Assumptions	General	Info Lit	Services	Collections	Resources	Staff	Facilities
1. WCU will grow to between 10,000 – 13,000 students with approx. 25% being distance education students. (This could translate to over 200 additional faculty positions!)	x
2. The percentage of students either living on campus or within walking distance of the campus will increase from approximately 45% to 66%.	x
3. All units of the University, including the Library, will be held to increasingly higher levels of accountability for resource utilization and performance measures. How does the Library support the University’s priorities?	x
4. The major priorities for the University will be: Education, Biotechnology, Engineering, Nursing and Physical Therapy, Entrepreneurship, and Criminal Justice.	x
5. Between 30 – 40% of the University’s current faculty will retire and be replaced with new faculty. (This is true for the Library as well.)	x					x
6. The technology expertise of students and faculty will continue to rise, but their information finding skills will at best remain the same as today.		x
7. Information literacy skills will grow in importance, and will need to be increasingly integrated into the curriculum.		x
8. Awareness of the need for information literacy skills will decrease.		x
9. The World Wide Web will be the primary technology for delivery of electronic information.	x
10. Internet search engines will significantly improve.		x	x	x
11. The Library will continue to expand the amount and type of information it provides electronically.		x	x	x			x
12. The patron’s perception of the library will change from a collection focus to a service focus.		x	x	x
13. Providing simple, straightforward access to electronic resources available through the Library, will be an increasing difficult and expensive challenge.		x	x	x
14. Vendors of electronic databases and journals will offer a broader mix of product bundles.				x
15. Publishers will continue to move towards electronic delivery of information content, which will transfer cost of printing to the Library and its patrons.			x	x	x
16. Patrons will continue to prefer to read documents as print-on-paper.			x
17. Pricing models by publishers and other information providers will be chaotic for the foreseeable future, and will likely result in new, unanticipated models.				x
18. The Library will alter the mix of serial titles subscribed to on a fairly frequent basis.				x
19. Library “collections” will be increasingly difficult to define.				x
20. The distinction between document delivery service and Interlibrary Loan will become less and less clear.			x
21. Remote access to the Library’s print and electronic resources will become increasingly important.			x	x
22. Current analog technologies (e.g. microform printers, video, etc.) will be available on the PC desktop.	x						x
23. Computer display technologies and “form factors” will continue to improve to the point where reading extensive text on the screen will be more readily acceptable.	x
24. Web enhanced courses using Web CT or similar products will become the standard.		x	x
25. 95% of U.S. Government Documents will be available only electronically.				x
26. The region will undergo rapid and substantial change that needs to be documented.				x
27. The number of questions asked per patron will level off while the degree of complexity of the questions will continue to rise.			x
28. Personal service will be increasingly valued by students and faculty.			x
29. Individual research consultations will become an increasingly important library service to students and faculty.			x
30. A wider variety of approaches to Bibliographic Instruction will have to be employed to meet growing numbers of students and to accommodate competing demands for librarians’ time.			x
31. Librarians will be expected to consult with faculty in their offices or departments rather than faculty coming to the library to meet with the Librarians.			x	x		x
32. Librarians will increasingly need to be discipline-oriented. Librarians will need to be able to provide both general service and to support the special needs of specific disciplines.			x	x		x
33. The Library will continue to be part of WNCLN and depend upon it for automated library system support, but the constituent libraries will continue to become less and less similar.			x		x	x
34. The Library will need to maintain a 4 – 5 year desktop computer refresh cycle.					x
35. Mobile/alternative computing will be increasingly used, but will still not be the predominant form of computing used by the Library’s patrons.			x		x		x
36. Laptop PCs with wireless connections will be increasingly used by the Library’s patrons.			x		x		x
37. The Library will need to provide well-defined levels of GIS support it provides as GIS becomes a more commonly used technology.			x		x	x
38. Marketing the Library will take increasing effort, funding and staff time.			x		x	x
39. Library book costs will continue to rise by 4% per year and serials subscriptions by 9% per year.				x	x
40. Students will increasingly prefer or be required to work in groups.							x
41. The Library as place will grow in importance.			x				x
42. Recruiting new library faculty will be increasingly difficult.					x	x
43. Updating of library staff skills will need to occur on an increasingly frequent basis and will require larger time and financial investments.					x	x
44. The Library will reach 70% of its maximum collection shelving capacity.				x			x
45. Library support for distance education programs will increase in complexity and numbers of students and faculty needing service.		x
46. The Library will receive various allocations from the University specifically to upfit the facility.					x		x
47. The number of doctoral programs offered by WCU will increase	x