Where are the AV resources?: Bringing multimedia services closer to users

Abstract

Philippine academic libraries conform to various criteria set by educational accrediting agencies. Each agency may look for programs developed in the library, performance of the library, library budget and library attendance. More often, these agencies evaluate the print collection of the library. To date, they also highly consider the emerging importance of eresources as part of the library collection. However, they only get little information and probably set different criteria when it comes to media services and audiovisual (AV) collection. The balance between print and non-print resources may have been left behind. Still, media services play an important role as a permanent unit of a library. It tries to be relevant and continuously provide user-centered services. It maintains to be current by providing the latest equipment and acquiring popular, instructional, educational and entertaining AV collection. This paper conveys that media services’ place in the library should not be taken for granted and that they consume a part of the libraries’ annual budget. This paper presents the acquisition performance and collection usage of DLSU’s Instructional Media Services (IMS) and how it was able to integrate a number of media services programs. It also shows how an academic library may develop and improve its services to upkeep its existence and value to the community. Consequently, this paper shares its best practices of cultivating and promoting media and information literacy by actively promoting its AV collection. Finally, the study determined the presence of an AV unit/collection of South Manila Educational Consortium (SMEC) member libraries and relates its associated aspects to the current set-up of IMS at DLSU.