ciit islamabad campus library collection: comprehensive study- present state and future scenario

7/28/2019 CIIT Islamabad Campus Library Collection: comprehensive study- present state and future scenario

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CI I T I slamabad Campus library Collection:

Comprehensive study - Present state and

Future ScenarioTariq Mehmood

Raja Muhammad I brahim

Abstract:

This paper analyze the print material of

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT)Islamabad Campus Library. The basic purpose of this

study is to compare the library collection against

international standards and to know which department ordiscipline is enjoying sufficient availability of resources

and which department or discipline is suffering fromtheir low or lesser availability. There are about nine

departments under five faculties in CIIT Islamabad

Campus. The total collection has been analyzed againsttotal no of users according to departments & faculties

respectively. The study shows that six departments are

enjoying sufficient collection where as four departmentshave less collections.

On the basis of this study, it would be easy for

library management to decide which department requires

more resources. Furthermore, this will also help in

developing library collection policy effectively and

positively.

Key words: Collection DevelopmentCOMSATS IITIslamabad

Introduction:

In the age of digitization, print collection has itsown importance. It needs to be up-dated, maintained and

evaluated on a regular basis to meet the requirements of

users. Different international library agencies formulate

standards for collection (print) evaluation. In this studyCIIT Islamabad Campus Library print collection is

evaluated.


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volumes against each 200 students. Canadian LibraryAssociation7 set up a committee to formulate standards

for university libraries in Canada. This committee gives

their recommendations in 1963 that minimum collection

should be 100,000 volumes in library for effectivelearning. United Kingdom8

a committee "University

Grants Committee" also known as "Parry Committee"

was formulated after study of university libraries

situation in UK. This committee did not give any figure

as a standard, just evaluate university libraries collection

and say the maximum collection of a university library isabout 800,000 volumes and the minimum collection is

about 160,000 volumes which is newly establisheduniversity. Germany9 established a committee with the

name of "Recommendations of the council for Arts and

science: Part II, learned and scientific libraries". This

committee suggests that minimum collection inuniversity libraries should be up to 300,000 volumes and

a library should be considered good if it has 600,000

volumes. India10

a committee was established under

supervision of renowned library professional Dr. S. R.Ranganathan in 1957 to evaluate libraries and give their

recommendations as standards. The committee presentreport under heading "University Grants Commission,

university and college libraries" in 196511

and proposed

that a central library of a university should have

minimum collection in between 100,000 to 300,000volumes whereas a departmental library must have at

least 5000 volumes.Library committees and organizations also

provide another style to collection evaluation. In Canada,12 university libraries should have 75 volumes perundergraduate and 200 volumes per graduate student.

Federal Republic of Germany,13 100 volumes per student

for long courses and 30 volumes for short courses. Indian

associations14

give budget range except collection

volumes. Library collection budget should be as Rs.15.00for each student and Rs. 200.00 for each faculty member.


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Mexico15

set as standard, 130 volumes against eachstudent up to 300,000 volumes.

Association of College & Research Libraries, 16 adivision of the American Library Association (ALA)

proposed the following formula to evaluate library

collection.

Table: 1

Description Volumes

Basic collection 85000

Allowance per FTE faculty member 100

Allowance per FTE students 15

Allowance per undergraduate major or minor field 350

Allowance per masters field, when no higher degree is

offered in the field

6000

Allowance per masters field, when higher degree is

offered in the field

3000

Allowance per 6t year specialist degree field 6000

Allowance per doctoral field 25000

Library Association of UK issued standards for

the polytechnic colleges in the form of guide to planning

requirement. They set minimum library collection as150,000 volumes.

17Same types of colleges in USA

called Junior Colleges. ALA present standards for

them in 1960 and they suggest minimum collection about20,000 carefully chosen volumes, exclusive of

duplication and text books.18


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Research questions:

To analyze the library collection (print) of CIIT

Islamabad Campus, the following questions are

emphasized.

Where library collection stands in respect of internationalstandards

What is relation among collection and usersMethodology:

In this research paper, focus is on comparison of

users strength against library collection to know strong

or weak areas of collection in respect of faculties anddepartments. It needs data about library collection and

number of faculty, staff & students of CIIT IslamabadCampus to get required results.

Islamabad Campus Library is using Library

Information Management System (LIMS) to manage

librarys print collection. There is a table with name

Sahlib in LIMS that has full bibliographic information

about a book. A query was generated to extract librarycollection according to subjects, than bifurcate itaccording to departments and faculties.

Campus management system COMSIS is

being used in CIIT Islamabad Campus to manage faculty,staff and students functionalities. Users data (faculty,

staff and students) is taken from comsis and organize it

as per requirement.

CI I T: An introduction

CIIT was established at Islamabad in 1998 and

granted charter as Degree Awarding Institute (DAI) bythe Government of Pakistan in August 2000.19 CIIT has

six fully functional campuses at Lahore, Abbottabad,

Wah, Attock, Sahiwal and Vehari.20 The CIIT is now

slated for up gradation as a university by the name of

COMSATS University through an Act of theParliament.

There are five Faculties, 16 Departments, 23

under graduate degree programs21

and 32 graduate


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programs are being offered in CIIT.22

More than 18,000students are enrolled whereas more than 1,745 faculty

members are serving in CIIT. The brighter aspect of CIIT

is that more than320 faculty members and academic

managers are holding PhD qualification and remaininghave MS / M Phil in relevant fields. Undergraduate

engineering degree programs of the CIIT have been

accredited by the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC),

the accrediting body for engineering education in the

country.23 At the moment, The CIIT has 3101

publications.24

On the basis of this research output, CIITranked at number six among all the institutions of higher

education, numbering more than 134 in the countryduring 2010, as notified by HEC, based on Research

output in peer-reviewed journals indexed by Thomson-

Reuters, the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), Web

of Knowledge, USA.25 The CIIT has establishedprofessional linkages with prestigious international

universities and research & development institutions like

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), USA

& with Lancaster University, UK to launch a DualDegree program for its students.26

In CIIT Islamabad Campus, there are 13undergraduate programs, 2 professional degree programs,

10 graduate programs and 8 post graduate programs are

being offered. The students enrollment is more than

6000 whereas about 1300 faculty & staff members areserving.27 CIIT Islamabad Campus Library has about

52000 sf. Covered area; two more blocks of same levelare also in planning that will be constructed in nearfuture. Library building is consisted on three floors along

with basement. There is fully furnished videoconferencing hall, with sitting capacity of more than 50

participants (CIIT, 2011c), central heating/ coaling

system, adequate lighting, attractive furniture, internet

facility with line & Wi-Fi and central sound system

facility is also available in library. It is equipped withhandsome quantity of computers to facilitate faculty,researchers and other students also. There are about 150


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computers are placed on different floors, that numberwould be increased up to 300 systems. Each floor has

two systems specifically placed for OPAC service to

facilitate users. The library can accommodate 1000 users

at a time. Currently library is using Library InformationManagement System (LIMS), local software but now it is

being replaced with international library software

Insignia to manage library resources and functions.

L ibrary col lection:

CIIT Islamabad Campus Library has handsomecollection on offered disciplines like Mathematics,

Physics, Management Sciences, Meteorology,Architecture & Design, Computer Science and

Bioscience. It has worthwhile reading material on Islam,

History, Fictions, Biographies, English & Urdu literature,Reference Material like Directories, Encyclopedias, and

Dictionaries are also available in library. This collection

is available for CIIT faculty, staff and students to use for

their study and research. It is available in different

formats like printed books, e-books, accompanying CDsand video lectures.

The main focus would be on printed collection asit is being evaluated here. At present when the research

is being conducted, the total collection is about 33655volumes that are processed and available for the use of

faculty, staff and students. The collection is compositionof single, multi volumes and duplicate copies also. To get

narrow results, library collection is bifurcated into thefollowing two categories:

Collection against facul ties:

Collection against departments Collection against Faculties

At present, CIIT Islamabad Campus has five

faculties 28 whose collection is showed respectively in

table 2. Here, it is necessary to clear that at no 6, the


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heading Others is not any faculty. The material whichis not related to any faculty like fiction, poetry, local &

regional material, encyclopedias, dictionaries, reports etc.

placed under others heading. The users are also divided

into two categories like students and faculty & staff.Students are placed according to concern faculties

whereas faculty & staff members are placed under

heading others. The reason is, one faculty member has

to teach in other faculties also thats why it was not easy

to evaluate under their own faculties. Same case is with

staff members. They can be transferred in otherdepartments thats why faculty and staff members placed

separately under others heading.

Table: 2Faculties Collection Users Books

per User

Information Science & Technology 6567 819 8

Business Administration 7238 2228 3

Sciences 8471 917 9

Engineering 6470 2520 2

Architecture & Design 1270 233 5

Others

(Library, Islam, Philosophy,

Language, Basic science,

Agriculture, Tourism, Sports,

History, Fiction, Biographies)

3691 1391 2

Total 33655 8108


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Figure 1

Table 2 shows, per user volumes against each

faculty. Information science & technology have eightbooks per user, business administration faculty havethree books, faculty of sciences have nine books,

engineering faculty have two books, architecture &

design faculty have five books against each student. The

last category "others" shows two books against each

faculty & staff member. For better understanding of the

reader, collection percentage against user's percentage is

presented through bar chart. Here faculty of informationscience & technology and faculty of sciences have 100%more collection against its users. Business administration

and Engineering faculty have less collection as compare

with users whereas architecture & design faculty have

equal collection against its users.

Coll ection against Departments:

There are nine29

departments in CIIT IslamabadCampus and each department is offering different

courses of different levels like MS, BS and Master etc.


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Library collection according to departments against eachuser is given in the table 3.

Table: 3

Departments Collection Users Books perUser

Computer science 5427 775 7

Health informatics 1140 44 26

Management science 7238 2228 3

Physics 2912 202 14

Mathematics 3962 218 18

Meteorology 457 44 10

Biosciences 1140 453 3

Electrical engineering 6470 2520 3

Architectures 1270 233 5

Others

(Library, Islam,Philosophy,

Language, Basic

science, Agriculture,

Tourism, Sports,

History, Fiction,

Biographies)

3619 1391 3

Total 33655 8108


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Figure 2

The table 3 shows that computer science

department has seven books against each user where as

health informatics has 26, management sciences have 3,physics has 14, mathematics have 18 books, meteorology

have 10 books, biosciences have 3 books, electricalengineering have 3 books and architecture departmenthave 5 books against each student. Under "others"

category, collection is only 3 books against each user.


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Collection against users according todepartments is also presented through bar chart. The

purpose is to get better view and easy to understanding

the difference between collection and users. Now, it is

not hard to find which departments have sufficient orinsufficient collection against its users. This bar chart

shows that computer science, health informatics, physics,

mathematics, meteorology and architecture departments

have sufficient collection against its users whereas

management sciences, biosciences and electrical

engineering departments are facing shortage of collectionagainst its users. It is also to be noted that "others"

category is also facing shortage of collection againstusers.

Collection Analysis:

CIIT Islamabad Campus library collection is

analyzed with two different approaches. The first is to

compare library collection against International

Standards and the second is, to compare against its users

according to faculties and departments. AmericanLibrary Association (ALA) recommends, minimum

collection should be 50,000 volumes, Indian association100,000 volumes, UK 160,000 volumes and Germany

300,000 volumes for college and university libraries.ALA formula to evaluate library collection is also

available that set base collection up to 85000 volumes.On the other hand, in respect of faculties, faculty

of sciences has maximum collection (9 volumes) andfaculty of engineering has minimum collection (2volumes) against each user. Department of health

informatics has maximum collection (26 volumes) anddepartment of electrical engineering, biosciences &

management sciences has minimum collection (3

volumes) against each user.

To compare CIIT Islamabad Campus library

collection against International standards and users, theout come is that library collection is insufficient. Beforefinal conclusion, it should be under consideration that

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT)


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is established in 1998. In such short period, it developedfully furnished library with good collection, internet

facility and Wi-Fi etc. Further these standards were

developed in between 1960 and 1965. At that time,

information technology was not publically introduced.Libraries were dependent on available print collection.

But now, era has changed. Libraries are in the age of

information technology. High speed servers, databases

and network technology made possible to develop

electronic digital libraries. CIIT Islamabad Campus

library has access to 50,000 full text electronic books and17,000 scholarly pear reviewed e-journals under HEC

Digital Library Program with the courtesy of HigherEducation Commission (HEC) of Pakistan. With this

addition, CIIT Library has 83655 volumes along with

17000 scholarly journals in its collection that is sufficient

to meet institute's research and curriculum requirements.

Conclusion: I nnovative Approach of Collection

development

Above analysis shows that CIIT IslamabadCampus library is sufficiently meeting minimum

international standard presented by ALA. It needs toincrease its collection to meet other countries standards

also. Library acquisition policy should plan to focus thefacts that are extracted during collection analysis

according to departments. Top priority should be onmanagement sciences, biosciences and electrical

engineering departments to overcome their shortage ofcollection.

In last three years library purchased 2667, 2179

and 4179 volumes in 2008, 2009 and 2010 respectively.Hence, library acquires 3015 volumes per year. CIIT

needs to speed up its acquisition process so that it can

meet international standards of UK, Germany, Canada

and India also to stand with international community.

References:


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1. Sabzwari, G. A. University library standards forPakistan: a proposal. Pakistan Library Bulletin, PLB XVI

(3-4) 1985 p4.

2. SPIL. Plan for development of libraries in Pakistan:

(Outcome of a seminar on library development organizedin Pakistan). Karachi: Society for the Promotion and

Improvement of Libraries. 1972

3. Usmani, M. A. Standards for university library servicein Pakistan (editorial). Pakistan Library Bulletin, 13(3-4).

1982 pi-xiv.

4. Moid, A. Libraries and library education in "proposalsfor a new educational policy". Pakistan Library Bulletin,

1(4) 1969 p70.

5. Usmani, M. Adil. Op. Cit. p. xiv

6. American Library Association. Standards for college

libraries. College and research libraries, Vol.20, No.4,

July. 1959

7. Canadian Library Association. Report of university

standards committee of Canadian Association of College

and Universities, Guide to Canadian university library

standards. 1961-1964, Mimeo, Ottawa. 1967

8. University Grants Committee. Report of the

committee on libraries. London: H.M.S.O., 1967

9. Wissenschaftliche Bibliotheken (translation, 1964),

Empfehlungen des wissenschaftsrates zum ausbau derwissenschaftliche einrichtungen, Teil II.

10. University Grants Commission. Report of the librarycommittee, University and college libraries, New Delhi,

1965


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11. Ibid

12. Ibid

13. Ibid

14. Ibid

15. David R. Watikins. Standards for university libraries.Library trends. 21 (2) Oct. 1972

16. Standards for college libraries. College and Research

Libraries News, May, 1985. p244.

17- The Library Association. Libraries in the new

polytechnics a guide to planning requirements. Library

Association Record, vol. 70, No.9 September 1967

18. American Library Association: Association of

college and research libraries, Standards for juniorcollege libraries. College and research libraries, vol. 21,

No.3 May. 1960

19- CIIT. Welcome to CIIT Main. Retrieved May 2, 2011, Islamabad:

CIIT, 2011.

20- Ibid

21. CIIT. "Undergraduate prospectus 2011-12".

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology

Prospectus 2011-2012. Islamabad: CIIT, 2011.

22. CIIT. "Graduate prospectus 2011-12". COMSATSInstitute of Information Technology Prospectus 2011-

2012. Islamabad: CIIT, 2011.

23. Ibid


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24. CIIT. "Research portal". COMSATS Institute ofInformation Technology Research Portal 2012-2013.

Islamabad: CIIT, 2013.

25. CIIT. "Ranking 2011-12". COMSATS Institute of

Information Technology Ranking Page 2011-2012.Islamabad: CIIT, 2011.

26. Ibid

27. CIIT. Main Web Page. COMSATS Institute of

Information Technology Ranking Page 2011-2012.

Islamabad: CIIT, 2011.Retrieved from http://ww2.ciit-

isb.edu.pk/research/

28. Ibid

29. Ibid

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