Proposed Withdrawal of Bound Journals

Dear campus community,

As you well know, college libraries have experienced radical change beginning early in the second half of the twentieth century. Many of you will recall Ramsey Library’s card catalog from the early 1980s, a periodical collection which topped out at about 1,800 titles, and when the only computer in the library was a word-processor in the administrative office. I can. In addition to being more than twice as big and considerably more attractive, today’s Ramsey Library offers services and collections exceeding what would have been found in a small research library of the 1980s: access to full text articles from over 35,000 journals, magazines, and newspapers worldwide; a building brimming with more than 110 computers including nearly 30 laptops available free for student use; full access to library electronic library resources and the Web from fixed workstations or wireless; electronic course reserve; easy and direct remote access to all electronic products; and a virtual on-line publishing house making rich primary sources and images available from Ramsey’s growing Special Collections. And we continue to evolve to better meet the information needs of the UNC Asheville learning community.

To that end, almost a year ago we began to examine critically our use of space and personnel in the context of the changing information, technology, and learning environments. A committee comprised of librarians, library staff, Mary Alm from the Writing Center, Mark Harvey (Environmental psychology) and some of their Undergraduate Research students coalesced to set and explore general directions. Professor Bob Yearout and his industrial ergonomics and work design students were brought in for consultation this semester, as were other members of the UNCA faculty. Several clear assumptions have so far emerged from their analysis:
1. Books will remain an important component of the information mix both in terms of the historical collection and new acquisitions;
2. The balance between traditional hard-copy sources and digital, often remotely accessed information will continue to lean ever more toward the digital;
3. The use of bound volumes of journals, already markedly down, will continue to decrease as more and more text is available in electronic format;
4. Most data and information content from the U.S. and N.C. governments will be available in electronic rather than paper format, and the U.S. Government Printing Office will continue to reduce print publications drastically;
5. Increasingly, college student learning is becoming group oriented rather than an isolated process; and
6. The library/learning environment of today and the future must combine information in traditional formats with digital information in an environment which weds technology with group work.
Early imaginings of the next five years or so include the vision of a wireless Collaborative Learning Commons replete with plasma screens to support group work, scanners, color plotters and printers, and both library and IT assistance to foster the integration of student learning and creativity with both traditional and digital information resources. Such a Collaborative Learning Commons will also link faculty working with students individually and in groups, offer access over extended hours, and possibly provide a library entrance to the New Hall-Carmichael quad.
More immediately this thinking about space, staff, and technology has led to increased collaboration between the library, media services, and ITS in supporting classroom teaching with technology announced earlier and coming this fall. We are also working on ways to enhance campus support by combining the resources of the library’s Reference Desk with those of the ITS Help Desk to provide a single support center for all information and technology needs on campus, with expanded services on evenings and weekends. And, by this fall you will find the library’s extensive media collection of DVDs, videos, and compact discs on the main floor in the room now housing microforms. This self-service collection will save staff costs while making the media collection available all the hours the library is open.
For the next step, we need your help. In order to make room for the Collaborative Learning Commons while continuing to provide ample space for existing and new paper collections still in demand, Ramsey Library needs to reduce the precious space occupied by resources that are increasingly underused. To that end, we need to withdraw bound copies of paper journals and microforms for holdings that we currently and will continue to subscribe to in a stable electronic format and for which there is a duplicate and readily available hard-copy at either ASU or WCU (in some instances, both).
We would very much appreciate your comments (Bryan Sinclair, sinclair@unca.edu) concerning the bound volumes and microf0rm copies of journals we are planning to withdraw at the end of May and which can be found by following the link below. Again, let me reiterate that ALL holdings on this list are duplicated in a stable and complete electronic archive that Ramsey Library is committed to: JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/). In addition, paper or microfilm copies of ALL volumes proposed for withdrawal are held and available in the Western North Carolina Library Network (ASU & WCU) by one or more libraries identified as the “Designated Retaining Library” (DRL).
Many thanks in advance for your input and your support.
Jim Kuhlman
University Librarian
Related Links:
Proposed Journal Backfile Withdrawals (Microform and Bound)
Library Space Planning Project
Collaborative Learning Commons Proposal