a collection of papers from the adjacent Tyler State Park, and displayed primary source material from Abraham Lincoln that is on loan from a history professor’s personal collection. I noted that although the Tyler State Park papers are available to researchers by request, there is no real system for managing the archival material that belongs to the college.
After about an hour walking around the library and peppering Linda with questions, it was time to face the cold and make the trek through the parking lot. Any anxiety I was harboring on the drive-in about meeting new people or intruding in someone’s office had long since dissipated. Before I left, I paused at the table with the community puzzle, and took one last look around. The Information Literacy room is to my right. The tutoring center is down the stairs. The reference desk is behind me. I realized that the library really is just one part of the Learning Resources community, just one piece of the community puzzle.
Bibliography
2010 ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award Program Entry Form. (2009, November 30). Retrieved on February 1, 2010 at:
Bucks County Community College Library. (Undated). The Embedded eBrarian Program. [Brochure].
Bucks County Community College Newtown Campus Library. (Undated). Faculty Guide. [Brochure].
Community College Review. (2010, February 1) Retrieved from:
Free, D. (2010, January 21). 2010 ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award Winners. Retrieved February 1, 2010, from ACRC Insider website:
Tri-State College Library Collective. Mission Statement. Retrieved on February 1, 2010 at:
[1]Community College Review. (2010, February 1) Retrieved from:
[2]The budget allows for a predetermined amount of money to be used for “per diem” employees, who can work until the money allotted to each of them has run out.Per diem employees do not receive health benefits.