Definition
Relocation of acquisitions and cataloguing functions (13,370 sq.ft.) to non-library space on the campus perimeter or close to it.
Requirements
Flexible office-type space, with staff facilities and loading dock. Communication links to campus libraries and computer installations are essential.
Gain In Shelf Space
145,000 volumes.
Start-Up Financial Costs
Minimum renovation costs, but an additional vehicle and staff for transporting library staff and library materials between campus libraries and processing areas is required.
Continuing Financial Costs
See above.
Effects On Staff Morale
Potential risk of isolation and alienation from main library activities and decisions. Compensation could be made through good working conditions, convenient and adequate parking, and development of effective communication systems (for information, people, and material).
Effects On the Accessibility Of the Collection
Not relevant.
Potential Resistance
Staff concerns - see above.
Long-Term vs Short-Term Solution
Medium to long-term implications for space planning in the Porter Library.
Definition
Centralization of reserve services in a dedicated facility, with collections, circulation services, and reader space (6,380 sq.ft.).
Requirements
Secure area, centrally located on the South Campus, with adequate space for housing and servicing reserve collections, photocopying facilities, and comfortable public areas for reading and study.
Gain In Shelf Space
64,000 volumes.
Start-Up Financial Costs
Equipping of new facility.
Continuing Financial Costs
Potential increase if full service is continued in Davis and Porter in the evenings and at weekends. Otherwise no increase in staff costs is anticipated.
Effects On Staff Morale
Not anticipated, provided proper attention is given to working conditions.
Effects On the Accessibility Of the Collection
Danger that resources in the main collections will not be so visible to the undergraduate.
Potential Resistance
Initial user confusion and reluctance to accept change.
Long-Term vs Short-Term Solution
Short-term solution for collections, but long-term implications for services to students, and undergraduates in particular.
Definition
Removal of existing Rare Books and Special Collections Department to building in closer proximity to the University Archives.
Requirements
A specially-constructed facility (3,000 sq.ft.), combined with the University Archives, with high HVAC standards, security controls, and staff and public work and reading areas.
Gain In Shelf Space
30,000 volumes (on compact shelving).
Start-Up Financial Costs
Relocation costs of Rare Books; dismantling and re-installation of compact shelving; moving of rare books collection; installation of HVAC to standards.
Continuing Financial Costs
Dependent upon location and nature of the facilities occupied.
Effects On Staff Morale
Problems of communication, especially for processing functions such as cataloguing. Isolation in general, and diminished interaction with the user community.
Effects on the Accessibility Of the Collection
More inconvenient to access; more travel time; less visibility and familiarity with the collection. Drop in use could place future of the collection in jeopardy , i.e. no longer considered relevant.
Potential Resistance
Principally from faculty who base teaching and research on the resources in the Rare Books and Special Collections Department.
Long-Term vs Short-Term Solution
Short-term with respect to collections space, but long-term with respect to planning for the development of Rare Books and Special Collections Department.
Definition
Relocation of the Porter Government Documents Collection (11,900 sq.ft.).
Requirements
Adequate space for existing and projected collections, workspace for staff and information services, and reading space. The facility should be centrally located, and convenient for students and faculty in the social and environmental sciences.
Gain In Shelf Space
129,000 volumes.
Start-Up Financial Costs
Relocation costs.
Continuing Financial Costs
May be an increase in staff costs to service area as an independent unit.
Effects on Staff Morale
Risk of isolation and frustration from the inability to provide response to as great a variety of user needs as at present.
Effects On the Accessibility Of the Collection
See comments above regarding the Reserves Collection. A lower profile for government documents is a risk. The Library has worked to break down the barriers that exist to the effective use of the government documents collection. To isolate the collection would have a negative impact upon its perceived accessibility.
Potential Resistance
Staff and users may be unhappy at the fragmentation of the library collection. The government documents collection in the Porter Library has been developed specifically to meet the needs of students and faculty in the disciplines of political science, history, sociology, psychology, applied health sciences, geography and man/environment resource studies. When asked to rate the relative importance of various types of library material, graduate students in Environmental Studies gave government documents a score of 4.2 out of a possible 5.0; books scored 4.0.
A recent use study has confirmed that the collection is also used extensively in conjunction with other material in the Porter stacks, e.g. in the areas of taxation, financial accounting, and national statistics. Some users would be seriously inconvenienced by the arbitrary decentralization of essential sources of information.
Long-Term vs Short-Term Solution
A medium term solution to the collections space problem, but there are long-term implications for servicing government documents.
The concern for more effective use of space might be addressed by the decentralization of library collections, and allowing the creation and growth of departmental libraries and reading rooms. Even in circumstances where the practical considerations of a pedagogical, political or administrative nature are set aside, the costs of the duplication of library materials, staff, services and space must be considered.
Gain in shelf space
This argument is based on the proposition that there are significant departmental collections of material relating to highly specialized disciplines and that they are of little use to anyone else. The case is strongest for such collections in the laboratory based sciences, where experiments in progress may require consultation without delay of certain handbooks, journals or other reference sources. Except for these circumstances, there are very few subjects of interest to only one set of people; most subjects overlap departmentally, and many overlap between faculties. Moreover, the proliferation of branch and departmental libraries leads to the duplication of collections and services, reducing any gains in shelf space that may have been made by decentralization.
Start-up and continuing financial costs
If space can be found within a department or faculty it will be at the expense of space the department or faculty might well use for other purposes: student faculty common rooms, laboratories, classrooms, graduate student offices, meeting rooms. If sufficient library-quality space can be created in several departments, it can be reasoned that such space might also be consolidated to provide space for library functions which need not be located in the central libraries: cataloguing, acquisitions, collections management, binding preparation, systems and automation, and administration offices.
Departmental libraries must be staffed and lead to wasteful duplication of administration, staffing, processing, staff and space is easily underestimated.
The costs to maintain the small, as well as the full-fledged departmental library, for books, processing, staff and space is easily underestimated.
Effects on staff morale and accessibility of the Collection
Staff morale is affected by their inability to properly serve users. Inconvenience to staff and especially users results from titles being dispersed geographically throughout the university.
It is more difficult to protect library materials against loss when they are dispersed to departmental libraries.
Resistance
A scattered library favours departmental provincialism; it penalizes the best student and faculty members who range beyond the shelves of their specialty. The fragmentation of a university library tends to discourage the peripheral research which relates one field of endeavour to another, and such a tendency may detract from the strength and vitality of scholarship. The degree of cross disciplinary use of expertise and resources in the academic community may be expected to increase. Any member of the academic community interested in interdisciplinary research and teaching will resist a system of departmental libraries that takes an enquirer to two or more different places, which in the contest of enquiry, should constitute a unit.
David Emery
Associate Librarian, Collections
University of Waterloo Library
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
519 888 4883
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