• Introduction
• Number of Academic Libraries
• Services
• Collections
• Staff
• Expenditures

The tables in this report summarize library services, library staff, library collections, and library expenditures for libraries in higher education institutions in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Library staff data are for fall 1996. Operating expenditures and library collections are for fiscal year (FY) 1996. Library circulation and interlibrary loans are for FY 96, and other library services are for a typical week in fall 1996. FY 96 is defined as any 12-month period between July 1, 1995, and September 30, 1996, that corresponds to the institution's fiscal year.

This report is based on information from the 1996 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System "Academic Libraries Survey" (IPEDS-L:1996). The "Academic Libraries Survey" has been carried out by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) since 1966. Although there have been changes in the survey questionnaire over the years, the series is generally considered to be continuous. Beginning with the 1988 survey, the "Academic Libraries Survey" has been conducted on a 2-year cycle as a component of IPEDS. IPEDS is the U.S. Department of Education's vehicle for collecting data from all postsecondary institutions in the United States. Other surveys included within IPEDS are the "Institutional Characteristics Survey," "Fall Enrollment Survey," "Completions Survey," "Finance Survey," "Salaries, Tenure, and Fringe Benefits of Full-Time Instructional Faculty Survey," and "Fall Staff Survey."

The data in this report come from the higher education institutions in IPEDS and include all colleges and universities with accreditation at the higher education level as recognized by the Secretary of Education. At the national level, 94.2 percent of the libraries responded, and data were imputed for nonresponse. Caution should be exercised when comparing estimates by state because different states had different levels of nonresponse. For state-level data, as well as details on nonresponse and imputation, see the complete report. This article presents highlights for the nation.

In fall 1996, 3,408 of the 3,792 institutions of higher education in the United States reported that they had their own academic library.

In FY 96, general collection circulation transactions in the nation's academic libraries at institutions of higher education totaled 186.5 million. Reserve collection circulation transactions totaled 44.2 million. For general and reserve circulation transactions taken together, the median circulation was 15.0 per full-time-equivalent (FTE) student.¹ The median total circulation ranged from 8.4 transactions per FTE student in less-than-4-year institu-tions to 28.0 in doctorate-granting institutions.

In FY 96, academic libraries provided a total of about 9.4 million interlibrary loans to other libraries (both higher education and other types of libraries) and received about 7.5 million loans.

Overall, the largest percentage of academic libraries (44 percent) reported having 60-79 hours of service per typical week in fall 1996. However, 40 percent provided 80 or more public-service hours per typical week. The percentage of institutions providing 80 or more public-service hours ranged from 7 percent in less-than-4-year institutions to 77 percent in doctorate-granting institutions.

In FY 96, 80 percent of institutions with an academic library had access from within the library to an electronic catalog of the library's holdings, 81 percent had Internet access within the library, and 40 percent had library reference service by e-mail.

• Taken together, academic libraries reported a gate count of about 16.5 million visitors per typical week (about 1.6 visits per FTE student enrolled).²

• About 1.9 million reference transactions were reported in a typical week.

• Over FY 96, about 407,000 presentations to groups serving about 7.3 million persons were reported.

Taken together, the nation's 3,408 academic libraries at institutions of higher education held a total of 806.7 million volumes (books, bound serials, and bound government documents) (table A) representing about 449.2 million unduplicated titles at the end of FY 96.

Of the total volumes held at the end of the fiscal year, 44 percent (352.1 million) were held at the 125 institutions categorized under the 1994 Carnegie classification as Research I or Research II institutions (table A). About 55 percent of the volumes were at those institutions classified as either Research or Doctoral in the Carnegie classification.

The median number of volumes held per FTE student was 58.2. Median volumes held ranged from 19.0 per FTE stu-dent in less-than-4-year institutions to 111.2 in doctorate-granting institutions.

In FY 96, the median number of volumes added to collections per FTE student was 1.5. The median number added ranged from .6 per FTE student in less-than-4-year institutions to 2.8 in doctorate-granting institutions.

A total of 95,580 FTE staff were working in academic libraries in fall 1996. Of these, about 27,268 (29 percent) were librarians or other professional staff; 40,022 (42 percent) were other paid staff; 291 (less than one-half of 1 percent) were contributed services staff;³ and 27,998 (29 percent) were student assistants.

Excluding student assistants, the institutional median number of academic library FTE staff per 1,000 FTE students was 5.8. The median ranged from 3.6 in less-than-4-year institutions to 9.5 in doctorate-granting institutions.

In FY 96, operating expenditures for libraries at the 3,408 institutions of higher education totaled $4.3 billion. The three largest individual expenditure items for all academic libraries were salaries and wages, $2.1 billion (50 percent); current serial subscription expenditures, $780.8 million (18 percent); and books and bound serials, $472.6 million (11 percent).

The libraries of the 538 doctorate-granting institutions (16 percent of the total institutions) accounted for $2.7 billion, or 63 percent of the total operating expenditure dollars at all college and university libraries.

In FY 96, the median for total operating expenditures per FTE student was $310.22, and the median for information resource expenditures per FTE student was $90.07.

Table A.—Number of volumes of books, bound serials, and bound government documents held at the end of the year, and number of libraries by number of volumes, by control, level, size, and Carnegie classification of institution: 1996

²Based on total FTE enrollment of 9,974,242.

³Contributed services staff are those, such as members of religious orders, whose services are valued by bookkeeping entries rather than by full cash transactions. They do not include volunteers.