Polk Library News
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On January 25, Polk Library held a workshop for faculty on “Cooperative Collection Development.” Library staff and faculty discussed major issues and specific procedures in getting faculty what they need for their teaching and research. At the meeting, I noted that the library conducted a comprehensive survey last spring regarding library services. Faculty responses to the survey made clear their legitimate concerns regarding not having the print and electronic resources needed for their teaching and research. This concern is shared by faculty system-wide and across the country. Frankly, academic librarians are not surprised by this concern. They share it! For nearly a decade, librarians have been telling anyone who will listen about the “crisis in scholarly publishing.” Declining materials budgets combined with the rapidly rising costs for information makes meeting the needs of expanding curricula and the research needs of faculty increasingly difficult. The libraries in the UW System (UWS) have faced this challenge directly. We have created the “One System, One Library” concept and have taken many specific steps toward this goal. For example, UWS libraries have implemented Universal Borrowing and created a shared electronic collection (to leverage UWS buying power) for databases needed throughout the system. We have jointly implemented an interlibrary loan system that allows the electronic desktop delivery of journal articles and created digital collections from our print holdings that are used by faculty across system. Currently, UWS libraries are trying to identify needless duplication of materials so libraries can increase funding for unmet educational and research needs. Polk Library has taken its own actions to meet this challenge. For instance, with our new interlibrary loan system, most requests by faculty for journal articles can now be filled in 48 hours. If you need the article sooner, please indicate this in the note area of the request form. The interlibrary loan staff will purchase this article directly from a vendor rather than sending your requests to other libraries. Contact Erin Czech (czeche@uwosh.edu) with any questions about this service. In addition, the library established campus access to Ingenta, an electronic table of contents service. It allows you to receive by email the table of contents for journals you select from a list of 29,000 academic and professional journals. An easy way to find this service is through the “Especially for Faculty” page of the library's web site. Also, you can contact Renee Sengele (sengele@uwosh.edu), and she will schedule an appointment with you to implement this service. Lastly, Polk Library started a process of reorganizing its collection development program. It recently created its first full-time librarian position for this program. This position came from internal reorganization, not a new position. One of the main purposes of this reorganization is to develop deeper cooperation with faculty, departments and colleges regarding what faculty need for their research and teaching. Ron Hardy (hardyr@uwosh.edu), Head of Information Resources, and I would like to schedule an appointment with any department or college to discuss your college or departmental needs. Then together we can begin a dialogue on how best to meet them. Late breaking news: Shortly after the above article was written, the Governor announced his budget proposal for UWS. It did not include a System Administration request for increased library funding. In fact, his budget will make library base budget reductions likely. These circumstances will make it even more important for the library and faculty to work together to provide the resources needed for teaching and research. -PW
Do you ever have questions about the library's online resources when working from home? Do you teach an online or off-campus class where many students never make it to campus but might have research questions? Or do you have students in your classes who commute to campus and do much of their research from home? Now you and your students can call and get answers to your research questions, without making a long-distance phone call. The new toll-free number for the reference desk is 800-574-5041. Call anytime during our regular reference desk hours! Spring semester reference hours are:
Polk Library has subscribed to the online version of the ValueLine Investment Survey. ValueLine is a highly regarded stock evaluation tool, issued weekly, that provides data for 1,700 companies in ninety industry groups as defined by the publisher. This investment service includes a ratings and evaluation system that allows potential investors to develop a stock portfolio to fit their individual investment style and needs. The online publication is divided into three sections—“Summary and Index”, “Ratings and Reports”, and “Selection and Opinion.” The “Summary and Index” section of the survey provides up-to-date data and ratings on all companies included in the survey and provides an index to the “Ratings and Reports” section. The “Ratings and Reports” section is released four times per year and provides detailed information on each company. In addition to current data, this section of ValueLine provides historical data and statistics important to investors. Companies listed in the “Ratings and Reports” section are arranged by industry. Each section is prefaced with an overview of the industry being discussed. The “Selection and Opinion” part of the survey is a newsletter providing information on overall investment strategies and comprehensive overviews of promising companies. The library is providing unlimited access to the online version of ValueLine. The survey will be available from off campus through the proxy server, which requires the email name and campus ID number of the user to log in. Since the online version is an exact facsimile of the print version and has unlimited access for students, faculty, and staff, Polk Library will no longer subscribe to the print version of this publication. ValueLine can be accessed from the library's home page at http://www.uwosh.edu/library/. In the “Find articles by subject” menu, select “Business” to find ValueLine listed as a source. You can also find it listed alphabetically under “List of Library Search Tools”. For a limited time there will also be a link to ValueLine under “News” on the library's home page.
In September 1995, a group of scholars in philosophy began an innovative project—an open access online encyclopedia, which would offer peer-reviewed articles in the field of philosophy. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy now contains hundreds of entries, written by scholars on a volunteer basis and approved by the project's Editorial Board. Philosophy faculty have known about this resource for some time, but it has only recently been brought to the attention of librarians in the University of Wisconsin System, primarily because of the creative method that has been developed for raising funds to sustain the project. The Encyclopedia needs some financial support to continue. It could have been sold to a commercial publisher, but the Board is determined to try to maintain the open access model, where access is free to all users. Toward that end, they are trying to build an endowment with money from private sources and library consortia. After raising money for three years, they believe the Encyclopedia will be self-supporting. UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee faculty and students are heavy users of the Encyclopedia, and brought the project's proposal to the UW System group of Collection Development librarians (CUWL-CDC). This group, made up of Collection Development librarians from each of the campuses, has approved taking $10,000 from the budget for “shared electronic resources” for each of the next three fiscal years, to contribute toward the Encyclopedia project. We view this as an effort to promote open access of electronic resources, hopefully encouraging the development of similar projects and online journals. The long-term hope is that such projects will begin to break the commercial publishing mold of taking research produced with public funds, repackaging it, and selling it back to publicly-funded institutions at substantial cost. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/. Once there, choose a server under the Table of Contents section to get into the Encyclopedia itself. Users may browse or search articles. The Encyclopedia is not yet complete; indeed, the Editorial Board calls it “a dynamic reference work,” in that the entries will be continually updated as needed, and new topics added. The “Unabridged Table of Contents” lists not only completed entries, but also those which are planned to be added. Reviewers have noted that the Encyclopedia's search interface leaves something to be desired (Boolean searching doesn't work well), and at present there is no “Help” section offered. However, articles in the Encyclopedia can also be located through a Google search. Reviewers agree that the entries are high quality, and the “dynamic” quality will be useful for updating and reflecting the latest research. Links are readily available to the Encyclopedia, including from the Internet Public Library and the American Philosophical Association. Polk Library also offers a link to this resource in its Philosophy subject listing.
Keep track of web search tools and the newest online services from Polk Library with the “Off Campus Services @ Polk Library” weblog! This weblog (or “blog”) features:
You can visit the Off Campus Services @ Polk Library blog at http://polkoffcampus.blogspot.com/ . For those who use RSS readers, you can also subscribe to the Off Campus Services feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/OffCampusServicesPolkLibrary .
A library's print collection should be reviewed regularly by librarians, in an effort to ensure that the information in the books is still useful. Polk Library's Reference collection has not had a thorough review for many years, but this project is now underway, and moving toward completion of the first stage. If you've used the print Reference collection recently, you may have noticed some books with white slips in them. These titles are under review by library staff. Reference librarians are identifying titles which are of questionable value or condition, and recommending some action. Some books are duplicated by newer works, so no longer needed. Some are unique, but dated, and may require a newer edition. Others may still be of value, but are no longer required to answer Reference questions, and could move to the circulating collection. Still others have been superseded by changing curricula or plentiful online resources, and are no longer useful. After each call number has undergone an initial review by a Reference librarian with an interest in the subject, other library staff are invited to review the marked titles. If they feel a book is still useful, or know of a better title in that area, those comments will be taken into account. After library staff have gone through the identified titles in a call number area, faculty will be given an opportunity to review those books. The goal of the review is to update the Reference collection as much as possible (within budget limitations) and eventually to reduce the size of the collection. With the increasing availability of reliable online sources, there is less need for an extensive “ready-reference” print collection. Too many old books on the shelf may also discourage students and camouflage the more current titles that are of most use to them. At the same time, many publishers are now producing for the first time titles that answer a real need, such as details on other countries and cultures, literary resources for other countries, and collected business statistics. In order to make room for some of these new titles, and to keep the collection relevant for students' needs, we hope to remove some of the older books. Ideally, the Reference collection should consist of books that are useful for answering short questions with valid information and starting students on a research path. Watch for further information, as we invite faculty participation in reviewing targeted books.
Alfred Hitchcock is the master of the thriller genre. He was a brilliant technician who blended suspense, humor and romance into his films. During the 1930's he found commercial and critical success with the film The Man Who Knew Too Much. He followed this film with a succession of suspenseful films, which included 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes. In the 1940's his direction turned to the psychological thriller. Several of the best during this period are Spellbound, Rope, and Strangers on a Train. During his most inspired period from 1950 to 1960 he directed memorable films like Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest, Vertigo, and Psycho, with its famed shower murder sequence. Hitchcock's later films dealt more with evil as a part of life. The Birds, Marnie, and Torn Curtain are several films made during the end of his career. Polk Library has all of the films listed above, plus many more films by Alfred Hitchcock. The Library also has a film entitled Hitch, produced by the BBC, which examines the life and the works of Alfred Hitchcock. This film spans his 60-year career of filmmaking. Check the following link to the library catalog for a list of the Alfred Hitchcock films at Polk. Happy Viewing!
Polk Library provides access to over 125 databases and other electronic resources to support the curriculum, research, and information needs of our students, staff and faculty. Some are general information databases, some are subject specific; some are easy to use, some are quite difficult; some have full text, some are just indexes. If you ever wondered if anyone used these resources: there were well over half a million searches done on Polk Library databases in 2004! Following is a list of the Top 10 databases based on the number of searches by UW Oshkosh students, staff, and faculty:
For information about these databases and others, see the Polk Library web page. We have created a subject page for each discipline listing relevant databases, or you can view an alphabetical list, with descriptions, here: http://www.uwosh.edu/library/ae.html
While the snow is falling outside you can sit back and relax with one of these new books from the Browsing Room. Here are some new titles that might be of interest to you.
Happy Reading!
2002-03 Oshkosh Area Wage & Benefit Survey Compiled by the Oshkosh Chamber of Commerce, this report summarizes survey data collected from over fifty area businesses regarding the wages and benefits for their employees. The resource is divided into two sections: "Benefits" and "Wages". The "Benefits" section provides companies' responses to questions on matters such as overtime pay, raises, vacation, insurance coverage, and maternity leave, and each question gives totals for both union and non-union positions. For each occupation listed in the "Wages" section, data is given for the number of reported hourly and salaried positions; union and non-union positions; and lowest, highest, and average wages per hour. For jobs ranging from accountants to social workers, or from registered nurses to computer network administrators, readers can find the range of wages they can expect in the Oshkosh area. Staff Highlights
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Read current issue of Polk Library News
Read past issues of Polk Library News
February 2005 issue, printer-friendly version (pdf)
Articles in this issue:
~From the Director: Getting Faculty What They Need
~New Toll-Free Reference Phone Number
~ValueLine Investment Survey Online
~Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
~"Off Campus Services @ Polk Library" Blog
~Reviewing the Reference Collection (or, What are those white slips for?)