College and Research Libraries Research Notes COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES This section will appear occasionally. Its purpose is to report the results of selected cur- rent research on specific topics. Items included in this section have been reviewed bv members of the editorial board.-C.J.S. · CONTENTS Kathryn B. Wilson and joanne D : Eustis 361 The Impact of User Frustration on Humanities Research Rita A. Scherrei and judith M. Cor.in 365 Allocation of Student Assistance Funding in the Public Service Units of the UCLA Library Clifford H. Haka and Nancy Ursery 369 University Faculties and Library Lending Codes : A Survey and Analysis Stephen Toney 373 A Cost Database for Branch Librarv Resource Allocation and Performance Evaluatio;1 KATHRYN B. WILSON AND JOANNE D. EUSTIS The Impact of User Frustration on Humanities Research INTRODUCTION l'n an article recently published by Collec- tion Building, Paul Metz posed an intriguing question: What is the consequence for scholarly productivity of a researcher's frus- tration in not finding the information he needs in his own library? Or, stated another way, what happens to potential research proj- ects when scholars are thwarted in their need for quick access to the necessary materials? The empha~is here is not on ~hy the user is frustrated, why the library has failed, or what librarians can do about it. It is instead to look at the effect upon scholarship of that frustra- tion.1 Kathryn B . Wilson is assistant acquisitions li- brarian, and Joanne D. Eustis is assistant humanities librarian, University Libraries, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg. It is well known that libraries provide inter- library loan service as a means of supplement- ing local collections. In addition, universities - make leave time, sabbaticals, and summer vacations available for pursuing necessary re- sources. Yet despite these alternatives, there may be a more alarming consequence of frus- tration resulting from inadequate library holdings. "It may also be," Metz suggests, "that potential research projects which are in their fertile but tentative and fragile early stages are deferred, or worse, abandoned. " 2 Can it be -that a research library collection actually has the potential to direct, regulate, or form scholarly research in some way? If this can be proven, then librarians mu~t take another look at their calling. They are not only guardians of the repositories of knowl- edge but also, through collection develop- ment decisions, active agents in the scholarly process. This question inspired two librarians I 361 362 I College & Research Libraries • ju l y 1981 at Virginia Tech to look into the nature of user frustration at their institution. VIRGINIA TECH Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a land-grant university, was founded in 1872 as the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College. In 1944, the college was renamed Virginia Polytechnic Institute. In 1970, the Virginia legislature voted that VPI, or Virginia Tech, as the university is known would henceforth legally be called Virgini~ Polytechnic Institute and ~tate. Uni- versity. The addition of State Umverszty to the name reflected a new emphasis on liberal arts during the past decade . Nevertheless, the liberal arts faculty has continued to strug- gle with the legacy of a technical coll~ge: ~s exemplified by the popular nickname V1rgmm Tech. As the nature of the university changed, its library was faced with a formidable challenge. With the addition of many more faculty members in the humanities, and the creation of two humanities graduate programs in En- glish and history, the library needed to de- velop a part of the collection that until 1970 had largely been ignored. Generous appro- priations from the state made it possible to carry out the extensive collection develop- ment that was necessary. Humanities programs have been richly supported since 1970, as has the Universi~y Libraries book budget. But because of VPI s earlier emphases , humanists think of them- selves as the poor relations in the university family . Given this milieu, we select~d the humanities faculty as the test for Metz ques- tions . METHODOLOGY We made phone calls to a random sample of humanities faculty members and asked them to reflect on their frustrations in using the library. Their responses were used to de- sign a questionnaire . In October 1979, the questionnaire was sent to faculty in the seven humanities departments in the College of Arts and Sciences : Art and Art History; Per- forming Arts and Communications; Foreign Languages and Literatures ; History; Religion and Philosophy; English; and Humanities (a cross-disciplinary department). All faculty listed in the current faculty-staff directory as members of these departments were included in the survey. The majority of those surveyed were full-time teaching faculty. Surveys were mailed to 190 faculty members; 99 (52 per- cent) responded. The survey was analyzed by rank and academic discipline, but these vari- ables did not yield statistically significant dif- ferences. The instrument consisted of twenty-six questions in four categories.* The first set of questions collected basic data for each re- spondent: position at the university, length of time employed, and academic field. Also in- cluded were average time spent working in the library per week and number of articles or books accepted for publication since 1976. In the second set of questions, respondents as- sessed the University Libraries and the de- gree to which they fulfilled the perceived needs of undergraduate and graduate stu- dents, graduate-level research, and faculty research. The third category consisted of a series of statements of alternatives that a re- searcher might choose when encountering weaknesses in the library collection. This was the focus of the study. The fourth section asked the respondent to assess the effect upon his/her research of certain problems in library services or physical environment. A final question asked the respondent whether the quantity or quality of his/her research would be improved if the inadequacies of collec- tions, services, or physical environment were corrected. In this last question we were test- ing whether the researcher perceived a con- nection between the library and his/her pro- ductivity as a scholar. RESULTS Our survey produced some curious results. Humanities scholars do perceive a link be- tween the library and their scholarly output, but they generally do not accommodate their research to available resources. The second set of questions provided us with a sense of how important the library was to the respondent's work and how well the library met his/her needs. Ninety-seven per- cent of the respondents were affirmative in their response to the statement "A supportive library is most important for successfully con- ducting my research." The respondents felt *A copy of the questionnaire and detail on re- sponses to each item are available on request from the author. that the library adequately served the re- quirements of undergraduates, but tended to be dissatisfied with the manner in which it fulfilled the needs of graduate students and researchers. They recorded a strong negative response to the statement "The materials in the library are adequate for my own research needs." It appears that the more the re- searcher expects of the library and the more specific the research requirements, the less the library is perceived as able to satisfy the humanities scholar. The third set of questions enabled the re- spondents to indicate what they did when weaknesses in the collection were encoun- tered. Instead of altering the research topic, the typical humanist pursued the needed ma- terial through alternate means , such as inter- library loan and travel. An occasional person redirected or limited the scope of the topic to use available materials, but more frequently the research was postponed , presumably until a time when he/she could travel to whereve r the material is located . In general, topics wer e not completely abandoned. Sixty-one percent indicated they would never, or almost never, drop their topic . Twenty-six percent said that they sometimes would , and 6 percent said that they did so frequently . We concluded that humanities scholars were a persevering lot. Once they had a thesis in mind or a point to prove, they set to work and were not easily deterred . Since th e humanities scholars were not in- clined to select or to discard a research topic solely on the basis of stre ngth in th e local li- brary coll ection , the library and th e unive rsity mu st make it easy to gain access to materials els ewh ere. In this re gard , interlibrary loan is crucial for the humaniti e s scholar. The ability to trave l to other locations is also important. Seventy-e ight p e rcent of our r e spondents frequ e ntl y or som e tim e s used interlibrary loan ; 69 p e rce nt said th ey frequ e ntl y or some- times traveled to obtain necessary materials . F e we r reli e d on fri e nds in oth e r locations to provide th e m with what the y need . Until r e - ce ntly , a popular way of securing materials at Virginia T ech has b e en to place a book orde r. Money for such orde rs has been available in the past , but recent budget cutbacks now make this option more difficult. While the fears Metz expressed in his arti- cle were not borne out by the results of our Research Notes I 363 survey, we were still left with concerns. Eighty-five percent of the respondents said that an adequate library was extremely im- portant for successfully conducting their re- search. Eighty-one percent said the quantity or quality of their research would improve if certain problems in collection, physical envi- ronment , or services were corrected. The fourth set of questions was based on suggestions about various inadequacies col- lected during our preliminary telephone sur- vey. At that time, the faculty members con- sulted felt that the problems were lack of fac- ulty carrels, inadequate control of periodicals, materials on microform, and interlibrary loan. A majority of our written survey respondents then confirmed that these situations did in- deed have a negative impact on research. For example, 64 percent said that lack of faculty carrels had a serious effect or offered some problem in their research efforts. Seventy- five percent felt that inadequate control of pe- riodicals , resulting in a not-on-shelf problem, was a significant deterrent. Microforms and interlibrary loan were considered slightly less troublesome. Respondents were not asked to detail the specific problems in these areas, but we might expect them to be of the sort that make the research process cumbersome and contribute to tedious , irritating delays. Humanities scholars seem to consider physical environment and library services as important to their research as the collection itself. They expect the library to be a place conducive to study. Services such as interli- brary loan, reference , and circulation must be efficient in order to make the routine mechanics of research as smooth and unre- strictive as possible. When this is not the case , their scholarship suffers . On the basis of evidence at our library, the important link be- tween scholarly productivity in the humanities and the library as perceived by the respondents to our survey is not the col- lection but physical surroundings and ser- vices. HUMANITIES RESEARCH AND LIBRARIES The results of our survey underscore the conclusions of other studies in humanities scholarship . In his article "Limits of Self- Sufficiency," Richard Chaplin describes the humanist's dilemma: The humanist has an insatiable appetite for re- 364 I College & Research Libraries • July 1981 search materials and no one library can satisfy all his needs . The humanist nee ds everything and any- thing that has been published, plus large collec- tions of unpublished materials. Most of these exist in copies of one , so the humanist will go to the source rather than have the source brought to him . We can state with certainty that libraries are not self-sufficient for the humanities. 3 Our results also concur with the findings of a study conducted in England by Cynthia Cor- kill and Margaret Mann. In surveying humanists in thirty-five universities , Corkill and Mann found only two people who limited themselves to the resources of the ir own li- braries. 4 In addition , they found that: Many people were at pains to point out that they would hardly expect the library to hold the mate rial they needed, as they were working with rare or unique material, or on a subject where the primary materials were necessarily abroad , as for example with historians working on American history . 5 Keeping in mind that the humanist will never be completely satisfied with a single library's collection , library and university administrators might view shrinking book budgets with an eye toward cutting the humanities budget. The scientist and social scientist may have more urgent need for cur- rent materials , but the humanist generally plans his work around travel. Available uni- versity funds might be better spent for the humanities researcher by making leave time more generously available , and not by bol- stering an already inadequate library collec- tion . However , an underlying theme in our responses was that while the library failed to provide adequate resources for in-depth humanities scholarship, it had an adequate core collection for teaching and undergradu- ate research. If funds were decreased , the humanitie s colle ction might soon lack the ability to provide even basic secondary sources and materials. CONCLUSION The major purpose of the survey was to provide information on the consequence of user frustration among humanities faculty caused by collection inadequacy. The results of our surve y indicate that such frustration does exist. However, the lack of a strong humanities collection is not deemed to be an insurmountable impediment to research. Humanities scholars seem to accept this as a Midwest Library Service Announces Its Newly Expanded CONTINUATION AND STANDING ORDER SERVICE We invite you to submit your Continuations List to us for prompt, efficient processing. Our publisher base includes approximately 500 selected publishers. We are thoroughly knowledgeable in all aspects of Standing Order procedures. For a copy of our new brochure on "CONTINUATION & STANDING ORDER SERVCE" please call us, using our TOLL-FREE WATS Line: 1-800-325-8833, or else write: Mr. Howard Lesser President Midwest Library Service 11443 St. Charles Rock Road Bridgeton, Mo. 63044 Once your order is received, a Personal Customer Service Representative will be assigned to your library to assist you. condition of their disciplines. Most important to this group of scholars is the freedom and encouragement to travel to primary sources Research Notes I 365 and a comfortable work environment with efficient, effective services in their university library. REFERENCES 1. Paul Metz, " Duplication in Library Collections: What We Know and What We Need to Know, " Collection Building 2, no.3:27-33 (1980). 2. Ibid., p .29. 3. Richard E. Chaplin, " Limits of Self-Suf- ficiency," in Joseph Becker, ed., Proceedings of the Conference on Interlibrary Communica- tions and Information Networks (Chicago: American Library Assn , 1971), p.56. 4. Cynthia Corkill and Margaret Mann, Informa- tion Needs in the Humanities: Two Postal Sur- veys (CRUS Occasional Paper 2, [Sheffield, En- gland: Centre for Research on User Studies , 1978]), p.26. 5. Ibid. , p.25. RITA A. SCHERREI AND JUDITH M. CORIN Allocation of Student Assistance Funding In the Public Service Units of the UCLA Library As is the case in most academic libraries , the UCLA library depends heavily on student assistance to supplement its regular staff. As is also nearly universally true , money to sup- port student help is never available to the degree that would really satisfy unit and de- partment heads. Since there are twenty- seven separate units of the library that do re- ceive funds to hire students, attempting to allocate to each a fair share of the limited pot is an administrative challenge. Currently this challenge is met for the sev- enteen public service branches by a zero- based formula approach that relies on annual data in nine work-related areas. These areas , which are listed below, do not cover every task performed in every unit . However , they are those work areas that are common to most units and that are related to the total work load regardless of the specific ways in which tasks are carried out. The areas are the follow- ing: l. Shelving; 2. Circulation; 3. Volumes added to the collection; 4. Serial titles maintained; Rita A. Scherrei is senior administrative analyst, and judith M. Gorin is assistant university librar- ian for planning, . University Research Library , University of California, Los Angeles. 5. Public service points in addition to the circulation and reference desks; 6. Reference activity ; 7. Material records entered into CLSI; 8 . Patron records entered into CLSI; 9. Online bibliographic searches. From work-load measurement in these nine areas, full-time equivalent (FTE) em- ployee requirements are determined. A 20 percent factor for management activity and a 6 percent factor for collection development are also included in order to account for the total number of FTEs required to maintain the unit's activities. When the number of regular unit staff is subtracted from this total FTE requirement, the difference is the desir- able number of FTE students. This number can then be converted to dollars, which in turn is compared with other units' require- ments and with the total real money avail- able. Each unit is finally allocated its share based on its percentage of the theoretical or desirable total applied to the real total. The details of the data collection and calcu- lations follow, as does a discussion of the ad- vantages and disadvantages that have become apparent in the two years that this approach has been utilized. DATA COLLECfiON Monthly statistics are collected from the li-