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As libraries make the transition from print to digital, needs arise that are not easily accommodated in the traditional organizational structure. Librarians are generally inclusive, and they have been generous in their acceptance of the organizations that spring up to fill gaps. In the post-World War II era, numerous resource-sharing and interlibrary loan programs were created to make it easier for researchers to gain access to the library materials they needed. National microfilming programs were launched to provide broad access…

Data-driven decision making brings with it—for policy makers, advocates, businesses—the promise of objectivity. In some cases, this can instead be the illusion of infallibility. We don’t doubt our ability to make smart decisions with well-analyzed data, but what about the origins of that data? Over this year, Joseph Esposito, Roger Schonfeld and I have been conducting a research project studying the acquisitions of academic libraries, towards the end of better understanding various trends among vendors, publishers, disciplines and formats.

Library Background Noise for Relaxation has over 150,000 views on YouTube. The hour-long audio is, as described by its creator, “just a long audio clip of some background white noise from my recent trip to the library…lots of page flipping, typing, sighing and people doing things near by.”  A similar offering on YouTube, Relaxing Sounds – 60 minutes of Library Ambiance, has over 120,000 views. Coffitivity, an online service that offers soundtracks to help boost productivity while…

“Culture” is often treated as a mystery ingredient in the recipe for promoting student success. A good culture catalyzes well-designed interventions and produces positives results. A bad culture impedes the take-up or spread of practices that should otherwise work, leading to disappointment. But like airborne yeast in a sourdough, an institution either has good culture or it doesn’t. But what if culture weren’t a background condition? What if, instead, it can be designed, intentionally? And if so, how? Valencia College,…

Time and again, the concept of “self-exploration” as a crucial component of the college experience makes its way into discussions about restructuring undergraduate degree programs in the US. Proponents of such self-exploration argue that focused career-training programs and guided pathways programs are too regimented and narrow, denying students the precious gift of self-exploration and discovery that results from exposure to a vast array of courses of their choosing. Recent innovations in higher education may also limit certain exploratory experiences for…

Ithaka S+R is adjusting and expanding our studies of the research practices and support needs of scholars in individual fields of study to conduct them in partnerships with libraries and learned societies. Libraries that participate will learn a great deal about the needs of their scholars, while providing a valuable professional development opportunity for their librarians.  Through this partnership, we will generate a richly illustrated description of the field’s practices and needs and make actionable recommendations for how libraries…

In recent years, Ithaka S+R has expanded our survey research program to have an impact both institutionally as well as nationally. Beginning this winter, we are making a similar expansion and transition for our qualitative projects that study the research practices and support needs of scholars in individual fields of study.   Over the past four years, Ithaka S+R has made a substantial transition in our survey research program. Our sector-wide surveys of higher education institutions…

Neil Rambo, director of the Health Sciences Library at NYU Langone Medical Center, graciously agreed to describe the development of data management services at his library for our issue brief series. “Research Data Management: Roles for Libraries” is his account of how NYU’s Health Sciences Library established this relatively new service and the challenges the library still faces.   The library began with one central question: “how can libraries and librarians contribute to the advancement of the…

Last week, Inside Higher Ed reported that the City University of New York plans to scale-up their Accelerated Study in Associate Programs, or ASAP, at six CUNY community colleges and three senior colleges that offer associate degrees. The most aggressive effort to expand ASAP will be at Bronx Community College, where all new full-time students will be automatically enrolled in the program. One goal of the plan is to increase Bronx Community College’s three-year graduation rate from 11 percent…

The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, established a Consortium for Online Humanities Instruction in 2014. Twenty-one colleges that constituted the consortium agreed to develop online or hybrid courses that could be shared by all participants in the consortium and had three major goals for this project: To provide an opportunity for CIC member institutions to build their capacity for online humanities instruction and share their successes with other liberal arts colleges. To…

In my last blog post, I described some of the challenges that must be addressed in the institutional context if online learning technologies are going to have maximum impact on the way registered students at existing institutions learn and on the costs associated with that instruction. The barriers described in that post are intra-institutional in nature: faculty concerns, addressing teaching specialization, governance, and cost management. In this post, I want to address important inter-institutional challenges to a robust “business-to-business”…

A couple of weeks ago I attended “Learning with MOOCs: II,” a conference at Teacher’s College at Columbia University (the conference was the second of its type; the first, which I was unable to attend was held at MIT in October of 2014). In many ways, Learning with MOOCS II seemed a well-timed follow up to an Inside Higher Ed article written by Candace Thille, John Mitchell, and Mitchell Stevens published in late September. In this article, Thille,…

Since 2000, Ithaka S+R has run the US Faculty Survey, which tracks the evolution of faculty members’ research and teaching practices against the backdrop of increasing digital resources and other systemic changes in higher education.  Starting in 2012, Ithaka S+R has offered colleges and universities the opportunity to field the faculty survey, and a newly added student survey, at their individual institutions to gain better insight into the perceptions of their faculty members and students.  More than 70…

Earlier this year, Ithaka S+R worked with a team at the University of Nevada, Reno, to develop a better understanding of the kinds of group study facilities students need in order to work on collaborative projects and engage in other voluntary and assigned team-based activities. The objective of the project was to develop an understanding of how undergraduates do group work and the spaces and facilities that would be most helpful. Leaders at UNR’s libraries planned to use the results…

On June 8, Hakubun Shimomura, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, sent a letter to the 86 national universities, asking them to take “active steps to abolish [social science and humanities] departments or convert them to areas that would better meet society’s needs.” American educators have been both perplexed and critical of this mandate, some to the point of threatening to end exchange programs with Japanese universities. For those who love the humanities and social sciences, it…

Today brings news of a major consolidation in the library vendor marketplace, with ProQuest acquiring Ex Libris. This is just the latest of an intense round of acquisitions in the vendor/intermediary marketplace and in addition to some thoughts on this particular deal it is a good moment to reflect more broadly on what is taking place. ProQuest operates a content platform, which includes many types of content from journals and books to newspapers and special collections. Based in part…

Two weeks ago, the New York Times published its second annual “College Access Index,” which measures socioeconomic diversity and accessibility at America’s highest performing colleges and universities. Adjusting its methodology from last year, the 2015 College Access Index incorporated each institution’s average Pell Grant recipient graduation rate into its score (a new addition), along with the institution’s Pell enrollment rate and net price for low income students (both of which were used in the index’s 2014 iteration). Last…

Academic libraries have provided user support services through a variety of modalities. The circulation desk would work on access issues for the print general collection, the interlibrary loan office would obtain needed materials outside the collection, reference librarians would help with research questions, liaisons would provide more proactive services on an academic department basis, and a variety of librarians would provide various types of instruction. Academic libraries have typically taken a variety of steps to rethink each of these service…

A growing body of research has attributed at least part of the gap in degree completion between low- and high-income undergraduates to low-income students’ difficulty navigating the terrain of academic choices in college. Deciding on a major, choosing courses, and recognizing a warning sign and knowing what to do about it are all more challenging for students who have less background familiarity with college. Ill-informed choices have real consequences: A student’s failure to register for even a…

Lawrence S. Bacow, president emeritus of Tufts University and leader in residence at the Harvard Kennedy School, and William G. Bowen, president emeritus of Princeton University and founding chairman of ITHAKA, have commented recently on the ill-fated interventions by state attorneys general into the operations of American colleges as they attempt to make strategic shifts to address imposing financial challenges. Today in our latest issue brief, Double Trouble: Sweet Briar College and Cooper Union, Bacow and Bowen share…