YORK COLLEGE LIBRARY

ANNUAL REP RT

1997-1998

Robert Machalow

Chief Librarian

I

Introduction

In the bud get year 1997-1998, the York College Library has continued to main tain

services to the public while coping with continuing unfavorable staffing and budget

situations. In following the Library's mission, the Librarians have continued to stress

public services while deferring other profe ssional Library respon sibilities, including

collection development , to some extent.

With a minimum of professionals supported by a minimum of support staff, the

Library has continued to be confronte d with a declining materials budget. Not only has

the budget decreased in terms of adjusted dollars due to the increase in the cost of Library

materials and inflation, but also the total budget has decreased by more than one-third.

Becau se of this, the Library's faculty has continued to make decisions on which

important Library materials to discontinue acquiring, including subscriptions to

perio dicals and annual publ ications. Due to the budget situation, book titles in variou s

subject fields are not being ordered, thus forcing the Library community to rely more

heavily on other Libraries, document delivery, and interlibrary loan services.

It is hoped that the budget situation for both the College and the Library will be

reversed in the not too distant future, pennitting the Library to better fulfill its mission to

serve the needs of the York College community.

I. Professional Library Personnel

The professional staffing of the York College Library has not changed in the past

year. This decline in the number of professionals is more pronounced when viewed over

the past number of years) when the Library faculty has decreased significantly while the

student body has increased even more significantly.

Chart 1 illustrates that the professional staff has decreased significantly over the

past 12 years. At the same time, the ratio of full-time equivalent students to Library

faculty has increased substantially, as can be seen in Chart 2.

The Association of College and Research Libraries has detailed standards that

academic Libraries should attempt to meet. According to the standards, by the size of the

student body, faculty, and collection, York College's 1:,ibrary should have approximately

double the number of full time faculty members as it presently has. The formula is used to

calculate the optimum number of professionals to deliver quality service to the user

community.

Rather than using the standards of a professional association, it may be helpful to

compare the York College Library staffing with that of other CUNY senior college Libraries.

Chart 3 details the number of Librarians at each of the senior CUNY colleges from the

1991/92 to 1996/97 academic year. As the chart reveals, in comparison with other CUNY

senior colleges, York College's Library has few Librarians. Looked at another way, the

proportion of Librarians per FTE in the senior CUNY colleges can be seen in Chart 4.

At York, it is significant to examine not only the ratio ofFTE's per Librarian, but

also the ratio of students per Librarian using the headcount of students. This is significant in

the Library since a Librarian must be prepared to perform individua) bibliographic

instruction with each student who uses the Library. To accomplish this, the headcount at

York can be used, as illustrated in Chart 5.

The Libr ary continues to emphasi ze public service even though the professional

faculty is very limit ed. Thus, each professional must spend a great deal of time staffing

one of the two Refer ence desks. Other profess ional responsibilities, such as collection

develo pment , are accompli shed as much as possible when the Librarians are not

sche dule d at one of the Ref eren ce desks. The aver age amount of time each profes sional

Libr arian spends in public service at one of the Reference desks can be seen on Chart 6.

It should be noted that the increase in average reference time could be accounted

for by the decrease in the number of pro fess ional Librari ans due to an early retirement.

Unlike other acade mic departm ents at York, the Library is unable to hire adju nct s to

m ake up for the los s of a full time membe r of the faculty.

Though the reference desk hours have been maintained during the past eight years

because of the Library's emphasis on public services, the hours that the reference desks have

been staffed have been slightly decreas ed due to the lack of professional staff. The hours that

the Reference desks have been staffed have been select ed after a study of usage patterns for

several years. As Chart 7 shows, the shorten ed reference desk hours have not significantly

impacted on the use of reference services.

II Budget

The Library has, in effect, two budgets: Library materials (OTPS) and temporary

services budgets. This portion of the annual report will discuss the Library materials portion

of the budget; the following section will briefly deal with the temporary services portion of

the Library budget.

The Library other than personnel services portion of the budget can be examined

from various interrelate d points of view, including books and periodic als. These two prim ary

part s are related because if the total budget remains constant or decreases, which it has done

in the past number of years, as the cost of one increases there is less money left to purchase

the other. Recently, as the cost of periodicals has increased by approximately ten percent a

year, the Library has been forced to cancel periodical subscriptions and acquire fewer books

with the remaining dollars. In addition to the increase in the cost of jou rnals, there has been

an increase in the cost of books as well.

Further complicating the equation is that as the college redefines its curriculum, the

Library must redefine its acquisitions. In most cases, the newer fields that have been added

or discussed have been ones with more costly materials than those that have been

disconti nued or discussed for discontinuat ion. For example , material s to support a

Physician's Assistants program will be significantly more costly than those to support Italian.

In additi on, Library supplies and contrac ts are taken from the Library other than

personnel services portion of the budget, which further reduces the amount of money to

purch ase books and journals. In the past, this was not the practice at York College. Now, not

only supplies, contracts and materials come from the Library materials budget, so do

computer equipment and software.

Chart 8 illustrates the Library OTPS budget for the 1997-1998 academic year. In past

budget years an overwhelming majority of the Library's OTPS budget had been

committed to the acquisition of journals. Chart 8 shows that this year's budget was

slightly different. Unlike other budget years, this year the Library has been unable to pay

for the upcoming journal subscriptions in the current year. Because of this, the Library

will have to devote nearly its entire OTPS budget for necessary journal subscriptions. As

Chart 9 illustrates, the Library's budget has been spent primarily for journal subscriptions.

Books

Chart 10 illustrates that the book buying ability of the Library has shown a general

trend downward during the recent past. This can be accounted for by a number of factors,

including:

• A relatively constant budg et eroded in recent years by the necess :ty of paying for

equipment and suppl ies from the budget forme rly reserved for books and serials;

• The rising cost of journal subscriptions;

• The inflation of book prices in general;

• The necessity to support new, expensive technology . These technolo gies include the

World Wide Web and database services.

Accordin g to the standards of the Association of College and Research Libraries, the

York College Library should have a total of over 200,000 volu mes, based on the number of

faculty and students at the college as well as the number of majors. At the pr esent time, the

Libr ary has a collection estimated to be at approx imately 170,000 volumes, though this

estimate is an extremely high one, as it is based on a guess made approximately twenty years

ago . As the complete York Colleg e Library catalog gets put into CUNYPLUS, a more

realistic numbe r will be available, but it is likely that the collection contains little more than

100,000 volumes.

In addition, an invento ry of the coll ecti on has never been performed, and this wou]d

help to indicate the true size of the collection. An inventory woul d require a large number of

temporary workers, something that is not likely to be pennitt ed given the Co1Iege1s and the

Library's on goin g budget shortages.

B. Joun1als

Chart 11 shows that the number of journals subscribed to by the York College

Library has significantly decreased in the past few years. Subscriptions were cancelled

based on use by the York College community. At the present time, a major study of the use

of journals is continuing. Subscriptions for journals that have not been used in any format

(print, microfilm, or microfiche) by the Library community in the past three years have been

discussed for possible cancellation.

In spite of the fact that several hundredjoumal subscriptions have been cancelled,

the use of journals in the Library is high. This can be seen in Chart 12.

III. Temporary Services Budget

The temporary services portion of the budget for the Library has been

maintained for the past few years. As in the past, the Library faculty decided to maintain

Library services during the fall and spring semesters, but to shorten hours during the summer

session. The effect on Library users has been minimal, as eviden ced by the continued light

use of the facility during the summer as well as the minimum number of complaints about

the Library,s shorten ed hours. Last summer, no complaints at all were recei ved about the

Library's hours.

IV. Use of the Library

A. Books

The use of the book collection of the Library in terms of volum es circulated has

remained high. This can be seen on Chart 13. It should be noted that as most circulation

transactions are now recorded on CUNYPLUS, the on-line Library system, both

Circula tion and Reserve transac tions are combined for the past two years, though not

before that. This will make a comparison difficult. The combination of Circulation and

Reserve transacti on stat istics will be continued.

B. Period icals

Peri odicals, for the purpose of this annual report, includes current periodicals,

backfi les, storag e, the busine ss collection, and micro forms. The use of periodicals has

contin ued to decline in the past few years, as can be seen in Chart 12. This decre ase can

be accounted for by the fact that a portion of the Human Rel ations Area Files (HRAF) is

now accessib le on the campus VAX netwo rk; thus the microfilms collection has been less

heavily used.

C. Other Library Services

Some Library services are available primarily to faculty and staff of the Coll ege.

These services include interlibrary loans and database services. It should be noted that

interlibrary loan services are currently available to all Libra ry users, though student use is

limited by the time interlibrary loans usually take and the students' desire for instant

retrieval.

Interlibrary loan service has increased, probably due to the shortage of appropriate

materials here at York Not only is interlibrary loan available, but document delivery has

bec ome possible throu gh funding by the Central Office of CUNY. Chart 14 details the

activities of the interlibra ry loan division.

Database servic es were used by a few of the York Col lege faculty and staff,

as can be seen in Chart 15. The continuing decrease from the high in 1987-1988 can be

attribu ted to increased patron use of World Wide Web and CUNYPLUS databases as well as

a decrease in the number of full time faculty. It should be noted that database searching was

discou rage d during the past few academic years.

This academic year, the Library was open two Sundays prior to final exams in both

the fall and spring semest ers. The use of the Library was not heavy in tenn s of students

asking for profession al help (betwee n 6 and 20 reference questi ons were asked each day))

though the facility was used for study (body count between 20 and 80 at a time with a total

of between 175 and 212 each Sunday).

This academic year, the Library's late study hours were extended signifi cantly during

the final two weeks of each semes ter. The facility was not heavily used, though there were a

number of users here.

Conclusion

Though the Library continues to suffer from shortages in both personnel and

dollars, the use of the Library has continued to remain strong. The Library faculty contin ues

to be concerned about the cumulative impact of budget cuts on the qaality of the sexvices

offered to the York College Communi ty as well as on the collection. At the present tim e, the

Library's staffing level and co11ection have signific antly slipped below the level of the

Association for College and Research Libraries' minimum standards for a college of this size

in terms of faculty, students, and courses offered.

Librarians at Yor i<

12

10

"' 8C: ~ ·-:i.. ~ 6 :i,_

.c :J 4

2

0

~

I

'-I I I I

, , / / J

I I

~

? ,, ', ~'? I] I'-; ,_

'i' I;---.-- I "' ,,

85/86 88/89 90/91 92/93 94/95 96/97 87/88 89/90 9 I /92 93/94 95/96 97/98

Acad e mic Year

Chart I

900 800 700 600

w 500 ~ 400

300 200 100

0

Librarians Per FTE ' .....

- , , , I

-

-... ,

f- , ,

...

-...

']_ f]_ '7 ,, 1: I'; r;, I

85/86 87/88 89/90 9 I /92 93/94 95/96 97/98 86/87 88/89 90/91 92/93 94/95 96/97

Academic Year

Chart 2

r

CUNY Librarians 30 r· - --- - ~ -·---·-- -~ --- ... ·---------- ·----- ----~--·-----

! U) 25 C ro ■ 91/92·co20 [] 92/93 S--

.D II 93/94~ 15 Q) ■ 94/95E

□ 95/96i- 10 □ 96/97

~ 5 ·IJl~Jlm0 Baruch City John Jay NY Tech Staten Island

Brooklyn Hunter Lehman Queens York

Sen ior College

Chart 3

-- -~~ ,._, . .,, ___.., ....__..,

C UNY Lib raria ns Per FTE I 996/9 7

800

700 600

w 500 J- 400 u. 300

200

100

0

, _

I J

-I

I J

-I

I J I ' I I

I-

I j

.

I-

- ? ~7 ~7 ~7 ~7 ~7 IJ7I

Baruch City John Jay Medgar Evers Queens York Brooklyn Hunter Le hman NYC Tech Staten Island

Senior College

Chart 4

, J

I J

I

i .... i~ I

1

Stud 1 en ts Per Librari an

1200 4

I- I )

1000 ~ ------ . f i1( n( n --- / II 7~~A 1

...., C: 800 ~ ~- ~/ ~

I::s u 0

600 ~ 1

I -c ro (1J

1:r: 400

20

: ~ 1 w I ill I w I L ~ k'ZL________J__1 I V.I

89/90 90/91 91/92 92/93 93/94 94/95 95/96 96/97 97/98

Academic Year

Chart 5

Average Referenc e Time

25

.Y 20 Q) Q) ~ r-t · r ---,1 ( -·M ··:n( -~r--·-TI(~ -=

1-J !7. 'J

~(~::::::1 I~r-==(s 15 11 '-Q) 0.. cn 10 I,,_

:::J 0 I 5

llJ VJI --!l.i1 _ ·- Jill ~ _ 11-1.o I

l ~ . ~ . ~ '1

85/86 87/88 89/90 91/92 93/94 95/96 97/98 86/76 88/89 90/91 92/93 94/95 96/97

Academic Year

Chart 6

Use of Reference Services

35

30

v, 25 \J

~ 20 (I)

::::s 0 15 _c

I-10

5

0

-

-

-

-

-

-I

-

85/86

I

I

I ' 87/88

86/76

I I

7 '7

89/90 88/89 90/91

I I'--• - -

I;, ....

9 I /92 93/94 92/93

I

I

I,

I •-; ';

95/96 94/95 96/97

I

I~

97/98

Academic Year

Chart 7

Library Budget 1997/98

-~- \_ Microforms 13.0%

1.6% l CatalogingSerials

47.7%

Chart 8

--- ~-- ----- ----· -------------~- -- ---- --- - --

Percent ~ I\> w .s:.c.nen ---J co

000 000000

1987/19 88

1988/1989

1989/1990

1990/1991 i ~•~ffl A I • ICAL-YM& I I r-

~ 1991/1992 OJ

() Q_

i ~ 1992/1993 ;:::i. c--/ co -<

IB1993/1994 -,

1994/19 95

1995/1996

1996/19 97

1997/1998

Ill ■ ~ OJ 0 O C: 0

:::J., " en m-cn

-· CT., '< Q)

tll C: C. cc (D ~

86·L66 I

L6·966 I

96-S66 I "' C 56·'7661 0·-~ 116-£66 1 s..·-(II ~ ·-::, £6·l66 I

Q)

>- 0 u -c­u l:6· I66 I ·-E 1: ro

<( ..c:GJ u,:,I 6·066 I rdt- u

ct06·686 1 RS s-. .c 68·886 1 ·-..J

88·L86 I

L8·986 I

98-S86 I I I I I

-~

-::--;

-:."I

-,~

h

-.. ,..,

-p:"i

-....

::'i

-.. ,,

-:-,;

-r :1

-~

-·~ -

~ M M - 0

spu-esno4_1_

- -

••

- -

I', _

-......

-......

-

-

-.....

r---,

-..... ~=======Sl~

-I -...__--,..Jl--'1 _,

-

-I I ,..,.

-I I~

-I ' •

.

8661/£6 6 1 C 0·--~

L66 I /966 I GJ u

-0 966 1/S661 en U

C "' 0 "' S66 I /J,661 ·- GJ-., C C. --·c ~

17661/£661u ::s.Ba3

u -:, Q) £66 I /l66 I ·e ~ U) -g a.> u..c:

,::, ~~ u

U C l 66 I/ I 66 I <_·- --c ~ 0 0

I 66 I /0661 ·c z G) "' D. cu

0 0661 /6861 C GJ.., 686 1/8861 0 z

88 61/£861

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Ln O LI\

••

,,,

-

-' ..!"l ·- -

C -

Cl) ~ -- RSu

u ·-·--·-

·- I.s.. -

-

I ...., '

I

I ! i -i

I en

-

-....

...l;j

-u C ..... - ...L'

-

-1 J 1 'J I ""J

0 0 0 0 --0 ~ M

spu-esno4~

8661 /!661

!661/9661

9661/5661

5661 /17661

17661/[661

E66 l/l66 I

l66 I/ I 66 I

1661 /0661

0661 /6861

6861 /8861

8861/£861

!861/9861

9861/5861

u ·-E t

cd Cl) ..c:: -c u (d u

~ "' 0 0 ca

It­o C 0 ~ ~ ·--:, u s-·-u

-...

-..

; ~

-r,

-

' T::,.i

-' '"'

-...

I ~

-~

'

-~

....

-...

I ~

-...

T:-i

-~

~

-I f I I I I I ~ • ,.

0 0 0 0 0 CO llrO ~ M

spu-esno4J_

-r-..

~

-

866 1/L66 1

L66 I /9661

966 1 /56 6 1

S661 /i,66 1

'7661/(661

£66 1/7-661

7-66 1 /1661

166 1 /066 1

0661/ 686 1

6861 /8861

8861 /L86 I

!86 1/986 1

986 1/58 6 1

I. RS (1J

>- M

·-u -1: caE .r::.

(1J u rd " u <t

~ ~ I.. l-o 0 >->-EE 0 0 I.. s.. LL U. tJ) ,,

.... Q)

~ := - ::s 0 m c- I::0 0Cl)1-~CO

■ ■ ■

U) C: ca 0 ..J

~ ca I.. .c ■--I.. Cl)... C-

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Lt) 0 Lt)

~

I

N ~ ~

Al!A!l~\i

86/L6

LG/96

96/S6

S6/v6

176/£6 ro '-

(1) ~£6/Z6 >- "ir-

(.)

' Z6/ ~6 E t: ro

ID .r::. "'C (_)~6/06 ro (.)

<( I 06/68

68/88

88/l.8

.l.8/98

98 /S8

C: 0

'1) ·--..» ~

·->

Cl)

·--.., N u ·-

,..._::> V, Cl) = ~

,,I.JQ) en Vl rd -c .c C: ~ ~...,

>-~ ,,I.J

C -:l u ~

LL

__1

I

0 0 Ln """

paAJas

~

~~

d

'-----r;:-

~

r-

' 1,

.... - ~

- -::

' l·,

-:

..._

' ~

I.,

..._, I I I

'•

-8 6/l6

-L6/96

-9 6/56

-s6!v6

-P6/f.6

-( 6/7.6

.....6/16z

~16/06

---06/68

-6 8/88

-8 8/LB

-l 8/98

-98/58

1 I I I

0 0 0 0 M N

JJE:JSpuE Alln=>E::1

s.. ~ Q)

>-·-u

Lf}

-

E .µ 1... ro

Q) ..c u

"'C ro u <t