December 2005.
The following is a summary of University of Waterloo (UW) Library resources in support of the graduate program in Computer Science, prepared by Jim Parrott, Liaison Librarian for Computer Science.
Material is collected to support learning, teaching and research to the PhD level in Computer Science with emphasis on:
The decision to purchase Library materials for Computer Science is the responsibility of the Liaison Librarian in consultation with the Faculty Library Representative. Selection is guided by the Collection Development Policy and the Approval Plan subject profile for the department.
The UW Library collection includes over 583 current electronic and print serials in general subject areas of possible interest to Computer Science. Many of the electronic serials are paid from the central Electronic Resources library fund. The Computer Science library fund supports the cost of 26 current serials subscriptions relating to computer science. The UW Library collection includes almost 50,762 monographs in subject areas of interest to Science.
Libraries at UW, University of Guelph (UG) and Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) compose the Tri-University Group of Libraries (TUG) consortium. Library resources at UG and WLU are readily accessible to UW students, faculty, and staff. These collections, enhance the depth and breadth of local materials available in subject areas of interest to Computer Science.
The UW Library’s print collections in Computer Science are housed primarily in the Davis Centre Library. Access to the entire UW Library collection, as well as materials held by UG and WLU partners, is available through the Web accessible union catalogue TRELLIS (http://trellis1.tug-libraries.on.ca/).
The Library's automated circulation system allows users to charge out materials during the hours that the Library is open and to renew items online anytime. With the exception of the current issues of print journals and reference materials, most of the materials in the Library’s collection circulate. Graduate students and faculty may borrow most monographs for a term at a time.
The Library also provides a service for faculty, graduate students, and staff whereby copies of print journal articles are delivered to an on-campus address. Faculty, graduate students, and staff can also place holds on UW Library books for pickup at any of the UW Libraries’ circulation desks. The cost of both these services is absorbed by the Library.
The Library subscribes to a number of Web accessible research databases. The following are some of the databases of interest to Computer Science:
Computer & Information Systems Abstracts
INSPEC
Web of Science
The Library has embedded linking technology into the research databases which allows users to link directly from the database to the UW Library full text electronic journal subscription or to the TRELLIS catalogue record for holdings and call number information.
UW faculty, students and staff may access Web accessible research databases and full text electronic journals from off-campus via the Library’s Proxy Server / Connect from Home feature.
Books and journal articles not owned by the UW Library but held by UG or WLU may be requested through TRELLIS. Books and copies of journal articles are delivered to faculty, staff and students within three working days. The cost is absorbed by the Library.
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 abroad. The UW Library uses the 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 for this service is absorbed by the Library.
The UW Library also uses the CISTI Source current awareness and document delivery service (http://info.wlu.ca/~wwwlib/swetscan/) from the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information to provide copies of articles from journals not held locally. Faculty and graduate students are able to search citations from over 17,000 journals in all subject areas and directly request copies of articles. Articles are generally delivered to on-campus addresses within four working days. The cost is absorbed by the Library.
Canadian university libraries extend in-person borrowing privileges to students, faculty and staff from across the country. Graduate students, faculty and staff are entitled to borrowing privileges at participating libraries (http://www.coppul.ca/rb/rbindex.html).
The 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 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, encyclopaedias, and style guides. It includes a Web page of research starting points for Computer Science, developed by the Liaison Librarian for Computer Science (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/discipline/compsci/index.html)
Of particular interest to computer science students are the following full-text collections which can be used outside the Library: ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, SPIE Digital Library, Safari Tech Books Online @ UW, and NetLibrary eContent Collection @ UW. SPIE Digital Library is a recent addition that increases significantly UW access to SPIE publications. Safari Tech Books provides online access to over 80 high demand titles of specific interest to Computer Science. IEEE usage statistics for UW show significant use of this resource: during the 2004/05 fiscal year our patrons pulled 179,150 PDFs from the IEEE site.
Also available to members of the UW academic community are the data holdings of the Tri-University Group Data Resources (TDR)(http://tdr.tug-libraries.on.ca/). This data service provides Web access to sources such as the Canadian Census, Statistics Canada surveys, and the data holdings of the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) in Ann Arbor, Michigan .
The Liaison Librarian for Computer Science is available for consultation with individuals or small groups of students. He may be contacted directly in person, by phone, and by e-mail if a personal visit to the Library is not convenient. The Liaison Librarian also works with faculty and staff to develop course integrated library instruction in the form of lecture, hands-on instruction, Web pages, or online courseware modules.
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 assistants. Alternatively, UW students, faculty and staff may use e-mail messaging options provided through the Ask a Librarian service (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/comments/).
UW campus libraries also offer general orientation programs including tours, workshops on database searching and using the Web, and seminars for graduate students.
During the past seven years, the Computer Science library fund has spent $853,610 on information resources. In 2004/05, $6,167 was spent for current serials and $53,049 for books. Table 1 provides further details. Electronic research indexes, such as INSPEC, and full text electronic journals packages, such as IEEE Xplore, are purchased from general funds. It should be noted that materials acquired for other departments such as Electrical & Computer Engineering are also of interest to Computer Science.
More detailed information including lists of serials purchased for Computer Science, full text electronic journal titles in subject areas of interest to Computer Science, number of monograph titles in subject areas of interest to Computer Science, and a description of the UW Electronic Library are available in the Library.
I would be pleased to discuss the Library's holdings and services with an appraiser at the time of a campus visit. I believe that a high level of support for the graduate programme in Computer Science has been provided by the Library, both in holdings and in services.
Jim Parrott, Liaison Librarian for Computer Science
Mark Haslett, University Librarian
Year |
Serial Expenditure |
Book Expenditure |
Approval Plan Support |
Total Expenditure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1998/99 |
50,442 |
36,556 |
8,856 |
95,855 |
1999/00 |
48,406 |
37,632 |
6,930 |
92,968 |
2000/01 |
56,470 |
42,057 |
7,357 |
105,884 |
2001/02 |
14,094 |
54,329 |
8,717 |
77,140 |
2002/03 |
11,551 |
52,157 |
7,539 |
71,246 |
2003/04 |
8,673 |
51,829 |
6,281 |
66,782 |
2004/05 |
6,167 |
47,727 |
5,322 |
59,216 |
TOTAL |
359,912 |
420,599 |
73,099 |
853,610 |
What may appear to be a decline in serials expenditures deserves comment. Because we now purchase many electronic journals in packages paid for through a central fund, we do not track all serials expenditures by funds established for specific disciplines.
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