Annual Report 1994 | Murphy Library | University of Wisconsin

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Murphy Library Annual Report
1994/95

PUBLIC SERVICES

The Public Services units of:

Bibliographic Instruction

Circulation Services

Government Documents

Interlibrary Loan

Online and CD-ROM Services

Reference, and,

Special Collections/ARC

serve to assist users with accessing local or remote information and, in concert with Technical Services, to develop and maintain collections to support that function. Public Services strives to provide excellent service to its primary clientele of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, academic and classified staff, by supporting the instruction and research goals of the university. The Public Services units also assist with the information needs of the community at large.

Service Desks

	1990-91	1991-92	1992-93	1993-94	1994-95
Reference	21,149	19,897	17,691	17,935	18,800
Government Documents	9,383	8,699	6,386	6,727	6,307
Circulation	6,632	5,130	7,932	7,730	9,108
TOTAL	37,164	33,726	32,009	32,392	34,215

The challenges of providing service at the various library service desks were significant this year as we attempted to continue service with little interruption. The construction related to the new addition was disruptive as noise easily penetrated the temporary walls. This was minimal in comparison with the high level of disruption after January with the drilling, dust, fumes, etc. accompanying the remodeling project. The fact that various statistical counts fell only slightly or not at all speaks to the collective effort of the staff to keep services going despite the formidable problems. Planning to determine the final configuration of collections, computer workstations and furniture proceeded throughout the year. Staff participated in numerous moves of the collections and service areas during regular work hours and over the "break" periods.

The Public Relations and Signage Committee continued a high level of activity as it kept the public informed of shifting collections/desks, problem areas, and current news about the construction. Information appeared in campus publications and was posted on sign boards. Changing signs indicated temporary locations. The committee worked with the Director to plan the signage and floor plan system for the new building.

The gopher committee established the prior year evolved as librarians were trained in HTML and worked on a WWW library home page. The home page allows for campus access to important local library information as well as providing links to other resources. Classes covering scholarly Internet resources were held this year and information about WWW resources was integrated into course related instruction. Planning and publicity for the Internet sessions was done in concert with other IT staff. Addition of Netscape to public workstations and the bookmarking of important resources provided faculty and students with avenues of entry in the library to the WWW. Electronic access to resources is continuing to expand with the addition this year of KeyNOTIS MDAS databases and a number of new CD-ROM titles. We are continuing to look for affordable means to access additional files, focusing on full-text electronic information.

In preparation for the new KeyNOTIS system, teams over the summer worked on system profiling for the OPAC and MDAS files and composed text for the various online help screens. Discussions later in the year determined such issues as display names for new locations resultant from the remodeling and addition.

Working with the Director, librarians and staff examined policies related to building use in light of the new facility. These policies will provide guidelines for the staff and facilitate consistent interactions with patrons.

The Public Services group will be looking at the responses from the faculty and student surveys sponsored by the Faculty Library Committee to determine feasible changes to improve services. Some suggestions and recommendations may not be possible without the funding for the implied staff, and equipment needed to implement the changes.

It is anticipated that the volume of library use of most, if not all, services will dramatically increase in the coming year. Concerted efforts will need to be made to define service parameters and efficiencies which will allow us to continue to provide a high level of service with probable declining staff levels. We will also be looking at the procedures and training needs related to the integration of the Curriculum Center into library operations.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC INSTRUCTION

Library Instruction Summary 1994-95

	Sessions	Contact Hours	Attendance
Undergraduate	101	109.2	2,139
Graduate	28	41.3	432
Special UW-L Programs	7	9.8	105
Workshops (Faculty)	12	12.5	82
Workshops (Students)	9	4.5	105
Tours (new students)	4	2.0	65
Appointments	6	3.8	11
Community	5	4.8	73
TOTAL	172	187.9	3,012

The number of individuals served by library instruction sessions in 1994/95 reflects a decline of 8% over the previous year's statistic of 3,596. The library construction project, not completed until the end of this period, is the likely cause of the decline in the use of library instruction. Circulation and turnstile statistics also dropped during this period.

While library instruction is an activity that all librarians participate in, the coordinator of the program (Prucha) taught 96 sessions or 56% of the 1994/95 total instruction. Staffing levels remain a concern as one position (50%) with a significant BI component remains unfilled.

It is worth noting that the month of September was the busiest of the year, with 57 instruction sessions or 33% of the entire year's activity.

ENG 110 and SPC 110 comprise approximately 39% of the total number of sessions and nearly 50% of the total of individuals receiving library instruction.

Technology has had a huge impact on library instruction. An electronic environment makes library instruction more critical, as students must select appropriate databases, and construct a search appropriate to the nature of the database and their information needs. Misinformation about electronic resources abounds, as some students are inclined to try any online product without understanding the content or structure of the database. More resources are becoming available via the Internet and the need for critical thinking is crucial.

We are observing that teaching students to use library resources becomes more and more complex and instruction sessions take more time. It is worth noting that while the number of sessions in 1994/95 was 172, total contact hours totalled 187.9. This figure includes many brief lectures such as 30 minute NOTIS sessions as well as classes that run for 1.5 - 2 hours.

The installation of the NOTIS online public access catalog near the end of the summer of 1994, had a huge impact on bibliographic instruction. The new system, much more powerful than the old LS2000 system, provides access to not only our catalog of books and documents, but also to other library catalogs and selected periodical indexes. The new system required library users to be proficient in more sophisticated searching skills such as boolean searching and nesting. Explaining the interpretation of library periodical holdings statements as they appear on the online system also became a new requisite of library instruction.

In preparation for our first semester with the new NOTIS system, three training sessions were offered for 14 library student workers early in August, 1994. New training materials were prepared. Library staff members, familiar with the more technical aspects of using the system from the "staff side" were introduced to the techniques necessary to search the new public catalog in a brief session which was part of a larger in-service program on August 31, 1994.

In an attempt to better publicize the new system and make referring to it easier, the PR and Signage Committee voted in July to name the new catalog the EAGLE (Electronic Access to the General Library Education) System.

A publicity and training campaign was organized for the beginning of the fall semester. An attachment to the first issue of Campus Connections informed faculty members and staff about the new system and offered four "EAGLE Previews" during the first two weeks of the semester.

Students were encouraged to learn about the system by attending one of six sessions offered as part of the "Training on Tuesdays" program in September, October and November. The workshops were advertised in the Racquet and via signs in the library lobby and a registration table. Both students and faculty members received a list of sample EAGLE searches and were encouraged to test out the system by duplicating these searches, while the instructor remained available to answer questions. 24 faculty members attended the "EAGLE Previews," while 91 students attended "Training on Tuesdays."

Other workshops in 1994/95 focused on the Internet. Thirteen faculty members attended a July workshop on the Internet. In May we tried a new approach, offering three sessions, each of which focused on resources in a different field. Sessions were offered on the Social Sciences, Humanities, and the Sciences. In each session participants were provided with four handouts plus subject guides to internet resources. Thirty-four people attended the three sessions.

Other workshops included First Search for faculty members, and three 2.5 hour workshops for Returning Adult Students.

In addition to the Returning Adult students other special UW-L populations or programs served included Foreign Students, Upward Bound, and the Academic Summer Institute.

Community Groups receiving presentations or tours in 1994/95 included Royal High School, the La Crosse Public Library, Viterbo Nutrition 472/473 students, La Crosse Area Genealogists and the Preservation Alliance of La Crosse. The Internet sessions held in May were publicized in part through mailings to Viterbo, the La Crosse Public Library and WWTC. 14 of the 34 people who attended the three sessions were from either from these institutions or community users of Murphy Library.

Active learning worksheets were further refined by Prucha and Sandvik and were utilized in many of the English 110 and Speech 110 classes. Prucha and Sandvik presented a poster session on the active learning exercises they developed at the 1995 conference of the Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians.

Assessment remained an important focus, as the library's Assessment Committee determined to test seven sections of English 110 during the Spring 1995 term. Pre and post tests were administered. Results seemed to indicate that worksheets and active learning exercises are more effective than lectures without such accompanying exercises. The class earning the second highest improvement in mean score (3.4737) used active learning exercises, and the class earning the third highest improvement (3.4166) used library worksheets heavily (three required). The most significant improvement, however, (3.7273) was recorded for a class which utilized neither.

The instruction program obtained a new Pentium PC at the end of the May semester, resolving some of the problems we were having with using presentation software and Netscape for Internet access.

CIRCULATION SERVICES

The mission of Circulation Services is to provide for the greatest possible use of library material, while ensuring the collection's security and adherence to equitable policies in the provision of services to people whose needs compete. The unit is responsible for circulation of the general and course reserve collections, shelving and stacks maintenance, registration of patrons and maintenance of patron records, reserves processing, compilation of circulation statistics, and the provision of basic directional information to library patrons.

Circulation of library materials fell off by 3% in 1994/95, down 4,211 from the previous year. In 1994/95 8,986 items were processed for reserve, a decline of 282 items from 1993/94. Fewer people entered the library as well, with the total gate count at 344,136 for the year. In-house use fell by 26%, from 44,543 in 1993/94 to 32,668 in 1994/95. This significant drop is not quite accurate due to the transition from LS2000 to NOTIS. In-house data was not available from NOTIS until October, thus counts for half of August and all of September are not included in this year's statistics.

MONTH	CIRCULATION	IN-HOUSE	TOTAL	NON-UWL REGISTRATIONS	TURNSTYLE COUNT	DAYS OPEN
7/94	2,152	1,878	4,030	46	8,696	24
8/94	2,169	*334	2,503	17	3,496	23
9/94	11,480	*N/A	11,480	10	32,217	27
10/94	18,914	4,819	23,733	19	51,002	31
11/94	20,008	4,722	24,730	10	48,399	28
12/94	12,724	4,084	16,808	22	35,074	25
1/95	3,487	1,041	4,528	4	12,476	10
2/95	14,523	3,375	17,898	16	41,338	28
3/95	15,261	4,176	19,437	30	36,952	28
4/95	17,657	4,951	22,608	18	40,920	28
5/95	6,637	2,493	9,130	13	24,055	26
6/95	2,726	795	3,521	64	9,511	24
TOTAL	127,738	32,668	160,406	269	344,136	302

Items placed on reserve for 1994/95 = 8,986
*NOTIS data not available.

Two major activities occupied circulation staff this past year. The transition to NOTIS that began in the Fall of 1993 reached a conclusion with the successful transfer of circulation data in August 1994. Training for NOTIS circulation was attended in July by all members of the department. Once training was completed circulation staff were assigned to rewrite various procedures affected by the new system. Nearly all procedures were either rewritten or updated.

Preparations for temporary and permanent moves of Circulation Services and the general collection continued throughout the year. In January the department moved to the temporary quarters, with the permanent move of circulation completed in early June. All staff served on the various LRC committees in preparing for occupation of the new/remodeled building. In May the A-P stacks were moved on the second floor and the Q-Z's were brought up from the basement.

Additional activities for 1994/95:

Staffing/Staff Development--

Johanna Stephenson took a partial leave of absence for the year by working only 24 hours per week. Linda Sondreal, long-time library staff member, worked the remaining 16 hours as an LTE.
Sue Spiker continued as the early morning LTE, assuming additional duties in the process.
Connie Marker retired in June 1995.
Moni McCarty and Liisa Sjoblom attended several state and national library conferences. Workshops were attended by all staff and included Getting Things Done: Customer Service, Time and Stress Management,Achieving Breakthrough Service in Libraries, Library Support Staff and the Challenge of Change, Kindling Life Into Your Library Career, and OhioLINK: Cooperation & Resource Sharing Ohio Style.
Liisa Sjoblom was elected secretary for the Wisconsin Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Round Table.
Supported the Summer Youth Program sponsored by the Private Industry Council by hiring participants to work in the department.

Records Maintenance--

Updated forms and revised nearly all written instructions as a result of NOTIS and the new building.
Revised overdue/fine notice procedure.
Instituted a new end-of-term billing procedure.
Created new circulation statistics collection procedure.
Assumed the responsibility of reporting public services statistics.
Increased the use of PCs in record collection and maintenance.

Stacks Maintenance--

Continued shifting of general collection to adapt to increases and decreases in various subject areas.
Created stack plan for space in remodeled building.
Conducted small shifts of second floor collection in preparation for move in May/June.
Moved entire collection in May/June. A-P stacks relocated and Q-Z stacks moved to second floor.

Future Plans--

Continued equitable access to the library collection through accurate shelving and stack maintenance.
Continued maintenance of a course reserve collection at the circulation desk.
Continued accurate and efficient service at the circulation desk.
Continued improvements and changes in student training materials.
Provision of library services to distance education students and faculty.
Implementation of an e-mail renewal system for library materials.
Implementation of electronic request forms for reserves.
Increase staff knowledge of/use of pc applications, internet and www.
Develop new collection and reporting methods for public service statistics.

GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

The Government Documents Department is a selective depository for Federal and Wisconsin documents. Federal documents come in paper, microfiche, and CD-ROM formats. We select documents, process them, and aid patrons in their use. Newspapers and magazines on microform are also housed in this area as well as catalogued microform and the necessary microform readers and reader-printers. ERIC and SPORT Discus, two CD-ROM indexes, are also housed in the area as well as topographic maps of Wisconsin and law books.

The Marcive "gap tape" contract to load approximately 14,000 documents from the last two years was finalized and "smart" barcodes ordered. Extensive work was done by William Doering, the Automation Librarian and Charles Marx, the Catalog Librarian, to successfully load the records onto the online catalog. Due to the size of the load and certain limitations in the NOTIS system, the gap records needed to be added on a CD-ROM instead of a tape. The briefer monthly on-going records will be loaded by diskette. Plans were made to barcode these gap documents during the summer of 1995, using the efforts of the Documents Assistant Mary Baldwin, the Documents Librarian Sandra Sechrest, and the student assistants. No additional personnel will be hired as was done for the retrospective tape barcoding project.

We continue to receive an ever increasing number of CD-ROMS as depository items from the Federal government. While many CD-ROMs such as the Census CDs are very valuable and far more convenient than their paper equivalents, they are labor- and equipment-intensive; each CD judged of value to our patrons must either be given drive space or swapped out on our two CD-ROM stations. Another ongoing problem of the many documents CD-ROMS we get is that many of them have different varieties of software which have to be loaded separately. Anita Evans, the Online Librarian, has spent much time loading new CD-ROMs, some of which are very user-friendly and some of which have really poorly designed software.

GPO Access, offering online access to the Congressional Record and the Code of Federal Regulations, was loaded on the office computer. This was also later made an Internet website. This transition illustrates a major trend in government documents, the rise in Federal sources on the Internet. Sometimes these duplicate hard copy records; sometimes they replace them. Some especially useful websites which were created recently are THOMAS (legislation in Congress), the White House, and the Federal Web Locator(links to all Federal agencies). These and a number of other useful sites are bookmarked on the busy office computer.

In news about non-governmental products in the area, there was a major change in an important collection housed in the area. The Human Relations Area Files or HRAF is an enormous indexed collection of anthropological information about representative world cultures on microfiche which has been housed in the Documents area for many years. In 1994 the publisher of this product announced plans to produce it as a CD-ROM only item at a considerably higher annual subscription rate. The Department of Sociology/Archaeology, whose students and faculty are the primary users of HRAF, agreed to contribute $500 annually to the cost of this item and the decision was made to continue getting it in the new format. The first CD-ROM was installed and offers some good features along with some that could be improved. In other CD-ROM news, we decided to discontinue use of the Windows version of ERIC which we were experimenting with last year. Due to user inexperience with Windows, too much staff time was expended just teaching Windows basics.

To give wheelchair-using patrons more independence in loading microfilms, a microfilm reader with wheelchair-accessible loading features was purchased and labeled with the ADA symbol.

We moved into our new, slightly larger, carpeted office this summer. New furniture has been selected and ordered but has not yet arrived.

In Documents staff news Mary Baldwin attended Soaring to Excellence, a five-part videoconference for support staff. Sandra Sechrest gave a presentation on academic library use of the Economic Census at a State Data Center Affiliates meeting in Madison in November.

Plans for the future include finishing the gap barcoding and continuing with the ongoing monthly Marcive diskette loads. We will be getting a much-wanted used computer from the Cataloging Department. This will be used by the Documents Librarian since the office computer is so heavily used for Marcive processing and other duties. Mary Baldwin will begin working part-time daily in the Periodicals Office when the periodicals on microfilm and the majority of the readers and reader-printers are moved to that area. ERIC on CD-ROM will be moved to the Curriculum Library when it is ready for operation. Other plans for the future include training the student assistants to use government sources on the Internet and offering Internet access to government websites on the two Documents CD-ROM stations, provided we can get the necessary equipment to do this.

INTERLIBRARY LOAN

The mission of the Interlibrary Loan Unit is to provide patrons access to library materials not currently owned by Murphy Library nor available at other local libraries. In accordance with national, regional, and local resource sharing agreements or guidelines, Murphy Library obtains materials for our patrons from other libraries, and loans materials requested by other libraries. When appropriate, materials are also obtained from commercial document delivery services on a fee based arrangement. It is also our goal to be able to identify and report to the appropriate acquisition authority those materials not owned by our library that are in frequent demand by our library patrons.

The 1994/95 academic year was eventful and productive. ILL activity, as measured by request volume, would appear to have remained constant but this is somewhat misleading. Requests by our patrons increased to 40% of the total traffic. These requests are much more labor intensive than requests we fill from other libraries. Requests of us actually dropped slightly this year but this too is somewhat misleading as the ILL office was closed to incoming requests for a month when the ILL Office had to be moved.

The summary of ILL activity for the past five years is listed below:

YEAR	REQUESTS OF US	REQUESTS BY US	TOTAL VOLUME
1990/91	3,571	2,133	5,704
1991/92	3,866	2,387	6,253
1992/93	3,863	1,885	5,784
1993/94	4,472	2,594	7,066
1994/95	4,241	2,801	7,042

The express service completed its second complete year and nearly doubled its volume, going from 111 requests to 201 requests. The fill rate within time limits dropped from 78% to 65%. As volume increases effectively staffing this service will require reallocation of resources.

A review of last year's goals show some major accomplishments and the need to continue to work on others. Those goals included:

"adjustment to the NOTIS system.....possible use of PACLoan." NOTIS with all its strengths and weaknesses has become familiar to us all. PACLoan has not become available and given its problematic history it is doubtful if it will become a possible resource in the upcoming year.
Implementation of library utilization of the van delivery service. This has proven to be a valuable resource. The South Central Library System Van Delivery Service has drastically reduced the steps in the mailing process of materials and staffing times required to box items. It has also reduced delivery times.
"...document on demand service.....in lieu of ownership of selective.....journal titles." This goal has been partially met in that the Express service is being utilized more heavily and arrangement with document suppliers is in place. Issues centered on access versus ownership have not been fully debated and acted upon.
"...efficient uses of the SAVEIT database." SAVEIT supplies us with an automated database which tracks requests, gives statistics, and provides various reports. This saves time in many ways. We have fine tuned which features of the database to use. One of the weaknesses of the software has been overcome by bypassing it as a tool to gather some important statistics. SAVEIT records are now downloaded to a database management system used to generate several useful reports.

Goals for next year include:

Budget reductions will require every department to explore cost saving changes. Issues such as ILL becoming a fee based service, charging more to out of state borrowers, Document Delivery versus in-house services, etc, will be addressed.
Will continue to explore access versus ownership issues.
Windows 95 may be the answer to the problems currently experienced in multitasking in the current Windows environment, will explore upgrading.
Kathy Schmidt has made tremendous strides in providing the library with the capability of putting forms on the library's World Wide Web Home Pages. Will continue to work with her to allow ILL patrons the option of submitting their requests electronically.

Because of the quality of service and the incorporation of Interlibrary Loan into the basic library services category, UWL patron demand has grown by almost 50% in the past five years. Balancing resources with patron needs will continue to be our primary concern.

ONLINE AND CD-ROM SERVICES

The Online Services program encompasses remote online bibliographic and textual databases and CD-ROM products which support faculty, student and staff research. Currently the program offers access to the following vendors: Dialog, BRS, OCLC's FirstSearch, CCH and STN. CD-ROM databases are provided for a number of areas including Education, Sports, Business, Psychology, Sociology, Literature, History and Government Documents. Users are charged for most of the commercial online databases on a cost-recovery basis, and CD-ROM access is free.

CD-ROMS. A number of new CD-ROM titles were added in the Spring to the collection of CD-ROM indexes. MLA International Bibliography, ABC POL SCI, and America: History and Life (AHL), a product which was tested in the fall, were set up in the Reference area. Before the service was discontinued, MLA had been accessed through FirstSearch as a database file which could be selected on a per search basis. Although acquisition of the CD-ROM product usually is associated with an increase in subscription cost compared with the paper, the ABC POL SCI purchase represented a cost savings. The addition of MLA and AHL strengthened the library's holdings of CD-ROM titles in the humanities. Also, HRAF (Human Relations Area File) was added as a windows program in Documents. New document depository titles are continuing to be added as well. As more titles are added, the time demands involved in installing new versions of software, planning and implementing equipment upgrades, and troubleshooting are increasing.

Other CD-ROM activities for the year included:

Headline News and EBSCO Medline were tested by staff on a trial basis, but not ordered.
Collective discussions resulted in ordering a number of equipment upgrades: additional CD-ROM drives, a Pioneer disc changer and a Hitachi 4 drive tower.
SilverPlatter offers a windows version of their product. After a trial period, it was decided not to use the WinSpirs program, but to continue now with the DOS version which provides among other features, a simpler printing function.
Titles were marked in Academic Abstracts to alert patrons to titles owned.
The CD-ROM handout was revised in November to reflect changes to date.
Tattle tape strips were ordered for CD-ROMs. To improve materials security, these were added to discs which are available for swapping at various workstations.
Sign stands were ordered and work began on making signs to define products on the workstations, replacing the signs mounted on the monitors.

ONLINE SEARCHING. The number of mediated searches again increased this year to 26 compared with 20 the year before with the primary users being local company representatives and faculty. Companies are billed an overhead 25% surcharge. This year revenues exceeding $150 were generated. One of the online services changed hands during the year as BRS became CDP Technologies. As a result, a new command language was instituted so that any SDIs set up on the service needed to be updated; one SDI was updated in the fall. The second Dialog password established for faculty searching of Math Reviews was maintained this year.

The heavy use of the OCLC FirstSearch service continues this year with well over 3,000 searches conducted. Patrons are now alerted to the service with the development of a FirstSearch web page as a menu choice on the library home page. With the recent offering of full-text files associated with some of the FirstSearch databases, OCLC solicited participants for a trial period. La Crosse participated in a pilot study. Karin Bast, CBA, assisted with involving CBA faculty in trying out the service in the Spring. Full-text access is now offered to FirstSearch card users.

One of the most popular databases has been Medline, and more searches were ordered this Spring to support this particular use. Orders have been placed for FirstSearch to take advantage of special time periods when searches are discounted. Searches now cost $.50/search compared with $.70 paid during the first two years (1992 - 1993) of the service.

As the Small Business Development Center had acquired a Dialog password, training sessions were held with staff in the fall to instruct them in basic search protocols. As appropriate, they are now performing searches for clients.

KEYNOTIS MDAS. As a result of the work of many, particularly the Automation Librarian, MDAS databases became available in the fall on the EAGLE system. This allowed remote access to some heavily used databases including ABI/Inform and ERIC. CD-ROM stations have been retained for both files; the ABI/Inform station is not being updated, but allows access to earlier records. UMI's Periodical Abstracts was also selected (and some Wilson files were temporarily made available on a trial basis). The MDAS titles were reviewed by committee and carefully selected to provide broad coverage reflecting campus programs for the least cost. One of two ERIC SilverPlatter stations was converted to a second Government Documents station and some CD-ROM titles transferred to this station. Teams over the summer worked on profiling and online instructions for the MDAS files.

INTERNET. A class on the Internet was offered in the summer of 1994, emphasizing a number of gopher sites for scholarly information. Several librarians (Cris Prucha, Randy Hoelzen, Sandy Sechrest, Bill Doering, Anita Evans) then participated in planning and holding sessions in the fall and spring, discussing content with IT Computer User Support staff to coordinate the library's offering with sessions they offered. The fall and spring sessions were restructured to emphasize subject areas, and with the Netscape browser and WWW access, the sessions by the Spring had substantially evolved.

Librarians have worked collectively over the year to provide public access to WWW sites, loading Netscape on the reference station, at another LAN station which features FirstSearch, and identifying and bookmarking important sites.

Ongoing construction this year provided some unique challenges, especially as the remodeling phase began in January. All the power was pulled inadvertently in the reference area requiring special arrangements to made with campus maintenance staff to provide improvised power. Equipment was covered when not in use, but despite precautions taken, some problems resulting from construction dust did occur. A notable example was the computer featuring Academic Abstracts which was out of commission for a number of weeks. This product was reinstalled on another station for the interim. The construction also necessitated moving the office once again to temporary space in the new addition.

For the upcoming year, an area of emphasis will be studying various options for more full-text databases and accessing vendor files remotely, saving in equipment and staffing costs while allowing for multiple access in the library and beyond. The equipment budget is a continuing problem as more of the CD-ROM and online equipment ages, is less able to support new software upgrades and is insufficient to support the growing number of products. Despite this problem, the burgeoning range of choices for CD-ROM, online and Internet databases/information offers a stimulating challenge in making these new research avenues available and known to users.

REFERENCE SERVICES

The purpose of the Reference Department is to provide professional level informational services in a personalized manner to all of our patrons. This assistance is provided through the maintenance of a quality reference collection and the tools to access same, instructing patrons in effective utilization of reference materials, answering specific factual questions, explaining library policy, referring patrons to appropriate resources or agencies outside the library, and production of library specific information retrieval aids.

Librarians staffing the Reference/Information desk provide the core service in this Department. They provide immediate and personal assistance to all patron populations. This past year the reference desk was typically open 59 hours per week.

Questions asked at the desk ranged from the simple to the very complex. Reference resources vary greatly as to format and patrons are often referred to multiple resources of varying formats for a single informational need. The recent tendency to use electronic tools continues and the number of titles in this format has expanded greatly over the past year. Librarians spend an increasing amount of their time learning and using new in-house or remote electronic databases. The Reference inquiry statistics for the past six years are reported below.

1989/90	23,553
1990/91	21,149
1991/92	18,826
1992/93	17,691
1993/94	17,935
1994/95	18,799

The increase in patrons served is somewhat surprising given the sometimes less than hospitable physical environment our patrons faced over the past year as a result of the remodeling efforts. This was a very challenging year for all concerned with providing reference services. Perhaps the most challenging aspect was the multiple temporary moves the Department experienced due to remodeling. The Reference Desk, Reference Collection and the Reference Office all had temporary locations, the desk experiencing the most temporary sites. Patrons would literally have to relearn the location of the desk from day to day. This fact in conjunction with the noise, dust, and fumes often present in the area makes the increase in usage impressive.

Another major resource location change was the addition of compact storage. Selective reference titles, bibliographies, and older issues of indexes and abstracts are now located in this area making for more productive utilization of the heavily trafficked reference area.

New CD-ROM products: CollegeSource, NewsBank and Business NewsBank, Biography and Genealogy Master Index, America History & Life, ABC Pol Sci, and MLA International, were added this year. In most cases these additions were replacements for their print or microfiche equivalents. Their added cost will be compared to hoped for increased usage to determine continuation. Netscape is now available via a computer in the Reference area and its usage coincides with World Wide Web training and the production of a library homepage. These efforts were spearheaded by multiple librarians.

A number of outstanding print resources came out over the past year and were added to our collection. With increasing frequency reference titles are being offered in either print or CD-ROM formats. Frequently the CD version is more expensive but offers much enhanced searching capabilities. The trend towards purchasing the CD version has been stymied mostly by the lack of hardware to support a significant increase in CD-ROM titles.

Goals for the upcoming year include:

Continuation of the comparisons of print and electronic Reference, Index and Abstract titles and upgrading to electronic when appropriate and economically possible.
Continuation of the Reference Stack management project which will result in shifting the second half of the collection.
Advocating for an increase in OPACS available to patrons. Increasing popularity of the MDAS databases has resulted in heavy use of these terminals.
Increased traffic at the desk will require reexamination of staffing patterns. To facilitate the study of this issue more productive utilization of reference statistics will be required.

Shrinking fiscal resources combined with increasing patron demands should make for a challenging new year.

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS & AREA RESEARCH CENTER

Total patron registration for the 1994-95 year was 1498, down nearly four percent from last year's count. Given the month-long closure of the library during its remodeling and construction project (during which time this department moved to new quarters) and the general slowdown of library use throughout the year's construction, this registration count is surprisingly strong. Use of State Historical Society materials actually went up.

Details of use, compared to last year's figures, are as follows:

Category of Material	1993-94	1994-95
State Historical Society Registrants	184	201
State Historical Society Daily Registrations	383	414
Rare Books	302	235
Wisconsiana Books & Other Materials	718	659
University Archives	181	136
Oral History Interviews	46	37
Photographs, All Categories	337	314
Lectures and Tours	7	12
Telephone and Mail Requests	227	236

University curricular use of the collections included classes from the art, history, elementary and secondary education and graduate education departments, along with lesser numbers from several other departments. As in recent years, most of the growth in use has come from community, regional and national clients. We see substantial interest in domestic and commercial architectural history, river and steamboat history, historical photographs for both commercial and scholarly use, and genealogy.

Use of the photographic collections remained strong, and again, many of our clients are out-of-state. We did not add as many photographs as during the previous year, but activity in these collections is increasingly heavy and labor-intensive. Our photographs appeared in a number of new books. Revenue from sales of prints, rights, and research fees totaled $4,243.

We received another $5000 grant from the Sons and Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen in support of the steamboat project, in which we collect photographs and information relating to inland river steamboats and river history. Our holdings of pictorial images for this project now exceed 44,000 items.

Sale of the library's pictorial history book, La Crosse in Light and Shadow (1992), produced $7,186, and during the spring semester, cleared its production cost of nearly $33,000. Revenue from the book is now going into the library's endowment fund.

Materials added to the collections are detailed below, with new totals.

Hours of service averaged 40 per week during the academic year. The spring semester saw a reduction to 37 hours because of the need to have at least two persons on duty at all times in our new facility. During intersessions and vacation periods, the department was open 1-4:30PM on weekdays. Student help and work study provided between 60 and 70 hours per week. The allocation of student assistance suggests that we will be able to maintain this level of coverage next year.

The major event for the department was the move from the original Murphy Library building to new and larger quarters in the addition. As the table on the previous page indicates, our total area for the reading room, office, processing room, vault, and storage-stacks increased by nearly 100 percent. With the use of compact shelving in one room, the actual increase of available shelving increased overall by 200 percent. We believe that our storage problem has been resolved for the near future and perhaps beyond.

During the move of collections and equipment to our new facility, other members of the library staff worked long hours and days to assist us. Their assistance was especially valuable for their knowledge and appreciation of the special requirements of these materials. Having such skilled help at such a critical time made all the difference. We are grateful for that help.

The old special collections/ARC facility no longer exists in its former appearance; it is now a study area with carrels. After twenty-six years of service in that facility, perhaps both the collections and the librarian needed a change.

In spite of all the problems related to construction and remodeling, we maintained regular hours of service except during a one-month closure during mid-year intersession. Mail and telephone reference responses were delayed only slightly, and we continued to acquire materials at a steady rate.

Our file of Wisconsin and midwestern real photo postcards has increased by another thousand images, strengthening our pictorial coverage of towns and villages.

Staffing of the special collections area has remained more or less constant. Linda Sondreal, librarian senior, continued in a half-time assignment. Students Cynthia Weisinger, Paul Page, Rachael (Ely) Page, Ryan Poehling, Rochelle Gallenberger, Amy Sikora, Carrie Bohman, and Jennifer Strugalla ably performed many of the unit's tasks with energy and good humor. Their skills in working with clients are especially appreciated as the demands become greater. The combination of a good staff and good collections is our finest asset.

We look forward to fine-tuning ourselves and our collections in our new facility. We will need to make our processes more efficient and our collections as accessible as possible in order to handle the growing demands for service. This unit will cooperate with the library department and administration as we evaluate our services in light of budget constraints. We also need to evaluate our pricing and fees schedules for photographs, research, and labor toward a more realistic recovery for these services.

Every year at this time, it is abundantly clear that we have been aided in our work by many individuals and units, both on and off campus. Central to our effort are the librarians and staff of Murphy Library, and Dr. Dale Montgomery, Director, all of whom worked so hard this year. We are always much indebted to these individuals, and especially so in a year that has seen so much change, extra work, and cooperation. We are proud to be part of such a team. We also hope we won't have to move again for a long time.

MATERIALS ADDED TO SPECIAL COLLECTIONS/AREA RESEARCH CENTER

Category	Added	New Total
Wisconsiana Books	100	5,328
Rare Books	86	12,377
Cataloged University Archives	32	--
UW-L Theses	0	830
UW-L Seminar Papers	0	1,645
UW-L Action Learning Projects	5	47
Vertical Files, All Categories	17	4,757
Oral History Tapes	31	1,166
Photographic Images, Printed	6,134	96,952
Photographic Images, Unprinted Negatives	162	20,907
Color Slides	88	7,034
Total Photographic Images	6,384	124,893
Other Images - Sketches, Drawings, Lithographs, etc.	0	406
Maps	0	488

STORAGE INVENTORY

Category	Added	New Total
ARC (State Historical Society) Materials (Public Records 560; mss 308)	28 linear feet	868 ft.
Microfilm, in reels	127 reels	446 reels
University archives	13 linear feet	615 ft.
Photographic collections	9 linear feet	310 ft.
Vertical files, all	2 linear feet	110 ft.
Oral History Collection	3 linear feet	83 ft.
Other Boxed & Bound Records, misc.	--	260 ft.
Total Space of New Special Collections/ARC Area	--	9100 sq. ft.
Total Space of Old Area Vacated Jan. 1995	--	4600 sq. ft.

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Murphy Library Annual Report 1994/95