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Support teaching, learning and research by making course and research materials readily available for undergraduate and postgraduate students and staff.
Provide loans services from any branch of Monash University Library
Lending Services continued to provide materials as detailed in Appendix 1. The following initiatives commenced in 2008:
- In response to the new Monash Passport, loan privileges for honours and postgraduate coursework students were increased to align with those for higher degree research students and staff.
- A trial return system at the City Law Chambers was implemented in collaboration with the Faculty. The system was later approved as an ongoing service.
- The shelf life for holds was extended to 7 days, leading to more items being collected by users. The practice of collecting holds from users’ home libraries was discontinued in order to reduce staff workload and to increase open access shelf life.
- The Pharmacy Library trialled open access holds, allowing students to collect items they have requested from other branches from an open area of the Library. The implementation of open or browsable holds arrangements is being considered at other branches.
- Loan access to off site storage material was extended to include alumni and CAVAL borrowers.
- DVD security tagging was implemented in all branches. This system allows DVDs to be stored securely on open shelves and provides consistency in storage and retrieval across branches.
- Changes in housing and access for materials on hold and reserves, for example, achieves to important benefits of enabling users to browse the materials at the same time as reducing manual handling tasks for Library attendants.
Provide reserve collections and electronic reading lists
Open reserve systems were successfully implemented in the Pharmacy Library and trialled at the Gippsland Library. This initiative will be extended to other branches.
Readings and Reserve Services Review
The Readings and Reserve Service is heavily used by academics and students. The service was developed over a number of years and had become very resource intensive and complex, involving a variety of software, systems and processes. An extensive review resulted in more uniform and streamlined processes and the recommendation to acquire a new platform for improved electronic reading list management. The new software was approved for implementation in 2009.
Facilitate access to other libraries' collections
Through the CAVAL Reciprocal Borrowing Program staff and students from Monash University borrowed 21,593 items from 28 other Victorian academic libraries, a decrease of 14% against the 2007 data. Introduction of a fee to help recover costs of loans for staff and students using the University Libraries Australia (ULA) national borrowing scheme resulted in a reduction in the use of this service in 2008.
Obtain materials from other libraries for postgraduate students and staff
Providing rapid delivery of material from other libraries and commercial suppliers remains an integral part of research support to Monash staff and postgraduate students.
During the year 23,130 document delivery requests were received from Monash staff and students, of which 12,669 were processed. An additional 8,116 items were supplied to other libraries. This continues an ongoing trend of a gradual decline in requests (5-8%), partially due to increasing availability of digital book and journal collections. The fill rate of 90% is the same as 2007 and turnaround times for books (6.9 days) and copies (3.69 days) compare favourably to 2007.
Following the decision to replace the CLIO Inter-Library Loan Management system, Relais was selected as a cost effective, system that is being increasingly adopted by university and government organisations within Australia. It will be implemented in 2009.
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