| Problem. Since academic libraries have always been bound to institutions of higher education, their successes and failures are closely tied to the institution's goals and objectives. In addition, academic libraries must meet the challenges of expanding multiple forms of information and the challenges offered by competing information sources.; Faculty members are also bound by institutional affiliation and are not only library users, but also influence student use of the library; thus, it is important to know faculty opinions of academic library service policies. The purpose of this study was to ascertain faculty opinions of evolving library service policies and to determine if certain faculty characteristics contributed to the formation of those opinions.; Research method and design. A mail-in survey was used to gather data from academic faculties. The survey instrument consisted of two parts: (1) faculty characteristics determined by personal and professional information and (2) library service policy statements.; General comparisons were made for the agree/disagree responses to academic library service policies using frequency tables, percentage computations, and the Chi square test. Specific comparisons were also made for the agree/disagree responses for library services and faculty characteristics using the same measures. Traditional levels of statistical significance were chosen to determine support or non-support.; The sample consisted of 600 Colorado academic faculty randomly chosen from three institutional types: doctoral granting university, comprehensive college and liberal arts colleges.; Major findings. General support was shown for the service policies of: collection development, periodical collections, databases and catalogs, interlibrary loan, student accessibility, and technological advancements.; At least one faculty characteristic impacted each of the service policies. Significant faculty characteristics were: institutional type, departmental affiliation, and course levels.; Conclusions. The major conclusions of the study are: (1) Despite the influx of information sources, the library is the primary provider of information. (2) Faculties support cooperative efforts within the library service structure. (3) Faculties support financially expedient policies over policies of convenience. (4) Faculties support certain technological applications for libraries. |
