Academic Librarianship

Introduction: Higher Education Classification in the Philippines

Higher education institutions are either classified as a college or a university, and
either public or private, and also either secular or religious. As of August 2010,
records from CHED showed that the country had 1,573 private and 607 public HEIs.
In the Philippines, college is a tertiary institution that typically offer a number of
specialized courses in the sciences, liberal arts, or in specific professional areas,
e.g. nursing, hotel and restaurant management and information technology.
Meanwhile, to be classified as a university--such as state universities and colleges
(SUCs), CHED-supervised higher education institutions (CHEIs), private higher
education institutions (PHEIs) and community colleges (CCs)--it must meet the
following requirements:
• operate at least eight different degree programs; including
• at least six undergraduate courses, specifically
• a four-year course in liberal arts,
• a four-year course in science and mathematics,
• a four-year course in the social sciences, and
• a minimum of three other active and recognized professional courses leading to
government licensures; and
• at least two graduate-level courses leading to doctoral degrees.

Local universities have less stringent requirements than private HEIs. They are only
required to operate at least five undergraduate programs--as opposed to eight for
private universities--and two graduate-level programs.

Public universities are all non-sectarian entities, and are further classified into two
types: State university and college (SUC) or Local college and university (LCU).

State universities and colleges (SUCs) refers to any public institution of higher
learning that was created by an Act passed by the Congress of the Philippines. These
institutions are fully subsidized by the national government, and may be considered as a
corporate body. SUCs are fully funded by the national government as determined by the
Philippine Congress.

Local colleges and universities (LCUs), on the other hand, are run by local
government units. The Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila is first and largest among
the LCUs.

Private colleges and universities may either be sectarian or non-sectarian entities.

Institutions may either be not-for-profit or profit-oriented.

Non-sectarian private schools, on the other hand, are corporations licensed by the
Securities and Exchange Commission. Examples of these are AMA Computer
University, Centro Escolar University, Far Eastern University, Southern City Colleges
and STI College which are likewise registered on the Philippine Stock Exchange.

Source: Higher Education Classification in the Philippines, Available at https://www.k12academics.com/

Higher%20Education%20Worldwide/Higher%20Education%20in%20the%20Philippines/higher-
education-classification-phili

What is Academic Library

1. A designated place, physical or digital, set aside to house scholarly research
materials and materials supporting the academic, university, or college community and
curriculum.
2. It is a resource centre that services institutions of higher learning such as a college
or a university.
3. An academic library is a library that is attached to a higher education institution
which serves two complementary purposes to support the school's curriculum, and to
support the research of the university faculty and students.
4. A library that is part of an institution of higher education.
5. It is a library attached to a higher education institution which is there to support the
curriculum and the research of the university faculty and students.
6. An academic library is a library which serves an institution of higher learning, such
as a college or a university—libraries in secondary and primary schools are called
school libraries. These libraries serve two complementary purposes: to support the
school’s curriculum, and to support the research of the university faculty and students.
7. It can be a physical or digital space that houses scholarly research materials that
support the university or college teaching and learning activities.
8. An academic library is a big repository of information and knowledge from all fields
of learning to disseminate and store information for the users and it serves to support
the school's curriculum and to support the research of the university faculty and
students.
9. A designated place, physical or digital, set aside to house scholarly research
materials and materials supporting the academic, university, or college community and
curriculum.
10. A library belonging to a higher education institute to support teaching, learning and
research.
11. A library that is attached to an institution of higher education that supports the
teaching, learning and research mission of the institution.
12. Are those libraries which are based in universities domain in providing support for
research and educational activities and any data management of university.
13. A library intentionally aligned with a specific institution of higher education.
14. An academic library is a library associated with a college or university which
supports the mission of the institution and the research needs of its faculty, staff and
students. Although it is possible that a purely virtual library could exist, no brick and
mortar institution has yet taken that step. Instead, most academic libraries consist of a
physical space (usually quite large but on occasion as small as one room) and a staff of
librarians and other employees that manage the building and its collections.
15. An academic library is a big repository of information and knowledge from all fields
of learning created to serve a college or university, to disseminate and store information
for the users and it serves the reading and research interests of students, lecturers, and
researchers.
16. Academic libraries work together with other members of their institutional
communities to participate in, support, and achieve the educational mission of their
institutions by teaching the core competencies of information literacy—the abilities
involved in identifying an information need, accessing needed information, evaluating,
managing, and applying information, and understanding the legal, social, and ethical
aspects of information use.
17. An academic library is a library associated with a college or university which
supports the mission of the institution and the research needs of its faculty, staff and
students. Although it is possible that a purely virtual library could exist, no brick and
mortar institution has yet taken that step. Instead, most academic libraries consist of a
physical space (usually quite large but on occasion as small as one room) and a staff of
librarians and other employees that manage the building and its collections.
18. This is a library established in tertiary institutions such as university, Colleges and
Polytechnic.
19. A library attached to a higher education institution to support teaching, learning
and research activities.

Source:
What is Academic Library, Available at https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/use-cmc-technologies-
academic-libraries/229

Factors that Influence the Academic Library and its Function

a) Access to digital information: Technological advancements have made great
amounts of information readily available in a digital format, thereby enabling faculty
members to easily and remotely access information that is beyond physical books and
journals. Therefore, faculty members have reduced their visits to the library and have
begun employing information-searching and retrieval processes through external
sources;
b) Development of digital collections: Librarians today develop more digital
collections, which are a major financial expense and this involves continuous
consultation with faculty members so as to understand and meet their needs;
c) Sharing: With the increase in the difficulty and expense involved in developing the
library collection, interlibrary loan agreements are established to enable the loaning,
mailing, or scanning of materials that are unavailable in the library’s own collection. In
addition, libraries make payment agreements for sharing databases that are too
expensive for individual libraries to subscribe to;
d) Discovery and access: The digital era has changed how faculty members search
for and retrieve information. These changes require new skills from the users, and
librarians must be aware and assist in the process of acquiring these skills. Although
librarians indeed offer assistance for those who request it, they usually do not maintain
a system of formal training for using the various technological tools. Thus, there
appears to be a difference between the capabilities of faculty members to use these
new tools and the perceptions of librarians of these capabilities (Hartel, 2017; Pontis et
al., 2017; Savolainen, 2017);
e) Metadata and catalogs: Librarians must be made aware of the difficulty in reaching
many items; if they do not provide as much descriptive information as possible on the
items in their collections, users will be oblivious of the existence of these items,
especially if the items do not exist electronically or are available only in the physical
collection. Hence, cataloging all items in a correct and detailed manner is an important
project, which can assist users;
f) Budgeting and prioritizing: Despite budgetary issues, academic libraries typically
ensure that all the material relevant for academic courses is found within the library
collection. In contrast, faculty members often claim that the academic library appears to
divide the budget disproportionally and supports teaching more than research.
Therefore, faculty members often search for alternatives that do not require using library
resources for information discovery (e.g. obtaining material through peers, other
institutions, or conferences); although this search for alternatives sometimes stems from
empathy to the budgetary problems of the library, it distances the faculty members from
the library. Indeed, faculty members (especially in the fields of the social sciences and
humanities) often claim that libraries should be better budgeted by the academic
institutions so as to better support research. The lack of sufficient budgets for
supporting research has become even more prominent in recent years due to the
increasing number of interdisciplinary studies, which, because they often require
collaborations between members of different faculties, are significantly more diverse
and costly;
g) Formal and informal scholarly communication: Scholarly communication has
changed dramatically in the digital era and scientific communities are created more
rapidly today than in the past. Libraries must adapt accordingly and provide services
that are better suited for these changes.

Source:
Klain Gabbay, Liat & Shoham, Snunith. The role of academic libraries in research and
teaching. Available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331063849_
The_role_of_academic_libraries