Paula’s E-Musings

Here at Cortland, Memorial Library is part of the central IT organization. As such the library is involved in all major IT initiatives. Last year we opened our Learning Commons which is a single point of contact for information and technology inquiries. The library circulates laptops and digital cameras along with books. There are two multimedia studios where students and faculty produce electronic materials and preview their presentations. At Cortland there is a Computer Applications Program where technology instruction is integrated into majors. Students can choose a CAP minor and the three CAP faculty are library faculty. The Technology Training Center is one of the library’s services as are web development, instructional design and digital imaging. The photo below is one of the librarian who coordinates instruction assisting a student with an electronic presentation project. It illustrates the types of services offered in Memorial Library. 

 With the strong partnerships among Memorial Library, Classroom Media Services and Academic and Administrative Computing, the Information Resources organization offers the campus community a full complement of integrated information and technology services. The Campus Computing Project, which supports a continuing study of the role of information and technology in higher education, indicates that only 11.3% of the colleges and universities responding to their survey report that the library reports to a CIO position. The majority of libraries reporting to a CIO are in private four-year colleges (15.6%) followed by community colleges (13.3%) and public four-year colleges (10.2%). Although several high-profile research universities such as Columbia and Indiana University have merged organizations, only 2.7% of public and 5.9% of private research universities have libraries reporting to a CIO.  EDUCAUSE has a Library/IT Partnership Consitutent Group with regular online discussions.