Faculty Assembly

ESSENTIAL DATA:

---Since 1993 the library materials budget (that means funds for books, serials, periodicals, and the like) has declined in ABSOLUTE dollars by 1.6%. When you include inflation and talk about REAL dollars, the decline has been much greater. And, when you consider that that increases in the costs of books and periodicals have outpaced the rate of inflation, the rate has been greater still.

---In past years, the Library Advisory Committee has issued strongly worded recommendations and memos, backed with impressive data, that has shown the critical decline in library resources at UCCS in the 1990s. It is time to mobilize again to place this issue on the table and insist that it be given attention by UBAC, by administrators, and by other relevant constituencies..

---During the next 18 months the new library building will be going up. Floor space for collections will increase from about 20,000 square feet to about 41,000 square feet. What will go in the expanded room? Capital construction dollars for the new Library facility are only for the building itself, and cannot be used for books, serials, annual maintenance, etc. In other words, the library materials budget must be addressed as an on-campus issue.

---Allow me to use my own department as an example: In the last fiscal year history faculty individually had about $1000 with which to purchase books for their respective fields. IN the present  fiscal year history faculty have about $150 to spend. That means, for example, that for the entirety of post-Civil War American history I may purchase about four books for the library. How are we supposed to support an advanced degree in history?

---The library materials budget is in the same pool of available dollars along with other needs and priorities that have their own constituences to fight for them. Where is the constituency to fight for library materials?  Those whose disciplines still, and will always, depend on BOOKS and JOURNALS need to MOBILIZE, and even those disciplines that use mostly online sources should join in, since online subscription rates are included in the materials budget.

BUDGET BREAKDOWN FROM 1992 TO PRESENT FOR MATERIALS BUDGET AND FOR TOTAL LIBRARY BUDGET

These figures must be put into context of increases in total student credit hours, in the overall inflation rate versus the inflation rate for serials and books (meaning that the 1.6 decline in the materials budget is vastly understated, for keeping up with the rate of increase in the price of serials and books would require a significant investment even over and above the CPI), and in the other demands on library expenditures (such as a new online cataloging system, a huge increase in inter-library loan requests, etc.). Taking into account funds from other sources--in the context of an all-funds budget--improves the situation a little, but not much. In short, the materials budget needs augmentation as a separate line, over and above whatever increases may be coming for the overall library budget.

The appropriate governance body to address these issues is UBAC. The points of the motions below is to place library materials issue again on the agenda of critical needs on this campus.

MOTIONS INTRODUCED BY PROFESSOR REX WELSHON AT THE MEETING OF THE FACULTY REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY, FRIDAY 12 FEBRUARY, 1999.

1. The Fac. Representative Assembly recommends that beginning the next fiscal year the campus budget plans for a rate of increase in the library materials budget that at least matches the rate of inflation.

2. The Faculty Representative Assembly recommends that the Library Advisory Committee and the University Budget Advisory Committee seek means to augment library materials budget, including both private dollars and regular university budget support.

Please let us know your suggestions for mobilizing the faculty constituency on this issue. The Library is at the heart of any real university. Discussions about the future of our library must be given faculty priority.

Letter from Professor Robert Sackett, addressing critical shortfalls in the library materials budget:

Dear Professor Welshon [and Faculty Representative Assembly]:

Concerns about the ongoing reduction of the library materials budget have
existed for several years. In particular, the Library Advisory Committee
has sent a number of memoranda to the campus administration indicating the
extent of the damage. It is beyond doubt that the effect of years of
budgetary decrease has been to diminish the library's capacity to support
both teaching and research.

Having canvassed the humanities faculty about this, I can report that
there is a general mood of alarm-- and a general insistence that the trend
be reversed. Ours is an area in which virtually everything depends on a
strong library-- particularly on a strong collection. Across the range
of the humanities departments, faculty teach their courses on the
assumption that the necessary books and journals will be available for
students to use. Increasingly, the assumption is not borne out, as
students seek materials that they do not find. One clear sign of the
harm being done to education is the regretful decision by some faculty
to alter their syllabi-- and weaken their courses!-- because of the
increasing poverty of library holdings. Faculty research, I should add,
suffers alongside the students' educational experience; books and journals
that any academic library should have are simply not there. The spectacle
is one of paradox-- on the one hand, a library staff whose excellence is
proclaimed by all and a library building whose physical expansion is
underway, but on the other hand, a collection whose sufficiency decreases
with each budget.

In view of this alarming situation, the humanities faculty as a whole
would urge the Faculty Representative Assembly to support Prof. Welshon's
motions, as follows:

   "1. The Faculty Representative Assembly recommends that beginning the
    next fiscal year the campus budget plans for a rate of increase in the
    library materials budget that at least matches the rate of inflation.
    2. The Faculty Representative Assembly recommends that the Library
    Advisory Committee seek means to augment the library materials budget,
    including both private dollars and regular university budget support."

                                              Sincerely,
                                               Robert E. Sackett
                                               Director of Humanities  

Letter of Support from a 2nd Humanities Professor

Dear Professor Welshon,

I write to you out of my concern over the diminishing funds slated for the
library materials budget here at UCCS.

According to information posted through the faculty assembly, the library
materials budget has actually been decreasing over the years since funding
increases have not even managed to keep pace with inflation.  Stunned, I
contacted several librarians, who informally verified this appalling fact.

How does this decrease in funding impact our teaching?  I'm sure you've
heard of Horatio Alger.   Alger made his name a household world with
the publication of _Ragged Dick_, and Alger's formulaic novels were
subsequently parodied by all manner of writers, including Mark Twain.  But
if a student here wants to write a research paper comparing _Ragged Dick_
to _Huck Finn_, they won't be able to do it in the library--our library
doesn't own a single copy of Alger's classic text.      

Last fall semester, I taught an upper-division course on American
Romanticism in which my students were required to write a modest research
paper, using two critical (secondary) sources. (Of course, they would have
to read more than two articles to the find the ones that were most
appropriate for their individual projects).  Since they were using only a
few sources, it was critical that those sources be up to date.  But due to
inadequate library materials, they were unable to access current sources.

For example, one student was writing on differences in narrative voice in
Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs (two classic American slave
narratives).  His paper was weak in part because he was unable to find a
current article comparing the two authors, to which he could respond.
Though he is one of the better students in the department, he couldn't do
anything about one devastating fact: as of today (12 January 1999), the
latest edition of the MLA bibliography in our library is only that of
1996.  Since we don't subscribe to the MLA bibliography on line--which is
updated ten times a year--he had no way of knowing that two important
articles comparing the authors above were published in 1997.  And to
compound the irony, these articles were published in a volume that is
sitting on our library shelves--but he had no way of knowing this fact due
the inadequate research tools available to him.  

More typically, however, the problem is dual: the research tools aren't
there to find appropriate citations, but even if the citations are located
by a student, the works themselves aren't in the library.  To return to
the example of the student above, this student attempted to work through
the complex relationship of narrative voice to the traditions of
nineteenth-century American oratory in his paper, but his ideas were
stunted due to a lack of secondary source materials.  He had no way
of knowing about four articles published in 1997 on this very subject.
However, even if he had known about this particular collection of
important essays, he wouldn't have been able to find the volume; our
library doesn't have it.

I cite the case of one of my students because his particular story is an
oft-repeated one here at the Springs; the intellectual development of the
student population is hampered by our underfunded library materials
budget.  This underfunding is actually counter to so many of our stated
goals as a teaching institution; for example, subscribing to the MLA
bibliography on line would not only bring us up-to-date, it would be
consonant with the goals of TLE, since students could access the entire
bibliography at any time, from any computer.  In short, it is time for us
to rewrite the story of student success here at the Springs by adequately
funding the acquisition and maintenance of library materials. 

Sincerely (etc.)

Submitted by:
Paul Harvey, Faculty Secretary and Faculty Representative to the Library and Communication Technology Expansion Committee.