Trends In Training College Faculty Staff Students In Computer Literacy

Nine case studies from American institutions that are successfully confronting the challenges of computer and educational technology literacy, often in novel ways.

This special report examines the management practices and business decisions of special collections libraries with a focus on rare books, manuscripts, maps, and other historical documents. The report profiles the John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections at Boston College, the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University-Provo, the Huntington Library, the Newberry Library, the San Antonio Public Library, the Watkinson Library at Trinity College, the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Southern Illinois-Carbondale, and the Bancroft Library at the University of California-Berkeley. Interviews were conducted in November and December of 2007. Additional information through an online form was provided by San Jose State University Kent State University Map Library AGS Libraries, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and California State University-Chico.

Of major findings -- Methodology -- Enrollment growth -- Use of products and services from distance learning suppliers and vendors -- Use of web-based courses -- Third party course providers -- Departmental assistance to the distance learning program -- Use of technology -- Copyright and licensing issues -- Tuition costs -- Tailor-made courses for industry and government -- Consortium membership -- Adverstising and marketing the distance learning program -- Centralization of DL college bureaucracy -- Courses offered and staff salaries -- Profitability and cost structure.

The Survey of Student Retention Policies in Higher Education presents data from a benchmarking study of the retention policies of 40 American colleges. Data is broken out for public and private colleges, by Carnegie class and enrollment level, to allow for easier benchmarking. This 100+ page study presents data on: spending on consulting services to aid in student retention, spending on conferences, reports and other information and analysis about retention; percentage of colleges that have a dean or other high level administrator for retention; retention rates for students; ways in which colleges track and present retention data; perceived impact of financial assistance on retention; perceived impact of severity in grading on retention; perceived impact of tutoring services on retention; perceived impact of psychological counseling serviceson retention; perceived impact of general economic conditions on retention; perceived impact of involvement in extra-curricular activities on retention; perceived impact of the quality of food services and residence halls on retention; use of interviews of transferees or drop outs from the college; use of interviews of graduates of the college; importance of exit interviews; percentage of colleges that maintain records on students that are engaged in few or no extracurricular activities; description of college info literacy policies; percentage of colleges that offer child care services to students; role of part time job finding services; perceived importance of career services division for retention; perceived importance of the academic advising services unit for retention; perceived importance of peer mentoring for retention; percentage of colleges that intervene at pre-determined thresholds of student difficulties such as number of classes missed or low grade point average; description of college efforts to reach out to help high risk students; College spending on tutoring services; Projected future spending on tutoring services; Perceived impact of tutoring services on retention; Source of tutors; Cost of Tutors; percentage of residence halls that have student advisory centers; percentage of colleges that have hired consultants to advise on the academic advising services; Annual Budget of the academic advising unit; number of full time equivalent positions allocated to the academic advising unit; description of rate of growth in the college's financial aid to students over the past two years; description of changes in tuition levels; perceived view of the need to increase financial aid or lower tuition in order to maintain or enhance enrollment; institutional attitudes towards the encouragement of instructor-student interaction outside of class; percentage of students that need special help in reading, writing or pronouncing English; percentage of colleges that offer ESL.

Survey of academic libraries, chiefly in the United States and Canada, on their use of classroom response systems (clickers); whiteboards, tablets, and other presentation aids; internet technologies such as instant messaging, blogs, wikis, podcasting, photo sharing, online simulations/tutorials, virtual classroom/reality software, virtual reference software, and course management systems; instructional budgets; instructional computer labs; and instructional furniture.

College Information Literacy Efforts Benchmarks presents the results of an information literacy higher education benchmarking study. More than 110 colleges from the United States and Canada participated in the study; data is broken out by size and type of college, for public and private colleges, for US and Canadian colleges, and even by number of in-class instructional sessions given. Uniquely, this report also breaks out data separately at institutions at which librarians have faculty status, an at which they do not.

. Data in the report is based on a survey of 55 North American law libraries drawn from law firm, private company, university, courthouse and government agency law libraries. Data is broken out by size and type of library for ease in benchmarking. The 120+ page report covers developments in staffing, salaries, budgets, materials spending, use of blogs & wikis, use of legal directories, the library role in knowledge management, records management and content management systems. Patron and librarian training, reimbursement for library-related education and other issues are also covered in this latest edition.

This report presents approximately 70 tables of data exploring how full time college students in the United States view and use their college library¿s e-book collection. The data in the report is based on a representative sample of more than 400 full time college students in the United States. Data is broken out by 16 criteria including gender, grade point average, major field of study, income level of students and type, size of college, and mean SAT acceptance score of colleges, among other variables. The report is designed to give college librarians, educational researchers, publishers and others critical demographic information on the student use of college library e-book collections. Just a few of the report¿s many findings are that:¿30.42% of the students in the sample say that they have received any form of in or out of class training from a college librarian in how to use the library¿s e-book collection. ¿Only a sixth of students in colleges with a mean SAT score greater than 1950 say that they have received e-book collection training from college librarians. ¿Less than 17% of community college students found library e-book collections useful or very useful.