The institution provides adequate facilities for library and information resources, equipment, and personnel. These resources, including collections, are readily available for use by the institution's students, faculty, and staff on the primary campus and where required off-campus.

• Millar Library Facilities

New Resources Allocation Model

A new resources allocation model has been developed to allocate funds to specific areas or disciplines based on realistic criteria. Funds were previously allocated via historical or iterative methodologies. The new allocation model is based on the University’s internal environment as well as the scholarly publishing universe (the external environment). Internal variables focus on students, faculty, and grants. External variables focus on the numbers and costs of books and serials in the scholarly publishing universe. Data on internal and external factors have been compiled for all areas or disciplines on campus. The model improves the responsiveness of the Millar Library (and the selectors) to immediate scholarly needs in the face of a huge domain of potential resources.

In the Portland State University's 1995 Institutional Self Study (accreditation), one of the Millar Library's goals was "to include all of its holdings in the online catalog." At that time, 85% of the Library's holdings were represented in the catalog. The 1995 Evaluation Committee's report "recommended that retrospective conversion of bibliographic records be completed expeditiously."

By 1998, the retrospective conversion of records in the Library of Congress classes A-P, with the exception of those in non-Roman scripts, had been completed. In 1999, an LSTA initiative facilitated the cataloging and/or retrospective conversion of more than 3,000 vernacular Arabic titles. From 2000 to the present, retrospective conversion efforts have been undertaken by in-house or outsourced staff.

Orbis, a consortium of academic libraries in Oregon, was planned and implemented in the late 1990s. Faculty and students at the participating institutions were able to obtain books from the other institutions in 3 to 4 days. As participation required utilization of an online catalog by Innovative Interfaces, and as the Millar Library did not have the Innovative Interfaces online catalog, the Millar Library and the University were initially unable to participate in Orbis.

Funds were obtained to purchase the Innovative Interfaces system and a successful migration was completed in 2002-2003. In 2003, Orbis evolved into Orbis Cascade (Summit), a consortium of academic libraries in Oregon and Washington. Now, students and scholars at the University are able to obtain books from 25 other academic libraries in Oregon and Washington in 3-4 days.

The Millar Library is a member of Portland Area Library System (PORTALS), a consortium of 18 academic and public libraries in the Portland area, with reciprocal borrowing agreements.

To obtain additional space for collections, a remote-storage facility, with 20,000 square feet, was located in 2000 and used until mid-2004. A second and larger remote-storage facility was located in mid-2004, and is currently being used. For the Millar Library, "remote storage" is essentially an extension of the Library's stacks. The materials in remote storage are central to the University's instructional and scholarly activities (as opposed to little-used materials in a warehouse). Remote storage helps to solve the Library's space problem, but users need to wait one or more days to obtain the materials in storage.

Millar Library is Critically Full

The Millar Library is 95% full, with 1,350,000 volumes. Standards compiled by the American Library Association state that 80% is viewed as "critically full." Accreditation reviews in 1985 and 1995 expressed significant concerns regarding the need for additional library space for materials and students. An addition to the Library in 1991 was mostly filled within five years.

The Assistive Technology Lab, the Office of Information Technology computer cluster, and approximately 85% of the Library's collections are located in the Millar Library (Library West) as well as staff for Public Services, Systems, and administrators. Technical Services staff is currently located in the Student Union (Library East). Nearly 20% of the Library's collections are currently stored in an off-campus storage facility (30,000 sq ft). The facility will be filled in about 3.5 years. The critically full status of the Library produces the following problems:

• Remote storage involves a one to two day delay in access for users, and raises concerns for preservation of materials.
• Costs for remote storage in a local warehouse were about $145,000 annually from 2000 to 2004, and about $250,000 annually since 2004 in a larger warehouse. The costs have been covered so far by one of the vice presidents, relieving the library of the cost burden, but comprising a significant investment for the university.
• With all shelves nearly full, it becomes increasingly difficult to reshelve books or volumes, and stacks need to be shifted continually. Costs to reshelve and maintain the collections under these circumstances continue to increase.
• Full shelves create conditions in which books are more likely to be out of order, and it becomes increasingly difficult to locate books or volumes on the shelves.

Need for Additional Student Study Spaces

In addition to being critically full, the Millar Library is also unable to provide adequate study spaces for students. Only 11 study rooms are currently available for students. In Fall 2003, 5,010 study room keys were checked out by students. There are 1,000 student study spaces. Using a head count estimate, the Library provides space for nearly 5 percent of the student population. Using full-time equivalent (FTE), the Library provides space for nearly 7 percent of the student population. Neither of these percentages comes close to the facility standards set by the Association of College & Research Libraries, which recommends that spaces need to be available for 20% of the students on campuses where a significant number of the students do not live on campus. To meet this standard, student study spaces at the Library would need to increase by three to four times the current level. Adjusting the standard to account for increased utilization of library resources through the Internet, there is still need for at least twice as many student study spaces.