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3.8.1 The institution provides facilities, services, and other learning/information resources that are appropriate to support its teaching, research, and service mission.

NARRATIVE/JUSTIFICATION FOR JUDGMENT OF COMPLIANCE

The University provides facilities, services, and other learning/information resources that are appropriate to support its teaching, research, and service mission.

Library Physical Facilities
The Killam Library comprises four floors of the east side of the Sue and Radcliffe Killam Library Building. There are over 42,000 square feet of public space, including lobbies, reference and instructional space, federal documents, microforms, periodicals, and special collections on the first floor; media, curriculum collection, juvenile collection, and Texas state documents on the second floor; general collection stacks, five group study rooms, and the Great Room (the library’s main reading room) on the third floor; and more general collection stacks and five more group study rooms on the fourth floor. There is seating space for 555 library users and 44 computer workstations are available for public use.

Seating and workstations are sufficient for present needs; rarely are more than 30 out of 44 computer workstations in use at the same time. Over the last four years, an average of 58% of respondents on the annual library survey (Killam Library Institutional Questionnaire Results) have indicated that they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the number of computer workstations and printers (66% in the most recent survey). During the same period, an average of 76.5% of respondents indicated that they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with library organization and signage (78.5% in the most recent survey).

In the collections areas detailed above, Killam Library contains over 27,000 linear feet of book shelving. On the average, the bookshelves are filled to a little over 80% of maximum working capacity (85.7% is considered full working capacity). The General Collection (main stacks, third and fourth floors, 22,298 shelf-feet) is at approximately 82% of full working capacity. The Special Collections room on the first floor (262 shelf-feet) is at approximately 80% of full working capacity. The Media Collection (2nd floor, 245 shelf-feet) is at approximately 84.5% of full working capacity. Other areas (reference, documents, periodicals, curriculum, and juvenile) have available growth space.

Library collections
Killam Library collections are described numerically as follows:

Government document materials are catalogued in a database separate from the general library catalogue.
eBooks are organized into six collections. Five of them are shared resources collections. One is owned by the University. We have permanent access to all them (Killam Library Electronic Book (eBooks) Collection).

There are several ways in which the Killam Library can demonstrate how the collections support the educational, research and public service programs of the University. The following table shows the portion of the print book title holdings that corresponds directly to our academic departments or colleges:

The table above is presented in much greater subject detail in Killam Library Print Book Holdings by Academic Area.

Another element that relates library acquisitions to our educational and research programs is our Killam Library Book Budget Allocation Formula, which determines the annual book and audio/visual budget for each academic department or college. The formula was developed and is reviewed periodically by the University Library Committee, which consists of faculty representing each academic department. The formula addresses research requirements by assigning greater weight to graduate semester credit hours.

Due to the bilingual nature of our student body and community we are reporting the number of titles in Spanish to emphasize that over six percent of our collection is directly supporting Spanish Language and Literature, Latin American Studies and Hispanic Studies programs.

On the most recent survey (Killam Library Institutional Questionnaire FY2002-2003), 80% of respondents indicated that they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the library's book collection, 76% indicated that they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the library's periodicals collection, and 85% indicated that they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the library's electronic database collection.

Databases available to our patrons cover all disciplines taught at the University. Vendors and aggregators embed some databases into larger databases. The majority provides access to the full text and image of relevant articles. Others are indexes and abstracts. This is a very dynamic set of information, and is constantly changing. The databases can be consulted online from an authenticated computer by visiting the Killam Library Alphabetical Database List page. Authentication for database access is automatic from on-campus computers, but requires a log-on to the library’s proxy server for off-campus access, which is restricted to users affiliated with the University.

Related to our databases are the more than 8,000 electronic journals to which our patrons have access. These also form a very dynamic set of information. As mentioned in the paragraph above, most of the articles published by these journals are accessible in either full text and/or image. A listing of all journals available electronically is accessible through The Texas A&M University System Libraries Online Journals.

Library Services
Killam Library is open for service 84 hours per week during the Fall, Spring, and Summer semesters. Peer institutions' libraries average 86.4 service hours per week. Service hours range from 81.5 hours to 90 hours per week, with one much larger institution at 115 hours per week. (Killam Library Comparison of Library Service Hours with Peer Institutions) On the most recent library survey, 73.4% of respondents indicated that they were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the library's hours of service.

All basic services (circulation, periodicals, and reference) are available during library hours of operation. In addition, the library provides 44 computer workstations which offer computer access to students during library hours for Internet access, use of databases and to conduct research. (Computer Workstations)

The annual user survey has items rating the various library services. On the Killam Library Institutional Questionnaire FY2002-2003, 86.7% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “The people who work at the circulation desk are courteous and helpful.” On the same item 9% were neutral and 4.3% disagreed or strongly disagreed. Another survey item asking users to respond to the statement, “Overdue notices and fines are handled promptly, efficiently, and fairly”, resulted in 74.3% agreeing or strongly agreeing, 18.8 responding neutrally, and 6.9% disagreeing or strongly disagreeing. Two items polling users about reference desk staff and services registered combined responses of 86.5% agreement or strong agreement, 9.6% neutral and 3.9% disagreement or strong disagreement. A survey statement that periodicals staff are courteous and helpful netted 85.7% agreement or strong agreement, 10.5% neutral responses, and 3.8% disagreement or strong disagreement. Periodicals staff also provides support for microform equipment users and photocopier users. Microform support received the following responses to the quality of that service: 65.6% agree or strongly agree, 27.4% neutral and 7.0% negative. The microform question had a relatively low response rate with 29% leaving it blank and a high neutral response, which probably indicated a lack of familiarity or use. Respondents indicated 83.6% agreement or strong agreement about being able to receive help using the library photocopiers, leaving 13.4% neutral and 3.0% disagreeing or strongly disagreeing. Questions about the working order of the photocopiers were also preponderantly in agreement.

Computer based services were discussed under facilities and collections as far as electronic content and number of computers are concerned. Additionally, survey respondents rated the working order of computers and printers. Response to the working order of computers was 78.3% positive, 15.7% neutral and 5.9% negative. Response to the working order of printers was 81.8% positive, 11.4% neutral and 6.8% negative. Asked about being able to get help with using computers and printers 84.0% of respondents were positive, 11.0% neutral and 5.0% negative.

The library offers interlibrary service at no charge to students or faculty. Survey respondents were 73.5% positive, 21.9% neutral and 4.6 % neutral in reaction to the statement, “I am able to get the materials I need through interlibrary loan. When asked about being promptly notified about the arrival of interlibrary loan materials, 69.7% of respondents were positive, 24.0% neutral and 6.3% negative. It should be noted that at least 25% of respondents left these two questions blank, which suggests that the high percentage of neutral responses were erroneous responses meaning to indicate no use or unfamiliarity with interlibrary loan service. Many of those responses should probably have been marked n/a. Recently, the library implemented an electronic format of the interlibrary loan system to allow patrons to make requests online.

The Killam Library is also a selective federal depository library and a depository of Texas documents. In addition to making print versions of documents available to the public, the library also provides a portal to government documents online using specialized pages within the library’s web page as verifiable through the link in Killam Library Government Documents and Information. Although the federal and state documents are only selectively cataloged in the main library catalog, there is a separate, online catalog of government documents accessible via the web page. The annual user survey does not have a space for users to rate the quality of documents service, but it does ask them to categorize their use. The average response was halfway between “never” and “sometimes” out of three possible use levels including “often”. Government documents tends to serve a small number of users with specialized information not readily available through publications of commercial or private sources. More indicative of government documents use is the popularity of the government documents web page. It received 5,066 accesses in the academic year 2002-2003.

Another service of the government documents area is geographic information systems (GIS) and data services. GIS software and government or private data make it possible to map the information to show the geographic distribution of the data, which is often an excellent way to analyze data or present it meaningfully. The library provides the software, the data and the instruction or support for use of the software. The Killam Library web page includes special pages devoted to GIS and mapping, which received 1,629 accesses in the year 2002-2003. (Killam Library Government Information System (GIS) Mapping Center) The library also offers the use of a plotter, which supports the printing of color maps up to 42 inches wide. The entire package, i.e. plotter, Internet access to maps and GIS software, forms a virtual maps center capable of producing maps on demand.

SOURCE	LOCATION/Special Instructions
Killam Library Institutional Questionnaire Results	http://library.tamiu.edu/info/KLIQ/
Killam Library Electronic Book (eBooks) Collection	http://library.tamiu.edu/SACS/eBOOKS_support.pdf
Killam Library Print Book Holdings by Academic Area	http://library.tamiu.edu/sacs/holdings_by_academic_area.pdf
Killam Library Book Budget Allocation Formula	http://library.tamiu.edu/sacs/ Book_Budget_Allocation_Formula.pdf
Killam Library Institutional Questionnaire, 2002-2003	http://library.tamiu.edu/SACS/library_questionnaire.pdf
Killam Library Alphabetical Database List	http://library.tamiu.edu/dbases/
The Texas A&M University System Libraries Online Journals	http://metalib.tamu.edu:9003/tamus-e-collection/e-journals-TAMIU--.html
Killam Library Comparison of Library Service Hours with Peer Institutions	http://library.tamiu.edu/SACS/hours.pdf click on link above, click cancel on password box that appears and document will load
Computer Workstations	http://www.tamiu.edu/archives/comp_stations.pdf
Killam Library Government Documents and Information	http://library.tamiu.edu/depts/govdocs/
Killam Library web page	http://library.tamiu.edu
Killam Library Government Information System (GIS) Mapping Center	http://library.tamiu.edu/info/find/maps/

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