Library today: Here's what the UST Libraries' Technical Services staff does
From UST Libraries
Library Technical Services staff members order and pay for the electronic resources ($600,000 annually), print periodicals and serials ($420,000), print books ($170,000) and media ($35,000) for all UST students, faculty and staff to use for their research and viewing or listening pleasure.
They catalog everything into CLICnet, the libraries’ catalog, so that everyone can find what they need, when they need it and in the most useful format. Staff members also catalog certain Web sites that enhance student learning and faculty teaching.
For the materials bought in print, Technical Services staff process the materials bought in print with labels and jackets (if they have them) and possibly bind them for posterity. For the things that are digital, licenses must be evaluated and negotiated to make sure they are available to the widest possible audience at the lowest price.
They continually evaluate and assess the collection to ensure that they are acquiring materials that meet the needs of UST users. This means that sometimes they cancel databases and journals, withdraw books and migrate resources to electronic format, including streaming video.
The 10 people who are devoted to doing this work for the University of St. Thomas are listed on the UST Libraries Web page along with their contact information.
Database of the week
UST Libraries continues to add new electronic resources, and we will highlight them over the next several weeks in the Bulletin Today. This week's featured database is the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery, the premier society of information technology professionals) Digital Library.
The ACM Digital Library contains abstracts, reviews and full-text articles published in ACM periodicals, newsletters and proceedings dating back to 1947. It covers many fields relating to computing, including: hardware, software, artificial intelligence, instructional technology and information science. Users can search this database with keywords and phrases, author names, and ACM classification subjects, or they can browse back issues and tables of contents of older journal titles and conference proceedings.
This resource is ideal not only for students in scientific fields but also for related disciplines such as the use of instructional technology, the impact of technology on society and the business side of technology.
For more information on how to access the ACM Digital Library or any other library database, please call a UST reference librarian at (651) 962-5001 or (651) 962-4664.
