Determining Sufficiency for Standard VI. Physical Resources and Facilities

By  John Philip Mulvaney, Library Director, Northern State University and External Review Panelist

Standard VI of the Standards for Accreditation of Master’s Programs in Library and Information Studies, 1992, discusses physical facilities, instructional and research facilities, their staffing and the services provided. It tries to ensure that the program “has access to physical resources and facilities that are sufficient to the accomplishment of its objectives.” How, then, do LIS programs measure sufficiency?

Program Presentations tend to concentrate solely on inputs: numbers of staff, numbers of volumes, computers, etc. Rarely do they mention, much less focus on, outputs. Inputs ought to be a given. We are dealing, after all, with major universities who are, in the US at least, regionally accredited, and all of which should have sufficient and convenient libraries and computer labs.

The more interesting questions are rarely addressed in program presentations responding to Standard VI, or the other five Standards, for example, shouldn’t the campus library be viewed by the library school as more than one among many sources of possible part-time student employment for its students? How does the LIS program work with the campus library and its librarians to educate its students? What do LIS students learn from having to use these libraries and how (other than to locate materials for assignments) do they use them?  Surely the answer here should be qualitatively different from the answers students in other disciplines would give.

Similar questions arise concerning computer laboratories. Beyond the basics of e-mail, word processing and online searching, how and why do LIS students use them?  What benefits to students do LIS programs see from all of the high-powered multi-media computers available?  And how do the LIS programs ensure that their students benefit?  Programs are frequently engaged in publication activities or in sponsoring institutes or centers.  Again, how do students benefit? And, how do LIS programs justify their significant expenditures in all of these areas?  If this Standard is to have any meaning, that meaning can only be found in the benefits that students receive from these facilities. 

LIS programs often compete with other programs, both graduate and undergraduate, offered by the same school. The Standards show little interest in these additional programs, other than to say on p.3, “A school’s mission is relevant to master’s program review; when the school offers other educational programs, the contribution of those programs is also relevant.” We need to be concerned about the effects, both positive and negative of these other programs on the LIS program.  In this context, inputs are important. How is “sufficiency” determined in this context?

These problems are compounded when speaking of distance students. If LIS students on campus benefit from these facilities, how do students off-campus benefit?  How do they participate in the production of a journal or in the activities of an institute?  How do they use the on-campus library?  Or, how is their use of other libraries ensured? More particularly, how is their knowledge of such resources (on-line and print), necessary to be a successful practicing librarian, ensured?  Or, can quality LIS programs educate librarians who in the course of their education never have been required to set foot in a library?  

PRISM Fall 2003 volume 11 number 2
Copyright ©2003 American Library Association