Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College Online Compliance Certification
Judgment of Compliance |
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X |
Compliance |
Partial Compliance |
Non-Compliance |
NARRATIVE/JUSTIFICATION FOR JUDGMENT OF COMPLIANCE
The library of Southeast Kentucky Community and
The main campus library is the Gertrude Angel Dale Library
on the
Together, these five campus libraries hold a total of 53,659
books; 4,047 audiovisual materials; over 19,000 microforms; and 265 current
periodical subscriptions, as well as back issues of 167 additional periodicals [5]. Most such materials can be borrowed by
students, faculty and staff, and community members in accordance with the
library’s circulation policies [6]. Students and the general public have the use of 62 public access
computers, complete with access to the internet, the libraries’
databases, and 18,832 electronic books, as well as Microsoft Office and other software. Instructional software, specific to courses
being offered on a given campus in a given semester, is added to library
computers as needed; current examples would include Photoshop 5.0 and
South-Western Keyboarding in
Each library has a reference collection of appropriate size [7], and each offers facilities for instructors to place materials (both instructor-owned and library-owned) on reserve in order to make them available to more students. The library also assists students taking telecourses from Kentucky Educational Television by taping all episodes of such courses and making them available to circulate to students as reserve items, both in VHS and DVD format; the libraries offer headphones to be checked out so that students can attend telecourse classes online in the library at their convenience.
The library’s webpage [8] provides ready access to library policies, databases, and the online catalog—not only from all computers on all campuses, but from home as well. Databases give access to full-text articles from roughly 15,000 periodicals [9], as well as citations and abstracts to articles from over 20,000 additional periodicals. The databases also include short articles supporting both sides of issues of current interest; a catalog which allows users to find materials located in any library in the United States (and some others worldwide), articles from newspapers around the country—including the Louisville, Lexington, Cincinnati, and Knoxville newspapers and the New York Times; the Encyclopedia Americana and Grolier’s Multimedia Encyclopedia for children; and the Oxford English Dictionary [10].
The online catalog is a union catalog showing library
materials from every KCTCS library across the state. Patrons can use this and OCLC’s FirstSearch to easily locate materials not found in SKCTC’s own libraries and borrow them using the inter-library
loan service. The SKCTC library belongs
to Solinet and OCLC (the
The library’s collection development policy emphasizes
both the need to gear collections toward the programs offered on each campus
and the desirability of encouraging faculty involvement. Each campus’s collection is therefore
somewhat unique (for example, Harlan’s is largely composed of
vocational-technical materials; Pineville’s of medical materials;
Students are surveyed regularly regarding the quality of library services—both in the college’s exit surveys and in more detailed surveys conducted each fall [16]. The library has been working to improve the surveys in ways that would cause them to shed more light on areas needing improvement, but the survey results have also been used to improve library services. In particular, the Harlan campus survey done in January, 2006, demonstrates that the new library facilities there have radically improved students’ impressions of library services over those of November, 2003 [17].
In addition to the library, and in accordance with the
college’s mission, SKCTC maintains the Appalachian Archives, which is
housed within the SKCTC Godbey Appalachian
Center. Administratively it is part of
the Appalachian Program and supports the ongoing mission of Appalachian Program
to promote, document, and preserve the cultural and historical resources of the
SKCTC service area. The mission of the archives is stated in the Governance
section of its manual: “The
mission of the Appalachian Archives is to responsibly collect, promote,
preserve, and make available the cultural and historical records and artifacts
of
The Appalachian Archives is open to the public from 8:00 to
4:30 and on weekends by appointment. In
addition to walk-in patrons, the archives also regularly assists phone and
e-mail patrons from across the country seeking photographic images of
