Nursing and Allied Health: Library Support for Nursing Accreditation

Academic support services, which may include library, technology, distance education support, research support, and admission and advising services, foster achievement of program outcomes.

A defined process is used for regular review of academic support services, and improvements are made as appropriate.Program Response:NSULA academic support services are sufficient to meet program and student needs and are evaluated on a regular basisas outlined in the MEP. Libraries:

Students and faculty at all sites have access to books, eBooks, journals and all manner of materials to support their educational or teaching careers.Northwestern State University has the largest nursing library in the state of Louisiana.

The Eugene P. Watson Memorial Library, located on the Main Campus, and the Nursing Library, housed at the Shreveport site, provide information literacy instructional support for CON students and faculty.The Watson library is a three-story modular 95,000 square foot building containing facilities for group and individual study and research. Professional librarians are available to assist with research both face-to-face and remotely.

The Shreveport library houses the Learning Resource Center (a computer lab with printers), the Testing Lab (exam proctoring) and physical books and journals. All students, faculty, and staff can access this library electronically from off-site or from the Learning Resource Center. The Shreveport Nursing Library is a member of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) DOCLINE system and may borrow journal articles from NLM Libraries.

Staff provide support via one-on-one consulting sessions, in-class trainings, online WebEx instruction, and small study groups. Additionally, the library staff serve as guest speakers in nursing classes. The Shreveport head librarian assists students and faculty when requested via email,phone, or instructional WebEx sessions. Vendor recorded sessions are also available. The Shreveport head librarian is also a member of the Medical Library Association, Health Sciences Libraries of Louisiana (HSLA), a regional medical library association, and the Special Libraries Association. In addition to instructional support, the library maintains print and electronic collections to support the nursing curricula. The library’s resources are available in a variety of formats, including 4,138electronic books, over 168non-historical books in print, 82 online and print reference books, 5,600electronic journals and 180bound journal titles.Database subscriptions include CINAHL Complete, OVID, MEDLINE, ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source, JBI Database, STAT! Ref, Gale Reference, Cochrane Library, TRIP Resources for Evidence Based Practice, Salem Science e-Books, Health Source Nursing Academic Edition, AHFS Consumer Medication Information, ALT Healthwatch, and PSYCH Info. These databases allow students and faculty access to over 5,600 journals, many providing full text format. Faculty and students also have access to several additional scientific databases: Academic Search Complete, Biological Abstracts, Science Direct, and LexisNexis Academic Universe. In recent years, the Nursing Library added several non-subscription online databases, including ADAM Medical Encyclopedia, ClinicalTrials.gov., Drug Information Portal, Medline Plus Drugs & Supplements, Merck Manual, PillBox, and Up-To-Date Journal Index. All faculty and nursing students, regardless of location, have off-campus proxy access to the electronic databases.

is part of a larger network of 47 member libraries called The Louisiana Library Network (LOUIS). “Established in 1992, LOUIS has 47 members and is funded by the Louisiana Academic Libraries Information Network Consortium members and the Board of Regents”(https://sites01.lsu.edu/wp/louis/). LOUIS represents a “partnership with Academic Libraries, State and Private Libraries, Museums and Archives. It provides information technology solutions to consortium members in a cloud computing environment: an integrated library system (ILS), a digital library ILLIAD(InterLibrary Loan Internet Accessible Database), electronic scholarly resources, consulting, authentication, training, communication, and operational support. Established in 1992, LOUIS has 47 members and is funded by the Louisiana Academic Libraries Information Network Consortium members and the Board of Regents.” Instructors and students may borrow medical or nursing books through the ILLIAD system. The above demonstrate that library resources are sufficient to meet program and student needs. The LRITSC committee annually evaluates sufficiency of library resources for all programs via the Faculty LRITSC and the Student Evaluation of Support Services surveys (RRII.C.1a-Student Evaluation of Support Services Forms; and,RR.II.C.1b -Results of Student Evaluationsfor 2017, 2018, 2019).