In response to the Virginia Tech Information Needs Project, University Libraries has acquired several significant information resources to further support the teaching and research activities of the university’s students and faculty.

Since the project’s inception in 2004, University Libraries has secured online access to the publications of the major societies in automotive engineering, microbiology, and plant pathology.

In addition, liberal arts faculty and students have benefited from online access to such resources as the historical American Periodicals Online, the Early English Books, which includes the 125,000 titles published in English from 1473 to 1700; and several important historical newspapers, including The London Times 1785-1985 and The New York Times 1851-2003. The libraries have also worked variously with Virginia Tech’s Research Division, Graduate School, and University Development to subscribe to EndNote, which manages personal bibliographies and libraries, and the Foundation Center Online, which helps researchers identify funding sources.

Because many faculty expressed enthusiasm for full-text electronic journals and deeper retrospective content, pre-1995 content back to volume 1 (as early as 1826) for more than 500 journals from Elsevier, has been added, along with three more JSTOR libraries, allowing online access to the older content of nearly 400 important journals in the social sciences and humanities.

Online resources that will benefit specific research populations include the following full-text resources: Oral History Online; Women and Social Movements; digital Sanborn maps; Emporis Research, which includes information on architecture, construction, and real estate; Safari e-books in information technology; the online Birds of North America; and the electronic Human Relations Area Files.

University Libraries has also expanded its approval plan to acquire the monographs of key publishers more quickly.

University Libraries’ Director of Collection Management Paul Metz is optimistic that other powerful new resources will become available in the future.

“I know that the university’s goal to achieve increased stature as a national research university and to boost graduate enrollment, especially at the Ph.D. level, will require enhanced library resources. If we can really achieve the Strategic Plan’s specific goals for the size of the library’s information resources budget, we should be able to keep the good news coming for a good while.”

For more information, contact Paul Metz at at (540) 231-5663.

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