Perceptions of Academic Librarians Regarding Supporting Distance Education Students and Meeting National Standard

Understanding how academic libraries are budgeting for services and staffing to support distance students is important because students are increasingly supplementing their face-to-face program with online classes or are enrolling in fully online programs. The Association of College and Research Libraries Distance Library Services division have had standards for supporting distance students since the 1960s. The purposes of this study were to determine if academic libraries are meeting the Standards for Distance Learning Library Services [Standards] with regard to having a separate budget and staff to support distance students and to compare the institutional characteristics and organizational effectiveness of libraries that meet and do not meet The Standards. A quantitative comparative design was used to electronically survey all types of academic librarians (n = 91). Descriptive, independent t-tests, chi-square, and MANOVA statistics were used to analyze results. The results indicate that institutional characteristics had no impact on whether or not an academic library met the Standards. Additionally, the results showed that academic libraries were just as organizationally effective whether or not they met The Standards. This research will provide the field of academic librarianship with data to make informed decisions on whether the Standards for Distance Learning Library Services need to be updated or changed as they relate to separate staff and budget.