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Compliance Certification Section 2.9

Learning Resources and Services

The institution, through ownership or formal arrangements or agreements, provides and supports student and faculty access and user privileges to adequate library collections as well as to other learning/information resources consistent with the degrees offered. These collections and resources are sufficient to support all its educational, research, and public service programs.

Coker College is in compliance.

The adequacy of library holdings is demonstrated through comparison to a peer group, internal surveys, and use of ACRL guidelines.

The library's collection includes over 65,000 print and 41,000 electronic books, as well as approximately 3,400 items available in audiovisual formats. An additional collection of over 2,500 textbooks and other learning resources serves the Education program. There are over 6,000 volumes of bound periodicals. Physical materials are housed in the James Lide Coker III Library on the college campus. Electronic books are available through the Internet to all college staff, students, and faculty.

The ratio of print and electronic items (including audiovisual, but excluding the curriculum materials and bound periodicals) to students is 109,400 items / 1033 FTE, or about 106. This falls within the range of ratios computed by a faculty review committee for libraries at peer institutions, which ranged from 101 to 210, as reported in [1527, p 3] (ebook numbers have been updated for this report). This is not far from the 1995 ACRL formula for collection size, which gives 117,000 volumes. (See the computation)

Faculty reported satisfaction with the library in 2002-3, through a survey conducted by the Faculty Advocacy Committee of the Faculty Senate, where 95% of the respondents 'Agree' or 'Strongly Agree' that the Library "facilitates the College's mission and goals", with 38% of the faculty responding [1358].

Education curriculum materials were reviewed by a team from the Office of Teacher Quality, SC Department of Education, when the 10 teacher education program areas were approved.

Over 300 print serials and 35 electronic journals are available to patrons, with the added resources available from electronic reference sources and 31 interdisciplinary and specialized databases (see Section 3.8.1). These are supplemented by a microform collection. The library's circulation policies include user-friendly services (recalls, holds, and renewals). In addition to its own collection, the library offers students and faculty a number of borrowing options to increase their access to learning resources.

Faculty and students may participate in the specific reciprocal borrowing agreement with the Rogers Library at Francis Marion University and the Florence Darlington Technical College Library [1537]. In addition, the library is also a member of the Statewide Borrowing Agreement that allows students and faculty to borrow library materials from the other participating academic libraries [1538]. With a valid student ID card and a piece of college mail showing their campus box number, they may obtain a Darlington County Public Library card and check out any circulating materials, such as books, magazines, audiotapes, CDs, and videos.

The library catalog is available from the college website. Students and instructors at off-site locations can request delivery of circulating items.

Materials not available at Coker College may be obtained by faculty members, staff members, and students using the library's interlibrary loan service. Using the OCLC Interlibrary Loan Module, the library in 2002-03 borrowed 325 books and photocopied articles from other institutions. To promote this service, the library no longer charges students or faculty for interlibrary loan. The library lent 31 items to other institutions.

The web site is designed to provide students and faculty with learning resources in a clear, accessible manner to facilitate academic research. Links include quick access to major databases and electronic resources, including InfoTrac OneFile, WilsonWeb Omnifile Full Text Mega, the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary, and the Encyclopedia Britannica. Other popular links include NoodleBib, an online program that guides students in the creation of bibliographies in both MLA and APA styles. There are various web pages devoted to helping students learn independently by providing links to various research, reference, and web searching sites.

For more information on the library, see Section 3.8.1, Section 3.8.2, Section 3.8.3, and the Library organization page.

Reference Documents Cited

ID	Type	Source	Title	Description
1358	PDF	Office: Library	Administrative Review Survey of library	Rating of library by faculty
1537	PDF	Office: Library	Joint Agreement on Library Use	Agreement for the sharing of library collections for Coker College, Francis Marion University, and Florence-Darlington Technical College
1538	PDF	Office: Library	South Carolina Statewide Library Borrowing Agreement	Agreement for direct circulation of library materials among the libraries of the South Carolina higher education institutions.