The world of Dartmouth libraries is on the brink of change. With the current construction of the Baker/Berry Library, Dartmouth is in the midst of its largest library building project since the late 1920s, when Baker itself was originally erected.
In addition, as of the fall of 2000, Dartmouth will say goodbye to Margaret Otto, the Librarian of the College.
As a result of all this change, the Council on the Libraries -- a committee made up of faculty members from the arts, sciences and professional schools, undergraduates and graduates, as well as administrators -- surveyed undergraduates, graduates, professional school students and professors to gain a better insight into the effects, usability and resources of Baker.
The survey was conducted the first half of this month and was designed "to gain a greater understanding of graduate, undergraduate and professors' needs," Kevin Kunzendorf, a member of the Council on the Libraries, said. "It is to see how people are using the library now and how they want to use it in the future."
Questions in the survey focused on how, and with what frequency, students and faculty members use the stacks, how often they use the computers, how satisfied they are with the facilities and what improvements can be made, among many others.
According to Cynthia Pawleck, the director of user services, the results are currently in the process of being calculated, and will be released shortly.
The survey was sent out to a subset of the Dartmouth population via the Internet and BlitzMail. Of the 2,397 students who received the survey, 705 responded. In addition, 995 faculty members were invited to participate, and 250 answered.
Two undergraduate students, Kinohi Nishikawa '01, and John Lutz '01, both members of the Council on the Libraries, co-signed the survey, "with the intention of increasing student interest," Nishikawa explained. "If students saw our names on the survey, they might think the survey pertained to them."
Prizes will be awarded to some of those who responded to the survey -- twenty to undergraduates and ten to graduate and professional school students. Chosen at random, winners have a choice between either a $20 gift certificate to the Dartmouth Bookstore, or $20 worth of photocopying.
Richard Kremer, chair of the Council on the Libraries, said the school conducts a library survey every five or six years to gather feedback on how successful the campus libraries have been.
"Now we have an opportunity to go through the whole survey process again, since the last one was done in the early 1990s. We felt it was important to get up to date information on how the libraries are doing," Pawleck explained.
"The library sees itself as a user-focused organization, and we want to make sure we are meeting our users' needs," Pawleck said.
But it is not simply the need for updated information that prompted the recent search. Indeed, the survey's genesis is rooted in two main factors.
One of the main reasons for the survey is the immense construction effort going on to rebuild and improve Baker library.
"We're in a time of massive expansion in the library world," Kremer said. "The effort will reinvent how students do research with library materials. Doubling the size in physical space, making Kiewit much closer, increasing circulation, the project will create one-stop shopping for information services at Dartmouth."
The combination of the new construction and the loss of the College librarian created an opportune moment for conducting a new survey, Kremer said.
In addition, the survey is a follow-up to The Dartmouth College Library in the Year 2000 report, which is put together by the Library Heads Department, made up of the heads of campus libraries and services. The report, along with the survey, goes to candidates and to the search committee as an internal review of the library.
"Even as early as next year or the year after, we should expect some new changes," Nishikawa stated. "The Baker/Berry project is really an on-going and dynamic project, so we are always looking for input from students and faculty members."
