Library Update - Spring 2010

Library

Book Launch for John English's Trudeau Biography, V.2 - The Library hosted a book launch for volume two of John English's Trudeau biography in collaboration with the University of Waterloo BookStore, the Faculty of Arts, and Canadian International Council. The event was moderated by University of Waterloo's President, David Johnston, during which English touched on some of the major topics developed in his book.
Primo — Primo Project Manager, Alison Hitchens, visited ExLibris' head office in Jerusalem this winter to take part in collaborative testing for a major Primo upgrade scheduled for later this year.

The Library recently added over 250,000 e-books to Primo from HathiTrust, a digital library for American research libraries. The addition boosted the Library's e-book holdings to over half a million titles.
The Primo upgrade to version 3.0 is scheduled for local loading and testing this summer with a public release planned for the fall.

Engineering Village Newsletter — Engineering Village, one of the Library's largest database platforms, featured the research of Waterloo's Engineering faculty and students in its latest newsletter. Listen to the interview or read the interview summary.
Scopus™ Day — The Library and Elsevier Inc. jointly hosted their second Scopus™Day at Waterloo this spring. Scopus™representatives and the Library's Scopus™ Student Ambassador hosted two research sessions for faculty and graduate students and staffed information booths at various library locations.
Special Collections —
- Best of 2009 — Special Collections released its best of 2009. The list includes collections now open to researchers and includes the Electrohome fonds, Grand River Conservation Commission fonds, Greb Industries Limited fonds, and more.
- Digital Collections —Special Collections launched its digital collections with the online exhibit Views of Berlin and Kitchener: Local Souvenir Albums. This featured collection contains a selection of souvenir booklets depicting Berlin/Kitchener at the turn of the 20th century.
Library Surveys — The Library participated in the LibQUAL+ survey and commenced participation in the MINES survey.

Web Site Redesign — The University of Waterloo hired White Whale Web Services to redesign its website. White Whale consultants delivered a proposed homepage in mid-March and are continuing their design work based on feedback received on this early concept.
The University of Waterloo's Financial Situation — University of Waterloo administrators are reviewing the university's operating budget in response to the release of the provincial budget. A revised budget is scheduled to go before Senate and the Board of Governors in coming months. President David Johnston, Provost Feridun Hamdullahpur, and Vice President, External Relations Meg Beckel held a "town hall" meeting in early April to answer questions relating to the impact of the provincial budget, among other topics.
A New Building on the Health Sciences Campus — The University of Waterloo and McMaster University opened a second building on the Downtown Kitchener Health Sciences Campus, which will house McMaster's Waterloo Regional Campus of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.
VeloCity's Entrepreneur Bootcamp — VeloCity announced that it will run a Entrepreneur Bootcamp this summer for young tech entrepreneurs. The camp will run from May to July at VeloCity, the hybrid student residence and high-tech incubator.

Administrative Assistant
Last Updated: November 10, 2009