USF 1996-97 Undergraduate Catalog - Pages 55

The USF Library System

The seven libraries of USF consist of the three libraries of the Tampa campus: Tampa Campus Library, Health Sciences Library, Florida Mental Health Institute Library; Nelson Poynter Library at the St. Petersburg Campus; Jane Bancroft Cook Library at the New College/Sarasota Campus; and joint use facilities with community colleges at Edison Community College in Ft. Myers and Polk Community College in Lakeland. The System provides access to information resources to fulfill the instructional, research, and artistic needs of students, faculty, and staff of USF. In addition, the System also has a responsibility to serve the educational, cultural, business, and professional information needs of the citizens of USF's service area and the national academic community.

The USF library system contains over 1,500,000 volumes, and the SUS libraries together contain over 10,000,000 volumes of information resources. Books and periodicals are cataloged and arranged on open shelves using the Library of Congress Classification System. Books may be checked out with renewal privileges; periodicals may not be checked out.

Library User Information Service (LUIS), the online catalog, may be searched by author, title, subject, and keyword to identify the library's holdings. LUIS contains records for the USF libraries, all nine SUS libraries in Florida, online catalogs worldwide, and serves as a gateway to over 50 periodical and full-text databases. Terminals located in various USF libraries provide access to the online catalog. Remote access to the same catalog is also possible through any campus terminal linked to the USF mainframe or via dial-in procedures.

Regional Exchange Center (REC) service can obtain materials from other USF campus libraries upon request. Thus, students and faculty have access to resources beyond the on-site collections at each campus. REC forms are available at reference and circulation service desks.

More information about the USF Library System is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.lib.usf.edu

Tampa Campus Library

Central to the philosophy of the Tampa Campus Library is the view that the people it serves are equally as important as the books on its shelves. Students are encouraged to become familiar with the collection, to master the techniques of using it, and to achieve a familiarity with information resources that will carry over into later life.

The Tampa Campus Library contains a collection of more than 900,000 volumes, 4,500 periodicals and 2 million microforms of all types to support a broad range and depth of faculty and student research, as well as personal knowledge and cultural advancement.

Reference Collection: The Reference collection is located on the first floor, with service provided at the Reference desk. Reference librarians assist students and faculty in using all types of information sources: print, media, microform, computer, CD-ROM, on-line. Reference librarians offer computer searches of on-line databases to students and faculty on a cost recovery basis. Some of these same databases may be searched at no cost by using the LUIS catalog or CD-ROM databases in the Reference area. Reference librarians provide classroom presentations in two state-of-the-art computer labs and teach LIS 2001 Information Resources and Library Research. CALL/USF, the library's information service to the community, offers document delivery to USF users. There is a fee for CALL/USF services.

Periodicals Collection: The Periodicals Collection is on the second floor. In addition to more than 4,500 periodicals, the library has selected newspapers from Florida, from major cities in the U.S.. and from some foreign countries. A large collection of materials is available in microformat, also located on the second floor. These unique research collections provide access to many important sources otherwise only accessible at other libraries. The library has both a microfiche reproduction service and self-service photocopying equipment.

Government Documents: The Library serves as a selective depository for U.S. and Florida Government publications and acquires United Nations committee reports on microfiche. These documents are augmented by the acquisition of selected publications of other public agencies. The Government Documents Department houses these collections and is located on the basement level. Topical displays of documents are featured frequently in the department. The Government Documents unit is also a U.S. patent depository library.

Special Collections: The fourth floor Special Collections Department houses the library's rare books, maps, documents, manuscripts, and the University Archives. With more than 1 million items, the Department contains a number of nationally significant reseach resources, including the papers of Florida's governors, congressmen, and other key leaders. Other important collections include the nationally recognized Children's Book Collection, the NationsBank Black Sheet Music Collection, and the extensive holdings of mutual aid societies and immigrant history materials. These rich resource items are in closed stacks, but with assistance are available at the Special Collections service desk.

Access Services (Circulation, Interlibrary Loan, Reserve, and REC: Regional Exchange Center): The Access Services' Circulation and Reserve departments are located on the first floor. The Reserve collection, containing books and articles "reserved" at faculty request for use of a particular class, is available at the Reserve service desk. Circulating books that are shelved on the third through fifth floors can be checked out at the service desk. The Library uses an automated circulation system which facilitates easy and quick check out of books. A statement of the Library's circulation policy is available at the Access Services desk on the first floor.

University Media Center and Lab: The University Media Center (UMC) provides media materials for instruction, research, and curriculum support. Videocassettes, sound recordings, slides, transparencies, kits, and other audio-visual formats as well as music scores are available for loan. The UMC Audio-Visual Lab provides equipment to utilize all media in the collection, including large projection screen multimedia classrooms. The UMC houses video lectures supporting distance learning programs, including the Open University, Engineering FEEDS, and the Instructional Television Fixed Service (ITFS).

More information about the collections and services at the Tampa Campus Library is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.lib.usf.edu

Send comments to:
Karen M. Hall - webCat@ugs.usf.edu
Effective Date: Semester I, 1996