Library Directionsl A Newsletter of the University of Washington Libraries Volume 8 NO.1 Autumn 1997 Foster Business Library Opens Gordon Aamot, Foster Business Library The Foster Business Library opened to the public the z first day of Summer Quarter, June 23, 1997. It combines a spacious library environment with a technological infrastructure that permits a wide range of electronic services now, and will allow services to expand and change in the future. Background o The project was funded by a mix of private and public money. In late 1990, the University of Washington School of Business Administration received a gift of three million dollars from the Foster Foundation to help fund a new business library to be named in honor ofAlbert O. and Evelyn - W. Foster. Albert Foster graduated from the UW Business School in 1928, and founded the investment banking firm of Foster & Marshall in 1938. Evelyn Foster graduated from the UW in 1932. The Business School combined the Foster gift with photo by Loyd Heath, 1997 two others and developed the concept for a complex that would come to include the Seafirst Executive located above the reading area. The skylight and Education Center, the Boeing Auditorium, and the twenty-foot ceiling give the space a light, airy Foster Business Library. Planning for the project feeling. With 19,500 square feet, the library is one began in February 1991. Construction began in and one-halftimes the size of the old Balmer facility. March 1995, and continued through June 1997. u The lower level contains circulation, reference, the The Library collections, library workstations, and most of the The Foster Busi1less Library is a "below garden" reader seating. The mezzanine level overlooks the facility. The most striking physical characteristic of main reading area, and contains additional reader the new library is the 800-square-foot skylight seating and group study rooms. Welcome to Autumn Quarter, 1997, from the University Libraries. Whether you are new to campus or have been around for a while, we hope you will take a look at the services available to you from the University Libraries. From over 20 facilities, the Libraries' staff is eager to show you the wealth of materials and information sources available to you, both in campus locations and via electronic access. Some of the newest databases, electronic journals and services are outlined in this newsletter, but we also want to remind you of more established services. Zephyr, a free personalllotification service, can provide you with a list of newly received materials listed in the UW Libraries Catalog or from the Currenl Contents database. Electronic forms are now available to request retrieval ofmaterials from storage, to renew circulated material, to send in requests for purchase of new items, or to request items via interlibrary loan. - Explore the UW Libraries Web page at http://www.lib.washington.edufor access to these and other services, or stop by your nearest library for assistance. Welcome back to an exciting year of study and teaching. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• The library offers a variety of study spaces to The library can be contacted at 543-4360, accommodate different user needs and preferences. [email protected], or through the Web at One of the biggest differences between the old and http://weber.u.washington.edu/-balib. new facilities is the addition of seven group study rooms, accommodating six to ten people each. The Electronic Journals Increase rooms may be reserved for two-hom periods up to Tim Jewell, Electronic Information Program one week in advance. Library seating consists of Steve Hiller, Science Libraries cheny-stained maple four-person tables or two­ Jim Stickman, Serials person canels. For individuals who prefer to cml up in a comfortable chair, there are eighteen soft chairs. Recently, concerns about the lack of "real content" on the World Wide Web began to be answered by the The new facility was designed to allow easy access to availability of "electronic journals": typically free, power and data. There are few spaces, including scholarly publications aimed at exploiting the tables and canels, within the library not within reach advantages of electronic distribution for serious of an outlet or data connection. Students and faculty academic research. Now publishers of many can bring in their laptop computers, plug into the established, print-based journals have joined that campus network, and access their uniform access movement by providing electronic access to some or accounts, the Libraries databases or the World Wide all of their titles, and the UW Libraries has licensed Web. hundreds of them and made them available to users on their own desktops. This infrastructme has enabled the library to expand its range of electronic business services. The Although we are quite far from having a "critical electronic reference area contains 20 library mass" of important journal literature available -w-orkstatiof.ls.-Users have access to net.workedl--­ electronically,J:hese.-developments_do-OffeLgreat and databases, the World Wide Web and CD-ROM compelling opportunities to broaden access and databases networked from the Foster Business improve services. Instead of physically traveling to Library server. UW students and faculty can also one of the campus libraries to search for and copy access NEXIS and Dow Jones News Retrieval in the articles from relevant journals, researchers and new NEXIS/DOW JONES Lab. These somces contain the full texts of thousands of news and business sources. Library Directions is produced three times a year by the University of Washington Libraries Staff. Business librarians will teach strategies and Inquiries concerning content should be sent to: techniques for using electronic resources in the Library Directions Library Seminar Room. This space will University of Washington Libraries accommodate up to 12 students and, when not in use Allen Library, Room 482 for instruction, will function as an open lab. In all, Box 352900 Seattle, WA 98195-2900 there are more than 30 public workstations available (206) 543-1760 in the Foster Business Library-twice the number in ([email protected]) the old library facility. These desktop stations, Betsy Wilson, Managing Editor combined with the laptop access available at the Carol Green, Assistant Editor wired reader stations, offer users a rich array of Susan Kemp, Production Manager electronic business resomces now, and the potential Michael Milligan, Photographer Diana Johnson, Anita Smith, Mary Whiting, for even more access in the near futme as laptop Copy Editors computing is incorporated into the curriculum. The current version of LibrQlY Directions can be found online at (http://www.lib.washington.edu/libinjo/ Stop by and visit the Foster Business Library. Homs libdirections!currentl), along with several previous issues. dming Autumn Quarter are: Several sources are used for mailing labels. If you receive Monday-Thursday 8am-llpm multiple copies please pass them on to others or return the Friday 8am-5pm labels of the unwanted copies to Library Directiolls. Satmday 9am-5pm Printed on acid-free, recycled paper. Sunday lpm-9pm 2 ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• students can now access them conveniently and One noteworthy attempt to try to address this For further quickly from their offices or homes. Electronic troublesome issue of archiving is the JSTOR project, information: versions often appear sooner, and in some cases which the Libraries joined as a charter member last UW web pages: provide supplementary materials, multimedia spring. This program is based in part on the fact that features, interactive simulations, or "bot links" to library shelf space is expensive, and that libraries all UW Libraries e-journals page (http:// other articles or citations that are clearly not possible over the country shelve the same back-file runs ofcore www.lib.washington.edu/ through the print medium. Future possibilities academic journals. Accordingly, the aims of the libinfo/ejournalsl) include automated interest profiling for users, and project's first phase are to scan and make available a permanent electronic archive (typically up to within Health Sciences Library's other improvements. Healthlinks list (http:// three to five years of the current year) of at least 100 healthlinks. washington. Not surprisingly, electronic offerings now available core journals within the next three years. So far, more edu/journalsl) to UW users are especially Oliented to current than 50 such journals have been made available, including such well-known titles as the JournaL of Physics Library e-journals information, and to scientific, technical, and medical page (http:// (STM) subjects, although there are important American History, the American PoLiticaL Science weber.u. washington.edu/ resources available in a wide range of disciplines. Review, EcoLogy, and the JournaL and the Transactions -phylib/ejourn.html) ofthe American MathematicaL Society. Several Professional associations such as the Institute of Java Willow (http:// additional key journals in mathematics, philosophy, Physics and the Society for Industrial and Applied www. washington. edu/ Mathematics have made dozens ofjournals available and sociology will become available within the next bibsys/jwillowl) few months. electronically within the last year, and commercial Publisher sites STM publishers have also been very active. Still other challenges relate to how users will