New Resources, Programs Added by Libraries Over Past Year

Over the last year, the University Libraries added enhanced resources and faculty programs that are now available to campus.  

"Our campus is in a remarkable period of growth," said Angie Ohler, associate dean for content and digital initiatives. "Growth in new students, new programs and new research initiatives. As our campus grows, the libraries' collections must also grow to serve more and new needs. Our challenge continues to be providing collections that serve both the broad academic and teaching endeavors of our students and faculty, while also acquiring resources that serve new, unique and specialized needs. We are very grateful to interim Chancellor Charles Robinson for the support he has provided to make these purchases possible." 

A complete list of the resources, collections and programs added by the libraries over the past year is available online, and a blog post provides additional information about how these can be used.  

Some notable mentions among these are: 

An agreement negotiated by the University Libraries between academic publisher Elsevier and the U of A System has increased online access to nearly all of Elsevier's 2,650 published journals and reduced costs by 13 percent.  

The libraries' Data Services unit acquired access to Data Planet, which contains more than 52 billion data points, to support the U of A's growing Data Science program.  

In addition to providing access to academic resources, the libraries have entered into publisher contracts and created programs that help U of A students, faculty and staff publish articles and books open access by reducing the cost of publishing. 

The libraries recently signed a "read and publish" agreement with Cambridge University Press that helps cover the costs of article processing charges for 16 U of A authors per year across the publishers' journal titles.    

The Open Access Publishing Fund was created by the University Libraries, and seven colleges and campus units contributed funding. U of A authors who do not have another source of funding can apply for up to $2,000 to cover publishing costs for an open access journal article or monograph.  

The libraries welcome feedback from campus regarding what materials would be most useful to them moving forward.