NU Library Director Responds to a Comment Book Entry About the Book Collection

A Library Patron Wrote:
I am a graduate student at Niagara and have many papers/projects in a given semester. I find it absolutely appalling that most of the books/materials are outdated! While looking up a topic, I found a book from 1949! Many other sources from 1987 and back! It would be great to find materials that are current so that I can use current sources in my projects to ensure optimal performance in my classes. Information is constantly changing. Could someone look into this matter and inform me as to what can be done, please?

NU Library Director David Schoen Responds:
There are about 200,000 books in the Library. Our budget allows us to purchase about 3,000 books per year, which means that in any given year we are updating 1.5% of our book collection. We look at circulation statistics and areas of study on campus to try to optimize our purchases, but our budget is not large enough to refresh the book collection as we would wish. Nevertheless, we are always trying to identify areas that need strengthening, so please let me know if you notice any gaps.

In order to provide the best and most up-to-date information to you, we have focused our attention on building a strong electronic magazine and journal collection, which is often the best place to look for up-to-date information. Ten years ago, the Library subscribed to 1,200 periodicals in print format. Today we provide access to nearly 10,000 periodicals in electronic and print formats. Overall, this translates into millions more journal, magazine and newspaper articles available to you today than were available to students 10 years ago. Plus, these articles are available 24 hours per day from anywhere on or off campus.

We know that we can't offer the materials that a large library can, so we have also focused on providing interlibrary loan services. If we don't have something you need, we will get it for you from another library. If it is a journal article, we will even deliver a copy directly to your desktop.

I would be interested in hearing more about your experience, so please send me an email at schoen@niagara.edu or call me at 716-286-8001 if you wish.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.