York College Library Annual Report 1994-95

York College LibraryAnnual Report1994-95Robert MachalowChief Librarian

IntroductionIn the budget year 1994-95, the York College Library has sttiven to maintainservices to the public while coping with unfavorable professional and support staffingsituations. In following the Library's mission, the Librarians have continued to stresspublic service while deferring other professional Library casks, including collectiondevelopment.In addition to coping with an unfavorable professional staffing situation, theLibrary bas had to cope with a minimal support staff situation. As with the professionalstaff, the non-professional staff has supported the Library's mission by being devoted toservice to the public while sacrificing other needed Library functions.Further complicating the Library's mission to serve the York College Librarycommunity is the Library materials budget situation. With a decreasing budget and anincrease in the cost of Library materials, the Library has found itself severely limited inthe quantity and quality of materials it can offer to the community.With this in mind, the professional staff of the Library has undertaken a majorstudy of the use of pertodicals in the Library. In identifying those periodicals which havenot been used in the past three years, the Library intends to cancel subscriptions to anumber of journals. In the initial phase of this project, journals that are received in bothpaper and microfilm will be studied; in the second phase of the project, journals receivedon microfilm only will be considered for cancellation.2

I. Professional Library PersonnelAn examination of the professional staffing patterns at the York Col.lege Libraryreveals that though the number of professional staff has remained constant over t.he pastfew years, the number has radically decreased over the past ten years. This decrease hasserious implications not only for the professional staff but for the entire collegecommunity.ILibrariansiIIiAt YorkiI12U)eC:- I!.06:::.;4219851861987/881988/891989/90 1990/91 1991/92Academic Year1992/931993/941994195The above chart illustrates that the professional staff bas decreased over the pastten years. At the same time, the ratio of full time equivalent st.udents to Library facultyhas increased, as can be seen on the following chart:3

800c::. 600,;.J iia.400.l:lC:OJ-gu5 20019901911991/B?.1992/931993,1941994/95Academic YearThe Association of College and Research Libraries has detailed standards thatacademic Libraries should attempt to meet. According to the standards, by the size of thestudent body, faculty, and collection., Yark College's Library should have approximatelydouble the number of full time faculty positions as it presently does. The formula is usedto calculate the optimum number of professionals to deliver quality service to the usercommunity,At York, it is significant to examine not only the ratio of FTE's per Librarian, butalso the ratio of students per Librarian. Th.is is significantin the Library since a Librarianmust be prepared to perform individual bibliographic instruction with each student whouses the Library. To accomplish this, the headcount at York can be used as illustrated inthe following chart:4

Studentsper LibrarianAll 01990/911991/921992/93X-Axis1993/941994195The Library continues to emphasize public service even though the professionalstaff is limited. Thus, each professional Librarian spends a great deal of his or her timestaffing one of the two Reference desks. Other professional responsibilities,such ascollection development and budgeting are accomplished as much as possible when theindividuals are not scheduled at a Reference desk. The average amount of time that eachprofessional Librarian spends in public seivice at one of the Reference desks can be seen inthe following chart:5

Average ReferenceTimePer librarian Per Week2520"'5 150J:501985/86 1986176 1987/88 1988/89 1989/90 1990191 1991/92 1992193 1993194 1994195AcademlcYearThough the Reference desk hours have been maintained during the past five yearsbecause of the Library's emphasis on public service, the hours that the Reference deskshave been staffed have been decreased due to the lack of professional staff.The hours that the Reference desks are not staffed have been selected aft.er a studyof usage patterns for several years. As the following chart shows, the shortened Referencehours have not impacted on the use of Reference services. In fact, the use of Referenceservices has increased as can be seen on the following chart:6

IUse of Reference Services I30"198Sl86 1986176 1987/88 1988189 1989/90 1990/91 1001/92 1992/93 1993194 1994/95AcademicYearIn comparison with other CUNY senior colleges, York's Library is understaffed.As can be seen on the followingchart, the staffingof the York College Library is smallerthan for any other senior college in CUNY. The chart details the staffingfor the academicyears 199 I -92 through 1993-94CUNY Librarians1991-92 lo 1993/9411111991/92D 1992193 BaruchCityBrooklyn1993194John JayN Y TechSlaten IslandHunierLehmanQueensYorkSenior Colleges7

As the chart shows, York's Library staff has remained consistently at the bottom ofthe professional staffing for Libraries within CUNY senior colleges.8

II. Library BudgetThe Library has, in effect, two budgets: Library materials (OTPS) and temporaryservices. This portion of the annual report will discuss the Library materials portion of thebudget; the following section will briefly deal with the temporary services portion of theLibrary budget.At the beginning of the academic year, the Library's OTPS budget was 223,270.In the middle of the year, 32,586 was cut from the budget. As annual subscriptions werepaid prior to the mjd-year cut, the majority of the cuts were taken from the acquisition ofbooks.The Library other than personnel services budget can be examined from tworelated points of view: books and periodicals. They are related because if the total budgetremains constant or decreases, which it has done in the past year due to midyear budgetcuts, as the cost of one increases there is less money left to purchase the other. Thus, asthe cost of periodicals has increased by approximately ten percent a year, the Library hasbeen able to acquire fewer books with the remaining dollars. In addition to the inflation ofthe cost of periodicals, of course, there is an increase in the cost of books.To be added to this equation is that as the college redefines its curriculum, theLibrary must redefine its acquisitions. In most cases, the newer fields that have beenemphasized, such as biotechnology,have been ones with more costly materials than thosewhich have been de-emphasized, such as Italian.The following chart illustrates the Library's OTPS budget for the 1994-95academic year:9

LibraryBudget1994 -1995 Academic Year(61.8%) Periodicals(7.0%) On-line SeMceslO

A. BooksILibrary Acquisitionsj "' m«««««a«u u«-««- m,.,a,m«eun«4""O ·5CT{I)"O(ti:t. "'0;::i -871988-891990-911992-931994-95AcademicYearAs the above chart illustrates, the book buyingabilityof the Library has shown ageneral trend downward during the past ten years. This can be accounted for by a numberof factors, including: a relatively constant budgetwhich decreased significantlyin the middle of thisacademic year, in terms of total dollars, erodedin recent yearsby the necessity ofpaying for equipment, supplies, and to some extent personnelservicesfrom the budgetformedy reserved for books and serials; the risingcost of journal subscriptions; the inflationof book prices in general; the necessityto support new, expensive technology.These technologiesincludeCD ROM and database services.According to the standards of the Associationof College and ResearchLibraries,the York College Library should have a total of approximately 208,000 volumes, based11

on the number of faculty and students at the college as well as the number of majors. Atthe present time, the Library has a collection estimated to be at approximately 160,000volumes, though th.isestimate is an extremely high one, as 1twas based on a guess overfifteen years ago. As the complete York College Library catalog gets put into CUNY , amore realistic number will be available, but it is likely that the collection is no more than120,000 volumes.12

B. Journalsj eriodical SubscriptionsI1500 1000,Qa.·i:::1c7l5001987/88188QISIO 1900191 1991192 1992/93Academic Year1988/891993/94199'1195PeriodicalsPercent of 31941//199419SAcademicYearAt the present time, a major study of the use of journals in the Library is beingundertaken. Subscriptions for journals that have not been used by the Library communityin the past three years will be possible targets for cancellation.13

ill.Tern porary Services BudgetThe Library's temporary services budget was cut in the middle of the academicyear from 90,000 to 78,393. Some time thereafter, 5000 was restored to the Library'stemporary services budget. To cope with these losses, the Library faculty decided tomaintain hours for the Library community through the two academic semesters, thoughthe summer hours of the Library were shortened. The effect on Library users wasminimal, as evidenced by the continued light use of the facility during the summer andthe minimum number of complaints about the Library's shortened hours.In addition, in December of 1994, the Library lost one full time College OfficeAssistant. The full time person was not replaced until the next budget year (July 1995),and temporary service personnel were used to cover the service provided by this person.14

IV. Use of the LibraryA. BooksThe use of books has continued to grow in tenns of both circulation and reserve,as can be seen on the following charts:/ Circulati a!;of Books]1985186 198&87 1987/88 1988/89 1989/90 1990/91 1991/92 1992/93 1993/94 1994195AcademicYear15

l,,,useof Reserves]1985/88 1988187 1987/88 1988189 1989190 1990/91 1991/92 1992/93 1993/94 1994/95X-AxisIt should be noted that the growth in the use of the Library'sbook resourcesseems to be slowing althoughthis may be a temporary fluctuation due to the change froma manual to an automated circulation system.16

B. PeriodicalsThe number of periodical subscriptions has increased slightly as can be seen onthe following chan. This increase can be accounted for by the increase in the number ofsubscriptions received in the Business Collection, a microfilm collection of reasonablycurrent j ou ma Is.l, dical?ubscriptionsI1500 1000.Q0.·c::u"'.0::,C/J5001987/881988189 1989/9019S0/911991192 1992/931993/941994195Academic YearBy relying on the Business Collection for a number of the Library'ssubscriptions, the cost of the periodical subscriptions has consumed a slightly decreasedpercent of the budget. It should be remembered that subscriptions were paid for prior tothe mid-year budget cut, so the effect of these cuts were not immediately seen in terms ofperiodical subscriptions.17

PeriodicalsPercent of Budget80///60/////////////20,.//L.::::7188198 89/1989/90/1990/911991/92Academic YaarI/ I/1992193I// 1993.194 1994195The use of periodicals decreased significantly in the 1994-95 academic year, ascan be seen on the following chart. This decrease is due to the fact that a portion of theHuman Relations Area File (HRAF) is now accessible on the VAX network, and thus themicrofonns room was used less frequently. In the 1993-94 academic year, the HRAFfiles were accessed 19,688 times; in the 1994-95 academic year, these files were accessedonly 3398 times. In addition, the SIRS files, which were consulted by students, were outof date and thus no longer relevant to student researchers.Finally, because of the lack ofa full time person working in the microforrns room (the College Office Assistant wastransferred from the rnicroforms room at the beginning of December of 1994), the roomwas unavailable for certain times during the academic year.18

I Useof P.eriodicals)1985186 1986/87 1987/M 1988189 1989/90 1990/91 1991192 1992/93 1993/94 1994/95Academic Year19