ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries January 1990/25 RESEARCH PORUM Bonnie Gratch, editor Undergraduate term paper citations B y G loriana St. Clair Assistant Director f o r Technical, A uto­ mation, and Adm inistrative Services Oregon State University and R o se Mary Magrill Library Director East Texas Baptist University U nder the aegis o f the Council for Library Re­ sources and the research program o f Texas A&M University Libraries, the authors collected 1,775 undergraduate term paper bibliographies dating from the spring of 1986 through th e fall o f 1988. The purpose o f the study was to improve basic, philosophical understanding o f undergraduate use o f library materials in order to provide librarian practitioners with an enhanced knowledge base for making decisions in collection m anagem ent, m ate­ rials storage, bibliographic instruction, collection use, and resource allocation. The background for th e study, literature review, methodology, and findings on form at and age of materials cited are available from th e authors. Results dealing with citation patterns by discipline and course level are scheduled to appear in the Spring 1990 issue of Collection Management. T he original plan for th e project anticipated collecting all the papers from one campus. How­ ever, as th e study progressed, papers w ere col­ lected from two similar pairs o f institutions: E a s t T ex a s B a p tist U n iv e r s ity (152 papers). Baptist liberal arts college in Marshall, Texas. E n ­ rollm ent approximately 725. University Library holds 105,202 volumes. W e s tm a r C o lle g e (462 papers). M ethodist lib­ eral arts college in LeMars, Iowa. E nrollm ent ap­ proximately 600. Charles A. Mock Library holds 92,478 volumes. O r e g o n S ta te U n iv e r s ity (257 papers). Sci­ ence and technology-oriented research university in Corvallis, Oregon. E nrollm ent approximately 16,000. W illiam J a s p e r K e rr L ib ra ry ho ld s 1,075,907 volumes. T e x a s A&M U n iv e r s ity (904 papers). Science and technology-oriented research university in College Station, Texas. E nrollm ent approximately 40,000. Sterling C. Evans Library holds 1,584,735 volumes. W ith this information at hand some comparisons betw een the two types o f institutions becam e pos­ sible. Citation patterns by type o f institution T he original plan for this project did riot antici­ pate that papers would be collected at more than one campus and, therefore, no questions were proposed concerning variation o f citation patterns among campuses or types o f institutions. However, as the study progressed and papers w ere collected from two similar pairs o f institutions, a comparison o f papers from large universities and liberal arts colleges proved possible. Tables 1-4 com pare in a general way, the papers from liberal arts colleges versus those from the universities. The tables show­ ing publication dates o f books and journals are based on th e “average oldest” and “average most recen t” citations from the respective groups of 2 6 / C&RL News TABLE 1 P E R C E N T A G E O F C IT A T IO N S BY FO R M A T % of Books % of Journals % of O ther University (N=1161) 52 38 10 Liberal Arts College (N=614) 59 27 14 TABLE 2 AVERAGE N U M B E R O F C IT A T IO N S BY FO R M A T Books St. Jrnls. St. O ther St. Total St. Aver. Dev. Aver. Dev. Aver. Dev. Aver. Dev. University 4.4 3.89 3.2 6.90 0.9 2.56 8.5 8.53 Liberal Arts College 3.3 3.04 1.5 2.58 0.8 1.51 5.6 3.61 TOTAL 4.0 3.66 2.6 5.84 0.9 2.26 7.5 7.35 TABLE 3 P U B L IC A T IO N D A T E S— BOOKS Oldest Median St. Newest Median St. Date Date Dev. Date Date Dev. University 1955.5 1966 37.24 1980.2 1983 14.81 Liberal Arts College 1955.7 1965 39.34 1979.4 1982 11.20 TOTAL 1955.6 1966 37.90 1979.9 1983 13.78 TABLE 4 P U B L IC A T IO N D A T E S— JO U RN A LS Oldest Median St. Newest Median St. Date Date Dev. Date Date Dev. University 1971.8 1978 18.51 1980.5 1985 11.31 Liberal Arts College 1982.1 1985 9.58 1984.7 1987 6.53 TOTAL 1975.0 1981 16.95 1980.7 1985 33.87 papers. In these tables, the median is used to provide a more informative statistic for distribu­ tions with large standard deviations. In some tables, the mean was used instead so that t-tests could be performed. Tables 1-4 make it appear that liberal arts col­ lege students cite slightly older books, slightly newer journal articles, and fewer sources of every kind. However, these comparisons may be unfair because the distribution by discipline and by course level is not the same for both groups of students. Since variations have already been detected among disciplines and levels of courses, the follow­ ing additional analysis is limited to those situations where two different types of institutions provided enough papers in the same discipline to make comparisons at the same course level. The only groups of papers meeting these requirem ents were junior-level business (42 papers from one liberal arts college; 35 papers from one university); fresh­ man-level religion (84 papers from one college; 27 papers from one university); and junior-level soci­ ology (25 from one college; 210 from one univer­ sity). In the junior-level business courses (Table 5), January 1990 / 27 TABLE 5 C O M P A R IS O N O F J U N IO R -L E V E L B U S IN E S S C O U R S E S Liberal Arts College University M ean St. Dev. M ean St. Dev. t Prob. No. o f citations 3.9 2.73 7.8 4.95 -4.31 .0001 No. o f books cited 1.9 1.83 3.0 2.91 -1 .8 8 .0641 O ldest book 1965.4 17.51 1976.0 8.26 -2 .7 3 .0087 N ewest book 1977.4 10.94 1983.6 2.22 -2 .7 5 .0083 No. o f jrnls. cited 1.5 3.09 1.8 2.87 -0 .4 0 .6880 O ldest journal 1985.2 2.52 1981.5 4.09 2.98 .0057 Newest journal 1986.8 0.86 1983.4 3.73 3.34 .0022 No. o th er formats 0.4 0.83 3.1 3.73 -5 .0 3 .0000 TABLE 6 C O M P A R IS O N O F F R E S H M A N -L E V E L R E L IG IO N C O U R S E S Liberal Arts College University M ean St. Dev. M ean St. Dev. t Prob. No. o f citations 6.4 3.40 4.7 7.39 1.58 .1167 No. o f books cited 5.4 3.18 2.7 4.96 3.23 .0017 O ldest book 1939.5 60.36 1964.7 15.95 -1 .7 0 .0920 Newest book 1980.1 5.59 1979.2 4.59 0.67 .5075 No. o f jrnls. cited 0.0 0.00 0.9 2.34 3.80 .0003 O ldest journal — — 1978.4 11.69 — — Newest journal — — 1983.3 3.30 — — No. o f o th er formats 1.1 1.25 0.7 1.48 -1 .1 4 .2560 TABLE 7 C O M P A R IS O N O F F R E S H M A N -L E V E L S O C IO L O G Y C O U R S E S Liberal Arts College University M ean St. Dev. M ean St. Dev. Prob. No. o f citations 5.8 2.60 7.0 4.58 -1 .3 8 .1682 No. o f books cited 2.4 2.83 4.0 2.83 -2 .6 9 .0077 O ldest book 1973.5 12.91 1962.1 23.12 2.07 .0399 N ewest book 1983.0 5.68 1982.2 6.50 0.51 .6096 No. o f jrnls. cited 1.3 2.04 2.5 4.17 -1 .3 8 .1682 O ldest journal 1985.5 2.02 1976.9 11.25 2.51 .0137 N ewest journal 1986.9 0.70 1983.7 5.93 1.79 .0761 No. o f o th er formats 1.9 2.38 0.56 1.15 4.83 .0000 t th e papers from the university included longer bibliographies with citations to new books, older journal articles, and many m ore “o th e r” formats. The papers produced in freshman-level religion courses (Table 6) showed fewer differences than th e business papers. T he liberal arts college stu­ dents cited m ore books than th e university stu­ dents, b u t they cited no journal articles at all, com pared to an average o f .9 articles cited p e r p ap er by th e university students. T he p attern o f citation in junior-level sociology courses (Table 7) was different still from any o f the o th er two groups chosen for additional analysis. The university students cited m ore books, older books, older journals, and fewer o th er formats than did th e liberal arts college students. Conclusions T he purpose o f this study was to gain basic knowledge, rath er than to change particular prac­ tices in th e libraries studied. This entire study 2 8 / C&RL News answered general questions about the nature of materials cited regarding age and type of material, and differences among disciplines and institutions. It would have been interesting to view the citations produced in the context of each individual profes­ sor’s assignments, instructions, and emphases, but that was not undertaken in this study. We experi­ enced difficulties in collecting the citations them ­ selves. Attempts to gather further information about prescriptions surrounding term paper pro­ duction might also be elusive. However, we en ­ courage others to conduct such structured and controlled studies at a variety of institutions for a variety of disciplines. A great deal remains to be learned about how undergraduates use the library in their educational pursuits. The larger journal collections of the university libraries reveal themselves in the results with uni­ versity students using journals 38% com pared with liberal arts college students’ 27%. Over half of the 10% difference appeared in the use of monographs with the remaining 4% in other. University stu­ dents also averaged more citations per paper (8.5) to liberal arts college students’ 5.6. For books, oldest median dates and newest median dates were essentially the same for both groups. For journals, the university students used older materials both in average newest and median newest. This finding probably reflects the size and complexity of large research collections and their practice of rarely, if ever, weeding older materials. Research collec­ tions tend to be more archival and inclusive in their natures than do small college collections. Because patterns of use differ, this study should probably be replicated in other types of institu­ tions. Large, multi-purpose research institutions and state colleges might yield results different from those of science and technology-oriented universi­ ties and small liberal arts colleges with religious affiliations. As resources for education become increasingly scarce, it is incum bent on librarians to be as well informed as possible about how their collections support learning. Basic research like this provides a baseline for more applied research, which ultimately contributes to improving practice in librarianship. ■ ■ Union Carbide signs agreement with Wei T’o Associates An exclusive agreem ent for the use of Wei T ’o Associates, Inc., preservation technology has been signed by the Union Carbide Chemicals and Plas­ tics Company (UCC&P). The Specialty Chemicals Division of UCC&P is assessing various marketing and facility options to provide archives, libraries, museums, and other institutions in the United States and internationally with preservation serv­ ices. The Wei T ’o process complements Union Carbide’s parylene technology for strengthening em brittled paper. Richard D. Smith, president and founder of Wei T ’o, said that Wei T ’o technology involves the use of a nonflammable system that impregnates paper with a non-toxic magnesium carbonate complex. This neutralizes acids, prevents future acid devel­ opment, and potentially prolongs the life of paper from 200 to 300 years. More information on the Wei T ’o process may be found in “Mass Deacidifi­ cation: The Wei T ’o Way,” C&RL News, D ecem ­ ber 1984, pp. 588-93. “The magnitude of the U.S. paper preservation problem is staggering,” said Smith. “Many of the 300 million books in research libraries in the U.S. alone are too brittle to be in general circulation. Most of the others contain paper that is likely to em brittle and more books containing degradable paper are being printed every day. These books will be lost if they are not protected.” Union C arbide’s parylene process, commercial­ ized in the mid-1960s, has been used primarily in the electronics, defense and aerospace industries, where it forms an almost im perceptible plastic conformal coating that protects materials from many types of environmental problems. A typical parylene protective coating is about 1,000 times thinner than a plastic sandwich bag. According to Smith, the Wei T ’o process was first perfected 21 years ago. It has been used to preserve such docum ents as the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Treaty of Paris, and the U.S. Constitution, in addition to numerous works of art and more than 2,500 letters w ritten by Abraham Lincoln. The National Archives o f Canada and the National Library of Canada have been treating up to 20,000 books a year using the Wei T ’o technology. Smith expects to use a portion of his future royalty income to establish a not-for-profit founda­ tion to support graduate research on the preserva­ tion o f archive, library, and museum materials. ■ ■