With the addition of more than 40 new online databases this semester, officials said, the University Libraries are moving forward after years of budget cuts that hit research resources the hardest.
A new $50-per-semester library technology fee that students started paying in the fall helped library officials raise $2 million to invest in these new resources, which include e-books, academic journals, online newspapers and videos.
After nine straight years of cutting subscriptions to print and electronic journals, University Libraries Dean Patricia Steele said expanding the university’s academic resources is a major step in addressing a university-wide demand that has been long overdue.
“The access to information — in any kind of survey that is done — is always the number one demand, whether it is students or faculty,” Steele said. “That’s what people want. They want access to online resources.”
The libraries took some of their hardest hits in 2006, when at least 800 journal subscriptions were cut following an increase in the costs of research materials. And even after being allocated an additional $500,000 in 2009 to offset the sting of rising journal costs, the university’s library system cut 9 percent of its journal collection.
But Steele said the libraries appear to be on an upswing.
The new database additions emphasize primary resources, including several new historical newspaper catalogues. Some are specialized to particular fields, including a database for Chinese academic journals and at least two on Arab-Israeli relations.
“This is definitely a change for the good for everyone,” Steele said. “It’s much nicer around here when we’re adding than when we’re subtracting.”
Some faculty members who teach research-heavy courses said having these expanded resources will help jump-start their curriculum and enhance the students’ classroom experience.
English professor Vincent Carretta, who teaches courses that often incorporate newspaper articles from as early as the 1600s, said his assignments have been affected in recent years by the lack of on-campus resources.
He could not incorporate certain assignments because neither his undergraduates nor graduate students had access to the primary sources they would have needed.
“We have better assignments and closer to real-world assignments,” he said. “I tell students, ‘This is the kind of research you may all be asked to do in whatever career you choose — using primary text and primary evidence, rather than so-and-so said this about this.'”
Some students — even those who said they are unlikely to ever use the new databases — said this is a positive addition to the libraries.
“I think it’s expanding the library because we all have our own computers to do research,” senior agricultural resources and economics major Joseph DeKnight said.
“I don’t want to pay the [mandated $50 fee], of course not, but it sounds like it’s going to a good cause at least.”
But junior supply chain management and logistics and operations management major Evan Ponchick said he felt the money could have been better spent by continuing to refurbish the interior of McKeldin Library.
“The 40 new research databases haven’t affected me personally as a student at all,” he said.
“However, fixing the second floor and making it nicer and a better place to study has. I think research is really important but sometimes the emphasis on research is taking away from enhancing the student learning experience.”
While Steele said the economic future is still uncertain for the libraries and she is doubtful the economy will turn around soon, the $50 fee will continue to help undo the damage that was done by past cuts.
In the coming years, she said, the bulk of the money generated from this fee will continue to expand the online databases.
And Carretta said this expansion should be library officials’ top priority.
“You couldn’t spend it better,” he said. “For what I do, it’s the equivalent of having lab equipment.”
villanueva at umdbk dot com
