Perry-Castañeda Library, University of Texas at Austin, General Libraries

With holdings of over eight million volumes, the University of Texas at Austin Libraries ranks as one of the finest research centers in the world. The General Libraries, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Center for American History and the Tarlton Law Library together make up the University's library system, and ranks, collectively speaking, as the third-largest public university library in the nation. Serving as the University's main library unit within the General Libraries system, the Perry-Castañeda Library alone holds approximately two million volumes and provides digital access to hundreds of bibliographic and full-text databases. PCL's holdings are chiefly in the humanities and social sciences, with specialized holdings in Psychology, Business, modern German and American literature, American and British history, and the South. Of particular note are the library's excellent print and digital map collections.

With these impressive statistics in mind, we decided to write to Drew Racine, Deputy Assistant Director of General Libraries, with the intention of getting an insider's opinion on a number of issues we thought were of interest. Obligingly, Drew responded to our emailed list of questions with additional input from Carole Cable, Deputy Assistant Director for Development, and Jo Anne Hawkins, Associate Director for Public Services.

(It should be noted here that the following opinions are not considered 'official' in any form or capacity.)

Has the opening up of TexShare to public libraries made a difference in the business of PCL or has it remained "business as usual"?

TexShare is a library resource-sharing program for public and academic libraries in Texas, though not all eligible libraries participate in all TexShare programs.

For the General Libraries, different TexShare services have had different effects on "business."

a. TexShare Databases: Providing access to TexShare databases for library users through UT Library Online (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/) is crucial for our service offerings in electronic information resources. When the mix of databases changes, we must change our web pages and make other changes in instructional materials, links, etc, but the greatest impact is simply being able to make these important databases available to our users.

b. TexShare Card: The ability of practically anyone in Texas to get a TexShare card has substantially increased work for circulation desks throughout the General Libraries, and has increased the use of our collections. The General Libraries is the most heavily used library among the participants in the TexShare Card program. While we are pleased that our collections are now useful to more people, creating a borrower's card for each non-UT library user and maintaining additional borrower and circulation records have caused quite a bit of extra work.

c. TexShare Interlibrary Loan and Courier Service programs: While these programs have made resource sharing easier for participating libraries in Texas, they have not substantially changed the way we do business. We have always loaned materials to other libraries in Texas for their users, and the courier service under contract to TexShare is simply a more efficient, less expensive delivery method than other mail and delivery services.

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Can you talk a little on the PCL's tradition of holding exhibits and the value of such efforts in showcasing these works to the library at large?

The exhibit programs in the Ransom Center, the Center for American History, and the General Libraries have been administered separately since they were first started. The General Libraries' tradition of holding exhibits, primarily in PCL and in the ground floor exhibit cases in the Main (UT Tower) Building, grew out of a desire to inform library users and the general public about its collections and services.

The General Libraries Deputy Assistant Director for Library Development, in consultation with a staff Exhibits Committee, develops the annual schedule of exhibits, assists exhibit authors in the development of those exhibits and in their mounting, and as appropriate, issues publicity about the exhibit. These exhibits highlight collections and services in a variety of library units on the UT Austin campus and may focus on unique older or new print-based acquisitions; special materials or groups who use our facilities; and new and innovative services. On occasion, these exhibits have included a concurrent web-based version of the materials on view. PCL has also had exhibits that highlight special materials not in General Libraries collections, such as the recent exhibit of the works of contemporary British bookbinders. These exhibits have been especially popular with library users; however, a limited exhibits budget precludes offering these outside venues on a regular basis.

In recent years the ground floor exhibit cases in the Main Building have included exhibits highlighting non-General Libraries units. These exhibits have featured the Texas Memorial Museum, the UT Printing Division, the UT Press, the School of Social Work, and the UT Office of Public Affairs.

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Many academic librarians are involved in some measure or other with a professional association or organization. What value, do you reckon, does the academic librarian derive from being involved with the TLA and to what degree does involvement with the association enhance a librarian's professional experience?

TLA is such an extraordinary organization -- by far the biggest and best state library association -- that there are myriad benefits to be gained through membership. Among the benefits one might list are:

• meeting colleagues and forging important professional contacts and associations as well as possible mentor-protégé relationships that can last or entire careers;
• keeping up with developments in librarianship whether technical, political, financial, or other;
• taking advantage of continuing professional education whether from conferences, meetings, publications, or other;
• being able to pass along what one has learned by presenting professional education through the same avenues;
• learning and practicing skills that carry over into one's work including such things as leadership, writing skills, committee and small group management, interpersonal skills, budgeting and finance, political and negotiating skills, facility with statistics, and others;
• feeling satisfaction that one has given something back to the profession and helped colleagues in Texas, and that through improved library services you have enriched the lives of Texans who use libraries;
• enjoying a richer personal and professional life through friendships with other librarians and participation in an organization as excellent as TLA.

As with all undertakings, librarians will get out of TLA what they put into it.

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The PCL has recently undergone some changes in its physical layout with its expanded array of terminals in the foyer and reference areas. What comments have users made about the expansion of the electronic arena over the past couple of years? Is the arrangement working? What has been the growth in the number of terminals and workstations in the last 5 years?

New technologies have had major impacts on buildings and services in the General Libraries, including the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL). In the past five years, the General Libraries has added 80 public service computers to the number of machines it makes available to the public, as well as several terabytes of information in electronic format. The main lobby in PCL (called the 21st-Century Study) and the adjacent Reference Room house 146 computers all by themselves, plus 10 circulating notebook computers.

At first library users were nearly ecstatic to have new computer workstations. Nowadays, however, the computer is so ubiquitous in the General Libraries and across campus that users simply expect us to deploy more and faster computers, and their expectations are not satisfied when we don't. Reactions are more matter of fact when new workstations appear because they are largely expected. The workstations in PCL are heavily used most of the 24 hours per day the building is open.

In PCL we circulate notebook computers (and will do so in our Undergraduate Library later this year), and this has proved to be a very popular service. Eighty percent or more of the machines are circulating during many hours of the day. And while these machines have needed some repairs due to their heavy use, vandalism and theft have been nonexistent.

The availability of electronic information (indexes, databases, ejournals, ebooks, etc.) has had a noticeable impact on library usage. Circulation figures have decreased over the past five years, as they have nationally, but the numbers have leveled off over the past couple of years. The number of items re-shelved in PCL has decreased. Turnstile counts in the General Libraries have also decreased as more of the campus community (and users beyond the campus in many cases) are able to access information resources from their dorms, offices, and homes. Use of print journals has decreased (though by how much we are not sure) because ejournals are often the only version of journals owned by the General Libraries and because our extensive collection of ejournals satisfies many information needs.

But as the number of physical users in the library and the number of books circulated have decreased, some service categories have increased. Most dramatically, of course, are hits on UTLOL. In a typical month, UTLOL will receive around 44.5 million hits. One must assume that in pre-UTLOL days, many of these hits would have been users in the libraries and items circulated. But one of the advantages of electronic information resources and services such as UTLOL is that users have so much better access that they now use items (such as digital maps) that they might not have used in less accessible paper formats. Another category that is increasing is the number of users taking advantage of the library instruction program. And while traffic at reference desks in some units of the General Libraries is decreasing, it is increasing at the Undergraduate Library.

Finally, the General Libraries has transformed some of its services to take better advantage of new technologies. New services, or perhaps better described as traditional services upgraded for the modern information age, that the General Libraries has instituted include e-reference assistance and information services for distance education students. The former come in the form of requests for assistance from individuals to the General Libraries via the "Ask Us" portion of UTLOL web page, via basic email to reference librarians and bibliographers, or via participation in coordinated programs of cooperating libraries to which the General Libraries belongs, such as the Library of Congress's Collaborative Digital Reference Service (CDRS). Distance education and its attendant challenges for offering information assistance and information literacy instruction to distant and never-seen students have resulted in additional librarians in the General Libraries to coordinate distance-education information services within the General Libraries and to coordinate information services for the UT System's UT TeleCampus Digital Library (http://www.lib.utsystem.edu/telecampus/).

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Comments or suggestions? Send them to Susan Soy at ssoy@gslis.utexas.edu