The digital revolution has transformed the way Avondale Library services are delivered, vastly increasing the resources available via the Library to support scholarship and research. No longer are the Library’s resources limited to the 120,000 or more items in its physical collections.
Students and staff now have access to more than 120 online databases containing huge repositories of periodical articles, book chapters, theses, dissertations, reports and reference works across an extensive array of subject fields. Databases also provide periodical indexes (including indexes to Seventh-day Adventist periodicals), and archives of Australian newspapers.
The Library is constantly expanding its database collection, with three new databases currently on trial: Oxford Medicine Online (medical textbooks and handbooks); Nursing Education in Video (online videos for the education and training of nurses and other healthcare workers); and the ScienceDirect Social and Behavioural Sciences module (the Library already subscribes to the Health and Life Science module).
The Library’s Journal Titles A-Z List gives access to over 39,000 full-text journals, which can be searched by subject or journal title. Thousands of electronic books are also available to Library users online.
The Library’s electronic resources can be accessed online from students’ rooms, from off-campus, and from computers in the Library itself. Online access has huge advantages for Avondale students studying and researching from distant locations. Distance education students may also borrow items by mail.
Students and staff have online access to the catalogues of the Avondale Library, libraries in the UNILINC consortium (a network of university, school, government and special libraries), and Libraries Australia (a resource providing bibliographic details and locations of over 45 million items held in Australian academic, research, national, state, public and special libraries, and access to the catalogues of the British Library, the Library of Congress, and other major overseas collections).
Students and staff may access resources from other libraries via the document delivery and interlibrary loan systems, and may also borrow items directly from the University of Newcastle Library and from libraries in the UNILINC consortium.
Online access to Avondale’s research
Some Reflections readers have asked how to access research by Avondale personnel. Library staff established and now manage an electronic repository giving open access worldwide to the research and scholarly output of Avondale staff and postgraduate students, as well as access to two of Avondale’s journals: The International Journal of New Perspectives on Christianity and Christian Spirituality and Science.
Entitled ResearchOnline@Avondale, the repository provides publication data and, where copyright allows, the associated full text of articles. All content is indexed in Google and other search engines.The site can be accessed at http://research.avondale.edu.au. Since its launch in May 2010 the site has generated over 6,100 downloads for the 155 full-text items currently available online.
ResearchOnline@Avondale contributes to the growing trend for open access to scholarly literature. “As an academic institution we saw both an opportunity and a responsibility to provide open access to our scholarly output,” says Marilyn Gane, Avondale’s Head Librarian. The advantages for authors include increased citation rates via improved discoverability and access and the opportunity to connect with scholars around the world with similar research interests.
Scholars’ Centre
The Lake Macquarie Campus Library recently established a Scholars’ Centre containing study and research facilities for higher degree research students.
There is also a computer lab for training students in the use of the Library’s electronic resources, and in the use of scholarly software such as Endnote, which stores bibliographic details of sources read for assignments and theses, and creates the necessary citations, references and bibliographies.
Integration of libraries on two campuses
A significant development has been the integration of the libraries on the Sydney campus and the Lake Macquarie campus. The former Sydney Adventist Hospital Library has now merged with the Avondale Library, though its mission remains the same – to support the learning and teaching of nursing students and the professional development of hospital staff.
With student nurses located on both campuses, the advantages of merging are numerous. Integration provides a unified library catalogue, greater variety of print resources for each campus, access to a wide range of electronic resources, seamless library services for students and staff moving between campuses, and reduced costs in managing one library service instead of two discrete services. There are also savings from centralised purchasing and management of electronic resources, copyright licences and collection of statistics. The final stage of the merger was completed in 2010 with the installation of new computers, multifunction print/copy/scan machines, and the addition of the Sydney campus to the Avondale computer network.
The library on the Sydney campus has a specialist nursing, medical and allied health collection of approximately 20,000 books and 400 current print journal titles. Of particular value to researchers is the Tom Ludowici Bioethics Collection, containing more than 5000 books and 25 journal titles, making it one of the most significant bioethics collections in Australia.
The Sydney campus library contains the Ludowici Bioethics Collection, named in honour of Dr Tom Ludowici (pictured), former Director of Mission at the Sydney Adventist Hospital. Photo: Ann Stafford
Services to alumni
Avondale alumni may borrow in person from either of the Avondale Libraries, and may apply for access from off campus to the following online databases:
• ATLASerials for Alumni. An online collection of over 100 major religion and theology journals. Users can read the full text of current articles or research the history of a topic from as early as 1924 to the present through more than 210,000 articles and book reviews.
• ERIC Education. The world’s premier database of literature in the field of education, with access to over a million citations and over 100,000 full-text items.
• EDNA Education. The leading Australian online resource collection in education.
Services to the community
The Library provides a school uplink program called Lobster Shells for Higher School Certificate students in the local community, who may borrow books from the Avondale Library for a small fee. Other community members may also borrow in person from the Library for a small fee.
Land of the Pharaohs exhibition
From time to time the Library mounts special exhibitions of scholarly and general interest. In August 2011 Dr Wayne French presented an impressive Land of the Pharaohs exhibition displaying exact replicas of major items from the tomb of Tutankhamen and replicas of many other notable items from Egypt and the Middle East, including busts of the Egyptian queens Nefertiti and Hatshepsut; a tablet recording Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah in 701 BCE; and a winged bull from the palace of Xerxes in Susa. The exhibition attracted many hundreds of visitors to Avondale, including tour groups guided by Dr French, who also demonstrated the manufacture of papyrus paper.
Ongoing developments
The Avondale Library continues to develop its services and resources. It is expected that by December 2011 a one-stop (or federated) search facility will enable students and staff to search simultaneously the Library’s catalogues, online databases and ResearchOnline@Avondale.