Since September 1996, the Biomed library has been open 12 more hours and Saturday hours were changed so the library could be open until 7pm. The new hours are:
| Mon-Thur | 8am-midnight | (2 extra hours per night) |
| Fri | 8am-8pm | |
| Sat | 10am-7pm | (adjusted schedule to open and close later) |
| Sun | 11am-midnight | (4 extra hours added) |
Beginning January 1, 1997, completely new photocopy machines and public printers were installed. The vendor was changed to UCSD Copier Services. With the new contract, we were able to reduce photocopy prices in addition to improving copy quality and machine reliability.
The age of the Biomed Library building makes it difficult to make significant changes in infrastructure. We are happy to report, however, that there will be a major improvement project which will address the HVAC system and lighting. The 18-month project, beginning Summer 1997, will definitely make a difference in the lighting and temperature control. A $14-million capital improvement project to expand and renovate the Biomedical Library has a projected construction date of 2002-2003.
Many comments were received about the book and journal collections at the Biomedical Library and the Medical Center Library. At the request of the Hill-Crest based research faculty, we have added some high-priority research journal titles to the Medical Center Library's collection. We would like to do far more to improve the collections at both sites. However, in the last six years, the collections budget for the UCSD Libraries has increased an average of 3.3% per year, while journal price increases for the same period have averaged 12-14%. Given the ever-increasing cost of library materials and lack of funds to keep up, we will be cancelling approximately 20% of the journal collection beginning in January 1998. In-house usage data will be used to identify potential titles for cancellation, and faculty will have the list of titles proposed for cancellation to review this spring.
The Library addition that had been planned for the late 1990's has been postponed until the early 2000's. Given the ongoing growth of the collections, the Library is not able to keep everything on site. We have worked to make paging of the stored material as easy as possible, but we realize it doesn't meet the needs of users who would like the material on site when they need it. Until we have the luxury of having additional space, it will be necessary to continue offsite storage.
A Web version of MELVYL Medline Plus has recently become available. The Web version makes it much easier to search Medline and other MELVYL databases. An added bonus is that full-text articles are being attached to some of the citations in the database. This will let users bring up the article along with the citation.
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