Polk Library News
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The Challenge As part of the university's effort to deal with substantial cuts to UW System funding, Polk Library's budget for library collections in 2005 – 2006 will be reduced by 3%. Due to previous issues with the state budgets, the library materials budget was reduced at the beginning of the current biennium also. Before the two recent reductions, the materials budget was $945,000. The materials budget will be $889,000 for 2005 – 2006. During the past several years, I have talked about the “crisis in scholarly publishing.” This situation results from reduced materials budgets, predatory price increases by the major academic journal publishers, continued high demand for print and electronic resources, and new university degrees and programs. In 2005 – 2006, the library faces a situation where journal prices will likely increase on average 10%. The library managed its budgets so it could handle the anticipated inflationary increase, but the budget cannot handle both inflation and a budget cut. Strategies for Current CancellationsForrest R. Polk Library will not reduce money for academic journals or the general book collection. It will propose only very minor reductions to our electronic resources. The library staff realizes that these materials are the most important library resources for teaching, learning and research. The proposed cuts are to print indexes, microfilm, and standing orders which contain information easily found elsewhere, have general low use, or have low use per cost. The proposed cuts are 2.5 times those needed to meet the minimum budget reduction. This gives faculty the opportunity to let us know what items on this list are important to retain for their teaching and research. What Polk Library Needs From Your Department or College by May 13I apologize for the need for such a rapid response time, but I was anticipating a flat budget for the next biennium. I was not expecting a budget that would require the cuts that the university is facing. I hope this list of proposed budget cuts will be relatively simple for faculty to evaluate, since the proposed cancellations are not for academic journals. A list of all the proposed cancellations is on the library's web site at http://www.uwosh.edu/library/proposedbudgetcuts.xls. This list gives title, location, cost and cancellation rational/impact for each title. The library asks that your department or college respond to the proposed cancellations in light of current and future curricular trends, accreditation needs and other relevant information known to your department or college. In addition to commenting on proposed cancellations, you may recommend the acquisition of new titles. Please note that any new titles added would need to be done in the context of the overall budget situation. The library requests that comments on proposed cancellations or requests to add a new title should come from the department chair, Dean or Departmental Representatives to the Library. These responses should be sent to Ron Hardy, Head of Information Resources by May 13, 2005. (hardyr@uwosh.edu ; 424-2097; Polk 110) Final decisions for cancellations and additions will rest with Polk Library. If a department or college does not respond by May 13, Polk Library will assume that the titles proposed for cancellation can be cancelled without further departmental or college comment. ConclusionThe “crisis in scholarly publishing” is a university issue that impacts both the quality and quantity of educational and research material available to the campus community. It also hinders the library's ability to respond to new degree programs, majors, and teaching emphases. This situation makes it very important that Polk Library work closely with UW Oshkosh faculty, other UWS libraries and funding sources to develop innovative solutions to the information needs of students and scholars and secure the resources necessary to support education and research. If you have questions about the cancellations in general or concerns about a specific cancellation's impact on your students or research, please contact Ron or me. Thank you.
Polk Library has joined a consortium of libraries around the nation to give our users answers to their questions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is a new chat reference service that builds on a service we've offered for the past few years. Since 2002, Polk Library has been part of an AskWisconsin Librarians consortium of academic, public and technical school libraries sharing hours of chat coverage. In April 2005, we had the exciting opportunity to become part of a larger consortium offered through a company called 24/7 Reference. 24/7 Reference was started in southern California by the Metropolitan Cooperative Library System. The libraries using the service grew across the nation, and currently there are libraries participating in Idaho, Maryland, Delaware, California, Florida, Mississippi and more! 24/7 Reference coordinates all the “after hours” staffing and scheduling so we never have a Polk Library librarian burning the midnight oil answering a question at 4 a.m., but our users can still get help. Polk Library contributes between 4 – 6 hours of staffing per week, and other Wisconsin librarians staff the service during business hours and some evenings during the week. When no one from Wisconsin is staffing the service, the questions go out to any librarian in the nation-wide collective. Your question will be identified as originating from our library, so the librarian who answers your question at 2 a.m. will know which library catalog and search tools we have here. One cool feature of this service is the ability of the librarian to “push” a web page to you, so you can easily see what website the librarian thinks will help you. The software also features “co-browsing”, which means that you and the librarian can share a web page, and you will see where the librarian clicks, and the librarian can see what links YOU click. When the chat session is over, you will see a list of all the links that were used during the session. You can also choose to have the text of the chat session emailed to you, which will include all the links that were visited. You can find links to this service from all of our web pages. Look for the Ask A Librarian link under the “Research Help” section on the yellow side toolbar. Here's a quick link: http://www.uwosh.edu/library/askalibrarian.html
As part of its celebration of National Library Week, Polk Library held a public book sale on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 12-13. Over the past few years, the library has received several large book donations from UWO faculty and others. After the donations were sorted and those items needed for the circulating collection were routed to Cataloging, many hundreds of books remained, taking up valuable storage space. A committee was established, under the leadership of Ron Hardy, to make the arrangements to hold a public sale, with the proceeds to go into a Library Excellence Fund. Staff members brought in their own book donations to increase the collection to be put up for sale. The committee worked diligently to sort and organize the books, decide on procedures, create a publicity campaign, and finally to arrange the approximately 3,000 items on tables and booktrucks in the New Books reading area across from the Circulation Desk. Several library staff members and student employees took turns supervising the sale over the two days. Hundreds of people came to the library to take advantage of the low prices for high quality books. Most of the items sold for $.50 apiece or 3 for $1, with the exception of 90 special items, including older books, two sets of encyclopedias, and several videotapes, which were sold for special prices ranging from $1 to $10. At noon on Wednesday, all the remaining items were marked down to half-price. Although there were many students, staff and faculty looking for bargains, there were also a large number of people from the community that came into the library, some for the very first time. One of the library's goals was to build better connections with the community with the book sale, and the outstanding public response was a sign that this was accomplished. By the end of the sale, at 4:00 pm on Wednesday, approximately 350 buyers had purchased 2,206 items, including all but one of the special price materials. A total of $960.75 was earned for the Library Excellence Fund. Most everyone agrees that the sale was a great success, and plans are already being discussed to make the Polk Library Book Sale an annual National Library Week event.
Congratulations to Mary Simon, winner of Polk Library's National Library Week contest! The contest question was: How many items were checked out from Polk Library during the Fall 2004 semester? The actual number was 46,493, and Mary came closest with her guess of 49,013. Mary wins a $25 gift certificate, donated by University Books and More.
In support of the Arabic language classes at UW Oshkosh, Polk Library has recently acquired a number of new videos and children's books for beginning Arabic readers to practice their skills. The newly added films are in Arabic, with English subtitles, and all can be found in the EMC Audiovisual collection on 1st Floor North. Titles include:
For practice reading Arabic, students of the language can check out any of the following children's books from the EMC book collection. Some are only in Arabic, while others have both Arabic and English translations. Titles include:
Since the opening of his play “Death of a Salesman” in 1949, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Arthur Miller has been regarded as one of the greatest dramatists in the history of America. Miller's political and social concerns are a constant presence in his work. One recurring theme of all his works is the relationship between one's identity and the image that society demands of the person. Miller's masterpieces will always have a place in America's libraries, classrooms, and lecture halls. Polk Library's collection has many of Miller's printed works, along with films that were made from his plays, such as The Crucible, Death of a Salesman, and The Misfits.
Xinhua Finance Limited, a Chinese corporation formed in 1999, has acquired Mergent Inc. (previously Moody's). Mergent has long been one of the premier publishers and mainstays of information for American investors. Over the years, Polk Library has subscribed to many of Mergent's publications, including Moody's Manuals, Moody's Bond Record, and Moody's Dividend Achievers. Among the Moody's Manual series, Moody's Municipal & Government Manual (now Mergent Municipal & Government Manual ) is well known for establishing “bond ratings” for various units of American government. Currently, Polk Library subscribes to Mergent Online, a powerful database that replicates much of the information formerly in the entire Moody's Manual series. Xinhua Finance Limited ownership includes American and Japanese investors and the Xinhua Financial Holdings, a subsidiary of China's official Xinhua News Agency. The merger, which was completed in January of this year, reflects the growing prominence of China in the global marketplace. It is expected that the corporation will apply its expertise and expand its scope to publish and create information and investment products applicable to Chinese/Asian markets and investing. The full impact of the merger on the world of business investor publishing and libraries is not yet known.
In honor of April as National Library Month, several Polk Library staff share some of their favorite and/or amusing memories of libraries throughout the years...
"I can still remember the smell of the books, the massive (to a child) staircase going up to the children's room on the top floor of the old Carnegie library, the red linoleum, and everyone's favorite children's librarian, Miss Hensey, who just died this past year having lived into her mid-90s. As a child growing up on the outskirts of Wausau, a trip to the public library happened only once a month or so if my dad had Saturday errands downtown or if our school class took a field trip to the library. But when I was a young teenager, the Bookmobile began stopping about a ¼ mile up the road from our house every other week. One early summer evening, after checking out all the books we wanted, my mother slipped on the steps going out the door and broke her ankle. After that, the Bookmobile parked right in our driveway! Our entire family would troop out as soon as it arrived, and check out piles of books. And for only those two nights a month, there would be five people around the supper table with a book at each place, and no one talking!" -- Erin Czech, Interlibrary Loan Coordinator
"It is not all that strange for a patron to report that a family pet, usually a dog but sometimes a cat, has chewed up a library book. One possible explanation is that there is something in the bindery glue that attracts them, but since most people have never heard about this, the patrons are usually horrified and frequently convinced we will never believe that “the dog ate it”. The worst case of this that I can recall from all my years at Circulation, ended up costing the poor patron several hundred dollars, and had me conjuring up mental images of some huge wolfhound or Great Dane gleefully destroying library property. "The woman came up to the desk one Monday morning with a very sheepish look on her face, and the remains of six oversize art books. As she handed them to me, she apologized not only for those, but also for a seventh book of which she said there wasn't enough left to bring in! She explained that they had gone away for the weekend and she had made the mistake of leaving the books piled on the floor next to the sofa. When they got home on Sunday, she found the books scattered all over the living room. Every single book had been chewed up so badly that none could be salvaged; she knew she would have to pay for them all. "This was during a time period when the library policy was to look up the actual replacement cost of lost items and then add a processing fee. While I was looking up the price of each book, I admit that I was imagining this dog, left alone for the weekend, devouring these very large, heavy, and unfortunately expensive books, and I was convinced that these people must have had a really large dog. Finally, when I presented the patron with her bill – for close to $600 – I asked her what kind of dog she had. "Her answer? It was a miniature poodle!" -- Roberta Stuemke, Periodicals/Stacks Management
"It was a warm summer evening in Polk Library when a professor casually walked in. He said, 'I want a book.' "'Great!' I said. 'We've got one. Any particular book?' "'Yes,' he replied. 'A red one.' "'Now we're getting somewhere,' I said. 'Was it a reference book?' "'Yes.' "'What field is it in?' "'Art.' "I walked right up to the book he wanted, first try." -- Jerry Carpenter, Reference Librarian
Check the following links for Polk Library's Interim and Summer hours: Spring III (Interim): May 14 - June 3, 2005 Spring Intersession: June 4 - June 12, 2005 Summer: June 13 - August 5, 2005 August Intersession: August 6 – September 6, 2005
You might be a little self conscious before summer starts about how you are looking after the long winter months. That is why the Browsing Room is offering a wide selection of books on health, exercise, and fashion to get you ready for the summer.
Get reading and get fit!
County Parks of Wisconsin As the weather gets warmer, are your thoughts drifting towards camping, hiking, fishing, and other outdoor activities? If so, you might want to browse through this title. County Parks of Wisconsin lists hundreds of county parks throughout the state, with descriptions, driving directions, and contact information for each county's parks department. The authors feature their “25 Favorites”, including John Muir Memorial Park in Marquette County, Dells of the Eau Claire Park in Marathon County, and Keller Park in Waupaca County . Also featured are “Best Parks for Special Uses”, including parks that are particularly good for horseback riding, bird watching, or family camping. Staff Highlights
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April 2005 issue, printer-friendly version (pdf)
Articles in this issue:
~From the Director: Polk Library Materials Budget Cut 3% for 2005 – 2006
~Up All Night? So Are Librarians!
~First Annual Polk Library Book Sale
~Congratulations to the Winner of the National Library Week Contest!
~New Arabic Language Materials
~Remembering Arthur Miller (1915-2005)
~Chinese Company Acquires Mergent Inc.
~Library Memories, from Polk Library Staff
~Interim and Summer Library Hours