SACS Accreditation

3.8.1 Learning/Information Resources

Comprehensive Standard: The institution provides facilities and learning/information resources that are appropriate to support its teaching, research, and service mission.

X  Compliance
     Partial Compliance
     Non-Compliance

In support of Georgia State University's mission [1] the University Library's published Mission Statement [2] describes several goals:

The Library collaborates in the pursuit of the University's initiatives, as expressed in the University's Strategic Plan, of excellence and distinctiveness by

• ensuring high quality service, consultation, and comprehensive reference services to students, faculty and other clients
• providing enhanced access to information and contributing to global, networked information resources 
• acquiring, managing, and preserving information resources in a broad range of formats 
• creating an environment conducive to learning and research 
• recognizing the importance of the library as a place on a university campus with inviting, comfortable, secure and networked spaces for learning and research 
• teaching information retrieval and evaluation using current and emerging technologies 
• building an organization that fosters cultural diversity 
• providing leadership in a variety of cooperative and reciprocal programs

The stated goals of “creating an environment conducive to learning and research,” “ensuring high quality service, consultation and comprehensive reference services” and “recognizing the importance of the library as a place on a university campus” are evident in the priorities of library administration to develop and enhance library facilities, services and resources.

Library administration has sought to create an improved library space, a “comfortable, secure and networked space for learning and research” as described in the mission statement, by pursuing an extensive renovation and remodeling project which has been named the Library Transformation [3]. While planning for the renovation has been ongoing for several years, the full-scale construction project began in 2006.

University Library collections and staff are housed in two buildings centrally located on campus.  Library North, a five story building built in 1969 and Library South, a newer eight-story building, are located on opposite sides, north and south, of Decatur Street.  The two buildings are connected by three internal bridges spanning Decatur Street that are accessed on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors of either library.  The bridge areas also provide study space for students.  Prior to the Transformation, the service points for library users were a reference desk on the 1st floor of Library North, a circulation desk on that same floor, and a Periodicals Service Center on the 3rd floor of Library North.  The Media Center and another circulation and reserves desk are located at the entrance to the 2nd floor of Library South.

With the renovation project, existing service points in the library were redefined and relocated to better serve the needs of students. The transformed library provides circulation and periodical services on the 1st floor of Library North and a Learning Commons on the 2nd floor, with expanded services at a consolidated service point. With the cooperation and collaboration of campus computing, IS&T (Instructional Systems and Technology), the department of Applied Linguistics and ESL service program, and the department of English, students will receive expert research, writing, production, technology, and ESL assistance, all in one place.  A 1st floor computer help desk staffed by IS&T also provides support for campus computing, including wireless support, WebCT assistance and assistance with access to Student Services applications such as the SCT Banner student registration and financial aid system.  In early 2007, the Media Center on the 2nd floor of Library South was updated, and two group media rooms were made available for watching videos or DVDs, listening to music, or practicing presentations.

The existing Library North building is 119,947 square feet (sf), and Library South is 61,900 sf, for a total of 181,847 sf.  Of that area, 150,524 sf (82.8%) is used for public space including open stacks.  The entire renovation plans are to expand the links between the buildings, adding an additional one, thereby increasing existing space by 9170 sf to 12626 sf.  This will expand existing study areas to include 55 group study rooms, carrels designed for collaborative work, and informal meeting spaces where group projects may be pursued, in addition to approximately 1,333 sf devoted to quiet study.  Two classrooms, as opposed to one in Library North prior to renovation, better accommodate instruction sessions. Additionally, seating in the existing facility (approximately 1,322 units) will be increased to approximately 2,116 when construction is finished.

Before renovation, the University Library offered 160 PC workstations for use by the GSU community.   The renovations, which will be completed on all floors by November, 2007, will add 240 workstations to bring the total available to nearly 400.  These PCs will have the full range of application software which is available in the campus open computer labs, and on-site support for using productivity software will be available.  Network access, including the wireless network, will be available throughout the buildings. 

Pursuing the library goal of “comprehensive reference services,” GSU librarians provide reference assistance which has branched from the traditional, in-person reference desk into a number of other settings.  While continuing to offer quality, in-person reference assistance, along with email and telephone assistance during operating hours, the University Library has expanded its services in the last few years to include reference assistance via online chat and instant messaging (IM).  As another means of outreach, liaison librarians established office hours in 13 academic departments, such as the School of Music, the History department, the Chemistry Department and the Instructional Technology Center in the College of Education.

By offering consultation services, liaison and Learning Commons librarians ensure that the library meets its mission to provide patrons the help that they need to make effective use of information resources.  Consultations provide one-on-one, in-depth expert research assistance on specific topics.  In 2005-2006, GSU librarians increased the number of individual research consultations by 27% over the previous year—meeting with 1,834 patrons (students and faculty) for a total of 834 hours. (2005-2006 Library Annual Report, Executive Summary of the Associate University Librarian for Research Services  [4])

The University Library has capitalized on the efficient use of technology in fulfilling its mission to deliver services and to provide access to resources. Recent library initiatives highlight the increasingly strategic role technology plays in providing library services and the continuing need to update and improve these tools:

• The Web Development unit and the Technology Steering Committee of the University Library initiated regular usability studies  [5] as a management tool for fine-tuning the website and for making library resources more visible and accessible.
• Software and programming initiatives for the website, along with the development of blogging [6], improved access to library news and resources for the GSU community. The University Library has become a leader in the use of blogs in libraries, and other libraries have requested information about the software tools used.  (see Vogel, T. M., & Goans, D. (2005). Delivering the news with blogs: The Georgia State University library experience. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 10 (1), 5-27.)
• The Library’s Research Guides and tutorials (see Section 3.8.2) may now be seamlessly integrated into WebCT, allowing students to use library resources without exiting the courseware.
• The Library has expanded its collection of electronic theses and dissertations, now submitted by students in all of the colleges that produce them, and hired a Digital Technologies librarian to lead the development of an institutional repository of the university’s scholarly output. 
• Special Collections, with funding from the International Association of Machinists (IAM), and in collaboration with the University Library’s Digital Services department and OCLC, has digitized the entire historical collection of the IAM Journal, and making it freely accessible worldwide for research.
• The Library has initiated an Open Journal System (OJS)  [7] to host open access journals.  One journal in production is titled Open Access Research and several academic departments in the University have expressed interest in using the service to produce open access journals in their disciplines. 

A discussion of other learning resources available on campus for undergraduate and graduate students is available in Standard 3.4.12 and academic learning support in Standard 3.4.9.

An ongoing source for feedback on the Library’s facilities, the University Library’s Institutional Effectiveness Report  [8] provides data which shows that the condition of the library buildings requires ongoing attention (Outcome 3 – “Patrons have an environment conducive to learning”) .  The information gathered included ratings for the “library as place” collected from GSU students, faculty and staff through LibQUAL+, occupancy rates of targeted spaces for selected weeks during fall and spring semesters, and comments about the library facilities collected through the Online Suggestion Form [9]. At the completion of the renovation, user satisfaction with the facilities should be reflected in these indicators.

Usability activities [5] have given the library staff a better understanding of how and what should be presented to library users through the library’s web presence. For the 2005-2006 year, activities included a home page study in which library staff engaged 90 students with a survey and sample activities. The study helped to improve links to online resources and instructional content and to determine the appropriate link labels and locations for access to online research guides and online databases. The findings, which showed an increase in students’ success in performing library research using the library web site, informed some reorganization and improvements.

In addition to receiving input about collections through liaison activities, the Academic Program Review and LibQUAL+ (see Section 2.9), has also informed library administration and staff about resources:
• The library participated in the North American Title Count, a source of information for measuring, managing, comparing and evaluating collections.
• The Senate Library Advisory Committee has joined with GSU’s department of Institutional Research to study institutional repositories in order to advise the library in the management and development of the Institutional Repository.

The primary mission of the Law Library is to provide faculty, students, and staff of the College of Law with the information resources and services that are necessary to support effective legal instruction and research. Additionally, we instruct students in information-seeking skills for their academic success and for use in their legal careers. We also provide resources and services to the Georgia State University community, the legal community of Atlanta, and the public.

The Law Library attempts to fulfill its mission by achieving the following objectives: (i) select and maintaining materials that are best suited for faculty and student instructional and research needs; (ii) providing online bibliographic access to information resources; and (iii) using the latest technology. It is important that the librarians and staff stay abreast of technological developments in the information field so our students will be competent in both manual and electronic sources. Our students must have excellent legal research skills as they enter the job market. Thus, the library has an educational mission and is the true laboratory for the law student since this is where the law student learns to use the basic tools of the profession.

The librarians strive to create an atmosphere that is conducive to students’ study and research activities. The Law Library space should inspire study and learning with emphasis on quiet space for individual learning and group study rooms for collaborative learning.

Since the last American Bar Association visit, the Law Library acquired 7,500 sq. ft of additional space (2004 renovation), bringing the total to 44,510 sq. ft and re-carpeted the entire library. The Library has 37,989 linear feet of shelving, of which 18,784 feet (49%) are occupied. The Law Library has a large conference room with a “smart podium” and a video conference system. There are eleven study rooms with 74 laptop access points. There are 113 wired study carrels, and total seating available for 354. The seating throughout the day and evening is adequate for the size of the College’s student body. The Law Review offices are located in the Library with outside access, and the Faculty Commons on the fourth floor contains selective reporters and Georgia materials [10].

The Library maintains a large thirty-six workstation student computer lab that can be split, offering an instructional lab with twenty-four student workstations, a ceiling-mounted projector, drop-down projection screen, dry-erase boards, and an instructor’s workstation. This resource is adequate to support current student computing needs, especially because student-computing demand has shifted from computer lab resources to laptop support services. The Library offers a number of services supporting law students’ use of laptops and other devices including wireless connectivity, wired study carrels and rooms, and networked printers [11]. 

The books are arranged on two levels and share two buildings:  Urban Life and University Center. The arrangement of books is very logical and it is easy to locate materials.

Concerning staff space, there are eight library and administrative office, along with nine modular office furniture workstations for staff. The technical services and public service areas are functional.

The Law Library adopts state-of-the-art computer technology, and it has sufficient equipment to make use of its electronic, microform and other non-print materials. It furnishes equipment to view and print materials on microform, in electronic format including licensed databases and web subscriptions, and view and listen to audio-visual materials in the collection. The College has set as a goal to maintain innovative uses of technology for the provision and expansion of all library services.

Over the past four years, the law library has focused much of its technology efforts on developing and expanding its physical, technological resources and infrastructure. It has renovated and expanded the student computer lab, increasing the number of workstations from eighteen to thirty-six, outfitted the Library with 113 wired study carrels, furnished nine study rooms with wired study tables, deployed wireless connectivity throughout 75% of the law library and installed additional printing stations providing networked printers and Westlaw and LexisNexis dedicated printers for students with laptop computers or other mobile computing devices.

With a sound technology infrastructure in place that supports multiple points of access within the College and remotely and a variety of online tools, the Library has considerably strengthened the value of its electronic collection. Recent electronic resource acquisitions include the full BNA library of publications, Jurist’s Arbitration Law Online, and the Thomson-Gale products Making of Modern Law and Supreme Court Records and Briefs.

University Library
1. Mission statement Georgia State University
2. Mission statement of the University Library
3. University Library Transformation webpage
4. University Library Annual Report
5. University Library Usability Studies
6. GSU Library Blogs
7. Open Access Journals
8. University Library Institutional Effectiveness Documents, including WEAVE
9. Online Suggestion Form

Law Library
10. Law Library Map
11. Law Library Technology