From September 28th – October 31st, the following e-book packages will be available from Knovel Books:

1 Sustainable Energy & Development
2. Industrial Engineering & Operations Management
3. Earth Sciences

Feedback and comments may be submitted to engsci@queensu.ca

A new web site developed by Queen’s Library, following consultation with faculty, students, and administrators, aims to improve access to course readings for Queen’s students:

Creating Course Reading Lists

The Creating Course Reading Lists site provides new recommendations for faculty to keep in mind when preparing course readings for Winter 2010 and beyond.  It is designed to assist faculty in leveraging the opportunities created by the increasing availability of electronic information resources, in combination with current and emerging online learning environments.  The site includes guidelines and advice relating to online access and fair dealing, as well as the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act.

Recognizing that electronic versions of course readings are not always available and that print readings remain the recommended option in some circumstances, the site also provides links to services which support print-based course materials, including the AMS Publishing & Copy Centre and the Campus Bookstore.  The Library will continue to offer reserve reading services for print materials where appropriate, but encourages instructors to utilize electronic resources whenever possible.

The new site is the culmination of extensive review and consultation undertaken by the Library’s Course Readings Working Group, whose membership included Maggie Berg (English Department and Educational Development Faculty Associate at the Centre for Teaching and Learning), Wendy Huot (Web Development Librarian), Brad Murphy (ITServices), Sharon Musgrave (Stauffer Library Access Services), Brenda Reed (Education Library), Mary Claire Vandenburg (Stauffer Library Learning & Research Services), and Martha Whitehead (Associate University Librarian).  The group would also like to thank Michele Chittenden (Adaptive Technology Centre) and Jeanette Parsons (Queen’s Accessibility Coordinator) for accessibility advice, and Diane Kelly (Queen’s Legal Counsel) and Laura Murray (English Department and Chair of the Copyright Committee of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences) for advice on copyright and fair dealing. The group’s report is available on the Creating Course Reading Lists web site.

The Library supports Queen’s University’s submission to the Canadian Copyright Consultation.  The University’s submission outlines four key points:

1. Digital locks, though they may be used to stop piracy, must not impede users’ rights.
2. Fair dealing ought to be clarified and amplified.
3. Specialized exceptions ought to be used sparingly because they likely wouldn’t be able to keep up with technological change or accommodate a range of reasonable educational practices. 
4. Licensing mechanisms must not be seen as a substitute for users’ rights.

Principal Daniel Woolf has reiterated the University’s position in an op-ed entitled “Getting Copyright Right,” posted to The Mark on September 11, 2009.  Additional information is available on the Principal’s Office newssite.

We have received a number of comments and queries regarding the University of Toronto’s decision to introduce user fees for direct library borrowers as of October 1 and we are endeavouring to keep the Queen’s community informed of service changes made at the University of Toronto that might affect some Queen’s users.

As previously indicated, Interlibrary Loans are unaffected and ILL services at Queen’s remain unchanged.  The University Librarian at U of T has advised that faculty and graduate students from other universities will continue to be granted access to restricted stacks free of charge.  The new fees apply specifically to direct, in-person borrowing from University of Toronto Library.

The University of Toronto Library is a participant under the Canadian University Reciprocal Borrowing Agreement. The terms of the agreement are intended to extend borrowing privileges to faculty and students associated with participating institutions.  However, the agreement allows for borrowing policies and privileges to be determined by each participating institution and expressly states that fees may apply.

Queen’s Library, together with other Ontario University Libraries, has a stong collaborative relationship with the University of Toronto Library through a number of consortia, and along with many other university libraries we have expressed our surprise and strong concern about this change in policy. We  recognize that budget reductions and increasing fiscal constraint have placed enormous pressure on academic research libraries in Ontario and across Canada.  The University of Toronto is not alone in seeking strategies to address the enormous challenges resulting from the current economic environment. Nevertheless, we feel strongly that existing collaborative arrangements among Canadian university libraries to facilitate access to scholarly information resources should not be compromised.

The decision by the University of Toronto to introduce user fees will be discussed at a meeting next week of the Executive of the Ontario Council of University Libraries.  Paul Wiens, University Librarian for Queen’s, is working in concert with senior Queen’s administrators in communicating with respective counterparts at the University of Toronto to urge U of T to consider the broad impact of this action and to revisit this decision.

Any further updates from Queen’s Library will be posted to this site.  Questions or comments relating to borrowing policies are best directed to the lending institution.

Book and article orders placed through Racer after September 10 will no longer be available for pick-up from the Engineering & Science Library. You may select to pick up items at either Stauffer Library or the Education Library or you can request delivery of articles, with an account code, to your department. Continue to place your orders online through Racer. Please e-mail the Engineering & Science Library if you need any help verifying a reference or with any of your research needs.

The Engineering & Science Library’s Information Desk, which was located on the first floor, is now on the ground floor (left hand side of the circulation/reserve desk). If you need help with your assignment or research, or finding your way around the library please ask us. You can also contact us by e-mail, phone (533-6981) or chat.

The New Book Shelf, DVDs, and Multimedia Station have also moved down to the ground floor.

At the request of a number of sustainability groups at Queen’s, Stauffer Library has launched a pilot project to assess the impact of changing the settings on library printers to double-sided printing. Print jobs sent to any Stauffer Library printer station will now print double-sided by default.

Please note that page counts from some software programs (e.g., Internet Explorer) are sometimes inaccurate, occasionally resulting in a 10-cent overcharge on some print jobs. We regret that the Library is unable to provide printing refunds.

If you require single-sided printouts and/or wish to avoid any overcharge, you must change the printer settings manually:

1. Select Preferences or Properties from the program’s print job screen;
2. Click the Finishing tab;
3. Un-check the box to Print on Both Sides.

The pilot period has been extended through the end of the Fall term. In the meantime, we continue to welcome feedback from Library users. Please use the comment section here to share your opinion.

The University of Toronto Library has announced that as of October 1, 2009, it will begin charging fees for research readers and direct borrowers from other universities. This applies to those who access collections in person at UofT, but does not affect Inter-Library Loans (ILL). Queen’s ILL services remain unchanged.

Borrowing directly from other university libraries is made possible through reciprocal borrowing agreements. Reciprocal borrowing privileges are determined by each lending (host) library.

Babs Flower, Honorary Life Member of the Canadian Health Libraries Association, passed away in Kingston on Sept. 8th. Her report, “Libraries without Walls: Blueprint for the Future“, written in 1987, still resonates today…although it was penned before the e-journal revolution and the scholarly publishing open access movement.

Queen’s Library has now purchased the online version of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics . Version 2009 of the Internet Edition corresponds to the 89th Edition of the printed book and features new and updated tables in several areas of science.

In addition to offering the full text of the print edition in searchable pdf format, the Internet Version 2009 presents the major tables of numerical data in the form of interactive tables that can be sorted, filtered, and combined in various ways. Substances in these tables can be retrieved by searching on name, formula, or CAS Registry Number, and such a search can be combined with a request for a desired property. Thus one can request a specific property of a specific substance (for example, viscosity of benzene) and receive a customized table with exactly that information. Inverse searches can also be done, in which one asks for all substances that have a set of properties falling within specified ranges.