THE WARSAW UNIVERSITY LIBRARY SYSTEM 2001

Over the last year, the Warsaw University Library (WUL) and its departmental libraries have witnessed neither major administrative changes nor improvements in infrastructure. Although the library has not yet been fully equipped, all sections became available to users in October. The Library has now also opened its exhibition room and has already organized two special collections exhibits. Nineteenth century collections are housed in a separate area of the library building. These are accessed independently in order to support and facilitate research. A grant for this purpose was provided by the Fundacja Na Rzecz Nauki Polskiej — The Polish Science Fund. Some departmental libraries have acquired additional rooms or have had their current premises renovated. We purchased over 70 new work-stations for 22 libraries in the university’s system of information. Three libraries (Faculty of Management, Teachers’ College of German and the Institute of Geophysics) still have no access to the system. A grant received from the Mellon Foundation enabled WUL to purchase 22 more work-stations and a SUN server as a part of the equipment for the National Union Catalog Center (NUKat project).

Foreign periodicals subscriptions and database maintenance and development have remained within the main scope of co-operation among university system libraries. The university subscription list included 1321 titles — 635 titles for WUL and 686 for departmental libraries. Subscription subsidies for the year 2002 were significantly reduced from the year before; WUL was omitted from their distribution. By the spring and summer of 2001 the Library was forced to introduce serious cuts in its subscriptions to foreign newspapers and magazines. Money for WUL subscriptions to foreign periodicals in 2002 was provided by the Rector of Warsaw University and by the following university faculties (from their statutory research funds): Law and Administration; Economics; Psychology; Journalism and Political Science; Applied Social Sciences and Social Work; and the Institute of Oriental Studies (one title).

For security reasons, WUL took over some parts of the special collections of both the Institute of Musicology and the Faculty of Law and Administration. Despite the recommendations of the NIK (Supreme Chamber of Control), we have not managed to provide similar protection for old print collections of other faculties. WUL has also begun a new approach to digital recording of microfilms. We have prepared pilot CD-ROMs on special collections of WUL; patrons may also order desired library items for scanning and recording onto CD-ROMs.

Compared with the year 2000, the number of publications cataloged by WUL increased by 2% to 2,534,000 volumes/units; in departmental libraries the number rose by 0,6% to 2,548,000 volumes/units. Cataloging delays are due to a considerable increase in donations and in titles acquired because of the legal deposit act. Owing to consortium contracts, the university computer system now provides access to 4,300 e-periodicals.

Holdings in the WUL computer catalog increased by 22% to 229,000 bibliographic records; we have computerized the entire textbook collection catalog. Some departmental libraries, however, still favor manual cataloging. Over 48,000 new records were entered into the computerized union catalog run by VTLS, as well as into catalogs operated by other systems. We have not observed significant changes in accessibility of catalogs outside the VTLS system. Only five catalogs can be accessed on the Internet: the catalog of the Institute of Polish Literature and Culture; the catalog of the Institute of Polish Language; and the catalogs of the Institute of English Studies, the British Studies Centre, and the Teachers’ College of English (the last three belonging to the English Studies Libraries Union Catalog — POLANKA).

Chart 1: WUL users

Nor have we observed significant shifts in the overall structure of WUL users. It is worth noting that the percentage of WUL students users rose by 4 % — from 64 % to 68%. This change was probably due to more complete information provided by departmental libraries about WUL’s offerings. WUL has also been updating its own holdings information and its

regulations on use in departmental libraries. Most reading room users (see Chart 1) were students from other universities and students in their final two years of high school. University students came from the following schools: Szkoła Główna Handlowa (Warsaw School of Economics); Uniwersytet Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego (Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University); Politechnika Warszawska (Warsaw University of Technology); Akademia Medyczna (The Medical University of Warsaw); Wyższa Szkoła Humanistyczna (Pułusk School of Humanities); and Wyższa Szkoła Zarządzania i Przedsiębiorczości im. B. Jańskiego (Bogdan Jański College of Management and Enterprise).

Chart 2: Warsaw University students’ loans from WUL

The majority of WUL users came from the same faculties as last year. That is, most items were checked out by students of the Faculty of Polish Language, while students from the Faculty of Law and Administration were the most frequent users of our Open Access collections.

In 2001 WUL provided access (both reading room and circulation access) to 978,130 library items (including special collections, the textbook collection, and interlibrary loans). This most significant increase of usage in the history of WUL (30% greater than in 2000) is due mostly to increasing use of Open Access collections. We have also provided access to various databases and full-text online periodicals. Although overall interest in databases was relatively moderate, we recorded the downloading of over 50,000 papers (mostly topics in mathematics and the natural sciences) from periodicals of the Elsevier publishing house. These periodicals are available through the consortium coordinated by WUL and ICM ( the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling). Interest in e-periodicals of other publishers was considerably lower.

The increase in the number of registered users in departmental libraries of WUL has been somewhat reduced. However, the average percentage increase in collection use was very high — 108% compared with 45.6% in WUL. Intensity of use by scholars in departmental libraries is high: we have registered 2,700,000 items accessed in the reading rooms and checked out. Moving WUL to its new location did not cause any decrease in the number of their patrons. Two departmental libraries (of the Institute of English Studies and the British Studies Centre) have started to use the WUL library card as their own library card for circulating items.