Dixie State University Library & Learning Services, including the Library, Special Collections & Archives, the Writing Center, and the Academic Performance Centers, provides the resources necessary to facilitate research and enhance the curriculum and programs of Dixie State University. Library & Learning Services delivers innovative services and opportunities, both of which promote and support learning and intellectual engagement for students, faculty, staff, and community.
Dixie State University Library & Learning Services is central to the learning environment of DSU and is a welcoming destination for the discovery and creation of knowledge both physically and online. We will excel in offering expert guidance, valuable resources, and state of the art technologies. We will enhance students’ learning and will foster a welcoming atmosphere that encourages diversity, exploration, positive learning, and personal development.
We are committed to:
| Goals | Key Strategies |
|---|---|
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1. Embed Information Literacy into the Curriculum Core Theme 1 Learning ILOs: Skills, Knowledge |
Create modules or tool-kits for faculty integration into classes Create research class focused on grad students/capstone classes |
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2. Expand Resources and Enhance Services Core Theme 1 Learning ILOs: Skills, Knowledge, Innovation |
Expand tutoring services to online and remote locations Build digital collections infrastructure Provide leadership for OER on campus Pursue PTRC designation Create assessment plan including user surveys |
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3. Remove Barriers to Access and Improve Efficiencies Core Theme 1 Learning ILOs: Innovation, Grit |
Implement new circulation procedures with extended checkouts Re-evaluate and revise internal policies, procedures, and guidelines Redesign web pages for improved user experience and accessibility Engage faculty in Learning Services |
For more detail on individual departments see individual department reports.
All departments in Library & Learning Services saw continued growth in the use of services. This is consistent with our mission to promote and support learning and intellectual engagement for students, faculty, staff, and community. A focus this year was also on improving efficiencies and becoming more user-centered. Major efforts this year included the establishment of a mission, vision and values statement and the setting of strategic goals.
Between July 1, 2017 and May 15, 2018 the reading room was used in-person by students, professors, people representing a business, and by community members for personal use. There were 311 total visits to the reading room, but there were only 112 unique individuals who visited, which means that 199 of the visits were repeat visits by some of the 112 researchers. Of the 311 total research visits, 126 were students, mostly focused on fulfilling class assignments and research papers. 132 individuals (personal) were researching for publications they were writing, family/local history, or to make use of our equipment. Forty-five instructors/professors used the collection for class assignments, publications, and use of our equipment. Nine individuals working on behalf of businesses, mostly local cultural institutions, research family/local history and used our equipment. Other uses by researchers included equipment use such as research computer, scanner, audio recording equipment, and microfilm reader assistance. This year’s use demonstrates a ~60% growth in the number of students using materials over the previous year for the same dates. Also this year, Special Collections & Archives employees and the Library administrative assistant took over the administration and planning of the Juanita Brooks Lecture Series, from Doug Alder who had administered the series for its first 34 years. In doing so the Library has made it truly a DSU event that invites community participation. For the first time, the series has conformed to DSU marketing requirements. This year’s presentation had ~350 people attend which is comparable to previous years.
Although electronic resources continue to be popular, use of physical materials increased from 112,951 uses to 116,153 uses. The library also continues to be a net borrower of materials with 833 interlibrary loans received for our patrons and 583 items provided to other libraries. Ideally, these numbers should be more equal. This year the library migrated to Tipasa for processing interlibrary loans. We were an early adopter and found the new software provides a much more user intuitive platform. Students like how easy it is to use and since it is a product of OCLC, it works seamlessly with copyright costs and requests. Also, circulation staff recognized that small fines can create a barrier to student persistence and discourage use of our resources. After researching the issue and conferring with business affairs and others, the library is beginning the process to extend checkout periods for items in our general collection, creating an online fine payment portal, and standardizing replacement charges for lost items. These changes will reduce barriers to student access to information and promote efficiencies in our operations.
LIB 1010 (Information Literacy) has more than a ten year history here at DSU. It has been both a co-requisite to the English 1010 class and an institutional requirement. Through assessment activities and research, we discovered that student learning was not long term. Historically there has been a low pass rate and a lot of student dissatisfaction with the course. Through the General Education Program, we have been able to work with faculty to transition information literacy learning into the classroom throughout the GE curriculum. We are beginning with English and Biology. Instead of teaching a multitude of concepts at once, we are implementing more of a scaffolded approach so that students are receiving the instruction they need at the time they need it. This will include opportunities to apply information literacy concepts to current class projects to help with long term retention of knowledge and a more complete understanding of the applied concept.
The final year LIB 1010 was a requirement was this past year, 2017–2018. During the fall 2017 semester, we discovered issues with the final exam. We decided that the best course of action to compensate for these exam problems was to curve the final. In doing so, we calculated a 74% pass rate. In spring 2018, using a slightly corrected version of this final, we had a 68% pass rate, without the curve. It should also be noted that we added a mid-term exam and have found that the majority of students that walked away from the course did so during or immediately following the mid-term. Many never took it and realized after the fact that they could not pass without it. In reformatting this class as an elective and in order to teach it out for the required six years, we will be taking a very close look at the weighting of assignments and course design to improve design and content issues that seem to be holding students back from course completion.
Major accomplishments this year include re-negotiating contracts with vendors to secure more favorable pricing (saving ~$9000) and terms. Librarians also participated in a UALC initiative to secure legislative funding for additional consortia electronic resources. Library personnel improved workflows, record keeping, and tracking. A major project was the completion of an inventory of the entire library physical material collection.
During the fall 2017 semester, the Writing Center completed 1,852 consultations, a 46 percent increase in total consultations over the spring 2017 semester. Between the fall and spring semesters, the number of synchronous online tutoring sessions that the Writing Center completed increased by 67 percent, from 67 online tutoring sessions in fall to 112 in spring. Between the fall and spring semesters, the number of specialized tutoring sessions that the Writing Center completed with psychology students increased by 70 percent, from 125 specialized sessions in fall to 212 in spring. The Academic Performance Center added a biofeedback lab to help students with test anxiety and tutored 421 students.
Our departmental mission and goals were established this year in alignment with the institutional mission, core themes and strategic plan. The new mission statement was vetted extensively by departmental faculty and staff and reviewed by the library advisory committee. The following assessment plan is still in development using the newly released ACRL Standards for Libraries in Higher Education (2018) and the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.
Performance Indicator 1.6 The library contributes to student recruitment, retention, time to degree, and academic success.
Outcome 1: Students describe the role of the library as influential in terms of their successful academic performance.
Accomplishments: Survey options and needs explored. Survey tool will be chosen next year and administered to students.
Performance Indicator 2.1 The library resists all efforts to censor library resources.
Outcome 1: Policies are reviewed regularly and library personnel advocate through workshops and display.
Accomplishments: Comprehensive policy review completed. Outreach to campus and community partners on diverse displays and workshops has increased.
Performance Indicator 2.3 The library respects intellectual property rights and advocates for balance between the interests of information users and those of rights holders through policy and educational programming.
Outcome 1: Library is seen as the intellectual property information source on campus and in the community.
Accomplishments: The library is pursuing designation as a Patent and Trademark Resource Center. The business librarian attended the PTRC training seminar held in Alexandria, VA.
Performance Indicator 7.2 Library and learning services personnel participate in campus decision-making needed for effective library management
Outcome 1: Faculty, administration and staff participate on campus-wide decision making committees.
Accomplishments: Personnel participate in academic council, university council, curriculum planning, faculty senate, assessment, and other key committees.
Performance Indicator 7.3 The library allocates human and financial resources effectively and efficiently to the advance the library’s mission.
Outcome 1: Internal procedures are aligned with institutional policies and best practices.
Accomplishments: Library administration worked with the purchasing department to bring database and system renewals in-line with purchasing workflows. Improved purchasing and budget tracking implemented.
Performance Indicator 6.7 Library and learning services provides clean, inviting, and adequate space, conducive to study and research, with suitable environmental conditions and convenient hours for its services, personnel, resources, and collections.
Outcome 1: Students recognize the Holland Centennial Commons as a welcoming space which helps them in their academic goals.
Accomplishments: Worked with MGMT 3400 TQM students who assessed student success resources. The students recommended a study room reservation system be implemented. We will be exploring feasibility and options for this next year.
Research
We conducted a pilot survey on 50 students attending Dixie State University and surveyed 3 faculty/staff members of DSU and found the following:
Recommendations
To improve organization and allow students to better use their time, have an online system for students to reserve study rooms in the Holland Building in order to complete group projects. Librarians will post the schedule at the help desk on every floor so that students will know when and what rooms are available.
Performance Indicator 5.1 The library provides access to collections aligned with areas of research, curricular foci, or institutional strengths.
Outcome 1: Faculty, students and community users are satisfied with the collections provided by the library for their educational, business, and research needs.
Accomplishments: User satisfaction survey planned for Fall 2018.
Outcome 2: Students discover the appropriate library and support resources needed for their coursework.
Accomplishments: A committee from the library and learning services worked together to create tutorials and simplify the design of division webpages. This work will continue and will use student feedback to guide design.
Performance Indicator 5.5 The library educates users on issues related to economic and sustainable models of scholarly communication.
Outcome 1: Faculty choose to deposit their scholarly work and syllabi in the institutional repository.
Accomplishments: Worked with IT to move 15,238 syllabi from previous database, DASH, to SharePoint. This provides the registrar office and other departmental offices with access.
Outcome 2: Faculty and students will be aware of the benefits of OER materials and how OER can be implemented in classes.
Accomplishments: Participating on statewide OER committee. Plans for a campus wide task force of faculty and staff to support OER is in discussion.
Performance Indicator 3.1 Library personnel collaborate with faculty and others regarding ways to incorporate library collections and services into effective curricular and co-curricular experiences for students.
Outcome 1: Students and faculty are aware of Special Collections & Archives and primary sources are integrated into classes.
Accomplishments: During the last two years, since the current Special Collections Librarian and Archivist started, researcher visits have increased and stayed equally high (average of 315 visits annually). This represents a 44% increase in visitors in 2016–2018 over the previous two years, 2014–2016. Special Collections & Archives has accomplished the goal of embedding information literacy into the curriculum by having five classes use materials as part of their coursework. Three classes were each given an hour instruction on oral histories, and then the students completed individual research in the reading room. One class came into the Reading Room multiple times looking for instances of whiteness and race in DSU materials. Another class did active learning projects by coming into Special Collections and doing individual work of the digitization process, which gave students a better appreciation and understanding of digital collections and how to best utilize them.
Performance Indicator 5.3 The library builds and ensures access to unique materials, including digital collections.
Outcome 1: Users are able to access unique and rare materials in digital format.
Accomplishments: During the academic year two work study students have scanned 20 yearbooks (1974, 1981–1999) at national digital preservation standards. This has added 562 GB of data to the library’s servers. The students are only 7 yearbooks away from having all the yearbooks from DSU completely scanned. Scanning is just the first step towards making these invaluable resources available online.
In collaboration with Nancy Ross’s Digital History class, approximately half of the Juanita Brooks Collection was scanned (88 GB), a quarter of the collection was transcribed, and metadata was partially created for most of the scanned material. The students (~25) learned the process of digitization by visiting Special Collections and putting in four hours of scanning and transcription using the Library’s equipment.
Digital Collections has outgrown its current server and will need to work with ITS and the systems librarian to come up with an alternate solution to continue digitization efforts next year.
Outcome 2: Users are aided in the accessibility and discoverability of collections by processed archival collections, online finding aids, and cataloged books and oral histories.
Accomplishments: Between July 1, 2017 and May 15, 2018, Special Collections & Archives added eighteen new accessions of archival materials and created seventeen finding guides for forty linear feet of processed collections. Processed archival collections are sixteen times more likely to be accessed by researchers than unprocessed accessions. We have added 69 cataloged books to special collections and 33 linear feet of books to the to-be-cataloged queue. The oral history collection is constantly growing with new ones being created and old ones finally getting transcribed. There were twenty-two oral histories transcribed and cataloged, and three new oral histories were received. Next year we expect many more oral histories to be received because on May 1, 2018 a Special Collections volunteer, Randall Bunn, received an Oral History Grant from Utah Humanities for $1,600 to conduct sixteen oral histories with veterans connected to Washington County. This is a collaborative project with Bunn, who will collect the histories, the Washington County Historical Society, who will administer the grant, and Special Collections & Archives, who will arrange transcription with its volunteers, archive all histories, and serve as scholar for the project.
Performance Indicator 4.6 The library provides one-on-one assistance through multiple platforms to help users find information.
Outcome 1: Provide timely and effective reference service using multiple formats and modalities to meet students’ academic needs.
Accomplishments: An online chat/text service called Text-a-librarian is used for students that prefer to text questions from their phone or have a real time chat with a librarian. This contact method is used by students that are both on campus and at a distance. Librarians can be contacted using their published office phone numbers and DSU email. Students frequently make use of these contact methods.
We also offer research assistance at the reference desk six days per week, twelve hours per day, Monday–Thursday and eight hours per day on Friday and Sunday. New efforts this year include utilizing highly trained staff to work at the reference desk in order to begin implementing a referral model of service. If it is beyond a basic question, a librarian will be called to provide more intensive research consultations. Research consultations are especially useful for students working on their capstone and this prepares the library for the more intensive needs of graduate students.
Performance Indicator 3.1 Library personnel collaborate with faculty and others regarding ways to incorporate library collections and services into effective curricular and co-curricular experiences for students.
Outcome 1: Participants at group presentations is comparable to peers.
Accomplishments: Over the years we have relied heavily on the use of adjuncts to teach sections of LIB 1010, including the on campus librarians. Each DSU Librarian has taught two sections of LIB 1010 per semester. Class size has a cap of fifty, so each librarian has approximately one hundred students per semester. With more than thirty sections each fall, it has taken two faculty librarians to coordinate the class content, adjuncts, and student needs. By changing the structure of instruction to be included in the GE curriculum, this gives librarians the opportunity to go out to classes and meet with students and instructors on a more frequent basis.
Performance Indicator 3.2 Library personnel collaborate with faculty to embed information literacy learning outcomes into curricula, courses, and assignments.
Outcome 1: Faculty input on information literacy outcomes is sought.
Accomplishments: Instructors of ENGL 1010 and ENGL 2010 were surveyed to get feedback on preferred methods of replacing the content currently taught in LIB1010. 84% of ENGL 1010 and 72% of ENGL 2010 instructors would like to have an embedded librarian in the course. 92% of ENGL 2010 and 84% of ENGL 1010 would like supplemental short videos. These results will inform our decision making as we proceed with integrating information literacy into the curriculum.
Outcome 2: Number of courses in which librarians are embedded increases.
Accomplishments: New initiative for fall 2018.
Performance Indicator 4.4 The library creates and maintains interfaces and system architectures that include all resources and facilitates access from preferred user starting points.
Outcome 1: Local use of Research Guides increases yearly
Accomplishments: Use continues to increase every year. From May 2017 to April 2018 there were 389,175 views of 39 guides. In the same period last year there were 369,037 views of 38 guides. In both years the Citation guide leads use (363,628 views in 2018 compared to 350,455 in 2017) followed by Dance (15,530 views).
Performance Indicator: Writing center visits are demonstrated to positively impact student retention, in-class performance, and overall academic achievement.
Outcome 1: control group study and analysis.
Accomplishments: Results forthcoming.
Outcome 2: Writing Center visits increase each year.
Accomplishments: During the 2017–2018 academic year, the Writing Center completed 3,343 consultations, a 23 percent increase in total consultations over the previous academic year.
Performance Indicator: Students using Writing Center services demonstrate proficiency in meeting writing center learning outcomes:
Outcome 1: Students and faculty feel that the Writing Center is effective in helping students become stronger writers.
Accomplishments: In an online survey administered to faculty on their perceptions of the Writing Center, the Writing Center found that most faculty believe that the Writing Center is effective in helping their students become stronger writers. However, from this same survey, the Writing Center also found that many faculty members have misconceptions about the Writing Center’s services. In order to respond to these misconceptions, the Writing Center plans on increasing its engagement with faculty and has added a “faculty resources” page to its website.
In an online survey administered to tutors who work in the Writing Center, the Writing Center found that its tutors are confident in their ability to provide effective feedback to students and believe that the Writing Center is highly effective in helping students become stronger writers. In a separate online survey administered to its tutors, the Writing Center found that its tutors also believe that the Writing Center is a positive work environment and enjoy tutoring at the center.
In an online survey administered to students who visited the Writing Center, 83 percent of respondents strongly agreed that their tutor was respectful, and 83 percent of respondents strongly agreed that their tutor was a knowledgeable source of information. Additionally, 75 percent of respondents strongly agreed that their tutor answered their questions, and 78 percent strongly agreed that their tutor involved them in the tutoring process.
Performance Indicator: Center visits are demonstrated to positively impact student retention, in-class performance, and overall academic achievement.
Outcome 1: Study and analysis of visitors.
Accomplishments: Design forthcoming.
Outcome 2: Center visits increase each year.
Accomplishments: Method for tracking in development.
Outcome 3: Student satisfaction survey
Accomplishments: Paper surveys are currently being compiled and analyzed.
Performance Indicator: Faculty collaborate with Center to ensure services meet student needs.
Outcome 1: Faculty survey.
Accomplishments: In planning stages.
Outcome 2: Center staff work closely with faculty and campus partners to further integrate early alert system.
Accomplishments: Worked with MGMT 3400 TQM students who assessed student success resources. The students recommended more utilization of the Starfish system.
Results and Recommendations from MGMT 3400
Faculty Involvement Current Situation
There are plenty of students who are struggling in school, even dropping out
Research
56% of students have used a form of tutoring at Dixie University, which indicates interest in this type of support.
Recommendations
DSU should utilize the Starfish Early Alert System more. Students who appear to be struggling should receive personal emails or other help directly from faculty and resource staff.
Recommend actions for continuous improvement. (Closing-the-loop, especially for unmet goals and SWOT findings. Consider results and impact of previous actions).
Our administrative structure of a combined Library & Learning Services is new this year and goals needed to be developed. This has been accomplished as a result of the SWOT analysis conducted in spring 2018. These goals and strategies align with the core themes and institutional learning outcomes of DSU. Progress is already being made on many initiatives and a comprehensive assessment plan is in development. In addition to completing the assessment plan and assessment activities in process, we are also planning on delivering a user survey, possibly in conjunction with ITS. We are also exploring the possibility of including a question related to information literacy on the next NSSE survey (e.g. “how much has your experience at this institution contributed to your knowledge, skills, and personal development in using information correctly?”).
Budget requests, based on recommendations.
Priority needs are for funding for library materials. This needs to be at a level comparable to peer institutions to continue to offer quality programs. This requires a minimum increase of $20,000 each year for the next three years to bring our level of funding up to our next closest comparator (SUU).
Increased funding is also needed for tutoring to expand services and support retention efforts. Funds are needed for additional staffing and to replace computers.
Other specific budget needs are detailed in individual reports.