Polk Library

Enhancing Access and Discovery of Resources and Services 

Based on comprehensive campus surveys, smaller surveys on specific topics, focus groups and current literature on academic libraries, Polk Library concentrated on two main goals. 

They were: 

Enhance access to research and instructional resources. Polk Library moved to complete the migration of research and educational journals from print to online format. UW Oshkosh students, staff and faculty have access to 500 additional journals online, plus an additional 4,500 scholarly titles made available from publisher databases including Elsevier, Sage, Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford University Press and the American Chemical Society. These are in addition to 10,000 full text journals included in 100 plus subscription databases. In addition, the library provides online educational videos from respected producers and publishers that have copyright clearance to be shown in an educational setting. This migration to online materials allows faculty and students improved accessibility to scholarly information. Online journals and other materials can be accessed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from an office, dorm room and off-campus locations through our proxy authentication system. Unlike print, multiple users can access the same material at the same time in the online environment. Importantly, complete online access to content also provides an immediate benefit to the increasing number of distance education courses being taught by UW Oshkosh. 

Next year, Polk Library will complete the final step of this migration when its last 275 scholarly journal titles in print will be moved to online access. 

Enhance discovery to research and instructional resources and library services. During the past two years, the library fully implemented the course page project, which creates individual library pages of resources for each course on campus automatically. It allows faculty to easily edit these pages and is accessible from D2L. This service has been refined base on initial use and promoted to faculty on campus. Many faculty have made effective use of this service to get the best resources into the hands of students. In addition, the library implemented a unique service, a Related Items Bookshelf (RIB). When you find a book in the catalog, the RIB gives you a visual representation of the books on the same shelf and allows a user to scroll indefinitely in either direction to find related books. RIB won an international software award from a major library company and has been implemented in various libraries across the World. The library developed a mobile website for use on smart phones. Also, a new service created this year is called GroupFinder. It allows students to schedule study spaces within the library through the library's website or mobile website. 

Next year, the library will: 

• Design and implement a new library Web presence based on best academic library practices, industry standards and University guidelines. 
• Work with UW System libraries to plan the next generation of online systems that will allow "one search" capability for the vast majority of our resources – journals, books, videos and digital objects. 
• Continue to work with students and faculty to create applications (apps) that will help them study, learn, teach and research.