American Bangkok College

Small College Library Group

Rachel Stas Rebecca Driscoll Jennifer Pollard Touger Vang Brandon Lewter LIS 610 Dr. Bird

American Bangkok College

American Bangkok College is a private, liberal, non-secular four year institution offering a Bachelor of Sciences and Arts Degree in American history, American literature, business management, media studies and sports management. ABC is located in the vibrant city of Bangkok, Thailand, better known as the City of Angels and has a culturally diverse campus community. The college has about 1,000 students and has more than 150 faculty and staff professionals.

City of Angels Library

The City of Angels Library (CAL) is official name for the library located on the American Bangkok College campus. CAL has the shelving capacity for more than 100,000 books, academic journals, video and audio collections. Mission Statement: CAL supports learning, research and services for students, faculty and staff at the American Bangkok College with a passionate and friendly attitude while striving to be a premier knowledge hub that promotes ABCs global, knowledge enterprise vision for its students, faculty and staff.

Funding
Financial support for CAL is primarily supported by tuition fees and surcharges for all incoming students as well as continuing students. The Dean of CAL reports directly to the Provost of American Bangkok College. Therefore, CAL is placed with the physical budget within the annual academic units instead of the student affairs unit. CAL is a critical part of ABC and

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directly supports the teaching goals and missions of the college. The schedule for tuition and fees will be as follows:

UNDERGRADUATE CREDIT HOURS TUITION CHARGE ASG FEE ATHLETIC FEE STUDENT ACT. FEE STUDENT FAC. FEE ED & TECH FEE TRANSPORTATION FEE HEALTH SERV. FEE

TOTAL

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 & OVER

1565.63 1565.63 1565.63 1565.63 1565.63 3131.25 3131.25 3131.25 4696.88 4696.88 4696.88 6262.50

0.04 0.08 0.13 0.17 0.21 0.25 0.29 0.33 0.38 0.42 0.46 0.50

22.54 45.08 67.63 90.17 112.71 135.25 157.79 180.33 202.88 225.42 247.96 270.50

15.54 31.08 46.63 62.17 77.71 93.25 108.79 124.33 139.88 155.42 170.96 186.50

11.33 22.67 34.00 45.33 56.67 68.00 79.33 90.67 102.00 113.33 124.67 136.00

13.75 27.50 41.25 55.00 68.75 82.50 96.25 110.00 123.75 137.50 151.25 165.00

1.96 3.92 5.88 7.83 9.79 11.75 13.71 15.67 17.63 19.58 21.54 23.50 96.38 96.38 96.38 128.50

2062.54 2127.71 2192.90 2258.05 2323.22 4385.75 4450.91 4516.08 6675.03 6740.18 6805.35 8900.00

CAL has a private endowment in honor of an American professor from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro called the Bird Endowment. Dr. Nora Bird has been a long-time friend and supporter of CAL, playing a critical role in the organization. Dr. Bird has over 30 years of experience with various prestigious, American libraries, making her the perfect benefactor. The main mission of her endowment is to help support CALs acquisition material needs. Throughout each academic year, an annual fund-raising event is held to help increase the endowment fund by asking for donations from parents of current students as well as private business owners throughout the city of Bangkok. Furthermore, CAL relies on the organization, Friends of CAL, which helps to generate financial support for activities and programs, such as our book clubs. It is critical to have friends to support the noteworthy causes of the college and its library. CAL seeks out individuals, such

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as parents of current students, and faculty and staff of ABC, to be Friends of CAL. There are membership levels and categories, dictated by contribution amounts, and the most generous donators will have names displayed on CALs Wall of Honor, located on the East wing of the first floor.

Weeding
Weeding is a crucial component to the operation of any library. In our small college library at American Bangkok College we strive to maintain the best material for our students and staff. Currently we have an excellent and thorough selection of materials for our subject areas, but within the next few years it will need to be reevaluated and updated. We weed and adjust collections using the following weeding process. First of all, weeding is done by individual collection. Therefore, only one collection is weeded at a time, and librarians are assigned to a particular collection, preventing one librarian from doing all of the weeding in the entire library. When the electronic, audiovisual, and print materials are checked out it is recorded by CALs cataloging system. After the first three years of CALs existence, the records will be evaluated, and if a material has not been checked out at least four times within the three years, it will be replaced. A material that is on the shelf and not being used is taking up valuable space that another more helpful material could replace. After the initial three years, weeding will be done every two years. Within the two years the newly acquired books should be checked out a minimum of two times. However, if the weeding librarian still believes the book holds value to CAL and has only been checked out one time, she may decide to keep the book for an additional two years. After a period of four years, if the material has not increased in use, it will absolutely be replaced. This also applies to the first

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three years of the librarys existence. A book that is checked out two times in three years may be difficult to determine if it is valuable to patrons. After many years, the condition of the valuable books will be taken into consideration. If it is unable to be read, falling apart, etc, we will replace it. By keeping the book an additional two years, a librarian can make a strong decision on the worth of the material to CAL. The reference materials require a different weeding policy. With reference materials unable to be checked out by patrons, any reference book(s) frequently used are kept in easy an easy to access location. Books that are left un-shelved or noticed in regular use will be recorded by the reference staff. When reference materials are recorded with little use, they are stored in an area inaccessible to patrons but still available upon request. After the first weeding cycle, all weeded materials will be sold at the CAL book sale. Those books that are not sold and still offer current and accurate information will be donated to local high schools, community colleges, and public libraries. The remaining books will be donated to Goodwill in an effort to promote reading and learning. Although the college environment is constantly changing, regular weeding and purchasing of new materials will keep our collection current, fresh, and scholarly. The weeding of our collections at American Bangkok College Library will aid our students and faculty in their research and learning experience.

Preservation
Keeping our materials in pristine condition is an important endeavor, and one which must be undertaken seriously in order for us to provide the best service to our students, staff, and faculty. Conservation of current materials includes an up-to-date security system, including
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RFID tags and security gates at our entrance, as well as a carefully controlled building environment in order to prevent humidity from affecting the materials. Electronic materials are kept in cases that are only released at the circulation desk in order to prevent people from removing the disks prior to check-out. We address problems with books as they arise, binding and repairing when alerted of such issues. In the case that materials are damaged beyond repair, we consider a number of factors (edition value, the price of replacing the material, how often it is used, and the manner of the damage) before applying our preservation policy. For example, preserving a first edition of a rare book is more of a priority than preserving a book that is easily replaced. Certain materials have been and will be digitized based on necessity and availability of funds and are and will be available on through the CALs website. Items that have an immediate need for digitization, at a time when the budget does not allow for such expenditures, become non-circulating items accessible only through the special collections. Given the amount of time and funds it would take to digitize the entire collection, it is impossible to make use of that form of preservation at this time for all items, even those that may be seriously damaged. However, digitizing manuscripts and other primary sources that exist in our collections or which may come into our possession in the future are and will be manageable and not too fiscally taxing. Again, digitized versions of such documents are made accessible through CALs website, as well as stored on disks, which are removed from the library and placed in a safety deposit box. The physical documents themselves are stored in special collections, where they are protected from damaging elements and treated more carefully than they might if they were out on the stacks.

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Books that have experienced a great deal of use and which have suffered from that use are repaired as much as possible. If materials become impossible to repair, they are removed from circulation and, in applicable cases, added to the special collection, where they may be treated with better care. Materials in the special collections are available for in-house use only and with special precautions, such as gloves, if necessary. In the case of an emergency, materials will be salvaged by our library staff. If the situation allows, the collection will undergo immediate protection (i.e. covered with plastic sheets to protect from water damage). Freeze-drying will be our primary method of salvaging materials after water damage. Physical damage (i.e. that caused during earthquakes) will be addressed as in any conservation situation, through binding and page repairs. Smoke and fire damage may require the temporary hiring of a professional preservation teamat this time there is no allocation in ABCs budget to hire a preservation team on a full-time basis. If necessary, such materials will be sent off to a larger library or university, where they may undergo the proper salvaging methods. In the future, we hope to move towards closed stacks and more digitized materials, which will further protect circulating materials. Until then, keeping up with conservation methods, reducing theft, and moving materials damaged beyond repair from circulation to special collections, should help keep the collection in a condition that will make it possible for us to serve both current and future students and staff.

Acquisition
Acquisition, the process of obtaining and receiving library materials and information sources, is a critical foundation of a library. At ABCs library, our staff of librarians has created

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a strategy to ensure that the materials and resources we provide are useful and applicable. Our goal is to provide and manage information for the success of our students, faculty, and staff. In order to provide useful and pertinent information to our users we follow the process of consulting with each academic department of ABC. Each of our embedded librarians specializes in a specific field of study that represents each academic department. Meetings with liaisons are held bi-monthly to review new publications and new trends within the fields of study. The meetings are also forums for faculty and librarians to discuss how well library materials and resources are working for their information and teaching goals. All of our books, CDs, DVDs, magazines, and reference materials that are not offered online are micro-selected by each of our specialized librarians after careful consideration and planning with their department representative. Most of our online databases and electronic publications are acquired in bulk with multi-publisher packages and collaborative collections. This aspect of our collection allows users to have a wide variety of updated, inter-disciplinary information to enhance their research capabilities. Some examples of our major databases are JSTOR, EBSCO, LexisNexis Academic, PsycInfo, and WorldCat. We also provide access to smaller and more specialized databases such as SPORTDiscus, Shakespeare Collection, and Film and Television Literature Index with Full Text. Our principle responsibility is to bridge the gap between users and information. At the ABC library we have carefully selected our material to reflect quality and quantity. We take great pride in acquiring and managing information for our students, faculty, and staff.

Social Media Maintenance

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Because CAL uses several formats of social media for advocacy, a policy has been put in place to ensure the social media tools relevance and effectiveness. Every week, or more frequently when necessary due to unforeseen events, the librarys Web master will update CALs Facebook, MySpace and Twitter pages. Content for these pages will be submitted on as needed basis by each library department (administration, circulation, reference, etc.).

Summary
City of Angels Library at American Bangkok College is dedicated to the students and faculty it serves. While funding, acquisition, weeding and preservation are of utmost importance to CAL, they will also strive to create a welcoming and nurturing learning environment. CAL longs to be the center of ABCs community. By CALs leadership ensuring the aforementioned policies and standards, they will undoubtedly achieve that goal.

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