Libraries in a TIF: Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund
By Tom Wilding
Several years ago, the Texas legislature created the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (TIF), which
was funded through a variety of strategies, one of which was a fee charged on individual telephone bills.
(My own home phone is charged about $.16 per month, and this is one of a number of such charges itemized
on my monthly bill.) This fund was authorized up to the amount of $10 billion and was intended to ensure
that the technological infrastructure that supports education and learning in Texas would be robust enough
to support the needs of Texans at the beginning of the 21st century.
In its early years, TIF carried out a number of broad-based networking projects to ensure that K-12 schools
and public libraries throughout Texas would be connected to the Internet and have the hardware and software to
enable the Internet to enhance the curriculum and meet the needs of our citizens, especially those in rural
areas that were underserved by technology. TIF, however, did much more than that, funding projects that affected
networks and technology in higher education, museums, and health care institutions as well.
The UTA Libraries have benefited directly from TIF in three very significant ways: 1) through the development
of Sam’s Click Café, the Internet café on the first floor of the Central Library; 2) through participation in a
state-wide resource sharing consortium that provides TIF-supported access to some very popular databases; and
3) through a grant specifically for academic libraries that funded several library initiatives.
Sam’s Click Café
At the beginning of the 2000 fall semester Sam’s Click Café was opened. The café, named by our students for
Sam Maverick, the University’s mascot, has the look and feel of a modern bookstore, with comfortable seating,
new book shelves, and attractive lighting, and in addition offers thirty-six networked computers in clusters
that facilitate collaborative work. Sam’s also provides seven laptop tables, each seating two users, where
students can plug into the campus network, and a full service Help Desk staffed by the Office of Information
Technology. Sam’s was completed at the beginning of the 2001 spring semester when a coffee bar,
Java City, managed by the
University’s food service, opened to offer specialty drinks and pastries.
Sam’s was an immediate hit. Students flocked to it because it was attractive, comfortable and accessible.
It was the only open-access computer facility on campus that encouraged a community culture. Many students
preferred to wait in line for a computer in Sam’s rather than use available computers in other areas. Within
a year the Libraries’ gate count rose from about 18,000 to 29,000 people per week. After a second year, the
gate count stabilized at about 40,000 per week. Once inside the building, it was obvious that students
increased use of the building on all floors.
One of the first priorities of TIF had been to ensure that students at all levels in the educational hierarchy
had access to appropriate levels of computing to enable them to be successful. Sam’s certainly addressed this
priority.
Databases
An infrastructure without content is like a bandstand without a band. A second benefit of TIF for UTA has
been the support of a statewide purchasing program for information content. In the old days, researchers used
indexing and abstracting tools to locate information about journal articles in their areas of interest. Using
those print-based tools, wonderful as they were, was laborious. The mid-1990’s equivalents of these tools are
computerized databases that allow a variety of methods of searching and searches across an entire database
rather than having to search year by year. The result is that a search that would have taken hours and hours
to complete before can now be carried out in a matter of seconds. The database of the late-1990s and the 21st
century contains not only the references to articles but also the full-text of the articles as they appeared
on printed pages, with all of their illustrations, graphs, and charts.
Computerized databases, however, are expensive, and academic libraries had begun to collaborate in purchasing
access to these databases in a way that allowed many libraries to participate in a single license at a price
greatly reduced from the aggregate of the prices each would have to pay separately. TIF allowed this cooperation
to be extended to public libraries across Texas as well and also increased the number of databases that the
program provided. The $10 million in TIF funds purchased access for a state-wide cooperative that would have cost
more than $50 million if each had purchased its own. UTA’s direct benefit from the database program has brought
database access to UTA students and faculty that would have cost $1.3 million per year had we purchased each of
them by ourselves.
Having built a strong infrastructure, TIF, through its database program, provided a rich array of content for
UTA’s students and faculty that made the infrastructure effective in improving student learning and enriching
citizens’ lives.
Grants to Academic Libraries
In 2001, the UTA Libraries received a grant from TIF in the amount of $413,000 to fund a number of
initiatives directed at improving students’ and faculty members’ ability to use technology in teaching,
learning and research. The grant came at an opportune moment, shortly after we had restructured ourselves in
the UTA Libraries with a focus on information literacy and digital information. This funding allowed us to
develop a number of facilities that related to these expanded programs:
Interactive classroom: Traditional methods of lecturing to students about the use of library resources
are not as effective as engaging students directly. For several years it was obvious that our classroom lacked
this vital aspect of instruction. The interactive classroom provides a 28-seat classroom, each seat provided with
a computer, to allow students to begin to apply their learning immediately.
Upgraded traditional classroom: Many learning experiences can still be delivered in a traditional mode where
only the instructor has a computer and it is projected on screens for all to see. The grant provided the funding
to upgrade the equipment in our traditional classroom to a state-of-the-art computer, audio-visual equipment, and
projection system.
Digital Media Classroom: Many faculty members and students want to use technology in limited ways to provide
enhanced learning opportunities or to complete digital assignments. Funding from our grant provided the opportunity
to develop a 14-seat digital media classroom to permit one-on-one or group instruction and support to both faculty
and students in using leading-edge digital media applications in their endeavors.
Portable Classroom: Librarians are frequently asked to come to a class session and provide specific instruction
that will enable students to complete specific assignments. The portable classroom allows a librarian to take laptops
and a projector to any classroom on campus and demonstrate the use of resources and allow students to have some
limited experiences in using them in specific assignments.
Redesign of the Libraries’ website: The Libraries’ website is several years old now, and many advances have been
made in promoting access to information that are not supported by the Libraries’ website. Funding from TIF permitted
a total revamping of the website to encourage greater personalization and to make the website more useful as a tool
for individuals in their learning, teaching, and research endeavors.
Our TIF grant required the Libraries to make a financial commitment equivalent to 10% of the total grant as well
as to commit to the funding of any ongoing support costs, so the total amount devoted to these projects was over
$523,000, but at a cost to UTA of only $110,000.
In the 21st century, academic libraries need to pursue a variety of strategies to bring together the printed
and digital resources our customers expect. TIF has been an essential ingredient in UTA’s ability to provide
leading-edge library services to its growing academic community.
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