The following is a summary of University of Waterloo (uWaterloo) Library information resources and services supporting the undergraduate programs in Engineering, prepared by the Liaison Librarians for Engineering: Anne Fullerton, Chemical Engineering; Rachel McNeil, Electrical & Computer Engineering; Douglas Morton, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Management Science, Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering; Leeanne Romane, Systems Design Engineering; and Jennifer Haas, Department Head, Information Services and Resources, Davis Library.
Material is collected to support learning, teaching and research for the Faculty of Engineering departments of:
As well as interdisciplinary programs such as:
The decision to purchase Library materials is the responsibility of the Liaison Librarian assigned to a department, in consultation with the Faculty Library Representative. Selection is guided by Collection Development Policies, which are developed by the Liaison Librarian in consultation with Faculty members in the appropriate department. 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 the University of Guelph and Wilfrid Laurier University enhance the depth and breadth of local materials available in subject areas of interest to students in Engineering.
The Library’s print collections for Engineering are housed primarily in the Davis Centre Library. 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, 24 hrs/day around exam time, 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 usual loan period for undergraduates is two weeks.
Books and journal articles not owned by the Library, but held by UG or WLU, may be requested by faculty, students and staff through Primo. Items will be delivered to uWaterloo within three working days. The cost 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, 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 uWaterloo within three working days. The cost of these services is absorbed by the Library.
Books and copies of articles from print journals will be sent, upon request, to students while on work terms and 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/index.html) and available to the uWaterloo community through the Library's participation in consortia purchasing through OCUL.
A large portion of our electronic journal articles can now be found using the advanced search function of Primo, providing an alternative to external databases such as Compendex or INSPEC. The advantage over Google Scholar is that anything discovered should be available in our collections, ideal for students learning to search.
The Library uses linking technology (SFX) to enable users to link directly from research databases and Google Scholar 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 books and journals from off-campus via the Library’s Proxy Server / Connect from Home feature.
Electronic resources remain available to students while on work terms for curriculum-related activities.
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 just some of the electronic resources of particular interest to Engineering:
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 for this service 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).
As of May 2013, most articles are delivered to our users electronically, using the Relais system, as links to pdf documents.
The Liaison Librarians for Engineering develop information literacy-related activities and materials, in consultation with faculty. These include the development of online modules, research guides and screencasts as well as the preparation of classroom sessions and outcomes-based workshops for students in the program. The sessions and workshops may complement, or take the form of, assignments students complete as part of their course requirements. Depending on the nature of the assignments and the instructors’ expectations, these activities focus on introducing, reinforcing, or mastering key aspects of information research. These are some of the skills of lifelong learning recommended by the CEAB, the Ontario Council of Academic Vice-Presidents’ Guidelines for University Undergraduate Degree Level Expectations and the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.
The Liaison Librarians for Engineering are available for consultation with individuals or small groups of students. He or she may be contacted directly in person, by phone, and by e-mail if a personal visit to the Library is not convenient. The Librarians also develop and maintain online subject guides for Engineering (http://subjectguides.uwaterloo.ca/).
Assistance is available in person or by telephone at the Library's front desks; course-related or research inquiries are referred to the appropriate Liaison Librarian. Alternatively, faculty, students and staff may get 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 in the Library by reading news @ your library (http://www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/newsatlib/), an electronic newsletter prepared periodically.
Table 1. Summary of Expenditures– Engineering
Year |
Journal Expenditures |
Book Expenditures |
Approval Plan Support |
Total Expenditures |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2006/07 |
$137,520 |
$78,240 |
$19,335 |
$235,090 |
2007/08 |
$125,370 |
$77,520 |
$37,695 |
$240,580 |
2008/09 |
$141,310 |
$29,795 |
$24,375 |
$195,475 |
2009/10 |
$152,595 |
$51,930 |
$59,850 |
$264,375 |
2010/11 |
$125,235 |
$51,280 |
$61,475 |
$237,995 |
2011/12 |
$130,525 |
$74,235 |
$47,770 |
$252,540 |
2012/13 |
$146,425 |
$44,705 |
$59,040 |
$250,175 |
TOTAL |
$958,980 |
$407,705 |
$309,540 |
$1,676,230 |
Totals may not equal sum of components due to independent rounding.
The drop in book expenditures and 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.
Fluctuations in book and journal expenditures and approval plan expenditures year over year can occur for a number of reasons. Approval plan support is variable and we are constantly revising our plan to generate matches for books appropriate to our collection needs. The success of our approval plan in identifying books for our collection can result in an increased or decreased need to purchase books though the book budgets. Liaison librarians have the flexibility to re-allocate funds from their book budgets to their serials budgets, and vice versa, and this can result in apparent increases or decreases in these expenditures year over year. In addition, electronic resources, such as journals and databases, can move from one Library fund to another and when this happens it can appear that expenditures within funds are increasing or decreasing.
Many electronic resources, such as Scopus, are purchased from the Electronic Resources library fund. Materials acquired for other departments or faculties such as Science and Mathematics are also of interest to Engineering.
We believe that the Library provides a good level of support for engineering undergraduate students, both in information resources and services. However, the costs and access models associated with the migration from print to electronic have an impact on our ability to increase our current level of support.
Publishers of online standards, such as SAE International, and ebooks, such as those from CRC Press included in the EngNetBase reference and handbooks collections, charge subscription and ongoing access fees that exceed the capabilities of our current budget. While Engineering and Science disciplines have benefited from consortia purchases and subscriptions to major publishers’ collections of ejournals, a growing number of desirable publications, including the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) digital library or the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) complete digital collection, are coming onto the market and to subscribe will require additional funds on an ongoing basis. To date, we have been able to meet the majority of our user’s needs quite well. However, the current fiscal climate may constrain the Library’s ability to acquire new subscription-based resources. A needs assessment project carried out in 2012 identified a variety of relevant resources that we would look at more closely should funds become available.
We are concerned about the impact of new programs such as Nanotechnology Engineering and the upcoming Biomedical Engineering program. To date, nanotechnology and biomedical engineering have been adequately supported from existing funds. (see above re: the current fiscal climate)
More detailed information, including lists of print and electronic journals purchased for Engineering and the number of monograph titles in subject areas of interest to Engineering, can be provided on request.
We would be pleased to discuss the Library's holdings and services with the appraisers at the time of a campus visit.
Anne Fullerton, Liaison Librarian for Chemical Engineering; Rachel McNeil, Liaison Librarian for Electrical & Computer Engineering; Douglas Morton, Liaison Librarian for Civil & Environmental Engineering, Management Science, Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering; Leeanne Romaine, Liaison Librarian for Systems Design Engineering; and Jennifer Haas, Department Head, Information Services and Resources, Davis Library
Reviewed by Annie Bélanger, Associate University Librarian, Information Resources & 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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