Minor edits made: June 2013
The following is a summary of University of Waterloo Library information resources and services in support of the graduate program in Architecture, prepared by Michele Laing, Branch Head, Musagetes Architecture Library and Liaison Librarian for the School of Architecture.
Material is collected to support learning, teaching and research to the Masters level in Architecture with emphasis on:
The decision to purchase Library materials for Architecture is the responsibility of the Liaison Librarian, in consultation with the Faculty Library Representative. Selection is guided by the Collection Development Policy, which is developed by the Liaison Librarian in consultation with faculty members in the School of Architecture. Materials are obtained in a variety ways including firm orders, open orders, approval plans, and subscriptions.
The Library obtains resources in electronic format whenever it is possible and practical to do so. Some electronic resources are obtained directly by the Library and some are obtained through membership in the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN). Access to and use of electronic resources is generally governed by licence agreements with the publisher or vendor.
The 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. Collections from Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph, particularly titles purchased on behalf of their Landscape Architecture program, enhance the depth and breadth of local materials available in subject areas of interest to Architecture.
The Library’s print collections for Architecture are housed in the Musagetes Architecture Library, a full-service branch of the uWaterloo library system. It is centrally located within the School of Architecture in Cambridge, Ontario making it easily accessible to students and faculty. The 45,000+ book collection complements shelves of bound journals titles, some going back to the early part of the 20th century. Titles purchased on behalf of campus departments such as Classical Studies, Fine Arts, Philosophy, Planning, and Engineering supplement the Musagetes collection. Access to the entire Library collection, as well materials held by UG and WLU, is available through the Web accessible tool known as PRIMO (http://primo.lib.uwaterloo.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. Patrons are limited to twenty-five Musagetes books at any time, with two renewals allowed. With the exception of rare book collection and reference materials, most of the materials in the Library’s collection circulate. 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 affiliated and federated colleges and universities. Faculty, students, and staff may also place holds on books from any of these libraries for pickup at the Musagetes Library service desk. Faculty, all students, and staff through Primo may request books and journal articles not owned by the Library, but held by UG or WLU. Items will be delivered to Musagetes Library within three working days. The cost 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, the TUG libraries ensure that a last copy is maintained in perpetuity, through the Preservation of Last Copy Agreement. Items housed in the Annex will be delivered to Musagetes Library within three working days. The cost is absorbed by the Library.
A separate, environmentally controlled Rare Book Room houses one of Canada’s most outstanding collections of rare books on architecture and design. The Rare Book Room collection features landmark titles in the history and theory of architecture, exemplary treatises from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century supportive of the School of Architecture’s cultural history emphasis, and texts outlining architectural developments in Northern Europe and on the North American frontier, which have had a profound effect on architectural theory and urban development in Canada. All rare book materials are listed in PRIMO and are available for viewing upon request.
The Architecture book budget cannot support the purchase of titles for addition to the Rare Book collection. Its growth depends on donations, donations-in-kind, or the transfer of older, out-of print titles from the stacks in need of additional protection. Unspent, end of year funds from other library acquisition accounts allowed for the purchase of some expensive new titles in March 2010.
The Architecture serials fund supports the cost of 90+ current print journal subscriptions relating to architecture, design, interior design, landscape architecture, and others of general interest to architecture students (titles available upon request). Suggestions for new titles are welcomed at any time. If a title ceases publication, students are asked for suggestions of replacement titles of equal value.
The primary tool for accessing electronic resources selected by the Library is its Web site (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/musagetes). 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/index.html) 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 Library’s full text electronic journal subscription or to the 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.
Publishers of architecture materials have been slow to produce electronic equivalents of their print resources. As a result, there are very few electronic titles in the collection that directly relate to architecture. At this writing there are fewer than one hundred electronic books on architecture-related topics. Similarly, only five of the total print journal titles to which Musagetes Library subscribes have been replicated online in their entirety. Those limited, full text titles that are accessible through databases like the Avery Index to Architecture Periodicals or Scholar’s Portal do not include accompanying images which are crucial to the study of architecture.
In other subject areas, 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, encyclopedias, and style guides.
The following are some of the electronic resources of particular interest to Architecture:
Student Film Collection
Representatives from the School of Architecture student body launched the Student Film Collection several years ago based on a large donation of DVD’s from a faculty member. Films from the 400 title collection are available to borrow by members of the School community. Academically-oriented titles on architecture and design sit beside commercial hits and obscure art films in a designated section of Musagetes Library. While the collection is owned and administered by the students, the library circulates titles through normal circulation procedures on their behalf.
GIS
Musagetes Architecture Library provides direct access to the same licensed digital datasets available to campus patrons from the Geospatial Centre. The Library Associate responsible for providing GIS assistance has prepared an online research guide describing the software and mapping data available. The guide is updated regularly and the link to it is easily found on the Musagetes Library homepage (http://subjectguides.uwaterloo.ca/GIS-for-Architecture).
The Musagetes Library’s GIS workstation is equipped with a variety of programs to help students with their mapping, including ArcInfo, Google Earth Pro, GeoViewer, and AutoCAD. The workstation is accessible during library hours.
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 Library uses OCUL’s RACER Web based interlibrary loan system (http://racer.scholarsportal.info/vdx/index.html) to facilitate ILL access and service for users. With minor exceptions, the cost is absorbed by the Library.
Most Canadian university libraries extend, at no charge, 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).
One benefit to the School of Architecture’s location is its proximity to Cambridge Public Library (CPL). Although small, this library has an excellent collection of fiction and non-fiction titles, a substantial newspaper and journal collection, searchable full text databases, and a huge selection of DVD’s. When the School of Architecture opened in 2004, CPL generously set aside $20,000. from their acquisitions budget to build a core collection of architecture titles to supplement Musagetes Library holdings. Since then, CPL has devoted approximately $5,000. annually to purchase books and journal subscriptions to support architecture research.
Drawing from the Ontario Council of Academic Vice-Presidents’ Guidelines for University Graduate Degree Level Expectations and the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, the Liaison Librarian for Architecture develops information literacy-related activities and materials, in consultation with faculty. These may include the development of online modules, research guides, and screencasts as well as seminars and outcomes-based workshops for students in the program. These sessions support graduate students completing their literature reviews and information research endeavours as part of their degree requirements and complement faculty mentoring in the same areas.
The Liaison Librarian for the School of Architecture is available for consultation with individuals or small groups of students. She may be contacted directly by phone, and by e-mail if a personal visit to Musagetes Library is not convenient. The Librarian also develops and maintains online subject guides for Architecture:
Architecture Guide: (http://subjectguides.uwaterloo.ca/architecture)
Canadian Architecture Guide: (http://subjectguides.uwaterloo.ca/canadianarchitecture)
General reference assistance is available in person or by telephone at campus Library Information Desks, which are staffed by professional librarians and specially trained library associates. Alternatively, faculty, students and staff may get general reference assistance via e-mail and online chat available through the Ask a Librarian service (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/asklib/index.html).
The Library also offers general orientation programs including tours, workshops on research skills, and seminars for students. In addition, each fall, the Library participates in a campus-wide orientation program for incoming students, including programs specific to international students and students with disabilities.
Faculty, students, and staff may keep abreast of new services and developments by reading postings on the Musagetes Library blog, Facebook page, and Twitter feed. General library news is available through news @ your library (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/newsatlib/), an electronic newsletter prepared periodically.
Table 1. Summary of Expenditures– Architecture
Year |
Journal |
Book |
Approval |
Total |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2005/06 |
$11,369.78 |
$20,732.36 |
$31,871.24 |
$63,973.38 |
|
2006/07 |
$11,212.89 |
$13,959.27 |
$41,045.01 |
$66,217.17 |
|
2007/08 |
$11,790.12 |
$17,736.02 |
$23,609.54* |
$53,135.68 |
|
2008/09 |
$12,868.70 |
$20,505.54 |
$16,097.19 |
$49,471.43** |
|
2009/10 |
$12,482.71 |
$20,264.87 |
$31,642.37 |
$64,389.95 |
|
2010/11 |
$11,994.86 |
$20,256.05 |
$26,010.89 |
$58,261.80 |
|
2011/12 |
$13,997.27 |
$18,129.05 |
$36,835.57 |
$68,961.89 |
|
* Ballenford Books, our approval vendor, went out of business early in 2008, resulting in a shortfall of approval books.
** The drop in approval plan support for 2008/09 was the result of a temporary, and partial, freeze on monograph purchasing imposed because of the significant decline in the value of the Canadian dollar in the fall of 2008, and the consequent drop in the Library’s purchasing power. The freeze was lifted in May 2009.
Graduate students in the School of Architecture may choose to produce a design-based thesis, a research-based thesis, or a hybrid of the two. Musagetes Architecture Library provides a solid collection of current and retrospective books and serials in architecture and design-related fields to support introductory research at the Masters level. More often than not, thesis research strays from a strict interpretation of architecture into the related areas of urban design, fine arts, sustainability, and interior, industrial, and landscape design, and even to seemingly unrelated fields including political science, economics, philosophy, health studies, pop culture, and beyond. Design sites may be situated anywhere around the world and require supporting maps and geographical data that is not available through local sources.
The wealth of resources, both print and electronic, available from campus libraries and the libraries of our affiliated TUG partners provide an excellent basis from which graduate students may explore new fields of research. Feedback has shown that they particularly appreciate the abundance of online full text articles and books available to them at the click of a link through the PRIMO catalogue.
Many of our students relocate to Toronto after their first year of graduate work. Worldcat allows students to discover resources held in that city’s academic and public libraries. Direct borrowing agreements, negotiated with OCUL libraries, give them easy access to vast collections and borrowing privileges at several local institutions. Items that are only available from institutional libraries in other provinces or from the United States may be requested through uWaterloo Library’s Interlibrary Loan system at no charge.
I believe that these multiple layers of library resources and services provide Architecture students with a high level of support throughout their graduate program of study.
More detailed information, including lists of print and electronic journals purchased for Architecture and the number of monograph titles in subject areas of interest to Architecture can be provided on request.
I would be pleased to discuss the Library's holdings and services with the appraisers at the time of a campus visit.
Michele Laing, Branch Head and Liaison Librarian for the School of Architecture, Reviewed by Susan Routliffe, Associate University Librarian, Information Resources and Services for Mark Haslett, University Librarian.
2013 updates reviewed by Annie Bélanger, Associate University Librarian, Information Resources and Academic Excellence for Mark Haslett, University Librarian.
Collection Development Policies can be found online on the Library Web site (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/staff/irmc/collectionsmanagement.html).
The Preservation of Last Copy Agreement is available online (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/staff/irmc/last_copy_agreement_sept06.html).
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