Goal 2: Information Resources: Collection Management

In 2004 the library endeavoured to ensure that the selection, acquisition, cataloguing, storage and preservation of scholarly information was in line with the needs and requirements of the university community.

Selecting new materials (both print and electronic)

Ensuring a sound framework for selection of materials

The Library Collection Development Policy  provides the framework for the selection of library materials to support teaching and research at Monash University. During 2004 the policy statements for several faculties were amended to reflect changes in courses offered. Librarians worked with academic staff throughout the year to select suitable new books, journals and electronic resources.

In order to expose Monash University to the widest array of new resources, 63 trials of online resources were organised and advertised. A number of new purchases were made as a result.

Acquiring and processing new materials (both print and electronic)

Building the library collection

Library resources were significantly improved in 2004 due to the 7.38 per cent increase in the budget allocation for the acquisition of library materials. This followed a significant increase in 2003, and presented a major challenge to select and acquire sufficient suitable materials within existing staff resources.

Of the available funds of $15.7 million, 19.9 per cent was spent on print journals, 39.9 per cent on licensed electronic resources and 40.3 per cent on print monographs (i.e. books, CDs, videos). This continues the trend of previous years

for an increased proportion of the budget to be spent on electronic resources and a decrease in the number of print journal subscriptions.

The strong Australian dollar continued to benefit the library collection budget.

Providing new electronic resources

The library was able to extend the range and depth of the collection through the licensing of a significant number of substantial new electronic resources in 2004. These included:

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Factiva - full text global news and business information.
• Business Source Premier
• New York Times Historical Archive 1851-2001
• The Times Digital Archive 1785-1985
• The Eighteenth Century - English language books printed in the Eighteenth Century
• Journal collections from Taylor and Francis, Springer, Institute of Physics and Cambridge University Press
• Extended backfiles of Elsevier titles (including The Lancet), Web of Knowledge, Engineering Index, Scientific American and Institute of Physics publications
• Online reference works from Dekker, Wiley, Gale and CRC Press

Providing new print resources

The library also increased the range of printed monographs. A record 53,590 orders were placed and 68,458 items were received.

Major new resources were acquired in print or microform, including:

• International Encyclopaedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences, Elsevier, 2001 (26 volumes)
• Records of the United States Department of State relating to the internal affairs of Japan 1945-1949 (39 reels)
• Records of the United States Department of State relating to the internal affairs of Korea (North and South); 1960-1963 (10 reels)
• Missionary files: Methodist Church 1912-1949: China (104 reels)
• United States Army Centre of Military History: historical manuscripts collection : the Korean War (15 reels)

The library acquisitions budget, totalling $15.7 million in 2004, was divided into three types of acquisitions - monographs (i.e books, other printed material, videos, CD-ROMs), print journals and electronic resources (i.e subscriptions to databases, online journals and books).

Receiving donated materials

Significant donations to the library received in 2004 included a major donation of 16 boxes of books, serials, documents, videos, music and other materials from the personal archive of the former King of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk. Emeritus Professor David Chandler and the King's personal Ambassador and biographer, Julio Jeldres, facilitated the donation.

Donations were also received from the National Assembly Library of Korea, the Korea Foundation, the Korean Consulate-General, Sydney, and the Japan Foundation, Dr Susan Blackburn and Dr Hung. These collections will all be housed in the Asian Studies Research Collection.

A large collection of holocaust memoirs was donated by the Centre for Jewish Studies and has been included in the Rare Books Collection. Other significant donations to the Rare Books Collection included a donation of medical Australiana from Dr Richard Travers; Australian children's books from Lindsay Shaw; and an archival set of Sun Books (an Australian publishing firm operational in the 1960's and 70's) publications from Brian Stonier and John Arnold.

Library staff from the Asian Studies Research Collection, pictured with items donated by the Japan Foundation.

Preserving the collection through appropriate storage and treatment

Weeding and storing the print collections

The increased acquisitions budget resulted in large numbers of new print titles being added to the collection in all branches. With collection space already crowded the branches adopted various methods to accommodate these welcome new titles:

• At the Law Library staff moved reference copies of theses into closed compactus shelving and highlighted new titles in a new books display.

• Staff at the Berwick Library adopted a rigorous six-monthly weeding program, ensuring that superseded textbooks are no longer available.

• The Matheson Library completed the integration of two journal collections into a continuous sequence now re-shelved over two full floors.

• Hargrave-Andrew Library staff weeded large numbers of serials to the CARM Centre to accommodate the start of the building refurbishment.

The librarians supporting the Faculty of Business and Economics completed a review of journal subscriptions and implemented a number of processes to ensure better collection management. The review ensured complete journal runs were housed together, that binding programs were current and that duplicate and damaged journals were removed or replaced.

Storing low-use items

As part of the refurbishment of the Hargrave-Andrew Library 23,500 low-use journal volumes were transferred to the CAVAL Archive and Research Materials Centre (known as the CARM Centre). Records for these were removed from the library catalogue and holdings information for remaining titles updated. A further 9146 journal volumes now available online were also transferred to the CARM Centre.

Over 2000 low-use books were also transferred to the CARM Centre from all branches, freeing space for newer materials.

Promoting and preserving the university's recorded intellectual output

Creating Australian Research Repositories Online to the World infrastructure

Monash University is the lead institution in a consortial project funded by the federal government as part of its Backing Australia's Ability initiative. The other partners of the three year Australian Research Repositories Online to the World (ARROW) project are the University of New South Wales, Swinbune University of Technology and the National Library of Australia.

In 2004 the consortial framework was established, substantial progress was made towards the development of the repository software, the National Library created a national resource discovery service to overlay the repositories and individual consortia members explored content strategies for their repositories.

Adding Monash resources to the ARROW repository

• Digitising theses
  The library gained approval from the Research Graduate School Committee to mandate the electronic depositing of doctoral theses (other than visual and performing arts) from mid-2005 in ARROW. Abstracts of theses will be visible to external visitors in ARROW although the Monash community will have access to the full text electronically. The full text to external users will be made available by request from the library's document delivery service. A print version of all theses will be retained for archival purposes, but the microfilm copy will be discontinued when electronic versions come online. In December 642 pre-2004 theses were digitised to be included in ARROW in 2005.

• Migrating content from the ePrint Repository
  As part of the ARROW implementation the library's eprint repository was discontinued and the existing eprint papers will be migrated into ARROW in 2005.

• Digitising the Centre for Gippsland Studies Picture Collection
  A proposal for digitisation of the Centre for Gippsland Studies Picture Collection (approximately 4000 items consisting of photographs, photo prints, slides and transparencies) for inclusion in ARROW was developed and accepted in 2004. Inclusion in the repository will enable web access to this collection for the first time in 2005.

Supporting scholarly communication via the Monash University ePress

A major milestone in advancing scholarly communication innovation was achieved in 2004, with the release in November by the Monash University ePress of its first two publications, the journals The Bible and Critical Theory, edited by Dr Roland Boer, and History Australia, edited by Professor Marian Quartly. The ePress utilises advanced commercial software, supported by customised software developed for particular purposes. In 2005 the ePress will be formally launched, and it will concentrate on building content.

Providing information and resources through the library catalogue and the website

Building and improving catalogue content

Forty-six thousand and forty-five records were created for new print, microform and audio-visual materials in 2004.

Staff continually improved the accuracy of the catalogue, either as part of their everyday work (with over 100,000 records being changed or added to) or as projects when these are identified as causing problems for library users.

Some of the projects undertaken to improve the coverage and quality of the library catalogue included:

• cataloguing of the choral music backlog and the microfilm backlog
• creating catalogue records for over 11,000 titles in the Rare Books Collection;
• updating 44,581 authority records to provide consistent access via the catalogue to personal and corporate names;
• adding local holdings data for approximately 2200 multi-volume monographs;
• correcting language codes for Japanese materials (and some other languages) to allow users to locate titles only in the languages they require;
• correcting errors in foreign language records with diacritics and other non-MARC errors in preparation for, and following, the major upgrade to the library system;

In addition, maintenance activities included deleting 2000 records for lost items; upgrading records where there was no location associated with a title; correcting thousands of spelling errors and replacing over 3000 sub-standard records with full records.

Improving catalogue usability

A long-awaited increase in the 'time out' of the library catalogue was introduced in late 2004 and means users now have triple the time to view, print and access catalogue records and services. This will alleviate problems for users with slower internet connections. The library has been aware of the time out complaints for a number of years, but had previously been unable to extend the time out due to (now-altered) software licence restrictions.

Undertaking a catalogue usability study

A catalogue usability study commenced in late 2004 with an analysis of comments from the customer survey of May 2003, general user feedback, and staff feedback. A review of other recent studies of catalogues run by the same software system, competitor analysis of over sixty other comparable catalogues and search log analysis were used to set priorities and establish the process for the usability study. The usability study will be completed in mid 2005.

Improving the library website

The library launched its new look, easier to use library website in February 2004. The new website is a response to user feedback and a university-wide push to improve usability of Monash's web presence. It also conforms to the new university identity and incorporates the new content management system.

The old library home page in January 2004 (top), transformed in February 2004 to a more user - friendly and cohesive source of information (bottom).