YUL News

York University Libraries are again participating in LibQUAL+ ®, a web-based survey to measure quality of library services, collections and facilities.  In mid-February the Libraries will be sending out invitations to faculty and a random sample of undergraduate and graduate students.

Over a thousand libraries around the world have participated in LibQUAL+® since its inception in 2000.  The survey is a standardized tool coordinated through the Association of Research Libraries (ARL).  LibQUAL+® is administered approximately every three years.  This year will be York Libraries’ fifth time running the survey.

The results of this survey will:

• help us better understand how groups within York’s community evaluate library services, collections and facilities
• help us know how best to improve our library services and plan for the future
• allow us to benchmark and track our progress over time
• allow us to compare York’s results with other university libraries

Invitations to participate in the survey will soon be emailed to a sample of York’s students and faculty members.  If you receive an invitation to participate in the survey, please take a few minutes to respond.

User feedback is essential in maintaining a quality library system.  The Libraries’ welcome comments from all members of the York community.  If you have not received an invitation to participate in the survey but have a comment or suggestion to share, please email libqual@yorku.ca or contact Mark Robertson, Associate University Librarian.

The Library values the opinions of its users and we thank you in advance for your valuable input.

If you would like more information about the survey, please visit our LibQUAL+® FAQ page.

As part of York University Libraries’ commitment to a culture of assessment, we will be participating in MINES for Libraries™, an online transaction-based survey that collects data on user demographics and the purpose of use of electronic resources. The web survey will be focused specifically on the use of those electronic resources that are accessed via SFX or the “Find it @ York” link. It is managed by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), which has a long standing role in the development and application of performance measures and management tools.

MINES is a short, 5 question web survey that is delivered at the point of use, every 250th time an e-journal or digital collection or service is accessed from Scholars Portal. It should take 1-2 minutes to complete and all responses are completely anonymous.

OCUL will be launching the survey in mid-February and it will run for the following 12 months.

We feel very strongly that usage numbers are not enough to provide a full picture of the impact of networked electronic resources on members of our university communities. This survey methodology allows us to collect more qualitative data from actual users of Scholars Portal e-resources and will provide OCUL with rich, reliable data for decision-making and service improvements.

We value and appreciate your participation in the MINES survey as it will assist OCUL in cooperatively improving the collections and services provided by Ontario university libraries.

Two students eat, sleep and live in the Scott Library for seven days to raise
money to build libraries in India. See: http://liveinforliteracy.com/

THE CAUSE

The mission is to raise funds to build schools, libraries, and other educational infrastructure in developing countries. The goal this year is to raise $20,000 towards the construction of a library in India and the publication of 10,000 local language children’s books, to be accomplished through Room to Read.
THE CHALLENGE

Two students must eat, sleep and live in a designated area of their university library for 7 consecutive days. During the seven days, they will be raising awareness about Live-in for Literacy and fundraising for our cause.  Their experience will be recorded live on webcam, to be viewed by audiences around the world.

You can watch them live on streaming video right from Scott, and they and other people doing the same live-ins in 8 other university libraries are blogging about it all.

Live TV by Ustream

For more about York University Libraries’ support for the many kinds of literacy, see our web pages about information literacy and read our Information Literacy Manifesto.

Lisa Sloniowski

ACLS Humanities E-Book urges you to participate in their survey, which has been designed to test the viability of presenting titles from their collection in new formats for use on handheld e-book readers, including the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, and Apple iPhone. Your participation will provide critical feedback about the use of scholarly titles on handheld devices.

To participate, please visit www.humanitiesebook.org/handheld.html. Here you can download one or more free HEB titles to your e-book reader and access the survey. (If you’ve already downloaded a title, please remember to go back and answer the survey questions!) Titles include: The Arabs and Medieval Europe by Norman Daniel, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America by Lewis Hanke, and The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi.

To thank you for your participation, ACLS Humanities E-Book will be doing a raffle drawing for three $50 gift certificates to a retailer of your choice: Amazon, Sony, or Apple. Be sure to fill out the contact information on the last screen of the survey to enter the raffle. Individual responses are strictly confidential. The overall results and analysis will be made available in a subsequent white paper.

Shane and Alicia are the York contingent in Live-In for Literacy. They’re camped out in the Scott Library for one week!

THE CAUSE

The mission is to raise funds to build schools, libraries, and other educational infrastructure in developing countries. The goal this year is to raise $20,000 towards the construction of a library in India and the publication of 10,000 local language children’s books, to be accomplished through Room to Read.

THE CHALLENGE

Two students must eat, sleep and live in a designated area of their university library for 7 consecutive days. During the seven days, they will be raising awareness about Live-in for Literacy and fundraising for our cause. Their experience will be recorded live on webcam, to be viewed by audiences around the world.

You can watch them live on streaming video right from Scott, and they and other people doing the same live-ins in other university libraries are blogging about it all.

For more about York University Libraries’ support for the many kinds of literacy, see our web pages about information literacy and read out Information Literacy Manifesto.

Proquest Webinars are designed to help you get more out of your products and are available for all relevant disciplines. Sessions on Proquest’s most popular products are offered every month. During January and February, they are featuring the following database:

• Early English Books Online, 1475-1700, (EEBO) presents classic early English works — the earliest printed works in the English language — as they appear in their original format. View the first edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or Vesalius’ early works with illustrations on human anatomy or Purcell’s musical scores. As many of these texts are no longer available to researchers due to deterioration, EEBO brings all of them to the researcher’s desktop. Currently 127,000 texts are included and provide works related to all subject areas. Learn about the new digitization project, Early European Books (EEB), from the Royal Library of Copenhagen, cross-searchable with EEBO. EEB has begun with 15th and 16th century imprints that have influenced European intellectual life

The full line-up of webinars across time zones and in multiple languages can be found at www.proquest.com/go/webinars.

Innovative catalogue search engine represents a Canadian first is the lead story in today! We’re thrilled by the coverage. It’s a fine article, so go have a look.

Our thanks to Jenny Pitt-Clark, editor of YFile, for writing the story.

Some food for thought: the Scott Library has a new food and drink policy!

The staff of Scott Library recognize that food and drink are often essential components in studying and learning.  However, we are equally committed to ensuring that you have a clean, comfortable, and inviting place to learn outside the classroom walls.  But we need your help!

Please be aware that hot foods and meals such as pizza, fries and pasta are not permitted in any of the York Libraries. Hot foods are often messy, and the oils and sauces on them can do serious damage to property and the important materials that you need for your studies.  As well, these foods often have odours that disturb others.

In most parts of the Scott Library drinks and cold snacks are permitted.   Examples of cold snacks include fruit, cookies, chocolate bars, etc.  Please be aware that the food and drink policies are actually different in different York library locations (eg. Steacie, Frost, etc.).   For more detailed information about what is permitted in the various libraries on campus, please consult the food and drink policy listed on the library’s web site.

To further ensure that the Libraries remains clean and comfortable, we are also asking all users to clean up after themselves.  Please throw your garbage in the many bins located through the library, or take it with you!

Library users in violation of the policy will be kindly asked to discard their food, store it out of sight in a bag or knapsack, or leave the library.

This policy has been put in place for your comfort and enjoyment, and has been endorsed by the Library Student Advisory Council.    Library staff will work hard on your behalf to ensure that the library remains the best place to study outside the classroom, but we need your cooperation to make it happen.

It’s your library, so let’s respect it!

The new search interface has gone live!

The new search has lots of improvements over the old catalogue:

• Everything in one place: books, eResources, journals, CDs, DVDs, other audio and video materials, maps, holdings in Archives and Special Collections, items in YorkSpace, journals in York Digital Journals, and more
• One search box to make it easier to find what you’re looking for.
• Book covers! When we can find them, you’ll see book covers.
• You can refine your search results by using the filters on the left-hand side. Want to see just things that are online? Under Format, select eResources. Perfect for when you’re working late at night or off campus. Want to see what’s in a particular library? Select it from the list under Libraries. Need to find everything we have by Jean Paul Sartre in French? Narrow your results by Language: French.
• My List. Save anything to My List (something for a paper, something to look at later, a book to read for a course, a DVD you want to watch) and you can come back to the list later to see everything you’ve saved. You can add tags and comments.
• Course reserves are now easier to search.

We’re excited about this, and we think you’re going to like it.

This help file explains what’s different about the new system, and gives some tips on how to use it. A special handout is available in all the libraries — just ask at any desk. Also, you’ll notice that as you change the search options (from Keyword to Periodical Title, for example), you’ll be offered some suggestions for how to do that special search.

Send us your comments, suggestions, ideas, criticisms, and questions: library@yorku.ca.

Wondering where the classic catalogue is? It’s still there — it’s not going away. It’s linked from the home page and under the Catalogue heading in the red navigation bar at the top of every page.

There are currently no Part-time job opportunities in the library. For details, see Part-Time Employment Opportunities on the web site.