12 Humanities and Social Sciences Branch Library
12.1 Major Initiatives
Matheson Store.
In April the Branch Librarian was responsible for negotiating and organising the
installation of 6291 lineal metres of compactus shelving into the Matheson
Store. The units were then divided into storage space for H&SS, Hargrave,
Biomedical and Rare Books, and access and procedures agreed upon. The next stage
was for H&SS to identify low use material to relocate to the Store. This
process, which was slow and labour intensive, involved stocktaking, barcoding
and uploading Australian Bibliographic Network records to Sesame2. Dewey numbers
000-400 will be completed this year and it is planned to continue with this
project in 1997 depending on available funding. Users wishing to browse Matheson
material are issued a key through the Loans system and usage is monitored. Where
material is identified as in frequent demand it will be removed from the Store
and returned to the normal shelves.
Integration of H&SS Serials section with Technical Services.
This project arose out of strategic planning discussions within the branch and a
seizing of the opportune time when a Serials Receiving Cycle Time project was
mooted. A Serials Review Librarian was appointed to work with the Implementation
Committee. Responsibilities were a review of staff duties and structure:
negotiating the staffing complement between H&SS and Technical Services and
relocating the Serials section within the Technical Services unit. Shannon
Azzaro, who has been Serials Review Librarian, is to be commended on
successfully completing this difficult and sensitive task.
Reserve database.
Reserve Staff designed and implemented a Microsoft Access database which
identifies the progress with reading lists and processing of reserve material.
As the data can be accessed from the Reserve desk, staff on duty can immediately
determine whether a reading list has been received rather than having to
telephone the Reserve Office for a check of the manual lists previously
maintained.
Asian Studies Research Library (ASRL).
The ASRL resource librarians compiled two reference tools - Asia Access:
China, Japan, Korea; a guide to English language resources and Asia
Access: Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore; a guide to English language
resources, which were produced and marketed by MONINFO. In another first,
the Library presented two pre-ALIA conference workshops; the Workshops on Asian
Studies Information Sources were conducted by the ASRL resource librarians and
the Economics Subject Librarian. Another highlight was the implementation of the
National Chinese, Japanese and Korea (CJK) database. To facilitate the
transition to the new system, an ASRL/Technical Services NCJK implementation
committee has been set up under the chairmanship of the Associate University
Librarian (Information Services). The Library has now switched over from
Wade-Giles to the Pinyin form of romanisation.
12.2 User Education
The H&SS homepage was extensively updated, enhanced and
extended. Some additions are a ready reference page with links to best sites for
specific services eg newspapers, publishers catalogues, phone books,
dictionaries etc; a page of the most useful for locating subject-specific
material resources (search engines, subject catalogues etc), and links to a wide
range of subject-specific sites. This is now a very valuable resource for users
and H&SS has put into place procedures to ensure regular updating occurs.
The H&SS CAI project, the Electronic Reference Desk, was
demonstrated to other branches and Caulfield and Hargrave were interested in
mounting their own version. A copy of the computer files, as well as assistance
with training, was given to each branch to enable them to adapt it to their
needs. Hargrave now has their version operational. The H&SS package has been
further updated to utilise the new version of Toolbook.
Electronic resources within the Branch are rapidly increasing
in number, leading to a need to demonstrate to users a wide diversity of
resources eg CD-ROMs, Nexis, Internet, CDATA, UnCover, Current Contents,
FirstSearch, Reuter Business Briefings, ABS Time Series, ABN, and ABI Fulltext
and PsycInfo on OVID. Subject Librarians used team teaching techniques with peer
assessment to cover a wide range of sessions and large number of students in the
most effective way. 280 sessions were provided for 3829 students and a student
evaluation survey was used to improve the contents and structure of the
sessions.
12.3 Accommodation and Refurbishment
Detailed plans for moving the card catalogue and refurbishing the ground floor
Reference and Loans staff areas as well as the Serials area on the first floor
were completed and presented to Management Committee with a time plan for 1997.
The recommendations were accepted with minor adjustments and moving the card
catalogue will commence in January.
There have been many ongoing projects to improve access to material and
reduce overcrowding. These include re-spacing floors 3,4 and 5 in Main, weeding
Main serials, microform and Asian Studies collections to relocate to storage,
and moving the newspapers to make space for the card catalogue. The Attendants
organised and handled the moves efficiently and with minimal interruption to
services.
An extremely satisfying project was the painting and outfitting of the
H&SS User Education Room which has proved to be much in demand. H&SS was
able to utilise some of its own funds to complete the task as no central funding
was available.
12.4 Acquisitions
Collection development has taken up much staff time this year. There has been an
increase in the purchase of non-book material eg some 200 foreign language
videos were added to the collection. Some notable additions to the Reference
collection were AGSM Annual Reports file; Anchor Bible Dictionary; AsiaROM;
Atlas of the World's Languages; Encyclopedias of: American Social History,
Cultural Democracy, Vietnam war, Modern Islamic World, the Reformation; and on
CD-ROM: America: History and Life, Australian Dictionary of Biography,
Australian Financial Review, Business Review Weekly, Goldsmiths' Kress
collection , Keesing's Archives, and Kompass.
12.5 Major Initiatives
H&SS elected to spend its 1995 Research Infrastructure Funds on multimedia
PCs, equipment and improved group viewing facilities. This decision was strongly
supported by the three faculties served by the branch as it is in line with
their plans for flexible delivery of courses.
Quality funds were used to purchase additional microfilm readers and
printers. Clients have expressed appreciation at the improved range of
multimedia services on offer.
The Politics Department generously provided funds to purchase two PCs to
provide access to a community database established in conjunction with other
Victorian universities.
|
