The following is a summary of University of Waterloo (uWaterloo) Library information resources and services in support of the proposed graduate program in Integrated Water Management, prepared by Douglas Morton, Liaison Librarian for Civil & Environmental Engineering, Management Sciences, and Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering with assistance from Laura Bredahl, Anne Fullerton, Sandra Keys, Leeanne Romane, Jackie Stapleton, Kathy Szigeti, Margaret Yuen, liaison librarians in the departments with research interest in the program.
Interest in Integrated Water Management has been expressed by the departments of Applied Mathematics, Biology, Chemical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth & Environmental Sciences, Economics, Environmental & Resource Studies, Geography & Environment Management, Public Health & Health Systems, and Systems Design Engineering. Material is collected to support learning, teaching and research to the PhD level in all of these departments.
The decision to purchase Library materials for Water Management would be shared among Liaison Librarians for each of the ten disciplines noted above, in consultation with the Faculty Library Representatives for the discipline in question. If, for example, a new resource related primarily to Water Management and Biology, the Liaison Librarian for Biology would take the lead. Selection is guided by Collection Development Policies which are developed by Liaison Librarians in consultation with faculty members in the relevant department.
In response to user preference, the Library obtains resources in electronic format whenever it is possible and practical to do so. Some electronic resources are obtained directly by the University of Waterloo Library and some are obtained through membership in the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network. Access to and use of electronic resources is generally governed by licence agreements with the publisher or vendor.
The ten department library funds support the cost of current journal subscriptions relating to Water Management. The Library collection also includes a considerable number of electronic journals which are part of large e-journal packages paid for through a central Electronic Resources library fund.
The collection also includes print monographs, government documents and e-books in subject areas of interest to Water Management.
The uWaterloo Library, along with the libraries of the University of Guelph (UG) and Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU), is a member of the Tri-University Group of Libraries (TUG) consortium. The collections of both UG and WLU enhance the depth and breadth of local materials available in subject areas of interest to the Integrated Water Management program.
The Library has purchased or subscribes to a range of electronic resources including research databases, full text journals, monographs, numeric data, and government publications. In addition, the Library identifies and provides access to select material freely available through the Internet. Such material includes open access journals, catalogues of libraries around the world, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and style guides.
The following are some of the electronic resources of particular interest to the Integrated Water Management program:
The Library provides access to GIS/mapping data for areas such as the Grand River Watershed and Southwestern Ontario. Also available to members of the uWaterloo academic community are the data holdings of <odesi>, OCUL’s digital repository for social science data (http://odesi.ca). <odesi> provides web access to resources such as the Statistics Canada surveys and datasets, including the Canadian Census, through the Library’s membership in the Data Liberation Initiative (DLI) and Canadian public opinion polls. Access is also available to the data holdings of the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, Michigan (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/)
The Library’s print collections related to Integrated Water Management are housed in both Davis Centre and Dana Porter Libraries. Access to the entire Library collection, as well materials held by UG and WLU, is available through the web accessible union catalogue known as Primo (http://primo.tug-libraries.on.ca).
The Library's automated circulation system allows users to charge out materials during the hours that the Library is open (every day most weeks, with some closures between terms and during the Christmas break) and to renew items online anytime. With the exception of reference materials, most of the material in the Library’s collection circulates. Faculty, graduate students and staff may borrow most monographs for a term at a time.
The Library also delivers to faculty, students and staff copies of print journal articles from any of the uWaterloo library locations, and from the libraries of the uWaterloo affiliated and federated colleges and universities. Faculty, students and staff can also place holds on books from any of these libraries for pickup at any of the uWaterloo libraries’ circulation desks. Books and journal articles not owned by the uWaterloo Library but held by UG or WLU may be requested through TRELLIS. Books and copies of journal articles are delivered to faculty, students and staff within three working days. The cost is of these services is absorbed by the Library.
In partnership with UG and WLU, the Library owns a facility, known as the Annex, which is used to house low-use research material. In keeping with the University’s research intensive status, an agreement among the TUG libraries ensures that a last copy is maintained in perpetuity. The Preservation of Last Copy Agreement can be found at: http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/staff/irmc/last_copy agreement_sept06.html. As with material from UG and WLU, books and copies of journal articles housed in the Annex are made available to faculty, students and staff within three working days. The cost is absorbed by the Library.
Books and copies of articles from print journals will be sent, upon request, to students living some distance from the campus. With the exception of return postage for books, the cost is absorbed by the Library.
The primary tool for accessing electronic resources selected by the Library is its web site (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca). This site organizes and provides access to licensed resources available to only uWaterloo faculty, students and staff, as well as select Internet resources freely available to anyone. The site also provides access to electronic resources hosted by the OCUL Scholars Portal program (http://www.scholarsportal.info) and available to the uWaterloo community through the Library's participation in consortia purchasing through OCUL.
In addition, many of our electronic resources can be found through a search of Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com).
The Library uses linking technology (SFX) to enable users to link directly from research databases to the uWaterloo Library full text electronic journal subscription or to the TRELLIS catalogue record for holdings and call number information. The Library also provides access to bibliographic management software (RefWorks).
uWaterloo faculty, students and staff may access electronic research databases and full text electronic journals from off-campus via the Library’s Proxy Server / Connect from Home feature.
The Interlibrary Loan/Document Delivery (ILL) service provides faculty, students and staff with books, copies of journal articles, theses, and government documents from libraries within Canada and elsewhere. The uWaterloo Library uses OCUL’s RACER web-based interlibrary loan system (http://racer.scholarsportal.info/vdx) to facilitate ILL access and service for users. With minor exceptions, the cost for this service is absorbed by the Library.
Canadian university libraries extend in-person borrowing privileges to faculty students and staff from across the country. Faculty, students and staff are entitled to borrowing privileges at participating libraries (http://www.coppul.ca/rb/rbindex.html).
Reference assistance is available in person or by telephone at the Library's Information Desks which are staffed by professional librarians and specially trained library associates. Alternatively, uWaterloo faculty, students and staff may get reference assistance via e-mail and on-line chat available through the Ask a Librarian service (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/asklib).
The Library also offers general orientation programs including tours, workshops on database searching and using the web, and seminars for graduate students. In addition, each fall the Library participates in a campus-wide orientation program for international students.
The Liaison Librarians for all departments involved are available for consultation with individuals or small groups of students. They may be contacted directly in person, by phone, and by e-mail if a personal visit to the Library is not convenient.
The Liaison Librarians are also available to work with faculty to develop course integrated library instruction in the form of lectures, hands-on instruction, web pages, or online courseware modules.
Graduate students may keep abreast of new services and developments in the Library by reading news @ your library (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/newsatlib) an electronic newsletter prepared periodically and distributed to graduate students via the University’s Graduate Studies listserv.
As the expenditures in Water Management are charged to any of over ten Library funds, the usual listing of the past seven years of expenditures in relevant funds has been omitted. While it would be impossible to extricate what has been spent, questions may be directed to any of the liaison librarians involved.
We believe that the library needs of students and researchers in the areas of Water Management are currently being well met by material at uWaterloo Library and complemented by what can be obtained through InterLibrary Loan.
More detailed information including lists of journals related to Water Management and the number of monograph titles in subject areas of interest to Water Management is available upon request.
I would be pleased to discuss the Library's holdings and services with the appraisers at the time of a campus visit.
Reviewed by Susan Routliffe, Associate University Librarian, Information Resources and Services for Mark Haslett, University Librarian.
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