Special points of interest:
Visit :
library.ucmerced.edu/howto
for instructions on how to access the Library’s print and online information resources
Some 8,000 full-text journals are available online via UC’s California Digital Library
The first book acquired by UC Merced Library was Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto with Illustrations by Ed Martinez.
UC Merced is small in many ways, but thanks to the resource-sharing capabilities of the University of California System Libraries, UC Merced students, faculty, and staff have access to more books, journals, and other information resources than their counterparts at just about any university in the world.
Online Resources
Anyone using a computer on a UC network (including computers in UCM offices) or connecting to a UC network via remote access, can make use of the online resources subscribed to by the California Digital Library (CDL) on behalf of the entire UC System.
While the exact number of online resources available
to the UC System is not an easy number to pin down, it adds up to approximately 8,000 full-text journals and several hundred databases. In addition, CDL provides access to thousands of online books (including reference books) as well as many collections of digital scholarly materials such as Counting California and the eScholarship Repository.
Print Resources
UCM faculty, students and staff can use the Request feature in the Melvyl catalog to have books and other print-format information resources delivered free of charge. The delivery time is typically a matter of a few days.
If an article is not available
Melvyl is the access point for both print and online information
online, UCM students, faculty, and staff can request a copy. Such requests are almost always fulfilled by an electronic copy of the article, with delivery often occurring in less than a day.
For details on accessing information resources, please see:
library.ucmerced.edu/howto
Inside this issue:
Library as Space
Meet the UCM Librarians:
Bruce Miller
Meet the UCM Librarians:
Donald Barclay
Meet the UCM Librarians:
Jim Dooley
Meet the UCM Librarians:
Emily Lin
Treasure in a Walnut Grove: The Tale of a Digital Collection
UC Merced Library is in the process of building an opening-day book collection. Designed to support UC Merced's initial ndergraduate majors, this growing collection will number approximately 25,000 volumes by the early summer of 2004.
Some 14,000 of these 25,000 volumes were purchased through an approval plan administered by YBP Library Services. Following a subject profile developed by UC Merced librarians, YBP acquires, processes, and ships “shelf-ready” books to UC Merced more quickly and cheaply than if the work were done in house.
In addition, UC Merced librarians have selectedsome 11,000 volumes of gift books to add to the collection.
“Typically we select only those gift books that support
Books are already filling the shelves at UC Merced.
UCM programs,” says Jim Dooley, head of UC Merced Library's technical services department. “The cost of making a book shelf-ready and cataloging it is too high for us to accept every gift we are offered or to ultimately add every book we accept to the Library collection.”
Similar to the approval-plan books, the gift books are being processed by a third party (Ohio-based OCLC TechPro) in the interest of speed and economy.
In addition to printed books, UC Merced Library is acquiring electronic books that can be
accessed and read online. These online titles are being acquired through both an approval plan and the Library's investment in Carnegie-Mellon's Million Book Project.
The goal of the Million Book project is to digitize one million books by 2005. Most of these books are scholarly texts that are either out of copyright or out of print.
According to UC Merced's Founding University Librarian, Bruce Miller, “We hope that our undergraduates will be able to find almost everything they need either online via the California Digital Library or in print on our library shelves. When undergraduates need more, they, like faculty and graduate students, can use Melvyl to request what they need from the other libraries of the UC System.”
The UC System Libraries currently hold some 32 million volumes.