80 · Representative Documents: Programmatic Accrediting Agency Reports
University of Calgary
American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). Standard 5: Library and Information Resources (March
2012)
STANDARD 5: LIBRARY AND INFORMATION RESOURCES (edits by Lorraine Toews, Jan 11, 2012)
5.1 Describe and comment on the adequacy of information retrieval and learning resources.
The UCVM program is supported primarily by the veterinary medicine, basic science and human
medicine collections of the Health Sciences Library at the Foothills campus. The Library and its
resources are supported by the U of C.
The Health Sciences Library subscribes to 94% of the titles on the most current published standard
list of veterinary medicine journals 1 ,and 93% of these subscribed titles are available online. The
University Library system as a whole subscribes to over 25,000 electronic journals, of which over 3900
are health and biomedical titles. Over 2900 print veterinary medicine and related basic science books
have been added to the Health Sciences Library collection since 2006, and the University Library
subscribes to over 500 e-­‐book titles in veterinary medicine, animal behavior, animal genetics, animal
welfare, animal nutrition, comparative medicine, environmental health, food safety, laboratory animals,
production animals, wildlife, veterinary research methodology and zoonoses. The University Library
subscribes to the following veterinary medicine and life sciences databases: Agricola, Animal Behavior
Abstracts, Animal Health &Production Compendium, Biological &Agricultural Index, BIOSIS Previews,
CAB Abstracts, Global Health, OVID Medline, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Wildlife &Ecology
Studies Worldwide, WildPro Encyclopedia and Zoological Record. The Health Sciences Library web pages
provide a rich, quality-­‐filtered gateway to both licensed online resources and open access information.
5.2 Describe the academic credentials of the librarian in charge of the library.
The Director of the Health Sciences Library has an MLS (Masters of Library Science), twenty-­‐seven
years of experience in academic and special libraries, and is a senior member of the Medical Library
Association’s Academy of Health Information Professionals. The veterinary medicine librarian has a MLIS
(Masters of Library and Information Science), sixteen years of experience in academic health sciences
libraries in liaison, instruction, and collection development for veterinary medicine, human medicine
and nursing. Two other librarians qualified at the Masters level also work in the Health Sciences Library,
and a biological sciences librarian and an environmental sciences librarian work in the Taylor Family
Digital Library on the main university campus.
5.3 The availability of learning resources support for faculty and students, including personnel.
The Health Sciences Library, which has undergone a complete renovation, provides an excellent
learning and study environment. It has a 48 seat computer classroom, 52 public computers, 7 bookable,
wired small group study rooms, 44 wired individual study carrels, network printing, photocopiers, a
scanner, and access to the University wireless network in all areas of the library. The library is open 82
hours per week including weekends.
Support for faculty and students is provided not only by the veterinary medicine librarian, but by 11
FTE Health Sciences Library staff, in person and via email, phone and instant messaging service. The
veterinary medicine librarian teaches veterinary information literacy classes in the first and second year
Professional Skills courses.
UCVM also maintains a small learning commons at the Clinical Skills Building to support student
learning. This library runs on the honour system and is not part of the university library system.
5.4 Describe the methods of access to library information resources for faculty and students when
they are on and off campus.
Network access to all Library online journals, databases and e-­‐books is available to UCVM faculty,
students and DVLC clinical instructors via the University Library website on campus and off-­‐campus via