LibGuides: Library SACS Accreditation 2015: Staff to Student Ratio

Library staff to student ratios

Last updated: Tuesday, January 13, 2015

According to the 2012 biennial statistical survey of academic libraries by the Dept. of Education's National Center for Education Statistics San Antonio College is well below the state and national averages for the staffing ratio of librarians and library staff to students.

SAC is also dead last in library staffing compared to other VLCCs – Very Large Community Colleges – such as Austin, Houston, Miami Dade, Richland, etc. (See full comparative statistics below.)

SAC 2012 - 1.71 librarians and staff per 1000 FTE student

State average 2012 - 7.46

National average 2012 - 8.36

As of January 2015, 3.5 additional librarian retirements and various unfilled library staff positions places SAC at .10 librarians and staff per 1000 FTE student.

How does this staffing level affect student success? SAC Library now only has 5 full-time librarians to serve the research needs of staff, faculty and a student population of over 20,000. The loss of manhours due to the retirements of experienced faculty will increase the stress on the library's staff and will impair student services and library operations such as reference assistance and library instruction. SAC has also chosen “information literacy” as the college’s QEP focus over the next five years. Without more library staff the college’s current QEP goals are not achievable.

A note about the college's Information Literacy QEP:

SAC has the worst student:librarian ratio of our peer group institutions (see NCES 2012 data: http://sacguide.libguides.com/content.php?pid=545813&sid=4495506)
January 2015 – 2 more librarians will retire, further impairing customer service and library operations
Spring 2015 - 5 librarians will absorb 32 hours of reference desk service and collection development responsibilities left open from those 2 retirements
Spring 2015 – only 4 of these 5 librarians are involved in library instruction prep and teaching
Spring 2015 – a new full-time staff librarian might be hired, but this position’s primary duties will be technical services, not instruction
Spring 2015 – the library instruction coordinator and scheduler will work together to maintain current levels of library instruction (no more than 200 classes a semester)
see also: Ranger article

Library staff to student ratios 2012

Comparison of Library Staff-to-Student ratios at Alamo Colleges
	FTE Librarians	FTE Staff	Headcount Fall 2012	FTE Students Fall 2012	All Staff-to-headcount ratio	Librarian-to-FTE Student ratio
San Antonio Coll.	8.5	7	20,061	12,973	1 to 1,294	1 to 1,526
St. Philips/SWC	8.5	5	10,680	5,078	1 to 791	1 to 597
Northwest Vista	7	9	16,505	4,273	1 to 1,031	1 to 610
Palo Alto	4.63	6.08	8,650	3,805	1 to 808	1 to 822
Northeast Lakeview	3	4.5	5,535	334	1 to 738	1 to 111

NLC Enrollment: 5535 (including SAC @ NLC)

NVC Enrollment: 16505

PAC Enrollment: 8650

SAC Enrollment: 20061

SPC Enrollment: 10680

NCES Academic Libraries Survey 2012

Averages	Total FTE 12-Month enrollment	Librarians	Other Professional Staff	Librarians & Other Professional Staff Per 1,000 FTE Students	Total Staff	Total Staff Per 1,000 FTE Students
San Antonio College, TX	12,973	8.5	1	0.73	22.12	1.71
Comparison Group Average	17,140	18.05	2.5	1.2	49.34	2.98
STATE AVERAGE	4,913	9.5	2.82	3.6	31.69	7.46
NATIONAL AVERAGE	3,878	7.7	2.5	3.97	25.25	8.36
Comparison Group Median	12,509	16	1	1.01	50.5	2.76
STATE MEDIAN	2,018	4	0.77	1.79	12.18	4.68
NATIONAL MEDIAN	1,508	3.75	0.75	2.27	10	5.19
Comparison Group:
Library Name	Total FTE 12-Month Enrollment	Librarians	Other Professional Staff	Librarians & Other Professional Staff Per 1,000 FTE Students	Total Staff	Total Staff Per 1,000 FTE Students
Austin Community College District, TX	22,180	37	1	1.71	75	3.38
Colllin County Community College District, TX	15,807	16	Not Reported	1.01	50.5	3.19
Del Mar College, TX	6,386	6.4	0	1	27.6	4.32
Harrisburg Area Community College, Harrisburg, PA	12,509	23.05	Not Reported	1.84	51.54	4.12
Houston Community College, TX	33,803	42	0	1.24	64	1.89
Miami Dade College, FL	41,588	21.25	17	0.92	132.55	3.19
Northwest Vista College, TX	8,193	7	1	0.98	22	2.69
Palo Alto College, TX	4,273	4.63	0	1.08	10.71	2.51
Richland College, TX	10,271	8.75	1	0.95	22.3	2.17
St Philip's College, TX	5,078	8.5	0	1.67	14	2.76
Tarrant County College District, TX	28,452	24	Not Reported	0.84	72.5	2.55

Statistics gathered from the NCES Library Comparison database: http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/libraries/compare/Default.aspx