For immediate release:
December 16, 2008

For more information, contact:
Lee Anne George
Association of Research Libraries
202-296-2296
leeanne@arl.org

Graduate Student and Faculty Spaces and Services, SPEC Kit 308, Published by ARL

Washington DC—The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has published Graduate Student and Faculty Spaces and Services, SPEC Kit 308, which explores the variety of resources and services being delivered to or envisioned for these users by ARL member libraries.

Recently, ARL libraries have begun to experiment with an enriched set of spaces and services to meet the complex teaching, learning, and research needs of graduate students and faculty. Some libraries have introduced small sanctuaries (study rooms or lounges) for graduate students and faculty as distinctly separate from undergraduate spaces. Others are providing new suites of services, such as dissertation support, curriculum design, and learning-object design. In some cases, the services are offered in collaboration with other campus units--perhaps the Faculty Development Office, the Learning Technology Office, or Campus Computing. The new services and spaces may be localized in a discrete area (sometimes called a “Research Commons” or “Faculty Commons”) or opportunistically distributed across the library system.

This SPEC survey was distributed via the Web to the 123 ARL member libraries in March 2008. Of those 123 libraries, 65 completed the survey by the deadline of April 28 for a 53% response rate. Of the 65 respondents, 48 (74%) indicated that they provide or plan to provide services or spaces specifically designed for graduate students or faculty. Most are providing or designing spaces / services to meet the needs of both groups, with only seven reporting services / spaces exclusively for graduate students and two locations committed to providing service / space exclusively to faculty. Thirteen respondents target discipline-specific graduate students; eight of these also target a specific group of faculty. In most cases, the targeted groups tend to be in humanities or social sciences.

This SPEC Kit includes documentation from respondents in the form of descriptions of services, descriptions of spaces, examples of marketing and outreach efforts, and partnership agreements.

The table of contents and executive summary from this SPEC Kit are available online at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/spec308web.pdf.

Ordering Information

SPEC Kit 308, Graduate Student and Faculty Spaces and Services
Vivian Lewis and Cathy Moulder
November 2008 • ISBN 1-59407-807-6 • 172 pp. • $45 ($35 ARL members)

Shipping and Handling

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Web: http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/pubsorderform.shtml

SPEC Kits Exchange Information

Designed to examine current research library practices and policies and serve as resource guides for libraries as they face ever-changing management problems, each SPEC Kit contains a summary analysis, survey questions with tallies, pertinent documentation from participating libraries, and a reading list and Web site references for further information on the topic.

Subscribe to SPEC

2008 SPEC Kit subscription (ISSN 0160-3582): $220 ARL member/$290 nonmember, six issues per year, shipping included (additional postage may apply outside North America).

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 123 research libraries in North America. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/.