Library offers expanded Internet services

The Albertson’s Library at Boise State is undergoing changes this semester to help meet the needs of students, both on campus and far away.

The face of the library on the Internet has changed recently to become easier to navigate, and indexes of journals and periodicals are available for students on-line.

Reference Librarian Larry Kincaid said, “In the last two to three years, most indexes have been available on CD-ROM. Those indexes have migrated to the Internet.”

According to Kincaid, students can access the indexes and abstracts for any journal off the library homepage from any Internet connection.

The on-line journals are offered as subscription services and are paid for by the library.

“Many of these newspapers and journals are available full text, things like the New York Times and the Idaho Statesman,” he said.

Access to periodicals on-line is a benefit for distance students, said Janet Strong, orientation librarian. In the past, students who were studying off campus across the country and around the state had to request and receive photocopies and books by mail.

Now those requests can be made by e-mail, through an expanded service called “Ask Us.”

“Students can e-mail requests for reference help, and we can suggest terms to use for searching, or what types of databases are most effective,” said Strong.

Since the service became active in July, it has received about six questions per week. “We get some questions on how to get started on research,” said Strong, “We have also gotten several policy questions, and a couple of people wanting to know how to register.”

The operating hours of the library are also being modified. The first floor will be open until midnight Sunday through Thursday, but the upper three floors will close at 11.

“We found that only about 400 students were in the library in the evening over the course of a year, most of those on the first floor,” said University Librarian Tim Brown.

“When you spread out a handful of people in four floors, it gets pretty hard to watch what is going on,” said Brown.

“Students insisted that we remain open until at least 11 on those floors,” he said. “That still gives us time to more effectively close out those floors by midnight.”

The bulk of the work that librarians do for students in supporting their research will remain behind the scenes.

“Eighty percent of our work is invisible to the user,” said Brown.

“We’re a meat and potatoes library,” he said, “If we have a focus, it is the undergraduate’s study.”

“Libraries like the one at UC Berkeley have 85,000 journals; we have 4,800,” he said. “We are reviewing our collection constantly,” adding and subtracting to remain within budget constraints, “It is infinitely better than 15 years ago,” said Brown.

Through all of the juggling and working to meet multiple research needs, Strong said the library is trying to be responsive to student needs.

“We are not totally driven by the faculty.”

Matt Neznanski

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