C. Library and Learning Support Services
Library and other learning support services for students are sufficient to support the institution’s instructional programs and intellectual, aesthetic, and cultural activities in whatever format and wherever they are offered. Such services include library services and collections, tutoring, learning centers, computer laboratories, and learning technology development and training. The institution provides access and training to students so that library and other learning support services may be used effectively and efficiently. The institution systematically assesses these services using student learning outcomes, faculty input, and other appropriate measures in order to improve the effectiveness of the services.
1. The institution supports the quality of its instructional programs by providing library and other learning support services that are sufficient in quantity, currency, depth, and variety to facilitate educational offerings, regardless of location or means of delivery.
a. Relying on appropriate expertise of faculty, including librarians and other learning support services professionals, the institution selects and maintains educational equipment and materials to support student learning and enhance the achievement of the mission of the institution.
Description: Library
The college library provides an “accessible and effective learning environment.”[ref. 2C-1] The Library is located in a remodeled facility which re-opened in 1997. The Library has a twenty-five station computer classroom for library instruction, 11 group study rooms, forty computers for student research, 7 catalog look-up stations, and twenty circulating laptops which include word processing capabilities. There are ___ seats in the library. The Library currently has sixty-five thousand books, two hundred and fifty periodical subscriptions, and thirty-five hundred VHS/DVD titles. The Library book collection includes twelve thousand electronic books (16% of the collection) and the library has subscriptions to seventeen electronic databases, which provide access to over three thousand full-text periodicals.
The electronic books and subscription databases support the curricular needs of both traditional on-campus students and distance education students, all of whom may access these resources twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In Spring 2006, the Library’s reserve collection of twenty-three hundred items included 375 textbooks purchased with two annual $15,000 grants from the Student Government. The reserve textbook collection provides students with short-term access to the most expensive textbooks. By Spring 2006, the library Reserves had a single copy of any required textbook with a cost of $50 or more. The Library computers available for student use provide access to the Library online catalog, 17 web-based proprietary databases, and Internet resources. Smaller sub-sets of the library computers available for student use provide access to specialized software to support access for students with disabilities, and specialized software for Nutrition and Geography classes. The library has a Web server and a primary server for the Innovative Interfaces integrated library catalog.
The Library offers a variety of audio-visual equipment to support students’ curricular needs, including eighteen TV/VCR/DVD combination players, slide projectors, photocopy machines, a networked printer, a CCTV(video text magnifier), and microform reader/printers.
The Library staff consists of one administrator, four full-time librarians, 3.16 FTE adjunct librarians, 6.76 FTE classified staff members, and 5.18 FTE student assistants. In 2003 the staffing level in the Library decreased by one eleven-month classified staff position. In 2003 the Library reduced its hours of operation by 18% (from 71 hours per week to the current 60 hours per week) and lost the funding for extended evening hours prior to finals week. The 4.0 FTE of student assistants indicates a heavy reliance on part-time seasonal efforts of student employees to provide critical library functions.
Cabrillo College Library’s size does not meet any of the traditional national standards for library size. [ref. 2C-2] What it does have is a closely monitored collection with an emphasis on improving the level of currency for this collection. The library rigidly adheres to the principle that materials must support the instructional goals of the college. Currency assessments for the 1990s and since the year 2000 are available on the library intranet. [ref. 2C-3] In 2005, the library catalog added a software module to the catalog which allows for viewing sub-set collections including a sub-collection for Watsonville Reference books and the Horticulture Learning Center.
The collection is regularly analyzed by collection development liaison librarians to track average age of the collection. Librarians select quality materials (books, subscription databases, media, eBooks, and Web references for the library links Web page). Database subscription usage is monitored and studied. [ref. 2C-3] The library provides instructors with regular invitations to select materials for the collection. Student learning needs are monitored by book requests from faculty and students. Instructors are regularly invited to review the collection by attending a library sponsored FLEX activity to identify and remove outdated materials. The library only purchases video/dvd titles requested by faculty for use in the classroom. All new faculty receive an orientation to library services in person or a print copy of an overview of library services. [hard copy, Evidence box]
The Library’s budget for collections has varied a great deal for the past several years. The funding comes from a combination of college general funds. These funds were fixed and unchanged from 1989 to 2003 when general funds allocation for collections was reduced by 25 percent. [Cabrillo College Governing Board Agenda Item April 7, 2003, hard copy, Evidence box, located in Library] Telecommunications and Technology Infrastructure Program funds provide $34,500 per year towards electronic resources. Fifteen percent of the college's Instructional Equipment and Library Materials funds each year are used for new books and electronic materials. This fifteen percent formula results in a floating figure that has ranged from a high of $78,000 in 2000/01 to zero dollars in 2002/03. The 2005/06 figure was $34,000.
II. C.1.b. The institution provides ongoing instruction for users of library and other learning support services so that students are able to develop skills in information competency.
Description: Library
The reference desk is staffed by faculty librarians during all hours that the Library is open. The librarians answer reference questions, conduct Library orientations, teach credit-bearing Library courses, select materials for the collection, and respond to phone and email requests for librarian assistance. Librarians regularly translate student requests for information materials into recommendations for library purchase.
Library 10 is a transfer level, one-unit, self-paced course offered as a co-requisite with English 1A. This course teaches students how to access, evaluate and utilize information resources. Approximately twenty-four hundred students a year enroll in Library 10. In 2003, the library reduced its credit course offerings by three: Library 16, 17, and 21. Library 10 librarians meet regularly to assess the workbook’s effectiveness and set goals for improvement. Student evaluation data for library 10 is available on the library intranet. [ref. 2C-3] In Fall 2006, as a part of the Program Planning Process, an additional survey was administered to students taking Library 10 by the PRO office. [ref. 2C-3] Dialog in the library is promoted by two distinct listservs, one for the entire library and one for librarians exclusively. Minutes of meetings are posted to the library intranet.[ref. 2C-4]
Librarians present approximately 170 course-related instruction sessions per year. [ref. 2C-3] Use of this checklist facilitates discussion with transfer institutions for competencies needed for successful transfer. Working with individual course instructors, librarians prepare one or more sessions which introduce subject specific online information resources, along with the concepts and tools necessary to explore information resources relevant to the course being taken. These introductions are presented either in the library's electronic classroom or in classrooms on the Aptos campus or in Watsonville. Some of the librarians who teach course-related instruction sections work from the California State Checklist for Information Competencies. [ref. 2C-5] The sessions usually include the production of a worksheet that allows students to demonstrate that they have achieved an ability to choose resources from a target database. These worksheets are available under the heading Course Related Materials on the Internet Links Webpage maintained by the librarians. [ref. 2C-6]
II.C.1c. The institution provides students and personnel responsible for student learning programs and services adequate access to the library and other learning support services, regardless of their location or means of delivery.
Description: Library
The library Web page [ref. 2C-7] is designed to support information goals. Library support for remote students includes remote access to the 17 electronic resource databases and to 12,000 online electronic books, 24-hour turnaround email reference service via “ask a librarian,” the ability to apply for a library card online, check status of checked-out items online, and renew materials online. The library also provides phone access during library open hours.
Cabrillo's library services to the Watsonville Center involve two separate but related efforts. The library has a longstanding commitmentto provide information services to all off-site students. There is also a close, cooperative relationship between the Integrated Learning Center (ILC) in Watsonville and the Cabrillo College Library.
The library maintains a small non-circulating Reference collection of one hundred and seventy-five titles in the ILC. Tutors at the ILC are trained to help students use a variety of library services from the Watsonville Center. Librarians provide tailored course-related instruction information literacy sessions in computer classrooms in Watsonville.
On average, there are four sections per semester of the self-paced, workbook-based Library 10 course offered with English 1A sections taught in Watsonville. Those sections are consistently instructed by the same adjunct librarian who also provides 12 hours of librarian presence in each of the two weeks when students submit the two-part Library 10 workbook.
For two years the library has had a process in place to provide twenty-four hour delivery to Watsonville of any books requested. None have been requested for this delayed delivery.
Description: – Learning Support Services
Cabrillo College Learning Support Services are distributed between the Aptos campus and the Watsonville Center. They support instruction in their own subject areas and, with the exception of the Individualized Learning Center (ILC) and the Computer Technology Centers (CTC) and Tutorials, these subject oriented support services report to the department and division with that subject responsibility.
Aptos and Watsonville Computer Technology Centers:
The Aptos CTC is open 7 days a week for seventy hours per week during the Fall and Spring semester. It is also open twenty-four hours a week for the six week summer session. [ref. 2C-11] The Watsonville CTC is open 6 days a week for fifty four hours per week during the Fall and Spring semester. [ref. 2C-12] The CTC staff supports seventeen computer classrooms and fifteen computer labs in addition to the one hundred and twenty two workstations in the Aptos CTC open lab and thirty six workstations in the Watsonville CTC, for a total of eight hundred and eighty workstations. [ref. 2C-13]
Aptos has two Computer Lab Coordinators, two 11 month full-time and two 12 month half-time Computer Systems Maintenance Techs, and approximately 2.25 FTE student employees. Watsonville has one Computer Lab Coordinator, one 11 month LIA, one 12 month Computer Systems Maintenance Tech who shares his time between Watsonville and Aptos, and approximately .43 FTE student employees. Full time and adjunct faculty are assigned by various programs to approximately forty lab hours in the CTC to support their classes. Student Assistants and staff are available to assist students with homework questions.
Student computer accounts and network folders are created each semester for all students registered at the college. (evidence – a printout of the database containing the student accounts?) If the student is taking a course that has a 1400 or Wats4510 lab as part of the course, their student account has access to any campus student computer. If the student is enrolled in a course using the WebCT server, their account has access to the WebCT server from on or off campus. All other accounts may be activated for use on campus by enrolling in CABT510 (a no fee, no credit class.)
The CTC Aptos and the CTC Watsonville support applications taught in the following programs: Accounting, Business, Computer Science/Computer Information Systems, Computer Applications/Business Technology, Construction and Energy Management, Digital Media, Engineering, Engineering Technology, Medical Assisting, Mathematics. The Watsonville CTC additionally supports: English, Physics, Biology, Nutrition, Chemistry, and Meteorology. The Aptos and the Watsonville CTC provide software for word processing, spreadsheets, PowerPoint production and iInternet browsing for any Cabrillo College student.
Watsonville Integrated Learning Center:
The Watsonville ILC offers drop-in tutoring in English, ESL, Math, Chemistry, Early Childhood Education, Spanish, and Physics. Each year they work with over more than one thousand students needing drop-in tutoring. The Center is open six days a week, including evenings, Fridays and Saturdays, for a total of 57 hours (ref. 2C- we need number here for URL of Wat. ILC). The main floor of the Watsonville ILC offers small tables able to accommodate up to 30 students. It also offers six small group study rooms. The Watsonville ILC offers three individual rooms for test make-ups, test accommodations, video viewing, and reading lab pre- and post-semester assessments. It has two TV/VCRs and one TV/VCR/DVD for students to view course-related materials. It maintains Reading Lab materials as part of its services. It also maintains math-related supplemental materials for student use. The Watsonville ILC provides access to a significant course materials collection, as well as complete sets of all Distance Education videos. It has copies of the videos used in Library 203 (Tutoring Methods) so that students enrolled in this course may view them in Watsonville.
The Watsonville ILC staffing profile includes one faculty coordinator, 2-3 part-time faculty night coordinators (varies semester to semester), four classified staff (one position currently open/unfilled), and a varying number of student employees.
Writing Center/ESL Lab:
The Writing Center/ESL Lab is open 58 hours per week, including evenings and Fridays (add ref 2C-? for URL for WC). The Writing Center has 38 computer workstations. The ESL Lab has seven computer workstations, two stations for listening and pronunciation practice, and a television with DVD and videotape player. The Writing Center has a computer lab, several tables for writing, two small group rooms, and one larger classroom for student groups, staff meetings, and other activities. The ESL Lab has a separate tutoring lab and a smaller multimedia room for interactive programs, listening and pronunciation practice, and video equipment.