Twenty Years of Undergraduate Libraries:

Abstract

Undergraduate libraries as part of university library systems have existed since 1949. Supplementing undergraduate library statistics available since 1971 with responses to an electronic mail survey, the authors offer a descriptive picture of how such

What Students Want: Generation Y and the Changing Function of the Academic Library

“…7 A longitudinal study of undergraduate libraries found that between 1974 and 1994 circulation figures for monographs decreased by 66 percent, and it seems this trend is continuing into the next millennium with Generation Y. 8 When faced with statistics like these, how can academic libraries appeal to this new, smart, internet-savvy generation and avoid becoming irrelevant?…”

Leading from Unexpected Places through Collaboration: Undergraduate Libraries in the Research University

“…Rather than places constructed to house vast research collections, these service-oriented facilities sometimes took the form of newly-constructed buildings, sometimes as collections and areas within main libraries, and sometimes as renovations of existing buildings. Over the decades, numerous academic librarians with experience in undergraduate (or undergraduate-serving) libraries have argued over successes and failures of undergraduate libraries and their missions, services, and spaces, and offered views on the importance of these libraries in serving institutional needs (Lundy, Dix, and Wagman 1955;Wagman 1959;Mills 1968;Burke 1970;Wilkinson 1971;Person 1982;Stoffle 1990;Watson, Foote, and Person 1996;TerHaar et al 2000;Sutton 2000). Although these authors agree and disagree on various points, a common thread that runs through their writing is that the formation of undergraduate libraries required librarians to think about services to undergraduates in new ways, pushed the envelope of what could (and should) be expected from academic libraries, and resulted in new areas of expertise in libraries' teaching and learning that supplemented collections and stewardship roles.…”

The University of Iowa Libraries’ Undergraduate User Needs Assessment

“…The concept of the undergraduate library has shifted from that of a place where large numbers of students are eased into intellectual life, nurtured by a large staff of professionals physically present to assist in the comple tion of assignments such as lengthy term papers, to one where students can suc cessfully navigate independently at times convenient to them, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with staff not physically present, but with guidance and advice from professionals still made avail able with the help of new technology. 1 In addition, librarians have received new challenges from institutions such as the Carnegie Foundation for the Ad vancement of Teaching urging that the academic library fulfill its potential as a "salon" for the setting of intellectual val ues, be a "permanent exhibit of the pow ers and benefits of information literacy," an "information smorgasbord," a "window," a "watch-tower," and a "multimedia kiosk." 2 Richard M. Dougherty discussed a technical transformation in which re searchers will attach more importance to locating and obtaining information, and less importance to where the information originated.…”

“…6 Some deal only with undergraduates, whereas others use one general survey for library users of differing status within the uni versity community, including under graduates. Current research indicates that user surveys have two main functions: (1) to gauge the users' perception of current library resources and services, and (2) to gauge the future needs of library users. User studies should be repeated regularly.…”