Reference Transactions
Reference transactions include interactions with librarians via chat, in-person, and via email. Total reference transactions declined from over 1200 in 19/20 to less than 500 during the pandemic and then recovered to around 750 per year from 21/22 to the present.
Instruction Sessions
Library instruction sessions include both in-person and online sessions taught by faculty librarians during the year. Total instruction sessions in pre-pandemic years averaged 125 sessions. After the pandemic, instruction sessions recovered to a high of 78 sessions in 23/24 and then declined again in 24/25.
Interlibrary Loan
Interlibrary Loan statistics include both items loaned to other libraries as well as those received from other libraries. ILL numbers peaked in 18/19 with 2719 provided and 1698 received. Numbers dipped during the pandemic, recovering to 1,666 provided and 1,093 received in 23/24 and then dropped sharply in 24/25.
Door Counts
Door counts, which record how many people passed through the library security gates, averaged around 90,000 prior to the pandemic. After reopening, door counts recovered to about 40,000 visitors per year in 22/23 and have remained consistent since then.
Study Room Hours Reserved
Study room use has shown a strong upward trend, interrupted by the pandemic closure. The most recent year set a new record for study room use with over 4,000 hours of total reservations for the year.
Books in the Collection
The number of print (paper) books in the collection has remained constant at around 50,000. Electronic books remained steady at around 200,000 through 21/22. After that, the number of electronic books available to students has expanded rapidly to over 600,000 in the 24/25 school year.
Journal Titles
Electronic journal subscriptions are the main source of journal content with almost 90,000 titles available. The library subscribes to just 300 titles in print.
Media in the Collection
The number of physical media items in the collection (DVDs, CDs, etc.) has held steady for many years at just under 3,000 items. Online media has grown rapidly from 26,000 items in 17/18 to 140,000 in 24/25.
Circulation
The circulation of print books and other physical materials has declined from a high of just over 17,000 in 17/18 to just over 6,000 in 23/24. Usage of electronic books has increased dramatically from about 23,000 in 17/18 to nearly 190,000 in 23/24.
Full Text Downloads
Full Text Downloads represent the number of electronic articles that were accessed. In years for which we have good data, this has been holding relatively steady at around 160,000 per year.
Staff FTE
Library staffing declined in the years leading up to the pandemic has has remained largely static since. Currently there are 4.5 librarians, 8 other paid staff, and 1.2 student assistant positions.
Library Budget
Salaries and benefits are by far the largest expense for the library, with books, subscriptions, and operations expenses making up a smaller, relatively stable, portion. The library budget shows a slight upward trend driven by increases in staff salaries and benefits, but with many seeming random year-to-year variations.