SPEC Kit 330: Library Contribution to Accreditation · 99
Brigham Young University
Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU). Library and Information Resources 5
Assisting and instructing students and faculty in finding and using scholarly
information available at the university and elsewhere
Supporting lifelong learning and
Fostering scholarly communication.
The libraries support university objectives by focusing on building collections and
providing services that support a broad university education, intensive degree-related study, and
original student and faculty research (RE 5.2). The libraries offer instructional programs that
provide students with information literacy skills in support of formal educational experiences and
in preparation for lifelong learning. In addition, the libraries make digital collections available to
learners everywhere, making friends for the university and its sponsoring church.
The Harold B. Lee Library serves all undergraduate and graduate programs at the
university with the exception of law school graduate students, who are served by the Hunter Law
Library. The conscious decision to consolidate library services into one central facility has
guided collection and service policies over the years. Since library services are deeply
interwoven with the Office of Information Technology (OIT), this chapter will highlight OIT
contributions to library-related accreditation standards. But because OIT services are also
integrated with almost every aspect of the university community in developing and supporting
the technical infrastructure essential to a twenty-first-century university, OIT contributions are
also highlighted in Standard 8 and mentioned throughout this report.
The Lee and Hunter Libraries offer a wide variety of information services for students
and faculty. These services, coupled with strong collections, distinguish the libraries as learning
centers on campus, attracting over 15,000 students and faculty daily during fall and winter
semesters. Students come to the library for various reasons, as detailed in a rigorous usage study
conducted during 2001. This study verified that the libraries’ quiet study areas, comprehensive
research tools, and numerous computers are vital to undergraduate and graduate students alike
(RE 5.14).
Access Services
Book circulation, one of the libraries’ fundamental services, is high. Table 5.1 reflects
BYU’s ranking as twenty-eighth in this category among the 113 research libraries in the U.S. and
Canada that comprise the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). BYU libraries offer a
document-delivery program that regularly brings unsolicited praise from faculty who make
online requests to have items delivered either physically or electronically to their offices.
Students as well as faculty make frequent use of the online interlibrary loan request
service that accelerates delivery of materials. By effectively using technology, the Lee Library
has an average interlibrary loan turnaround time for books of 1.15 days and fewer than 24 hours
for electronic articles. Our delivery is third best among Greater Western Library Alliance
(GWLA) institutions. The Hunter Law Library has turnaround rates of 1.4 days for books and 1.2
days for articles. ARL rankings for interlibrary loan services, as detailed in table 5.1, reflect the
fact that BYU borrows slightly more items than it lends, but compared with other research
libraries, BYU ranks near the median in number of materials loaned.
For a number of years the libraries have offered electronic reserves to facilitate student
online access to assigned course materials. Electronic reserves outnumber traditional print
reserves by 3 to 1 and were accessed over 150,000 times during 2004. In that same year, 63
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