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The University of Warwick Library, an impressive six storey building in the heart of the campus was completed in 1970; five years after the first buildings of the university were completed.
The university is situated on a large 700 acre campus which straddles the boundary between the City of Coventry and the County of Warwickshire. The Library has over 25,000 registered users and employs around 150 (c.90 full time equivalent) staff, including 20 academic-related librarians.
The services provided by the library are complemented by the Learning Grid which opened in 2004. This is an innovative, integrated and flexible 24 hour learning environment offering facilities such as digital multi-media, reference material, careers information, wireless networking, video editing, cleverboards, networked PCs, video players, plasma screens, internet points and presentation rooms. It offers a uniquely blended learning landscape, focusing not only on independent study but also on group working, team building, problem solving and presentation skills.
Collections
The University Library holds over 1 million printed volumes and 10 kilometres of archives in its main building and Modern Records Centre. There are also small research-only collections in the Biological Sciences and Mathematics Departments.
Over 26,500 items are accessioned each year, adding 1.1 km of stock (700 meters of printed materials, 400 of archives). Over 5000 printed periodical titles (including statistical serials) are currently received, and around 6000 electronic journals.
The library holds Special Collections and Resources which serve the needs of the Business School, but are open to all members of the University. In addition to resources such as Datastream, Mintel, ProQuest Direct and other specialist online databases, the library holds company and business reports and directories. The Official Publications section includes Stationery Office, other UK, and European official publications. The Library is a European Documentation Centre.
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The Modern Records Centre is the country's leading repository for trade union, employers’ associations and political organization archives. It also houses the BP/AMOCO company archive. The MRC has recently achieved Designation Status from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council for its outstanding collection. In addition to the MRC holdings, the Library has a major collection of British, overseas and international trade union and employers' association publications, as well as the publications of British political parties and pressure groups.
Digital Library Projects
The University of Warwick is involved in the JISC EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Services) project. EThOS is an 18 month JISC-funded project with the objective of establishing a national electronic database of theses, the UKDoT (United Kingdom Database of Theses).
The project will examine the technical, procedural and cultural challenges of encouraging Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to require their doctoral candidates (in the first instance) to deposit an electronic version of their theses in an Open Archives Initiative-compliant database. It is envisaged that the British Library would host a central database for those HEIs unable to establish a repository of their own, while other HEIs could use their own OAI-compliant institutional repository for the deposit of electronic theses. Through the use of the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), content in both institutional and the British Library-based repositories will be searchable and accessible via a single search interface. This should significantly raise the profile and usage of UK doctoral research.
Warwick University Library is involved in the advocacy work package of the project. Its goal is to develop a suite of advocacy messages and approaches that can be built into the overall e-theses toolkit being created by the project. This suite of advocacy approaches can then be used by interested parties within HEIs to encourage the growth of e-theses developments within their institutions.
The Library is also taking advantage of its involvement in this project to explore fully the possibility for setting up its own OAI-compliant Institutional Repository, for the deposit of all types of academic research papers.
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