Read the Curry College NEASC 2012 Self-Study Report.

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faculty “selectors,” each responsible for purchasing materials in one or more major and/or
minor. By contrast, allocation of funds for electronic resources and periodicals, the noncapital
lines, is determined by a Library faculty committee in consultation with all selectors. This “silo”
structure no longer reflects the reality of some disciplines, for which electronic materials are of
greater value than traditional materials. It now seems appropriate for expenditures for
materials in all formats to be considered holistically by all selectors. To effectively change these
collection policies depends not only on further discussion among Library faculty, but also on
greater institutional flexibility to move funds between capital and non‐capital lines.
Thoughtful appraisal of Information Resources instruction must relate measurable student
competencies to Curry’s Mission Statement. It must also distinguish between expressed
demand and implicit, or unexpressed, need. The former can be evaluated via statistics such as
the numbers of class sessions requested, reference queries received, and computer
workstations usage. As one measure, demand for class instruction has increased: during
AY2006, Library faculty met with 134 classes and 1595 students as compared with 155 classes
and 2,293 students during AY2011. Although the number of recorded reference transactions
declined by approximately 14% between AY2006 and AY2010, the Library instituted regular
Saturday reference hours in AY2009 in response to demand. While phone queries declined, the
percent of electronic reference queries rose during the same time period. Given this trend,
Curry’s librarians are considering instituting “chat” reference services.
A great many information literacy initiatives and programs, listed within Description, have been
put in place to ensure that students acquire the skills they need to access and use, with an
appropriate level of sophistication, information literacy tools that contribute to their success
within their programs/fields of study. While some assessment data is being collected through
the listed projects and there is clearly an interest is utilizing the results, there is not as yet an
overall approach to assessing students’ proficiency and sophistication in accessing, evaluating,
and utilizing information resources.
Another question relates to determining the most appropriate electronic venues for providing
instructional materials: the website proper, the College Portal, and/or the Library’s Innovative
Interfaces ILS To begin this inquiry, Library faculty and staff have recently begun usability
testing, a deliberate user feedback process, to develop and assess the Library’s Web presence.
Among other issues, this will address the need for a clear method for library users to provide
comments or ask questions about library resources (physical and electronic) and/or services
beyond specific reference queries.
As noted in Description, a great deal of computer software is made available to support the
curriculum and student learning. A critical question is how well the software infrastructure
accomplishes that goal. Quantitative data is lacking to answer the question with clarity,
although it appears that most student needs are met most of the time. However, anecdotal
evidence suggests that, despite the ubiquity of a few commonly used software packages across
the various campus labs, there remains uncertainty about which applications may be found
where. This has most often been referenced with regard to software packages that are
Curry College 2012 Self-Study
Standard Seven