Do academic libraries still matter?

Academic libraries are costly institutions, both their set-up and maintenance. Consider the volume and wide range of information stock (books, periodicals, multimedia, on-line subscriptions etc.), the trained professional staff to organise and present this information and provide assistance to library users, the building, furniture and IT equipment and software.

And the cost is not a one-off initial outlay; there is the capital cost (regular new information stock, upgrading of equipment, furniture and building from time to time); and recurrent cost (salaries, periodical subscriptions, normal running costs, training and development budgets, etc.). All are essential items if the library is not to be an archive or a museum.

But even if costly, libraries are cost-effective ventures, providing free access to all information to a large number of users (potentially the entire population of students, lecturers and non-academic staff) at any time that the library is open, with no restrictions on access.

Research from UK academic libraries (see Library Information Statistics Tables 2004 covering 1993-2003) does however show that the substantial increase in academic staff and student numbers during this decade is not adequately matched by a comparative increase in spending for periodicals and book stock.

The experience here in Malta is no different. One can refer to the section on 'Academic Libraries' in the recently published MaLIA Report on the State of Maltese Libraries. Commenting on their budgets, only two of the eight libraries interviewed said that their budgets were sufficient.

Libraries unfortunately do not have many outspoken friends in high places and their success or otherwise is not an electoral issue, meaning that often they are the first to feel the economic pinch.

The view that libraries are an additional benefit rather than an essential cornerstone in education, has increasingly become so in our new technological age.

Ken Chad and Paul Miller in their seminal recent White Paper "Do Libraries Matter: The rise of Library 2.0" say that "justifiably or not, today libraries are increasingly viewed as outdated, with modern Internet-based services, such as Amazon and Google set to inherit the throne of information providers."

There is the mistaken belief that with access to 'free' and 'unlimited' information on the Internet, the library, as a limestone and concrete building physically housing printed information or the IT equipment to access electronic information, has become irrelevant. That is, unless your main reason for visiting a library is to chat with your friendly librarian who more often than not is a female!

In reality, though the Web does not contain vast amounts of information, it does present problems especially when used in an academic setting.

Not everything is out there - vast amounts of past publications and archives have never been, and probably never will be, digitised and uploaded online. Besides, who will relinquish for free, their own works, like text books, which are in demand?

What you really need is not always easily found but has to be painstakingly located.

Not everything you find has the authenticity that you need, especially for an academic purpose. Anybody can publish anything at practically no cost and no peer reviews.

Another difficulty is that it has become too easy for students to simply 'cut and paste' whatever is found online and pass it on as their own work without in any way evaluating content.

So do academic libraries matter? Do MCAST students and academic staff use the MCAST Library and Learning Resources Centres (LLRC) effectively? The answer in our case is an emphatic yes!

The six MCAST LLRCs provide free, modern, attractive, library facilities - books, periodicals, CD-ROMs, films, music CDs, study spaces, PCs, Internet access, meeting and discussion areas, Power Point presentation facility, etc. - to all MCAST students and lecturers, whether registered on full- or part-time courses.

Library facilities are available at all MCAST Institutes (Paola - Main Library, Mosta, Msida, Sliema, Qormi, Naxxar and Kalkara), except in Gozo, for now.

Besides study material, a good range of library material for leisure reading and use is also provided. We keep a sizable fiction and novels collection both in English and Maltese, many books of general interest, such as sports, hobbies, literature, biographies and self-help books, popular magazines and a very well-used feature films collection (DVDs and videos) which can be viewed on our premises.

Our aim is to make our libraries the place to turn to for study, meeting and leisure in a way that there is no conflict between different users. In this way the library becomes a community centre.

MCAST started work on setting up a comprehensive library system from scratch in the first half of 2003 and opened the first of its five institute libraries in April 2004.

Since then we have not looked back. Starting with the experience of the institute's smaller libraries, all in operation by June 2004, the brand new four-storey main library building on the main campus in Paola, opened it doors to its first users in May 2005.

The past academic year (2005/2006) was our first full year of operation at all of these six libraries and though, as yet, we are not using all our facilities to full capacity, already we are seeing a demand for our services that indicates clearly that we are meeting many of the expectations. Some figures illustrate the extent of use.

At the end of last June we almost had 2,800 registered users in all libraries (academic staff, students and non-academic) - which are about an average of 64 per cent of the college population.

Significantly, much higher percentages apply in some institutes than in others. On average, we loaned out about 1,331 items a month, most of which (87 per cent) were for titles that directly support academic study and teaching (including periodicals which we loan out regularly).

Fiction and films too are in demand, reflecting the leisure use of the library. At some of our libraries we keep electronic count of the number of people walking into the premises.

Taking the main library as an example, figures show that since April this year we have consistently had over 700 visitors daily. Our population on this campus is about 2,200.

Some of the smaller population institute libraries attract a bigger number of people proportionally.

But in the end, is there evidence that shows that this investment in libraries can be translated into student academic achievement and success?

A US research paper "School libraries work" concludes that "a multitude of evidence strongly supports the connection between student achievement and the presence of school (read academic) libraries with qualified library staff.

"When library staff work with teachers to support learning opportunities with books, computer resources, and more, students learn more, get better grades, and score higher on standardised test scores than their peers in schools without good libraries".

Clearly, investment in libraries pays and libraries do matter. And, though similar hard evidence is not yet available about MCAST libraries, we do feel that our approach to making our collections readily and easily available to our users is paying dividends as experienced by satisfied and repeat 'customers'.

Mr Zerafa, B.Pharm., M.Phil., Dip. LIS, is MCAST's librarian