• Salem State College Library
• Instructional Media Center
• Language Resource Center
• Information Technology

The Library’s primary clientele is the student body, and our collections support the curriculum. Librarians share the responsibility for collection development with the faculty, and each academic department designates a liaison for library matters. A total of $100,000 is budgeted for the selection of books by faculty liaisons, and $15,000 is usually allocated for instructional videos.

The Library is a member of NOBLE, a regional network of nearly 30 public and academic libraries, which provides online library system support and interlibrary loan delivery. During FY2000 NOBLE is migrating and upgrading to the Web-based Innovative Interfaces Inc. Millenium system. The new system will also provide integrated modules for acquisitions, serials, circulation/reserve, and cataloging. Library serials and acquisitions have been standalone systems, and we order books through vendor Web sites.

Through its membership in other consortia (NMRLS, MBLC, MCCLPHEI, NELINET), the Library subscribes to a broad spectrum of online databases, indexes and full-text resources. In addition, the Library has phased out its subscriptions to CD-ROM indexes in favor of online. Users have access to approximately 4,000 electronic titles, most of which may be used at the desktop. Librarians are committed to teaching students how to search and identify reliable resources, and our instruction and information literacy sessions grow in number each year. The Library publishes a Handbook, an area newsletter, written guides, and pathfinders to acquaint the community with its collections and services.

With the rapid rate of technological change, the library is challenged to upgrade computer hardware on a regular basis and to acquire the quantity of print and electronic resources that are desired. These financial constraints are not unique to Salem State College, however. They force the institution to establish financial priorities and to collaborate with other libraries in the region for bargaining power. The print collections reflect titles selected over many years and should be analyzed for withdrawal of outdated volumes and identification of current topics not adequately addressed. The Collection Fellows Program is one mechanism to accomplish this and future support is needed. While faculty select materials that support the curriculum, adequate funding to is needed to provide a balanced print collection. New courses and academic programs do not include a budget for library support. Financial support overall has been level-funded during a period when the information marketplace is changing. Print journal inflation reached the point in FY2000 that 25% of the print journal collection had to be canceled and forcing the Library to rely only on electronic access. Without supplemental funding from the Graduate School and Nontraditional Programs, the library’s collections and services would be severely diminished. Major funding is also required to address the building improvements identified in the 1996 architectural study. The demand for training has increased, and a second, larger, training room (for which state funding has not materialized) is needed. Finally, desperately needed is additional full-time staff positions for computer support and database maintenance functions.

The main library should continue to be a place that supports student learning and faculty research in a variety of contexts—traditional and innovative. The facility needs nearly $2 million in improvements to maintain climate control, physical integrity, and upgrade furnishings (especially student seating and computer tables). Building plans also include several rearrangement projects to improve services and space utilization. The dean will need to be more involved in fund raising in order to acquire the resources to keep the library competitive. A special business library (mostly electronic), planned in collaboration with the School of Business, is envisioned as part of the central campus complex. The library will develop additional strategic partnerships with academic programs as appropriate to support information delivery and instruction, especially through Web sites. Partnerships with faculty will continue to be especially important to keep library resources and services integrated with the teaching and learning process.

The greatest challenge is in keeping up with the many demands of students, faculty, and administration, with a limited number of staff. The Library services North, Central, and South Campuses, as well as the O'Keefe Center. Events occur during the evening, as well as on weekends. A problem sometimes occurs in trying to provide on-demand, over-the-counter services, and at the same time assist with events everywhere in the College. Another challenge faced is with the constant need to update computer equipment, peripheral devices, and software skills. This is expensive and time consuming.

In the area of distance education, Library staff plan to become heavily committed to assisting faculty in online education and two-way interactive video (PictureTel) courses. This will involve a financial commitment for upgrading existing hardware, purchasing new hardware, and maintaining operating systems. It would be ideal to use the latest technology that will allow staff to provide two-way interactions over the existing in-house computer network. This will make any wired classroom capable of going out via ISDN to anywhere in the world.

In the past, tape-based language laboratories have allowed students to listen to speech and to react to it in order to practice language skills. New computer-based language laboratories have resulted in an exponential increase in the possibilities available to the student for exposure to language and language materials. Computers add a visual component to the aural component of tape-based systems, and provide instant access to sound, pictures, and video, as well as to an array of grammatical and other explanations related to the material at hand. Access to the Web and the Internet, as well as to foreign language television stations through satellite connections, and to foreign language movies, will also be an important service provided by the Language Resource Center. The Language Resource Center is planned as a friendly and accessible place where language students in general, and Spanish majors in particular, will engage in such activities as meeting with fellow language students to study, to find foreign language materials, to get advice from language tutors, and to practice, drill, and develop their language material with multimedia resources.

The changes in the language laboratory at Salem State College are the result of a Foreign Language faculty study in the Fall of 1998 (included as separate documentation). The study recommended expanding the language lab to a full-fledged Language Resource Center with strong multimedia capabilities and a tutoring area. This was agreed to. The study also suggested moving the new Language Resource Center to a larger area, preferably in the Salem State College Library, and to share resources with the ESL programs at the College, which currently have no provisions for a language laboratory, despite a great need and desire for them. These suggestions were not fulfilled by the administration.

The User Support team provides technical support for faculty and students, supports academic computing labs, staffs the Help Desk technical support line, publishes a monthly training schedule, provides employee training workshops, manages the Web site, coordinates hardware/software acquisition and delivery, and negotiates maintenance service agreements and software licensing contracts.

The Networking support team manages web, e-mail, news, DHCP, and multiple LAN servers. The resources are available to all four campuses via a multi-mode fiber-optic backbone. All buildings and classrooms are now fully wired for Internet access. The residence halls were wired in the summer of 1998 and provide one port per pillow. Resident student connectivity has increased from 92 students in the fall of 1998 to 210 by January 2000. The College has joined a statewide collaborative and partnered with an Internet Service Provider to offer an affordable reliable way for commuter students and remote campuses to connect to college resources via the Internet.

The Presentation Design and Development Group works with faculty on multimedia presentations for the classroom, conferences and other areas. A very popular service, the program allows the faculty member to come with an idea, and to grow that idea into a presentation with total support for all the technological concerns. The Web Coordinator assists faculty to design web pages and make syllabi and other course information available. A staffed drop-in faculty support area for computer based and web based projects is available at the User Support area at Central Campus. The professors can learn to create, add and update their web site in a one-on-one format or in the class.

In the fall of 1999, the College embarked on Project SPIRIT, a $10 million, seven-year project for the implementation of a college-wide information system using PeopleSoft software. The system will support the many tasks of the Salem State community by providing powerful, cost-effective tools to meet the information needs of the entire Salem State College community ­ students, faculty and librarians, and staff.

The group is improving the communication between the department and the campus community through increased collaboration with other academic support services. User Services, in conjunction with the School or Arts and Sciences will start joint meetings with faculty departments in the spring of 2000.

Information Technology working in partnership with the Schools of Human Services is adding a position dedicated to this area. This is part of an overall attempt to increase the accessibility of the faculty to the Information Technology resources such as college wide software licenses and computer based training modules. In the student support area, User Services is rearranging student services resources in order to expand the coverage of the teaching classrooms at South Campus, thus providing maximum student access possible.

Time has shown that resources and people will always be in limited availability. The utilization is frequently reevaluated as projects are completed or added in keeping with the strategic plan.