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Information Resources Management Committee

Report for the Ontario Council on Graduate Studies on
Library Resources for Global Governance
February 2009

The following is a summary of Library resources and services in support of the Masters and PhD programs in Global Governance. The University of Waterloo (UW) Library supports both the Master and PhD programs; Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) Library supports the PhD program.

This report was prepared by Jane Forgay, UW Liaison Librarian for Political Science and History and Hélène LeBlanc, WLU Liaison Librarian for Government Information, Global Governance, International Public Policy, and Political Science, in consultation with Sandra Keys, UW Liaison Librarian for Economics, and Margaret Yuen, UW Liaison Librarian for the Faculty of Environment.

Library Resources

Collections Support

As part of the TriUniversity Group (TUG) of libraries (which includes the holdings of UW, WLU, and the University of Guelph and several other affiliated institutions), all faculty, students, and staff at UW and WLU have ready access, through common lending and material delivery policies, to print collections that number around 8.5 million items. Through TRELLIS, the shared TUG catalogue, users can search items and request from partner libraries. Faculty and students, who are part of the joint PhD Global Governance program, are eligible to access electronic collections remotely that are subscribed to by either WLU or UW.

At both UW and WLU Libraries, the decision to acquire Library materials for Global Governance is the responsibility of the relevant Liaison Librarians in consultation with the Faculty Library Representatives.  The UW and WLU Libraries acquisitions budgets support the purchase of both print and electronic collections.  

Material is collected to support learning, teaching and research to the PhD level in Global Governance with emphasis on:

Materials are obtained in a variety of ways including subject-based approval plans to expedite receipt of newly published books. To enhance their purchasing power, the Libraries participate in consortial partnerships at the local, provincial, national, and international levels. Electronic resources are obtained through membership in the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL), the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, and Consortia Canada.

WLU and UW also participate in collaborative purchasing through membership in the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), and both institutions obtain materials from India and Asia through the library program of the Shastri Indo Canadian Institute. 

Monographs

The TUG Libraries have approximately 54,000 print monographs of interest to scholars of Global Governance.   Table 1 shows counts at each TUG site.

Table 1. Print Monograph Counts for TUG Libraries as of December 2008:

 

UW Library

UW Colleges

WLU

UG

UW
Co-op, CTE, etc.

Total

Monographs

23,505

1,229

14,284

14,554

140

53,712

 At UW, monographs for the Global Governance program are purchased using UW Library funds from each of the participating UW academic departments. Appendix 1 shows the approximate amounts and percentages UW Library has allocated to Global Governance materials from each departmental library fund. Over the past two years, over $100,000 worth of print and electronic monographs purchased for the library collection potentially has relevance to the Global Governance program.

At WLU, relevant monographs for Global Governance are purchased by the School of Business and Economics, Global Studies, Geography, History, and Political Science. Global Governance also purchases a few titles. Over the past two years, over $58,000 worth of books purchased for the library collection potentially has relevance to the Global Governance program. Appendix 2 lists WLU’s budgeted amounts for monographs for each year.  To complement traditional monograph purchasing, WLU subscribes to collections of electronic books, such as the Canadian Public Policy collection, which adds about 2,000 monographs and reports annually from government organizations, NGOs, and think-tanks.

Electronic Resources

 The UW and WLU Libraries purchase access, through centralized electronic resource funds, to a range of electronic resources including journal and newspaper indexes; primary source databases; full-text journals; suites of books and newspapers; full-text dissertations; statistics, GIS, and numeric data; and government publications. The following electronic resources are of particular interest to Global Governance scholars:

Government Policy and Analysis

Research, News, and Data Sources

Government Information 

Both UW and WLU Libraries collect and make accessible different types of government information in a variety of formats: electronic, paper, and microform documents; official government web sites; bibliographic and statistical databases; maps; and numeric data sets.

UW Library is a full depository for Canadian federal government documents; WLU is a partial one.   Both libraries are selective depositories for Ontario Provincial government documents and hold subscriptions to Microlog, which provides access to thousands of federal, provincial, major municipalities’ and Canadian associations’ publications on microfiche.

Both UW and WLU are Reference Centres for European Union publications; and collect key publications from the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Nations and numerous other international and non-governmental organizations.   

Statistics and Numeric Data 

Also available to members of the Global Governance program are the data holdings of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and Statistics Canada's Data Liberation Initiative (DLI). These subscriptions provide researchers access to hundreds of data sets, including Canadian Census and elections results, time series data (e.g., CANSIM), and public use microdata files. These data, along with several data sets from other countries and international organizations, are accessible through the TUG Data Resources (http://tdr.tug-libraries.on.ca/). New this year is OCUL's data interface, <odesi> (www.odesi.ca), which includes the Canadian Gallup Polls and the Ipsos Reid polling data.

Other data and statistical sources include IMF International Statistics, SourceOECD, the United Nations Common Database, and World Development Indicators.

Journals

The UW Library collection includes approximately 800 current electronic and print journals in subject areas relevant to Global Governance and more broadly, international relations.  Of these, 268 titles are supported by UW Library funds for Political Science, Economics, History, and Environment. The remaining subscriptions are part of large packages and are paid by the central Electronic Resources Library fund.

At WLU, individual journal purchases have declined, since most journals are now purchased as part of full-text electronic journal packages. While there are fewer than 2,000 individual journal subscriptions, the Library receives access to over 18,000 journals through aggregator databases or publisher packages. Complete publisher suites with journals of interest to Global Governance include those from Taylor and Francis, Berkeley Electronic Press, Sage, and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers.

Library Services

Access to Resources

The UW and WLU Libraries have a number of services to facilitate searching, access, and information management:

Access to Resources beyond TUG

Interlibrary loan/document delivery (ILL) services provide members of the Global Governance program with books, copies of journal articles, theses, and government documents from libraries within Canada and elsewhere. The UW and WLU Libraries use 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 for this service is absorbed by the Libraries.

Membership in the Chicago-based Center for Research Libraries also allows UW and WLU researchers, via ILL, timely access to more than four million specialized newspapers, journals, dissertations, archives, and government publications. Again, the cost is absorbed by the Libraries.

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).

Resources at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) are also available to Global Governance researchers. The Libraries are working together to facilitate access and sharing of print resources.

Information Services

The WLU Liaison Librarian and the UW Liaison Librarians for Global Governance 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. The UW Librarian for Political Science also develops and maintains a web-based subject guide for Global Governance Research Sources.

Reference assistance is available in person or by telephone at both Universities’ Library Information Desks, which are staffed by professional librarians and specially trained Library Associates. Alternatively, faculty, students, and staff at each institution may get reference assistance via e-mail and on-line chat available through the WLU Ask Us service (http://library.wlu.ca/askus) and the UW Ask a Librarian service (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/asklib/index.html).

Both university libraries offer general orientation programs including tours, workshops on database searching and using the web, and seminars for graduate students.  In addition, each fall, the Libraries participate in campus-wide orientation programs with other service areas.

Graduate students may keep abreast of new services and developments in the UW Library by reading news @ your library (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/newsatlib/), an electronic newsletter prepared periodically and sent to graduate students via the UW University’s Graduate Studies listserv. WLU presents news and events on the Library web site (http://library.wlu.ca/).

Conclusion

Overall, strong support for the graduate programme in Global Governance has been provided by the UW and WLU Libraries, both in library resources and services. 

More detailed information including lists of print and electronic journals that benefit the Global Governance program and the number of monograph titles in subject areas of interest to Global Governance are available through the Liaison Librarians.

In addition, Liaison Librarians and University Librarians would be pleased to discuss the Libraries' holdings and services with the appraisers at the time of a campus visit.

Submitted by:

Jane Forgay, UW Liaison Librarian for Political Science and History

Hélène LeBlanc, WLU Liaison Librarian for Government Information, Global Governance, International Public Policy, and Political Science

Sandra Keys, UW Liaison Librarian for Economics

Reviewed by:

Sharon Brown, the WLU University Librarian and Carol Stephenson, Head of Collections & Acquisitions at WLU

Susan Routliffe, UW Associate University Librarian, Information Resources and Services for Mark Haslett, UW University Librarian

Appendix 1. Summary of allocation of UW Library Funds that support Global Governance

Fund

Fiscal Year

Serial Expenditure

Book Expenditure

Approval Support

Total Expenditure & Support

Economics
(20% of Total Fund)

2006/07

$3,278.51

$2,246.04

$5,508.69

$11,033.24

Economics
(20% of Total Fund)

2007/08

$3,020.21

$2,102.84

$5,488.20

$10,611.26

Total 2006/07 through 2007/08

$6,298.72

$4,348.88

$10,996.90

$21,644.50

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fund

Fiscal Year

Serial Expenditure

Book Expenditure

Approval Support

Total Expenditure & Support

Env. & Resource St.
(20% of Total Fund)

2006/07

$1,242.00

$2,579.41

$1,663.51

$5,484.92

Env. & Resource St.
(20% of Total Fund)

2007/08

$1,429.87

$4,247.35

$1,941.76

$7,618.98

Total 2006/07 through 2007/08

$2,671.87

$6,826.77

$3,605.27

$13,103.90

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fund

Fiscal Year

Serial Expenditure

Book Expenditure

Approval Support

Total Expenditure & Support

History (20% of Total Fund)

2006/07

$1,936.80

$3,943.98

$6,766.79

$12,647.58

History (20% of Total Fund)

2007/08

$1,616.99

$4,732.39

$5,593.80

$11,943.18

Total 2006/07 through 2007/08

$3,553.79

$8,676.37

$12,360.59

$24,590.76

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fund

Fiscal Year

Serial Expenditure

Book Expenditure

Approval Support

Total Expenditure & Support

Political Science
(30% of Total Fund)

2006/07

$5,863.09

$4,876.09

$15,234.92

$25,974.11

Political Science
(30% of Total Fund)

2007/08

$5,403.45

$4,472.91

$14,290.41

$24,166.77

Total 2006/07 through 2007/08

$11,266.54

$9,349.01

$29,525.33

$50,140.88

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Serial Expenditure

Book Expenditure

Approval Support

Total Expenditure & Support

Grand Total 2006/07 through 2007/08

$23,790.92

$29,201.02

$56,488.09

$109,480.03

 

Appendix 2. Summary of WLU book funds that support Global Governance

Department

2007/08

2008/09

Total

Business and Economics

$44,000

$55,850

$99,850

Global Governance Specific requests

$1,370

$1,050

$2,420

Geography

$23,000

$21,460

$44,460

Global Studies

$9,000

$ 13,100

$22,100

History

$37,000

$38,500

$75,500

Political Science

$25,000

$21,970

$46,970

Approximate support 20% of other depts. plus specific requests filled

$27,874

$30,386

$58,260

Information Resources Management Committee
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September 23, 2009