UTech, Jamaica 2015-16 Annual Report

The Calvin McKain Library sustained its efforts to further develop as an integrated learning commons, with a mission to improve all its services in order to meet the academic, social, and professional needs of the clients. Highlights of the year were the opening of a new branch library at the School of Oral Health Sciences at Arthur Wint Drive in January 2016; substantial increases in the use of electronic resources and databases; the successful staging of the 9th biennial COLINET Symposium in March 2016; enhanced service delivery with the increased use of the Virtual Reference Library Service “Ask a Librarian; installation of vending machines to serve hot beverages to clients in two sections of the library. Of note is the continued decline in the use of print resources. Loan Transactions Overall circulation of library materials recorded a decline during the year. During the period April 2015 to March 2016, a total of 35,710 print items were borrowed from the library compared to 42, 685 for the corresponding period of the previous year. This indicated an overall decrease of 6,975 print items. Due to the overall low borrowing of print materials, the library management revised the borrowing privileges for users to allow eleven (11) items to be checked out compared to 8 items previously for undergraduate students, and fifteen (15) items compared to nine (9) items previously for graduate students. Consideration was also given to have textbooks in the Reserved Collection and Caribbean Collection available to users for overnight loan, and these items would become due for return one hour after the library opens the next day. The rationale for this change was that it would help to maximize the use of these resources when the library remained closed. Document Delivery and Inter-library Loan In 2015-2016 there was an increase in requests for journal e. The period recorded 118 document deliveries which was an increase of 40 over the previous year. The document suppliers for the period were Online Mr David Drysdale University Librarian Page 16 University of Technology, Jamaica ANNUAL REPORT 2015-2016 THE CALVIN McKAIN LIBRARY