February 2005.
The following is a summary of University of Waterloo (UW) Library resources in support of the graduate program in Health Studies and Gerontology at Waterloo, prepared by Carol Stephenson, Liaison Librarian for Health Studies and Gerontology.
Material is collected to support learning, teaching and research to the PhD level in Health Studies and Gerontology with emphasis on:
The decision to purchase Library materials for Health Studies and Gerontology 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 1,600 current electronic and print serials in subject areas of interest to Health Studies and Gerontology. The Health Studies and Gerontology library fund supports the cost of 89 of the serials. Many of the electronic serials are paid from the central Electronic Resources library fund. The UW Library collection includes almost 80,000 monographs in subject areas of interest to Health Studies and Gerontology.
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 Health Studies and Gerontology.
The UW Library’s print collections in Health Studies and Gerontology are housed in the Davis Centre and the Dana Porter Libraries. 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. Both these services are free of charge to the user.
The Library subscribes to a number of Web accessible research databases. The following are some of the databases of interest to Health Studies:
Biological sciences database
CINAHL
Cochrane Library
Ergonomics Abstracts
Medline
PsycINFO
Web of Science ( including Science Citation index, Social Sciences citation index)
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, encyclopedias, and style guides. It includes a Web page of research starting points for Health Studies and Gerontology, developed by the Liaison Librarian for Health Studies and Gerontology (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/discipline/health/index.html).
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 Library also subscribes to the CANSIM database from Statistics Canada. As a member of the Data Liberation Initiative (DLI), the Library is also able to make available other data from Statistics Canada, in addition to that data freely available on their website.
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/) or contact the Liaison Librarian for Health Studies and Gerontology directly if a personal visit to the Library is not convenient.
The Liaison Librarian for Health Studies and Gerontology is available for consultation with individuals or small groups of students. 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.
The Library also offers general orientation programs including tours, workshops on database searching and using the Web, and seminars for graduate students.
During the past seven years, the Health Studies and Gerontology library fund has spent approximately $647,750 on information resources. In 2003/04, $57,823 was spent for current serials and $20,876 for books. Table 1 provides further details. Electronic research indexes, reference materials, and full text electronic journals packages are purchased from general funds. It should be noted that materials acquired for other departments such as Kinesiology, Biology, Optometry, and Psychology are also of interest to Health Studies and Gerontology.
More detailed information including lists of serials purchased for Health Studies and Gerontology, full text electronic journal titles in subject areas of interest to Health Studies and Gerontology, number of monograph titles in subject areas of interest to Health Studies and Gerontology, and a description of the UW Electronic Library are available in the Library.
We would be pleased to discuss the Library's holdings and services with an appraiser at the time of a campus visit. We believe that a high level of support for the graduate program in Health Studies and Gerontology has been provided by the Library, both in holdings and in services.
Mark Haslett
University Librarian
| Year | * Serial Expenditure | Book Expenditure | Approval Plan Support | Total Expenditure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997/98 | 69,733 |
13,757 |
8,993 |
92,483 |
| 1998/99 | 75,450 |
17,007 |
4,869 |
97,326 |
| 1999/00 | 75,382 |
17,793 |
5,388 |
98,563 |
| 2000/01 | 83,779 |
18,372 |
5,086 |
107,237 |
| 2001/02 | 63,376 |
17,886 |
5,020 |
86,282 |
| 2002/03 | 71,040 |
12,007 |
4,098 |
87,145 |
| 2003/04 | 57,823 |
15,817 |
5,059 |
78,699 |
| TOTAL | 496,583 |
112,639 |
38,513 |
647,735 |
* 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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