“In the not so distant past, using an academic journal meant a trip to the library to retrieve the issue or volume from the shelves, carrying it to a photocopier, and making a copy,” says Patrick McCarthy, Library Director of SLU’s Medical Cener Library. Many barriers stood in the way of this otherwise simple process. Often the needed journal issue had not yet been received or was away at the bindery. Even when the journal was available, taking it to a photocopy machine to copy the article added another hurdle. Worse still was standing in front of the copy machine only to realize that you didn’t have any change to make a copy or didn’t have enough funds on your copier card! Each one of the steps involved in obtaining a library journal article could potentially undermine, delay, or halt easy access to information. Simultaneously, only the most comprehensive research libraries had more than a few thousand journal subscriptions. Finding an article not held in the local library was then a matter of requesting it through interlibrary loan and waiting days or weeks for its arrival.
Fast forward to today: SLU Libraries now provide more than 25,000 journals online in all fields of study. In most cases, immediate access is just a few key strokes away with links to full-text articles seamlessly integrated into online library databases. Libraries have successfully harnessed the digital revolution to provide anytime, anywhere access to needed information resources. The increasing shift to electronic formats for journals and books has allowed SLU campus libraries to identify selected, lesser-used materials that will be relocated to our new offsite shelving facility slated for completion in 2008. Both the Pius and Medical Center Libraries will use the recaptured space to provide growth for new books and to update and refresh their respective library facilities. Pius Library will construct a state-of-the-art learning commons while the Medical Center Library plans to update the facility with new furnishing and a reconfigured layout for comfortable, quiet setting for intensive study and research. These changes are all geared for the same result — to make the user’s experience of the library more convenient and enjoyable.
