16 Caulfield/Peninsula Branch Library
16.1 Major Initiatives
Monash-Mt. Eliza (MME) Relocation.
Monash-Mt. Eliza Ltd. is in the process of relocating from the Clayton campus to
Caulfield, to occupy four levels of a new building. MME administrative staff
have already met with relevant Caulfield staff, the Business Subject Librarian
has notified them of the library services at Caulfield Library to which their
students will be entitled, and MME staff have met with Caulfield staff to be
introduced to the procedures associated with placing material on Reserve at
Caulfield. Reading lists have been given to the Subject Librarian to enable any
necessary additional titles to be acquired.
Stocktake and weeding.
Caulfield Library staff continued the stocktake of Caulfield's monograph
collection and the associated amendments to the Item records in the PALS
database. At Peninsula, stocktaking commenced, and in addition weeding of the
collection was undertaken in order to ensure that old, little used, duplicate
material need not be transferred when the move to the new building takes place.
Express Transaction Unit (ETU).
An ETU was purchased for the Caulfield Library as a step towards providing a
more rapid charge-out capability at the Lending Services Desk, a help as the
number of library users increases each year. In addition, concomitant to use of
the ETU and other new technology, a start was made on attaching a barcode to the
front cover of each book at Caulfield Library and good progress on the project
was made in the last week of the University year.
16.2 User Education
At both campuses, training has commenced for academics in using the OVID
databases. Academics from the Faculty of Business and Economics are keen to be
able to access ABI Global Full-text from PCs in their offices. Access to the
Internet was made available from an increased number of PCs at both campuses,
and Library users made good use of the facility. Access to the Examination
Database also became available and was appreciated by students.
16.3 Accommodation and Refurbishment
An Adaptive Technology room in each Campus Library has been made available for
the purpose of providing students with disabilities with the opportunity to
access electronic services. The equipment in these rooms have been provided by
the Disability Liaison Unit and includes a computer with a voice synthesiser and
zoom text.
At Caulfield, a submission for increased space on Level 2 of the Library
building has been presented to the Caulfield Campus Director's Planning
Committee. Members of the Committee were sympathetic to the need for increased
library space, especially in view of the influx of a large group of Monash-Mt.
Eliza postgraduate students early in 1997.
16.4 Acquisitions
Electronic Services.
Reuter Business Briefs is available online from a terminal located in the
Library. This database is updated on a daily basis and provides a range of
business information including the full text of articles from several Australian
newspapers. CCH Electronic Tax Library and Financial Factfile can be consulted
at Caulfield. General Periodicals Ondisc, a full text database of 376
periodicals in the areas of arts, social sciences, business and computing can
soon be accessed at Caulfield. Access to the full text databases ABI Global
(Business) and the Core Biomedical Collection will shortly be available from
terminals in the two libraries. In addition The Age newspaper on CD-ROM,
Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald and Business Review Weekly
will shortly be added to Caulfield's CD-ROM network.
The Oxford English Dictionary on CD and Visible Human CD have been received
by the Peninsula library and are available for access. The latter is
particularly useful to Nursing students.
A large Australian politics press-cutting collection on microfiche has been
added to the library and will be of use to the students of Politics from 1997.
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