Shelf Life


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Contents

Dixson Library Treasure Exhibited at National Conference
Enhanced Library Access
GEAC'S Current database of the month is ATSIROM
Purchasing Power Diminished
Staff Changes
FirstCall Survey Responses Generally Positive
VC's Awards for Service
Which Search Engine?
"Inside" at the British Library
Confusion about Electronic Journal Access
Serials Relegation Project
Earlier Issues
Your Contacts at Dixson Library

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Dixson Library Treasure Exhibited at national Conference

portrait
The Dixson Library will play a small but significant part in a national conference being held in Canberra in September. Entitled 'Malthus and his legacy: 200 years of the population debate', the conference will examine the impact of the British economist, Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), on population thinking from the late 18th to the 21st century.
The Dixson Library's contribution will be the appearance, in a public exhibition organised by the National Library, of an original letter penned by Malthus in 1825. The letter was donated to the Dixson Library by a member of the UNE Economics Department, Associate Professor John Pullen, who acquired it in 1985 in the course of his research into Malthus.
The letter refers to books that Malthus is about to read and publishers with whom he dealt. Written at East India College on January 18, 1825, it begins:

Dear Sir,
I hope the books which were to be bound are nearly finished and that you will be able to send them very soon.

An engraving of T.R. Malthus, based on a portrait by John Linnell.

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Enhanced Library Access

The University Librarians of all universities in NSW and the ACT have agreed to allow reciprocal borrowing by all staff and students of the other cooperating institutions. This means that all staff and students (internal and external) will be able to borrow from the libraries of any other NSW or ACT universities.
GEAC'S Current Database of
The Month is ATSIROM
ATSIROM brings together an
extensive collection of Australian
databases containing selected
bibliographic records from the
country's leading sources relating
to Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people.

Remember you can access
databases which are being trialled
by the Library via the Library's
Trial Page at http://www.une.
edu.au/library/new/trial.htm
For students, a fee of $40 is involved. For each UNE student registering with another NSW or ACT university library, $40 will be payable to the "host" library.
In support of UNE students the Dixson Library will pay twenty dollars towards the charge, thereby reducing the cost for our students to $20 per institution.
In the past, with the exception of the trial run this year with UTS, our students have either been denied borrowing access to metropolitan libraries, or charged fees. The smallest fee was $50 (Macquarie University) and fees as high as $400 were not unknown.
From the beginning of 1999 every student of the UNE will be able to borrow from the library of any NSW or ACT university by forwarding an application to the Dixson Library and enclosing a payment of $20 for each such library with which they wish to register.
This access to the libraries of other major universites is a great advance in reciprocal borrowing for UNE students in NSW and the ACT and one that will be widely appreciated, particularly in metropolitan areas where almost one half of our external students live. The Dixson Library is very pleased that long term negotiations on reciprocal borrowing have lead to this important facility being opened up to UNE students.
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Purchasing Power Diminished

 University libraries in Australia, including Dixson, are undergoing a drastic cut in the purchasing power of their budgets.
As much as 30% of the value of acquisition budgets is now being lost, owing to the combined effects of high inflation on scholarly publications (ca.10% pa) and the major weakening of the Australian Dollar. The continuing cuts in Dixson's journal subscriptions is well known, but it corresponds to reductions in other Australian academic libraries - for example, the University of Sydney ($1m worth of subscriptions) and ANU ($750,000).
For the UNE community, preserving the Dixson Library's capacity to maintain its acquisition rate of journals and books would require, not just that the Library's current level of funding be sustained (whereas it is proposed that this will be significantly cut in 1999), but that a major increase in its budget be approved.
University libraries are often urged to band together to prevent the cancellation of the same journals, and thus maintain as broad a spread as possible of scholarly literature. Certainly Australian university libraries have sought to coordinate cancellation programs, and have also been active in arranging discounted access to electronic information sources. (For example, 'Current Contents costs the Dixson Library about a quarter of the rate it would pay without the consortial subscription negotiated by the Council of Australian University Librarians.)
Karl Schmude Yet there are two major obstacles to the rationalisation of journal subscriptions across universities. The first is the lack of rationalisation of academic programs across institutions. The Dixson Library, for example, must serve the teaching and research programs of UNE, and these are not coordinated with other universities: rather the opposite in a milieu of market contention. The academic priorities of UNE are always apt to be at odds, at various critical points, with any national or regional program of collection rationalisation. University libraries are far less inclined or able to be collaborative when their parent institutions are increasingly committed to competition.
The second obstacle is the economics of scholarly publishing, which dictate that libraries maintaining subscriptions end up paying for those which make cancellations. When a library ceases a subscription, the publisher simply raises the price to those libraries maintaining it: this is one of the reasons for the inordinately high inflation on scholarly journals, and it vitiates any effort to coordinate cancellations across Australian university libraries (which are, in any case, few in number and insignificant on the global stage).
Is there hope to be found in the 'electronic revolution'? Will the Internet, backed up by Document Delivery, provide an effective substitute for locally held print collections? It is, perhaps, too early to say, as we are still in a period of transition, and electronic information - especially of a high-quality, peer-reviewed kind - has not yet reached a critical mass of scholarly use and acceptability.
But the key issue is likely to be copyright. In the print era, intellectual property has long been surrendered by universities and academic authors to commercial publishers. Unless this right is recaptured by institutions and scholars, it is hard to envisage any change to the price burden of academic publication. Publishers will simply charge heavily for electronic use, in compensation for their loss of revenue from ceased print subscriptions.
The only challenge to this hegemony would be if universities seriously took control of their own publishing output, and stopped giving away their intellectual property to commercial entities; for they, in turn, sell it back to universities, via their libraries, at a huge impost.
Karl G. Schmude
University Librarian

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FirstCall Survey Responses Generally Positive

The evaluation of the FirstCall trial included a survey of the service's client base. The survey was designed to ascertain the level of client satisfaction with the new service and to help identify where changes or improvements are deemed necessary.
The survey was distributed to a wide cross section of the University community via various means, including all Academic staff in the June issue of ShelfLife, internal students and general staff at the FirstCall desk, Student Services and the Union and to off campus students via UNE News and the web.

Staff Changes

 Alison Hughes, Librarian
(Law Library) has taken a
year as leave without pay.
In her absence, Jude Stott
will be acting in that position.
Jude will be assisted by
Ghislaine Alventoza until
Alison's return.
Of the two hundred and seventeen responses 58% had used the service in person at the FirstCall Desk, 29% by telephone and 13% via email. 54% had used the service for computer related queries and 46% for library. The responses were generally favourable with 36% of respondents indicating they were very satisfied and 31% satified with overall responses received from FirstCall.
Quite a few respondents took the opportunity to complete the comments section of the survey with mixed results. A number expressed concern at the distance between FirstCall and the labs in the ITS building, the level of computing expertise available in the FirstCall team and the length of time taken for responses to computing queries which are referred to ITS staff. On the other hand most respondents were very positive about the professional and friendly approach displayed by FirstCall staff and the fact that the service is staffed whenever the Library is open.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the survey - your input is invaluable.

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VC's Awards for Service

In the initial round of Awards for Excellence for General Staff, recently announced by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ingrid Moses, Library and ITS staff were prominent. Two Library staff members received an award for Service - Moving the University Forward: Sharon Lenord, FirstCall Coordinator, for her work in the establishment of the FirstCall service and Alison Hughes, Librarian (Law Library) for establishing the Law Library's electronic information service. Alison's award was shared with Bernie Groen and Robert Webster of the Faculty of Economics, Business and Law.
Sharon and Alison have made a significant contribution to the advancement of the University, and to the service the University is able to deliver to UNE staff and students. While this award marks their particular achievements, it also acknowledges the part which all staff have played in these two initiatives.
As well, Janice Johnson of the Ellis Thorpe Map Library (with Terry Cooke) received the Vice-Chancellor's award for Service - Moving the University Forward for establishing the Association of Geography and Planning Alumni; and Greg Rose of the Network Systems Service, ITS received the Vice-Chancellor's award for Ourstanding Service for his level of commitment to maintaining the network.

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tribal mask Dixson Library is currently displaying some of the fascinating acquisitions recently made by the Museum of Antiquities. They range from ancient Egyptian artefacts to examples of today's tribal wares from Indonesia.

Which Search Engine?

Looking for resources on the World Wide Web? Try the links on Dixson Library's Electronic Resources page at http://www.une.edu.au/library/elecres/elecres.htm. The easiest way to find what you want from the seemingly unlimited possibilities is to use a search engine. To find out what these search engines do, how they work and which are the best for your purposes, click on the link Search Engines, and then on Comparing Search Engines at the bottom of the web page.
Dixson Library has grouped together an array of search engines to provide you with a large selection of ways to find information. You can search by keyword or by subject, for Australian material or for facts about organisations. Use several search engines simultaneously or link to other websites offering access to other ranges of engines. Each search engine has its own Help screens to show you how to combine terms to conduct a more efficient and precise search.
Another useful link via Electronic Resources at the above URL is to Useful Internet Resources. These are categorised by general subject area and provide links to specific websites about particular topics e.g. Australian Bureau of Statistics, The WWW Virtual Library, Australian Literature on the Internet, and Internet Chemistry Resources. The links are updated by Dixson Library staff, who would be delighted to add more sites for the benefit of UNE staff and students. Please contact your Faculty Librarian should you know of other informative sites.
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"Inside" at the British Library

 The Dixson Library Document Services Unit is trialling Inside, the British Library's integrated online service which brings the British Library collection direct to your desktop - allowing you to search, order and receive delivery of articles from a single service.
Inside makes the 20,000 most requested serials searchable down to article title level, with 1,300 also having abstracts available. In addition, 16,000 conference proceedings can be searched and papers or articles from these, or any of the British library's 250,000 serial titles, ordered on-line. Development of the Inside database was begun in 1993 and it now contains 10,000,000 record with 8,000 new ones being added each day. The contents of new issues are added within 72 hours of receipt.
The annual subscription for access to Inside searching and current awareness is very low. Going beyond the search facility to order a document involves a fixed delivery charge (£7) plus a variable copyright charge. Because of the way Inside is set up (in collaboration with publishers), the total document delivery charge is typically twice the current $12 set by the Dixson Library, or more. When measuring Inside docdel costs against those associated with traditional document services or local holdings through serials subscriptions, these charges may compare well.
Inside can be managed in a number of ways, but in fully implemented form it allows an unmediated document delivery service based on the huge resouces of the British Library. That is to say, when fully implemented, users are in direct contact with the supplying service - they can search the database, identify an item of interest, order it and have it back to their fax machine the next day.
The particular attraction of Inside lies in the fact that it is based on the very large collections of an institution which has as its main function, and a long term commitment to, the provision of document delivery services.
Part of the first stage of the Dixson Library's trial will be to assess the value of the Inside searching facility.
If you would like to try Inside searching for yourself, contact Document Services Librarian, Sylvia Ransom (sransom@metz.une.edu.au or phone ext 2069) and register your interest. A User ID and password will be issued to you as soon as they become available. line
Confusion about
Electronic Journal Access
Throughout 1997 Dixson
Library trialed a number of
electronic journal packages.
Two of these trial packages,
organised by the Council of
Australian University Libraries
(CAUL), were Academic Press's
IDEAL and IAC's Expanded
Academic ASAP.
After a lengthy trial period it
was decided that we would
subscribe to Expanded
Academic ASAP.
Although CAUL was advised
that Dixson Library would not
be subscribing to IDEAL,
Academic Press (which
publishes IDEAL) has recently
been advising academic staff
at UNE that they do have
access to IDEAL. This is not
the case.

Serials Relegation Project

 The Library has recently created a web page, http://www.une.edu.au/library/relegat.htm, which enables academic staff to review lists of journals which have been identified for transfer to the Storage Collection. The journal titles meet the criteria in the Dixson Library Relegation Policy which states that "ceased or cancelled journal titles" may be removed from the open shelves and placed in the Storage Collection. Journal titles held in Storage remain in the online catalogue and can be retrieved through the FirstCall desk in Dixson Library.
The Library has put these titles on the web so that academic staff may review the lists and advise the Library of any titles which, for specific reasons, they feel should remain on the Library's open shelves. If you have concerns, please contact Sandra Rothwell (Acting Collection Services Librarian) srothwel@metz by the date given on the web page.
CLOSING DATE: These lists are posted for the advice and comment of academic staff in relevant disciplines until the advertised closing date. After this date the journals will be transferred to the Library's Storage Collection, and the list of titles removed from this site will be added to the "Storage Collection - Serials" site at http://www.une.edu.au/library/storage.htm.

Comments and suggestions about Shelf Life should be directed to the editor, Sharon Lenord. ext 3111 or email: slenord@metz.une.edu.au

YOUR CONTACTS AT DIXSON LIBRARY

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Compiled by Tracy Cooper. Last revised 5 February 1999
Email:tcooper@metz.une.edu.au
© 1999 University of New England, Armidale, NSW, 2351
This URL is: http://metz.une.edu.au/~tcooper/shelf/shelfs8.htm

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