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As our new students marched into the Shea Auditorium to start a school year with joy and visible optimism, it dawned upon me that higher education has been accepting, preparing, and graduating students for over two thousand years. The first of such institutions, the Al-Karaouine mosque and university established in 859 AD in Fes, Morocco was primarily an Islamic school that also taught grammar, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. The Al-Azhar University founded by Shi’ites around 970-972 AD was also a religious school focused on Arabic and Sunni literature. This religious trend continued with Bologna in 1088, Oxford since 1096, and Paris in 1170. Central to the existence of these institutions was the common thread of expanding knowledge and skills, expressing thoughts, and understanding the world. Today, our institutions of higher learning are focused on the advancement of the individual within a societal context, with the understanding that the goals of creating better citizens and better job prospects are both predicated on knowledge, its acquisition, mastery, and use. The provision of technical and disciplinary skills and knowledge, facilitation of critical thinking, problem-solving, lifelong learning, and the ability to adapt in evolving professional, civic, and personal contexts are closely linked parts of the mandate of any successful institution of higher learning today.
Some 3,459 years before Al-Karaouine, in the fertile crescent of Southwest Asia, in the cradle of civilization, the predecessors of today’s libraries were born in the archives of temples and rulers and would ultimately culminate in the creation of the ancient Library of Alexandria and its learning and research focus. Knowledge, its storage centers, and learning shared a common bond in ancient as well as present times. It is therefore not surprising that America’s first college, New College, founded in 1636 would eventually be renamed Harvard College two years later in recognition of its benefactor Harvard’s donation of 320 books and half of his monetary estate. The academic library and the college were intertwined in their educational mission and existential justification. The Welcome Day procession and activities reminded me of the importance of what academic institutions do by training minds and changing lives. It reinforced for me the centrality of the library in that process. Let us review some of what Cheng Library did over the last fiscal year in support of the University’s mission.
Most libraries today find themselves doing more with less in the face of shrinking budgets and escalating cost of library resources. In the face of some financial challenges, Cheng Library has maintained a high level of services, improved the quality and size of resources available to the University community for learning, teaching, and research. It has ensured the provision of attractive and comfortable environments for its users to work in and maintained a high level of professional assistance. Library gate count was in excess of 135,000 in FY2024 and over 9% more than the previous year. There were over 4,000 reference interactions and consultations, 207 instructional sessions that reached 83% of our freshmen, 57% of our undergraduates and 12% of our graduate students. We are on the right path but recognize the need to reach more of our graduate students and scale up the percentage of undergraduates we offer instruction to. Other respectable outcomes include the 530,000 catalog and database searches by our users and a global circulation of 66,233 discrete items. On the inputs side, we provide access to 118,790 print periodicals and double that in electronic format, as well as 224,518 print and over 1.2 million electronic books and 91,116 streaming videos. The transition to predominantly full-text online articles and books continues at a fast pace. This is particularly important as the University’s online offerings grow and user preferences for instantaneous content delivery regardless of time and place becomes well established.
Supporting the University’s decolonization efforts, Cheng Library’s programs and initiatives made it one of 56 academic libraries in the country, and the only one in New Jersey, to receive the 2024 Library Excellence in Access and Diversity (LEAD) Award from Insight Into Diversity magazine, the largest and oldest diversity and inclusion publication in higher education. The award honors academic libraries whose programs and initiatives encourage and support diversity, equity, and inclusion across campus. As part of Cheng Library’s outreach to the University’s immediate community, we provided 21 library instruction sessions to area schools and led a WP Real Men Read program that conducted 68 readings by 30 WP volunteers for some 1,170 elementary school students in our area.
Librarians are developing resource guides for ChatGPT and associated AI tools and preparing to offer related seminars. They continue to provide training and support to faculty in the use of platforms such as Pressbooks to create OER texts. Cheng Library organized a successful OER Forum to discuss and share ideas on the adoption and use of open and zero cost education resources. The goal is to ultimately have a critical mass of free and low-cost educational resources that significantly reduce textbook costs for students and support their academic success. The Library’s LEARN Digital Badge was launched as part of the WP LEADS Digital Badge program and the number of pop-up library programs were expanded, resulting in 416 interactions with students. Changes were made to the Interlibrary Loan webpage to streamline that service and make it easier to navigate. Daily operations demonstrated a firm commitment to serving WPUNJ students, faculty, staff, and community.
In a recent (June 2024) article on academic library trends, members of the American College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Research Planning and Review Committee noted that, “The future holds many hurdles for academic librarians, such as the possible impacts of AI on higher education and the uncertainty of recurring operating and materials budgets.” (Top Trends in Academic Libraries: A Review of the Trends and Issues, College & Research Libraries News vol. 85, no. 6). They concluded that “these challenges will require new policies and practices, but they will also enable us to innovate, adapt, and respond to complex and evolving phenomena in our common pursuit of supporting student achievement and enhancing teaching, learning, and academic research.”
Cheng Library is no stranger to the challenges facing academic libraries. It is, however, optimistic about its positive contribution to the academic enterprise at William Paterson University, to student success and academic excellence at the University. WPUNJ librarians embrace new challenges and opportunities presented by recent technological developments and welcome serving a user population increasingly dependent on access to online resources accessible anytime from anywhere. They are committed to advocating for and supporting the adoption of open educational resources. Library faculty and staff work diligently to expand availability and ease of access to open access publishing and output. They are redefining their collection development activities and focus to address increasing and persistent cost pressures.
The David and Lorraine Cheng Library continues its service to the mission and purpose of higher education, cognizant of a marriage rich in history and as relevant today as ever: facilitating learning and creating knowledge to ensure the continued advancement of enlightened citizens and societies. From their Arabian roots to their European modernization, libraries and the institutions of higher learning they serve have worked together for the greater good. William Paterson University and its David and Lorraine Cheng Library continue that tradition. Cheng Library welcomes you to a new semester and looks forward to serving you for decades to come.
