This document summarizes a presentation about the increasing use of business case studies at Saint Mary's College of California. It discusses how case studies were traditionally seen as teaching materials rather than collection items. However, faculty assignments have begun trending toward professional projects, and new publisher options have made cases accessible to libraries. In the first six months of collecting cases, over 300 uses and positive faculty feedback were reported, showing the value of the new focus on case studies.

1. The Case for
(Business) Cases
ER&L 2017
Presented by Sarah Vital, Business Librarian

2. SAINT MARY’S COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA
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Liberal Arts college in the San Francisco Bay Area
Houses an AACSB accredited business school (School of
Economics and Business Administration, or SEBA)
50 full-time and 55 part-time faculty in SEBA.
770 undergraduate and 300 graduate students in SEBA.
Primarily a teaching college, focused on practical and
applicable business education

3. How had case studies
been seen in collection
responsibilities?
Monographs,
media,
periodicals,
databases for
outside of class
research
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Teaching
material for in-
class use /
homework
assigned by
faculty
Library’s
Responsibility
School’s
Responsibility

4. Why had we been so
concerned about
collecting case studies?
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Traditional research assignments reigned
Limited material budgets
Copyright & License agreements

5. When did this all
start to change?
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Faculty assignments started to
trend toward professional projects
New publisher and vendor options
sold to libraries and open to all

6. What has been the response?
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7. Statistical evidence
(in first 6 months)
343 uses.
147 individual cases accessed
3 courses assigned a single
reading
2 faculty have published in
SAGE Business Cases
USE!
Anecdotal evidence
“This is stuff is good. If we
subscribed I would definitely
use this. I could go into
particulars if you want…. [long
list of particulars snipped].... I
could go on, there is great stuff
here.
“I had planned to use about 10
of them as they cover most of
the topics I plan to cover.”
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8. 8
I’m happy to answer questions or share
more experiences
Contact
Email: svital@stmarys-ca.edu
Slides available at slideshare.net/SarahVital

9. Slide Credits Special thanks to all the people at
SlidesCarnival who made and released this
presentation template for free.
Photographs copyright Saint Mary’s College
of California, Office of College
Communications
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