School of Pharmacy
Library Accreditation Report
Library Facilities
Richard Pinnell
Manager, Branch Library Services
8 May 2006
The University of Waterloo Library will be provided with sufficient budget by the University to fund completely the set-up costs and annual operating costs of the Pharmacy Branch Library (hereafter the “Pharmacy Library” or “Library”). An estimate of these costs is available from the Manager, Branch Library Services.
- Quantitative and qualitative aspects of the collection (print and electronic)
- Quantitative aspects
The UW Library’s print collection for Pharmacy will be housed in the Pharmacy Branch Library, a branch of the University of Waterloo Library. The Pharmacy Library will be located temporarily in space on the 3rd floor of the King Wing, School of Pharmacy Building, Kitchener. The Library will later relocate to more permanent quarters on the main floor of the Railside Wing of the School of Pharmacy Building. In its temporary King Wing location the Library will occupy a space of 318 net assignable square meters (NASM). The space allocation for the print collection is estimated to be 48 NASM. This amount of space will be adequate to house approximately 3,000 print volumes on 15 double faced sections, 5 shelves per section.
Print materials including print journals, books and monographic series, and reference publications will be purchased by the Library’s Acquisitions unit, catalogued and physically processed by the Library’s Cataloguing unit, and then sent to the Pharmacy Library for shelving. Physical processing involves attaching the following labels and tags to each bibliographic item: a barcode label (for circulation purposes), a call number spine label, and a security-system tag or target.
Students and faculty in the School of Pharmacy will have ready access to the print resources that are housed in the libraries on the Waterloo campus, located only 5.5 km distant by road. Of particular interest will be the collections in the Davis Centre Library in the William G. Davis Computer Research Centre; at present, the total number of books in Davis for engineering, mathematics and science is 276,611 and total number of current serials titles (print) is 852. Among the science-related books and periodicals in Davis are large collections of library resources in chemistry, biology, and the health sciences.
Members of the academic community in the School of Pharmacy will be able to request books or copies of articles in journals held by any of the three members of the TriUniversity Group of Libraries (i.e., University of Guelph, Wilfrid Laurier University, and University of Waterloo) in any of their physical locations by placing a hold or recall on TRELLIS, our online union library catalogue. Items or photocopies will be delivered within 1-3 business days. Pharmacy students and faculty will have access to the UW Library’s Interlibrary Loan/Document Delivery (ILL) service to request books, copies of journal articles, theses, and government documents from libraries (other than the TriUniversity Group of Libraries) within Canada and abroad. The UW Library uses the RACER Web-based interlibrary loan system.
Since the 1990s, the clear trend in scholarly communication within Pharmacy and allied health disciplines has been in the direction of electronic publishing. E-journals are now more prevalent than print journals. Reference resources are more likely to be available online or released on CD-ROM or DVD. Much of the UW Library’s Pharmacy acquisitions budget will be expended to provide online access to e-journals, research databases (e.g., indexes, abstracts, and full text), electronic reference resources, and increasingly e-books.
Electronic resources that are purchased or licensed by the UW Library are accessible to all members of the UW academic community and therefore will be accessible to students, faculty, and staff in the School of Pharmacy. Those members of the academic community who are working off campus or not connected to the campus network may access these electronic resources by logging onto the UW Library’s proxy server.
Many e-resources are purchased by the UW Library through its participation in the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) consortium and are made available through OCUL’s Scholars Portal. In the fields of engineering, mathematics, and sciences, the UW Library currently has access to 3,158 e-journals. In those disciplinary areas of particular interest to Pharmacy, the UW Library currently has access to 559 e-journals, including 69 in pharmacology and 61 in pharmacy. For the same disciplinary areas of interest to Pharmacy, the UW Library currently has 16,392 print volumes including 1,218 in pharmacology and 522 in pharmacy.
Research databases that will be of particular interest to Pharmacy include: PubMed (Medline) EMBASE, Web of Science, SciFinder Scholar (Chemical Abstracts), Biological Abstracts, PsycInfo, Cochrane Library, Lippincott/Williams/Wilkins Collection, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, CINAHL, and Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database. Online reference publications and pharmacopeias that will be of interest to Pharmacy include: Micromedex web databases, the Merck Manuals, e-CPS, Stat!Ref, AHFS Drug Information, Harrison’s Principles, and others. Some of these electronic resources are currently available to members of the UW academic community whereas others will be considered for purchase by the Pharmacy Librarian. Pharmacy Library funds may be expended to increase the number of existing licences for selected electronic resources (e.g., SciFinder Scholar) that receive heavy use by Pharmacy students and faculty.
- Qualitative aspects
The Pharmacy Liaison Librarian will select print and electronic resources in accordance with the UW Library’s written collection development policy statement for Pharmacy; drafted by the Pharmacy Librarian, this statement will be reviewed and approved by the Director, School of Pharmacy and other faculty. Other library resources, principally scholarly books, will be received automatically from the UW Library’s various approval plan dealers in accordance with the UW Library’s Approval Plan Profile for Pharmacy; the Pharmacy Librarian will consult with Pharmacy faculty before finalizing this approval plan profile. The UW Library’s acquisitions budget for Pharmacy will be used to fund purchases of print and electronic resources for the Pharmacy program. Print items that are purchased for Pharmacy will be located in the Pharmacy Library.
The School’s BScPhm curriculum will be of utmost importance in determining the scope and depth of the Library’s Pharmacy collection. The Pharmacy Librarian will focus on selecting key pharmacy resources classified by the Library of Congress in the RM and RS classes (i.e., pharmacology, pharmaceutics, and pharmacy). Other important collecting areas for Pharmacy will include, for example: human histology, human physiology, microbiological chemistry, medicinal chemistry, toxicology, clinical biochemistry, infectious diseases, immunology, social medicine, health facility administration, bioinformatics, drug and alcohol abuse, and homeopathy.
Students and faculty in Pharmacy will need basic science resources in chemistry and biology and other resources in economics, business, and computer science. It is understood there will be some degree of duplication among/between the Pharmacy Library, the Davis Centre Library, and the Optometry Learning Resource Centre of library resources for which there is a need at each site for continuing access.
The Pharmacy Librarian will work with standard lists of recommended publications such as those published by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy in order to make informed selections. This Association publishes: a) the AACP Core List of Journals for Libraries that Serve Schools and Colleges of Pharmacy and b) Basic Resources for Pharmaceutical Education. Other lists of importance in guiding the decisions made by the Pharmacy Librarian will include the Ontario College of Pharmacists’ Required Reference Guide for Pharmacies in Ontario, the Brandon/Hill list of printed books and journals for the small medical library, and Doody’s Core List for Health Sciences Libraries.
- Currency of materials
The School of Pharmacy’s culture promotes discovery and innovation, encouraging bold steps and breakthrough developments that advance the cause of human health. In support of this patient-focused primary care research, the Pharmacy Library will acquire and/or license information resources that are as current as possible. The Pharmacy Librarian will remain aware of new developments in scholarly communication and of new resources that are required to support the program. The Librarian will be receptive to suggestions for new purchases from Pharmacy students and faculty; there is a request form on the UW Library’s website to expedite this communication. The UW Library’s Approval Plan for Pharmacy will be profiled to ensure that relevant, scholarly, and recently published books are delivered to the UW Library on a regular basis. The Librarian will place standing orders for monographic series thereby ensuring their timely arrival following publication. The Pharmacy Librarian will also monitor current awareness services and digests such as CISTI Source from the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information. Current editions of annual or frequently published reference resources will be acquired in print or in electronic format, in accordance with the collection development policy statement for Pharmacy.
The UW Library’s subscriptions to journals, whether print or electronic, provide students and faculty with access to recently published articles. The UW Library also maintains backfiles of print journals and e-journals. For e-journals the length of the backrun may vary from a rolling 5 or 6 years to the entire file. A recent purchase of Elsevier Backfiles provided the UW Library with complete runs of selected e-journals published by Elsevier. For some online databases the UW Library may purchase long backruns; for example, ISI’s Science Citation Index (Web of Science) is available from 1900 to present and Chemical Abstracts (SciFinder Scholar) is available from 1907 to present.
For retrospective Pharmacy materials including early printed or manuscript resources, the Pharmacy Librarian will be pleased to accept donations, assuming the gift items are relevant to the academic needs and interests of the School. The UW Library recently received, for example, a donation of more than 100 early published works in Pharmacy from the University of Manitoba Libraries. Of particular interest to the School will be diaries, notebooks, and other manuscripts which document natural health remedies and which are considered relevant to the academic needs and interests of the School.
- Support resources (space, personnel, computers, website)
(please see under Quantitative and Qualitative Aspects for a discussion of Reference Materials and Online Databases)
In its temporary King Wing location the Pharmacy Library will occupy a space of 318 net assignable square meters (NASM). Within this space, functional allocations will be as follows:
- Stacks for print collections: 48 NASM
- Group study (tables): 96 NASM
- Quiet study (carrels): 103 NASM
- Meeting room with computer workstations (adjoining PPL): 19 NASM
- Public services desk and lounge seating: 52 NASM
The Library will be managed by 1 FTE Librarian, the Liaison Librarian for Pharmacy, who will report to the Manager, Branch Library Services. The Liaison Librarian, a member of the UW Library staff, will be the Library’s primary contact with the School of Pharmacy and will be responsible for providing reference service and library instructional service as well as selecting library resources, both print and electronic, required to support the Pharmacy program.
Providing additional staff support in the Pharmacy Library and reporting to the Liaison Librarian will be 1 FTE Library Assistant and 1 FTE Library Clerk. The Library Assistant will be responsible for providing backup reference service, for library instructional support, and may be responsible for coordinating the activities of the library’s casual employees. The Library Clerk will provide support for the circulation, course reserves, and document delivery services as well as performing office duties such as statistics keeping, casual staff payroll, and bank deposits. Casual staff, a mix of UW students and non-students, will provide a reduced evening and weekend service.
When the Pharmacy Library moves to its new location in the Railside Wing, one additional full-time staff member, either 1 FTE Library Assistant or 1 FTE Library Clerk, will provide additional library support to a greater number of faculty and students than are enrolled on opening day. The Library’s specific staffing requirements will be assessed prior to the move to the Railside location.
In the King Wing, the Pharmacy Library will have 8 computers for student/faculty use and 5 for staff use. Six of the client computers, located on a group table(s) in the meeting room, will provide library clients with access to networked library resources (e.g., online catalogue, online research and drug databases, and e-journals) and to productivity and multimedia software. The other two student/faculty computers will be stand-up express workstations for quick access, for example, to the UW Library’s online catalogue and student e-mail. The five staff machines will provide library staff with access to the circulation system, online catalogue and other work-related resources. Two of these five staff machines will be located on the Library’s Public Services Desk and the remaining three on individual staff desks. The Pharmacy Building, including the Library, will have wireless connectivity to the University backbone; students with laptops and PDAs will have Internet access anywhere within the building to networked library resources.
The UW Library has a well developed Web site (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca) that organizes and provides access to Internet resources, some freely available to anyone and others, funded by the UW Library, which are restricted to UW faculty, staff, and students. These resources include, for example, full text electronic journals, research databases, research guides arranged by academic discipline, catalogues of libraries around the world, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and style guides. The UW Library Web site will include a Web page of research starting points for Pharmacy, developed by the Liaison Librarian for Pharmacy.
- The mechanism for assuring input from the Faculty regarding library resources
University of Waterloo Liaison/Specialist Librarians are the primary contact with the University's academic departments. They ensure that the UW Library’s resources match the teaching, learning, and research needs of the academic community. Librarians work with faculty to integrate information literacy into the curriculum, and with students to integrate information literacy into their academic life. Librarians develop an awareness of current trends in their specific areas of responsibility and of trends in scholarly communication. Using their professional knowledge and judgement, librarians evaluate and assess the UW Library’s provision of information resources and services and initiate changes.
The Liaison Librarian for Pharmacy, a member of the UW Library, will be responsible for liaison with the School of Pharmacy. In this role, he/she will be responsible for communication between the School and the UW Library. To facilitate communication on issues that relate to library resources and services, the Director of the School of Pharmacy will be asked to appoint annually a member of the faculty to serve as Faculty Library Representative for the School of Pharmacy. With the consent of the Director of the School of Pharmacy the Liaison Librarian will attend departmental meetings of the School, thus providing further opportunities for contact and communication.
In consultation with faculty members in the School, the Librarian will develop and maintain print and electronic collections to support the teaching, learning, and research needs of the School. Working with appropriate academic and library personnel, he/she will select resources for Pharmacy and keep up to date with publications that relate to Pharmacy. He/she will evaluate periodically the quality and use of the collection, taking appropriate action as required, and will monitor and manage the portion of the acquisitions budget allocated for the School of Pharmacy. The Librarian will participate in the evaluation of electronic resources including collaborative projects with the Ontario Council of University Libraries.
The Librarian for Pharmacy will be well informed about the Library’s resources, services and policies and will interpret and promote these to faculty and students in the School of Pharmacy. The Librarian will be knowledgeable about the subject matter and nature of the teaching and research conducted by the School, particularly with regard to changes in teaching and scholarly communication within the discipline. The Librarian will work with Pharmacy faculty in preparing documentation for program assessment and accreditation and may meet with external consultants during review processes.
- Overall adequacy of the library resources in support of the professional program
The library services—e.g., reference, instruction, circulation, reserves, item delivery-- available to Pharmacy students and faculty will be excellent.
The library resources, both print and electronic, to which Pharmacy students and faculty have access, whether locally or remotely, will be adequate to support the Pharmacy BScPhm program. The University of Waterloo Library will be provided with sufficient budget by the University to purchase or license the library information resources that are essential to support the School of Pharmacy’s teaching, learning, and research needs.
Although Pharmacy students and faculty will not be disadvantaged either in terms of the quality of library services or access to informational resources during the time the Pharmacy Library is located in the King Wing, the more spacious Railside location will enable the Library to provide clients with much more quiet study space, group study space, and space for growing print collections and for more computing and other equipment (e.g., workstations, copiers, networked printers, scanners).
Information Resources Management Committee
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April 16, 2012
