Science Library Updates

Great news! We are going to start circulating bound periodicals and reference books in both Telford and Leyburn, starting today. This means that faculty, staff, and students must either use the self-checkout station or the staffed circulation desk to check out these materials instead of the notebook at the circulation desk. The check out period is for 24 hours, and your Annie account will reflect what you have checked out. Remember that only the bound periodicals will circulate this way. Faculty and staff will still be able to sign out newer, unbound periodicals using the spiral bound notebook.

As always, if you use a bound periodical but do not check it out, please DO NOT reshelve it. I know it is courteous to keep the library neat and tidy, and I appreciate the effort, but this is the only way that we know which periodicals are getting used. We keep track of what we reshelve, and these statistics are very important. You will find book trucks in the stacks where you can place bound volumes after you use them, or you could always bring them to the circulation desk.

Posted by Mary Abdoney at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You may recall that we have freed up some monetary resources by dropping our subscription to Web of Science in favor of Scopus. As part of the overall process of reviewing the science library's collection, it is time to think about how to enhance our collection using these monetary resources. At this point, there are two options:

1. Subscription to journal packages offered by Springer and Elsevier, which would add around 1300 new titles. A list of titles may be found here http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pyDWZ0fAMwv3zjZ-bH0CnLg. (Note: This is a "working list" of titles, which the publishers may change before anything is finalized. Please be sure to use the tabs to see both lists.)


2. Subscription to individual journal titles, which are often pricey in the sciences, to be recommended by the science faculty.

It is the library's opinion that Option 1 gives us the most content for the least money and would be the best use of our resources. However, if you feel differently, please let me know. Please let me know your preference by Friday, November 16.

In addition to adding resources, I am currently reviewing our science journals and other serials, and trying to determine if we are getting the most out of our resources. After going through our currently subscribed titles, there are a few that need further review. Please look at this list http://library.wlu.edu/wiki/index.php/Main/ScienceResources and let me know if you think there is any reason to keep subscribing to these titles. The reason these titles have been selected out for further review is because I believe they have little to no use for our curriculum and research needs. If you feel differently, please let me know by Friday, November 16.

Thank you for all of your help in enhancing our collection. Your input is always greatly appreciated. As always, please let me know if you have questions. I may be able to give you more information than just what is available in the two links provided.

Posted by Mary Abdoney at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)