Section II:
Library Services

With more than a million volumes, Brooklyn College is one of the largest academic libraries in New York State. Each day hundreds of students and faculty enter our doors, whether to find a title in the online catalog, borrow a book, listen to a sonata, examine a manuscript, browse the electronic journals, or explore the Internet's global information resources. In 1999/2000 the Library delivered 269 days and 2,661 hours of service. The Library is open 64 hours a week. The Library Café offered 84 hours of staffed service. Its late evening and longer weekend hours are a welcome extension of our service program.

ˇ    Information Services
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/library/about_library/reference.htm

ˇ    Many of our electronic services, including e-reference, e-renewals, e-resources, and our workshop series were profiled in the Spring 2001 issue of "Around the Quad," the College's student newsletter.

ˇ    On June 7th, 2000,the Information Services staff of ten professional librarians attended a day-long conference, "Re-Creating Reference: Information Services and the New Technologies." The conference has served as a starting point for the staff to re-evaluate our current reference services in preparation for our move into the new Library.

ˇ    As an experiment, a pool of unsupported Web terminals was created in front of the Circulation desk. This configuration should serve as a prototype for many computer areas in the new Library, which will be located at some distance from the staff and the assistance they provide. Initially, both Library Systems and Information Services staff were skeptical about this new area. The machines installed there were old Intel 486 computers, extremely slow and better suited for word processing than Internet searching. And, reference librarians were very cautious about locating a Web area so far away from the Reference desk and the support its staff provide Nonetheless, these computers have been used heavily: a certain type of independent student (rather like the ones who use the Library Café late at night) seems to find a way to use the tools we provide, even without staff assistance. This makes us more confident that unsupported computers in the new Library will prove useful.

ˇ    Instruction
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/library/bi.htm

Brooklyn College is unique in its vision for Library instruction: we provide instruction not only for students, but for the entire College community. Our program includes not only the usual academic library staple, course-related instruction, but also drop-in classes in our Workshop Center and the Library Café, and faculty classes in the Faculty Training and Development Laboratory and Multimedia Classrooms. In 1999/2000, 178 classes reached 2,800 persons:

ˇ    The Move to Temporary Quarters Like other services, library instruction felt the impact of the move to temporary quarters. The Field Library's classroom installation was delayed several months because the distance between it and the wiring closet exceeded acceptable limits. Finally, an additional wiring closet was created to accommodate the classroom. Next, the classroom's completion was slowed again because several PCs were damaged during the move. Of the 25 computers in the classroom, only eighteen arrived in the Field Library fully operational. The rest required replacement parts (chiefly damaged hard drives).

ˇ     The Workshop Series

ˇ    Information Literacy
Information literacy (IL) continues to be of major interest not just to Brooklyn College, but to the City University of New York as a whole. As the only library in CUNY with an information literacy specialist (Professor Mariana Regalado) Brooklyn is well positioned to play a leadership role in IL within the University.

ˇ    IL at Brooklyn College
The Library's Instructional Services Committee is presently reassessing our instruction program with an eye to providing a programmatic approach to information literacy competency.

In order to build understanding of information literacy throughout the Library, on January 19, 2000, Professor Regalado organized an all-day retreat on IL. Several faculty members from various academic departments participated in the retreat, helping us examine our existing instructional program and explore new ways of developing a more effective IL initiative.

We have also begun creating discipline-specific research guides that address particular research methods and needs ("Research for Students of History," ).

In a pilot course in the Department of Educational Services Professor Regalado taught six sessions that were designed to provide students with basic research skills. Both a pre- and post- test were included.

We also trained tutors at the Learning Center to make better and more frequent referrals to the Library Reference desk.

ˇ    Blackboard Offers New IL Opportunities
The recent commitment of both CUNY and Brooklyn College to the Blackboard online learning platform provided us a new and exciting point for information literacy instruction. In conjunction with Dr. Sylvie Richards, Library subject specialists are recommending that a library component be added to each online course. In the spring 2001, a new faculty section will be added to the Library's website, providing ideas for assignments that promote information literacy, as well as information about copyright.

ˇ    IL in the City University of New York