We’d like to extend our warm thanks to everyone who took the time to participate in our faculty survey. We had 110 responses. We truly appreciate the response and have tried to respond to the feedback. We also included campus location this time in the survey questions this time and were able to see that we had a good mix of people from across the different locations of the college. We also appreciate your patience and we extend our apologies for our delay in getting this report out.
Survey 2015
Please check out both Part 1 and Part 2 of our response
Survey 2016
Please check our response
Popular Reading Space
Comfort in the Physical Library
This year’s survey was a little different the last two in that we had more of a theme. We were looking at the physical set-up of both the library and our online resources. We hope to use the information to encourage everyone to come into the library more often.
Ten percent of respondents said they visit the library once a week or more, with another twenty at least once a month. Forty percent of respondents said they visit the library between 1 to 3 times a semester. We think these were fairly good numbers and even though the physical space questions weren’t exactly tailored to this group, we especially appreciate that the forty percent of respondents who said they rarely or never visit the library still took the time to respond to the library survey.
Those who did visit the library responded that for the most part they were satisfied with library quiet study areas, group study areas, comfort of furnishings, flexibility and usability of furnishings, and computer area in both locations with Cedar Rapids being slightly more positively rated.
Study Space
Comfort in the Online Library
The frequency of visits to the online library was reported as higher than the physical library with almost 20 percent visiting at least once a week. Still a third of the people who made it this far in the survey still reported they’d never used any of our online resources.
The next section asked about how people rated our resources which includes our collections of books, ebooks, articles, videos, and LibGuide research help guides. The strongest positive response came in for our article databases which was before our recent database additions improved the selection. Although still supportive our ebook, video collections, and help guides, overall people were less impressed with them.
Request Specific Things
People who included their e-mail address in their response were contacted directly about questions and requests, but we wanted to give everyone a chance to find out what we’ve done in response to the survey.
We got fewer requests for specific titles this time and we hope that means people have realized we respond to such requests all year. If you have a specific request at any time, you can either fill out our request form, or contact your friendly, neighborhood librarian directly.
We’ve also had a repeated request for more titles in the Very Short Introduction series. We continue to add these titles – which offer a quick background on various subjects – to our collection. Consider checking them out.
Some Topics that Drew Comments
Communication – We’ve been working on trying to improve communication going out from the library to students, faculty, and staff. During the school year we put together a newsletter most months during the school year. We have regular blog posts in between. Also keep up with us around the web:
Library Updates
First we are pleased to announce that due to faculty requests we’ve created our first unit to be used in the classroom. It’s on plagiarism and you can add it to your class Talon. We’re especially glad because this is something we’ve been asked for both in this year’s and past surveys. In addition to this full unit, you can also add a Talk to a Librarian widget on your Talon page to make it easier for your students to connect with us when they hit a problem.
Second, we got a request for more ESL leveled books both this survey and last survey. We had an instructor contact us after last time and we have bought more Level 1 and Level 2. This is an area we intend to continue improving. If you have suggestions on this or any other area of the collection, please let us know.
Third, the State Library of Iowa opened the state’s package of databases to bidding for the first time and the winner wasn’t long time favorite EBSCO. Instead Gale came in the winner with an assortment of different databases offering similar coverage and some things we never had before – like a language database – at a lower price than EBSCO’s bid. Check out the new titles and be aware that while we continue to have the EBSCO databases for right now they may disappear next summer as negotiations continue. The library was already buying some databases from other vendors, such as the New York Times and Films on Demand, and these will remain unchanged.
Textbooks on Reserve
There were also some requests to put all textbooks or a particular textbook on reserve. The library policy is to NOT purchase textbooks. This is because given the wide range of titles used by different instructors even within a single class, the cost would be prohibitive to provide them all. If any instructor or the department wants to loan us a copy of the textbook they use, we will be glad to put it on reserve.
The circulation department of both branches of the Kirkwood libraries has material that has been placed on reserve by instructors for their students. The instructor may bring the material to the library and fill out a reserve form or print the form online and send it to the library with the book, article, etc. (Please refer to Course Reserve Policy to determine the type of material that is allowed).
The majority of the materials are placed on closed reserve meaning they are for use only in the library. Students may make copies or scans of the required pages.
To find more information and the reserve form, go to the Library Services homepage:
Click on: Explore our Help Guide
Type: “Faculty” in Lib Guides Search Box
Click on: Faculty Services
Scroll down to: “Placing Item on Course Reserve” in the box in the lower left hand corner of the page. See Links for Course Reserve Policy and Library Reserve Form.
Thanks again
Please remember that if there is something we can do or add to our collection to help your students or you, please ask. We can’t promise to fulfill every request, but we will do our best.
Make sure you check back. Things change in the library and collections are always growing and changing.
Again, thank you for responding to our survey and look for the next one.
