Getting Started: A Guide for New Distance Learning Librarians

Marie F. Jones
East Tennessee State University

Welcome to the field of Distance Library Services! Whether you're new to librarianship, or have just made a career shift into this arena, we're sure you'll find this to be a challenging and rewarding area of librarianship. The abbreviation DLS will be used to refer to library services for any off-campus course, whether synchronous or asynchronous, live or via a technological medium. Depending on your campus setting, you may provide services to students who are distributed widely or at a few discrete locations. The Guidelines for Distance Learning Library Services will give you additional information on the administration of DLS programs; this pamphlet will offer you some practical tips to help you to begin to fulfill those Guidelines.

Where to begin?

Remember: Services off-campus must always be equivalent to those on-campus. That doesn't necessarily mean exactly the same, but it does mean that distance learning students should have access, somehow, to library/learning resources and services, designed to support the specific programs offered. These services/resources should meet the same standard of academic quality as the same courses offered in traditional settings. That means that your library should either: a) own the resource itself and provide appropriate, direct services; b) provide electronic access; or, c) have formal agreements in place for provision of materials and services by other organizations.

Get a sense of the program as it stands

• What courses/degrees/programs are offered?
  • Resources: Course schedules, bulletins, Web site, administrators, faculty
  • Many times you will be in contact with a variety of departments
• How, where, and when are the courses delivered?
• Who takes these course?
  • Resources: Survey, faculty interviews, focus groups
• What library services are in place?
• Reference, Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery, Satellite Libraries, Courier Service, etc. (see "services" below)
• Resources: Library documentation, library staff

Begin making a strategic plan

• Where do we want to go?
  • What services are missing? What services are under- or over-utilized?
  • What services and materials are offered for these courses on the main campus or at other sites or in other programs of your institutions?
  • Survey (briefly) and talk to your students and/or faculty
  • Find out about institutional projections for the future and become involved in curriculum planning
• What do we have to do to get there?
• Develop an action plan describing the strategies and steps you will take to implement your program, including the resources available and/or required

Outcomes of strategic planning

• A clear and succinct mission/vision statement
• Assessment of internal and external factors that effect your services
• List of goals you wish to achieve

Evaluate services

• How well have you met your goals?
• Analyze statistics
• Conduct surveys, focus groups and other evaluative measurements

What services and resources should my program offer?

Whether services are provided through a dedicated DLS department, or distributed throughout the library will vary from program to program. However, all libraries will need to provide students with:

Collections & facilities that meet student needs

How?

• Document Delivery & Interlibrary Loan: Delivers the full text of articles and books to library users, whether from other libraries, or the institution's own.
• Format: Paper or electronic, depending on item
• Delivery mode: Courier Service (Between campus sites or between libraries within a system, including public or other academic libraries) U.S. Mail, e-mail, or other electronic
• Concern: Promptness. Turn-around time should be minimized.
• These two services may be separate or combined, and integrated into services on-campus or not, depending on the structure of your organization.
• Agreements with other libraries: Make agreements with other libraries for student use of facilities and materials
• Reciprocal borrowing agreements
• Fee-based agreements
• State or system-wide borrowing cards
• Know the policies of libraries that your students are likely to use; you may not need a formal agreement to get them services. Document these as you would agreements.
• Satellite libraries
• Collection development for these facilities is like that of any library, concentrating on the needs of that location, within budgetary limits.
• Where physical collections do not exist on branch campuses, space for consultations, etc. should be set aside, with library information available to walk-in users
• Reserves
• Electronic reserves
• Other libraries are often willing to hold course reserves for regional students
• Online, full-text and bibliographic resources
• Remote access to online materials is a must, preferably through a proxy server
• Always think of yourself as the advocate for off-campus users. When collection development decisions are made on campus, remind colleagues that electronic materials are accessible 24/7 both on and off-campus, with no waiting time.

Reference Assistance

How?

• Telephone (many have 800 or local numbers)
• E-mail · Virtual Reference/Chat services
• On-site, by appointment
• On-site at satellite libraries
• Web pages

Library instruction teaching information literacy skills

How?

• On-site
• Online tutorials and user guides
• Printed handouts, user guides, etc.
• Web pages

Communication and marketing

Because of the nature of the programs and students we service, distance librarians must be more pro-active than their traditional library counterparts.

• Create a marketing plan
• Have a great Website
• Publicize all services
• Publicize all contact information: phone, e-mail, etc.
• Contact faculty teaching in your programs
• Contact administrators of off-campus programs
• Contact students in the programs
• E-mail distribution lists, paper flyers, web pages, mailed materials are all avenues of publicity
• Be in touch with all stakeholders as often as you possibly can
• If you can make the time, join committees that have nothing to do with DLS-you'll be surprised at how many connections across campus that you can make this way, and how useful they will be later on

Documentation: Keep all of these for accreditation and annual reporting purposes

• Printed user guides and copies of online guides
• Statements of mission/purpose, policies, regulations, and procedures
• Statistics on use
• Statistics on collections
• Assessment measures
• Organizational charts
• Budgets
• Professional vitae
• Position descriptions
• Formal agreements
• Instructional materials and schedules
• Evidence of involvement in curriculum development and planning

Recommended Readings:

ACRL Distance Learning Section Guidelines Committee. (2000) Guidelines for Distance Learning Library Services (http://www.ala.org/acrl/guides/distlrng.html)

Goodson, Carol. (2001) Providing Library Services for Distance Education Students: A How-To-Do It Manual. New York: Neal-Schuman.

Off-campus Library Services Conference Proceedings. (1986-2000) The Off-campus Library Services Conference Proceedings Mt. Pleasant: Central Michigan Univ. (ordering information available http://ocls.cmich.edu/oclsc2002pubs.htm)

Slade, A.L. Library Services for Distance Learning: The Fourth Bibliography (2002) http://uviclib.uvic.ca/dls/bibliography4.html (See also the first through third printed bibliographies: Englewood CO: Libraries Unlimited).

OFF-CAMP listserv. See http://listserv.utk.edu/archives/offcamp.html for subscription information and archives.