WIU Libraries Academic Support Summary
Philosophy & Religious Studies, August, 2012
The vision of WIU Libraries is to serve as a portal to the information landscape. In implementing that
vision, its mission is to identify, collect, organize, preserve and provide access to information resources
and services in support of the values of Western Illinois University. One way to ensure the continued
quality of resources and services is to periodically examine how the library supports each academic
program. Since program reviews are mandated by the Illinois Board of Higher Education, by leveraging
the institutional schedule, each cycle of assessment will take eight years.
WIU Libraries supports Philosophy & Religious Studies by supplying resources and services tailored to
the various needs of its students and faculty. The following summary provides details about how the
library strives to meet these needs.
Services
WIU Libraries consist of the main Malpass Library and three branch libraries—Music, Physical Sciences
and Curriculum—on the Macomb campus and a library at the Moline campus. The main library is open
96.5 hours a week during the regular semester, and reference services are available 65 hours per week.
Both general hours and reference hours are adjusted for branch libraries according to university needs.
In addition to meeting with reference librarians face-to-face, library users may phone, IM or e-mail for
reference assistance. WIU Libraries’ reference staff is specially trained to answer research questions,
providing everything from printing help to in-depth consultations on how to refine a topic or find elusive
sources.
In addition to reference help, WIU Libraries offers instructional services to meet the research needs of
individual classes and programs. Library instruction sessions may be scheduled by any WIU faculty
member teaching a course. By working with faculty instructors, librarians are able to tailor sessions to
help students develop skills necessary to successfully complete particular assignments. Librarians can
accommodate both face-to-face and online courses in their instruction sessions. Requests by the
teaching faculty may be submitted through the Library Instruction Web page
(http://wiu.edu/libraries/instruction/) at any time.
When WIU Libraries does not own, or have access to, a particular book or article, every attempt is made
to obtain the item from another library, via Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Two ILL services are available to
library users. The first, called I-Share, is provided by The Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries
in Illinois (CARLI). WIU students, faculty and staff may request books directly through I-Share’s website
(http://vufind.carli.illinois.edu/all/vf/) from CARLI member libraries. For items not available through IShare, patrons can use the library’s Illiad service (http://illiad.wiu.edu/illiad/logon.html) to request the
item from a non-CARLI library. When an item is received, library users are alerted using university email
accounts. Photocopies of journal articles are posted on the Web for retrieval at the convenience of the
requester. Books may be picked up any time the library is open. It is understood ILL requests are subject
to copyright and privacy regulations.
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WIU Libraries also provides 47 weekly hours of computer support for students and faculty, including
evening and weekend hours. This support includes troubleshooting of library computing equipment
issues. The Library Computer Services Unit also maintains all equipment housed in the libraries. In
addition, there is support for digitization, maintenance of electronic resources and Web services.
Learning Outcomes
The main goal of our instructional sessions is to promote the institutional value of academic excellence.
Some library faculty members have assignments for library instruction. These faculty members work
closely with teaching faculty to make sure that library sessions are aligned with the learning outcomes of
individual courses and academic programs. WIU Libraries provide the opportunity for any professor to
schedule library instruction sessions.
Collections and Resources
WIU Libraries strives to provide high-quality print and electronic resources to meet the curriculum and
research needs of students and faculty. Our collection is comprised of more than one million items,
including over 7,600 philosophy books and e-books and thousands of journal articles (See Appendix 1).
As a Federal Depository Library Program participant, WIU Libraries also selects 67% of all federal
publications from that program, a selection rate comparable to that of large research libraries. In areas
related to philosophy, WIU Libraries selects material from The National Endowment for the Arts and the
Library of Congress. WIU Libraries is also a Patent and Trademark Resource Center with the U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office. WIU Libraries’ PTRC provides the campus and community access to a unique
body of scientific and technical information and services.
In addition to books and government documents, we also have over 700 philosophy journals in print and
electronic format accessible through the library’s Web page. Articles and citations from these journals
can be found through the databases listed below in the Access section of this report. Library users can
print, download or e-mail these articles, as needed. While the library cannot track usage of journal
articles by student major, statistics for database use are examined yearly and can be generated upon
request. Appendix 2 contains information about the usage of article databases containing philosophy
material. Circulation statistics for books and government documents may also be generated upon
request.
In addition to WIU Libraries’ own collection, its membership in the 76-member CARLI consortium allows
access to over 36 million items. Except for limited circulation items such as reference or archival
materials, all of those items may be requested by WIU library users. The requested items are delivered
through a statewide courier system.
Access
WIU Libraries maintains several online finding tools, so that library users may easily access the materials
described in the previous section. WestCat (https://i-share.carli.illinois.edu/wiu/), the library’s online
catalog, can be used—anytime, anywhere—to find books, e-books and other materials that the library
owns or can access. As mentioned in the Services section of this report, library users can request
materials from other libraries through our two Interlibrary Loan services, I-Share and Illiad.
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To provide access to journal, newspaper and magazine articles, as well as conference proceedings,
reports and other documents, WIU Libraries subscribes to hundreds of specialized research databases.
These electronic databases provide citation information and abstracts for articles, as well as links to fulltext, in many cases. Databases that contain information particularly relevant to philosophy are listed
below and all available online.
Philosopher’s Index
Humanities International Index
Sociological Abstracts
In addition to the specialized databases listed above, the library subscribes to multi-disciplinary
databases that also contain philosophy material. These databases include InfoTrac, Academic Search
Premier, LexisNexis Academic, and Access World News. Librarians have also created course-specific and
program-specific guides for students to access library material, resources from professional
organizations, federal and state governments and other technology-related agencies that are directly
relevant to their coursework. The program guide for the Philosophy & Religious Studies can be found
here: http://wiu.libguides.com/PhilosophyandReligiousStudies.
WIU Libraries’ website is publically accessible. For those resources that restrict use to the WIU
community, the library provides a proxy server for off-campus access. With authentication, any student
or faculty member have use of all library resources. To facilitate off-campus use, there is a direct link
from the library homepage for distance learners.
Facilities
WIU Libraries consists of the main Malpass Library and three branch libraries—Music, Physical Sciences
and Curriculum—on the Macomb campus and a library at the Moline campus. The main library is open
96.5 hours a week during the regular semester. The library on the Moline campus is open 63 hours per
week. Hours are shortened during semester breaks and expanded during the final exam week. Physical
space is about 200,000 square feet for the main library with seating for 1,300 people. The Physical
Sciences Library is 4,417 square feet with seating area for about 100. The Curriculum Library has an area
of 6,134 square feet with seating for 70.
All of the library buildings support wireless access. There are over 100 computers for use in the main
library. There are two computer classrooms in Malpass that may be scheduled for instruction. Also
available are several other computer clusters with specialized software and general use computers. Each
branch library also has computers for public use. The library also provides computer support, including
some evening and weekend hours. The Digital Commons area in the main library has just become
available housing 20 dual-boot computers with space dedicated for collaborative work with large
displays and other specialized hardware. This area is the demonstration model for other university
buildings.
Library Governance, Finance and Administration
The Dean of WIU Libraries reports directly to the Provost and participates in university governance at
the same level as Deans of the four Colleges of WIU. Budgeting and administration of the libraries are
carried out in similar manners as the colleges under the same institutional and state regulations
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governing higher education. Details and proposed changes and adjustments on governance, finance and
administration are all described in the annual plan that the Dean of WIU Libraries submits to the
Provost.
Personnel
There is a liaison from the library faculty assigned to work with each academic department. That person
is responsible for communication between academic departments and the library, including collection
development issues. There are also reference librarians and other staff members available at various
service points during scheduled time when the libraries are open. There are also instructional personnel
available for scheduled sessions.
Evaluation
This summary represents the beginning of a new phase of assessment in examining library support for
academic program accreditation and program review. The items of the checklist are those identified in
close readings of accreditation requirements of several discipline-specific criteria. In relating to the
institutional schedule for accreditation and program reviews, the WIU Libraries will be able to comply
with periodic assessment of library support in a timely manner.
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Appendix 1: Philosophy Books and E-books by Library of Congress Class Range
LC Range: B1-B5802
# of
Items
Archives Audio- Books Microform Reference Special
Women’s Total
Visual (Main)
Stacks
Collections Center
2
16
3646
12
74
8
1
3764
LC Range: BC1-BC199
# of
Items
Books Ref
(Main) Stacks
559
1
Special
Total
Collections
2
562
LC Range: BD10-BD701
Books
(Main)
# of
1408
Items
WIU Casa
Latina
Ref
Stacks
2
1
Physical Women’s
Sciences Center
Library
1
2
Total
331
LC Range: BH1-BH301
# of
Items
Books Music
(Main) Library
283
2
Reference Special
Total
Stacks
Collections
5
2
292
LC Range: BJ1-BJ195
# of
Items
Archives Audio- Books Microform Reference Special
Casa
GB
Total
Visual (Main)
Stacks
Collections Latina Cultural
Center
4
13
1498
5
36
9
2
3
1583
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Appendix 2: Database Usage
The tables below show historical usage statistics for two of our philosophy databases
Philosopher’s Index:
Humanities International Index:
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