Research Needs of the AUCA Faculty and Their Vision of an “Ideal” Library – the Result of Social Research

1. American University of Central Asia Research Needs of the AUCA Faculty and Their Vision of an “Ideal” Library – the Result of Social Research Safia Rafikova, Director of the Library Galina Gorborukova, Chair of Sociology Department AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

2. AUCA Background Information http://www.auca.kg/ • Established in 1993. • An international University and the first higher education institution in Central Asia based on the American liberal arts college mod­el. • Private University. • 11 Degree Programs (undergraduate) and MBA. • 1100 students (40% of men and 60% of women) from 17 countries. • In March 2010, AUCA established an official partnership with Bard College located in the state of New York, the United States that allows students in 9 academic disciplines to receive liberal arts degrees fully accredited in the US. AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

3. AUCA Library Overviewhttp://library.auca.kg • Founded in 1993. • Located on the ground floor of the smaller building of the University. • Two Reading Halls (West Hall and East Hall) with more than 100 seat capacity. • Collections. - over 70 thousand volumes in 15 different languages covering a wide variety of subject areas. - 80,000 titles of full-text e-books (EBRARY database), more than 2 000 000 e-books (World eBook Library). - subscription to 24 research databases. - subscription to 40 native and foreign printed periodical titles annually. - more than 2000 multimedia resources (DVDs, CD, audios) • Services & Technology - on-campus and off-campus access to information, resources and services. - web-based catalogue. - e-Reserve system. - AUCA Digital Library. - Subjects Guidelines. - virtual services “Chat with a Librarian” & “Ask a Librarian”. - six workstations (West Hall) and 15 computers, 1 scanner, and 1 printer (East Hall) are available for students to study and work with databases. - WI-FI area for laptops is available throughout the Library. - trainings on Information Literacy. AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

4. Methodology of the Research • Goal • The research is aimed at identifying the range of AUCA Faculty research projects and understanding how Faculty members use library resources doing research. • Tasks • To identify most recent and current AUCA Faculty research projects; • To find out which libraries and library resources have been used and how AUCA Faculty members use them; • To determine benefits and shortcomings of the libraries and library resources used by AUCA Faculty in their most recent and current research projects; • To find out if AUCA Faculty practice research-based teaching of their courses; • To understand AUCA Faculty vision of an ‘Ideal’ Library. • Methodology • In total 13 Faculty members out of 120 were interviewed: per 1 interviewee from the departments of Anthropology, American Studies, International and Comparative Politics, Journalism and Mass Communication, International and Business Law, Software Engineering, Psychology, Economics, and 2 interviewees from the departments of Business Administration and Sociology. • A pilot interview was held to improve the Questionnaire. A digital audio recorder was used to record the interviews. Each interview was presumably last for 60 or more minutes. AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

5. Recent and on-going AUCA Faculty research projects • All the research studies conducted by the local Faculty members of AUCA focus on analysis of local contexts or problems, for instance, «Gender assessment of vulnerable groups' access to public and municipal services in the Kyrgyz Republic», «The study of mining towns of Kyrgyzstan», «Forms of depression of Asian population». Journalists participated in media-camp, within which lectures and discussions were held to build understanding of the phenomena, such as xenophobia, chauvinism, nationalism in mass media. • Foreign faculty members are focused on their research interests that are not linked to Kyrgyzstan. AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

6. Libraries and resources have been used AUCA Faculty members The most popular databases - JSTOR, EBSCO, EBRARY, and East View However, Faculty members mentioned that EBSCO and JSTOR didn't always enable access to recent articles: "The articles published in 2012 and 2013, the ones I am interested in, are not available. Some reports can be found on the internet, fine, but in the databases – you cannot do that. That is why I start with Google and search for all the concepts I need for my research and focus only on those documents" (Respondent #1, Sociology). AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

7. Additional resources AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

8. Among the libraries in the city, only the OSCE library obtained a positive assessment of our respondents. • The University professors have opportunities to experience trainings, capacity building courses, conduct research projects in other world universities and they spoke in praise of the libraries where they had a chance to work, such as the libraries of the CEU, Ball University, University of Washington and others. Many faculty members mentioned that working in the libraries abroad they were using Interlibrary Loan  service which was very helpful in their research. AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

9. Benefits and shortcomings of the libraries and library resources used by AUCA Faculty Three professors mentioned that while conducting their research they had to work in libraries because some libraries (e.g. the National Library of the Kyrgyz Republic) did not have a literature loan service and they could not borrow literature. As a result, they had to do most part of their research being physically in the building of the library. The advantage of the situation was that they had access to library documents archived digitally, the on-going help and support of librarians and silence. The disadvantages, however, were connected with much time spent on literature search and not finding the necessary materials fairly often. AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

10. AUCA Faculty practice research-based teaching of their courses • All of the professors noted that they use results of their studies in their teaching. AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

11. AMICAL collaboration Out of 13 respondents, only 4 were aware or cooperated with AMICAL • Sociology Department Professor participated in collaborative interactive teaching of AUCA students and students of American University in Afghanistan using equipment for videoconferences. • International & Business Law Professor cooperated with CEU in terms of curriculum and resources development. • International & Comparative Politics Professor collaborated with AUC, Smolny College, and CEU in terms of an on-line videoconference and Career Studies • Journalism Department Professor collaborated with CEU in terms of AFP scholarship and heard about AMICAL. AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

12. AUCA Faculty Vision of an “Ideal” Library Huge, comfortable, light, quiet, ventilated physical space Access to various electronic and print resources Librarian’s assistance Organization of cultural and thematic events AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

13. Value for Research Team • Clear insight of a researcher's information needs. Received outcomes will help us to improve resources and services in the Library. • Collaboration “Library-Faculty” became more close. • Received data is an excellent source of information that can be realized in the new campus. AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy

14. American University of Central Asia Thank you for your attention! AMICAL Conference, 12-15 June, 2013, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy