Office of Institutional Planning and Assessment

University of South Carolina Beaufort
Act 629 - Summary Reports on Institutional Effectiveness
Fiscal Year 1999 - 2000

Introduction

This report includes:

Assessment of Library Resources and Services and Achievement of Students Transferring from Two to Four-Year Institutions.

A reporting schedule for USC Columbia and Regional Campuses institutional effectiveness components can be found here.

Assessment of Library Resources and Services

USC Beaufort is conducting a 2-year inventory of the entire collection and evaluating it against standard sources. We have identified a peer library (USC Sumter) and an aspiration library (USC Aiken) and are sharing data with them. An evaluation survey (Fall 2000) will help pinpoint the collection's ability to support specific courses and major areas of study.

Assessment Results

In the interim, a student survey of the library, administered in the Spring 2000, showed overall satisfaction with the library programs, staff, facility, computers, electronic databases, and hours. Lowest ratings were reserved for the number and variety of on-site resources.

Name	Variable following instruction: Please rate the Library using a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest and 5 the highest.	Hilton Head #	Carteret Street #
Resource	Adequacy of print resources (e.g., books, journals, newspapers, etc.)	104	116
Videos	Adequacy of non-print resources (e.g., videos, CD's, etc.)	94	110
Electron	Adequacy of electronic databases	101	112
Computer	Adequacy of computer hardware for patron use	98	115
Studyuse	Adequacy of library as study area	107	114
Adhours	Adequacy of library hours	107	114
Courtesy	Helpfulness/courtesy of library staff	104	115
Quality	Quality of library services (e.g., reference, interlibrary loan, etc.)	102	109

Use of Assessment Results

The efforts currently underway to evaluate and strengthen the collection should help to alleviate what students have identified as the library's greatest weakness (i.e., print and non-print resources.) By asking faculty to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the collection in their subject areas, we will be able to concentrate our efforts on building the collection in those areas identified as important to our curriculum and in need of strengthening. The 2-year evaluation (we are in the middle of) will also help ascertain the quality of our collection and its ability to support current coursework as well as proposed programs of study.

Achievement of Students Transferring from Two to Four-Year Institutions

Transfer reports for the USC Regional Campuses can be found here.