| Access to Information | Comment/Response | Status | Discipline | Gender |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The loss of CAM database was big disappointment for me. | You can, of course, search for the CAM materials in Addison. In addition, we feel that our next integrated library system will allow us to replicate some of the CAM database features without the need to maintain a separate database. | Grad | arch | female |
| Also, the journal Infancy is not accessible as an e-journal and is often needed by developmentalists and psychologists alike. | If we had Infancy at all we would have it electronically, as done with other Erlbaum titles. The problem is we don't own it. I'll pass this suggestion along. If you have specific thoughts about why this title would be a strong addition to our holdings, please send them to me at pmetz@vt.edu. | Grad | psych | female |
| Illiad and the recall system are wonderful and the availability of specialized help based on ones field is invaluable | We're delighted that you find both of these services so useful. We are pleased with the discipline-specific assistance we're able to provide and are glad that you find it useful. We are delighted to know that ILLiad is serving you well. | Grad | psych | female |
| lots of works to research from | With lots more coming, we hope. | UGrad | psych | male |
| My primary complaint is that there are very few up-to-date print materials pertaining to my field (computer engineering), and most up-to-date print materials are never available - they're always checked out. | I appreciate hearing of problems like this, though we are already aware it's hard to keep anything on IT on the shelf. We're trying to increase our electronic or online e-books in this area, since quick reference IT questions seem a good use of the technology. We have better funds for books this year and do try to duplicate high-use titles. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| There are several electronic journals which are unavailable at our library which I use regularly. I suggest increasing availability of electronic journals and extending the dates available for some which we do currently carry. | We have a high priority to increase the number of journals available electronically. Not all are available this way, but we are always looking. Let us know if you know of a specific title that has an e-version we don't have. Please contact Paul Metz (Metz@vt.edu) | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| Ability to access full text journal articles is very disappointing. I almost always use personal resources because the library does not offer access to journals I need. | We have over 6,000 full-text e-journals now and a larger number with selected coverage but we know there's a ways to go. This is a high priority for us. Please let us know if you are aware that a specific title has an e-version we don't own. | Grad | sci/math | female |
| I also use ILLIAD a great deal and am making use of the increased electronic journals now available. | We hope ILLiad will continue to prove useful to you. We're glad to know you've noticed our growing e-journals and that it has made a difference for you! | Grad | psych | female |
| More electronic journal subscription is preferred. I often come across articles in journal that I needed but I don't have access for them on-line. | We would like to have all our journals available electronically, not just the 6,000 that are now full text and the many that have selected text. It's a huge priority. Please let us know when you see titles with e-versions we don't have. Please contact Paul Metz (Metz@vt.edu). | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| better/ more access to electronic books. It's hard to navigate. The fact that ILL is separated from the library site and that students need separate log in, fill in etc. to order a book is inconvenient. | The ILL web is linked from the library's home page and from other locations, and we hope it is easy to find. It is unfortunate that ILLiad and Addison can't be accessed as a single system, but they are proprietary software products from different vendors. They do not provide any means by which a single login could be implemented to include all possible users of both systems. If you start with Addison, it should usually be clear whether we have an item or you need Interlibrary Loan. We hope to be acquiring a new integrated library system. Certainly smoother integration of Interlibrary Loan would be a plus | Grad | agriculture | female |
| I've noticed that Addison lists journals as currently subscribed, even though online versions are no longer accessible (listed as unsubscribed since 12/2002) and shelved versions are no longer updated (most recent issues end on 12/2003). Need to update Addison with correct information or resubscribe to journals. I prefer the latter. :) | We didn't receive some issues due to a payment problem but should be closing out holdings for anything that really has ceased. I hope what you describe is a rare exception, but please don't hesitate to report specific examples when found to Leslie O'Brien (lobrien@vt.edu). | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| Lack of parking around the library is a major deterrent to meeting in the library for group projects. | With our centralized campus, parking close to major service buildings is indeed a problem. However, there are some future plans to build a parking facility on the mall area. In the meantime, please keep in mind that the Blacksburg Transit does operate all the hours the library is open and there's a convenient stop at the doors of the library. | UGrad | business | male |
| I need our library to let me check out journal article (for short period) for copying the material outside the library or reduce the cost of copying a material in the library. | Though our journals do not circulate, exceptions can always be made for departmental copying via our Special Permissions policy, administered at the reference desk in the lobby of Newman. You might also consider getting a departmental copy card, available in the Photocopy Office on the 4th floor of Newman. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| I would like the library to do a better job at presenting the information pertaining to my book and journal search. I am currently auditing a course ECE 5544, and the suggested Text book for the course in not even carried by the library. I hope they do a better job at stocking all the books related to the current course work. | Like most academic libraries, we don't categorically avoid textbooks because they do have their place, but neither do we try to acquire enough copies to spare students the necessity of buying assigned texts. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| The only problem I'd like to see remedied concerns the many periodical databases. Since there are so many, no one has time to look at each individually. How about a quick search function to pick out relevant databases. | A lot of people wrestle with this but don't identify the problem as well as you have. We are looking into "federated search engines" that search multiple databases. So far most of them are slow and dumb the results down to least common denominator. We're also looking at a new database that covers most of science and technology. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| I am disappointed in the cut back of journals available over the internet. | While it's quite possible a specific title you used to access electronically has become unavailable for one reason or another, I assure you there's been no systematic cutback in e-journals. These have continuously increased. It's a major goal to enhance the number of e-journals as fast as money and the readiness of the various publishers permit. | Grad | sci/math | male |
| You should be able to access book text through Addison to determine if it is the book you desire. | We have some 30,000+ online books accessible in Addison and are likely to be adding more in the future! The core of our existing collection came from a $100,000 gift from Athletics after Tech's ealier Sugar Bowl game. We can only hope that we'll see that much after the January 2005 Sugar Bowl game. | UGrad | sci/math | female |
| More easy to use computers. More new books on engineering | We have just replaced all the Mac computers with new PC's. It's hard to keep up with all the subfields of engineering, but we know there's huge demand and we must try. Besides our online books and an estimated $85,000 in engineering titles that will come on our approval plan, we've allocated $48,000 for discretionary purchases of books and proceedings by the college librarians for engineering. We hope that will help. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| Need more electronic journals!! Also, it would be helpful to have an area set aside for journals with copiers available to make access to articles more efficient. | The Photocopy Services are located on the 4th floor opposite the print collection of currently received periodicals. The Photocopy Services were consolidated last summer and moved to this location partly to make it easier for copying journal articles from current periodical. Getting more e-journals is one of highest priority. We're constantly looking to do this. | Grad | psych | female |
| VT needs more libraries that are designed for more specific disciplines! I cannot believe there is only one library on campus! | The trend nationally is to centralize library services. Distributed libraries are more costly because they require more staff and a sizable percentage of duplicated materials. Consequently, we have no future plans to open additional branch libraries. We do have 2 branch libraries: Art/Architecture and Vet Med. | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| interlibrary loan is a very good service, however pictures from scanned documents many times are not of very good quality and those are important data as the writing information. | Quality of copies obtained from other libraries varies greatly, not just from different libraries, but from the same library at different times. Photos can be a special problem. If the copy you receive is not satisfactory, please let us know, and we will try to obtain a better copy from a different library. | Grad | vet med | male |
| In my particular discipline, many books are out of date, as the discipline evolves quickly with changing technology. Additionally, many of our journal articles are not available full text on-line. | We are conservative about weeding older materials but recognize that they don't fill many needs. Your field of Communications is hard to keep up with because it spills over into so many areas. We will have a fairly good year on book-buying this year and I hope you will see the results. We are adding online versions of our journals whenever possible. | Grad | comm/journ | female |
| It would be helpful if doctoral students could register for an overview of information specific to their area | We can do better than that! Please contact your College Librarian and arrange for a consultation. They'll work with you one-on-one and give you a tailored review of information specific to your area. | Grad | education | female |
| I have not had trouble finding material up to this point, yet I have only taken 3 classes in my current program. | I'm glad you've been able to find things so far, but would encourage you to get to know your College Librarian (http://www.lib.vt.edu/help/instruct/clprg.html) so you're ready when you have future information needs. | Grad | education | female |
| There should be a joint library of journals, books, and electronic resources available to the architecture, landscape, planning, international affairs, and natural resources students in Alexandria. | We are not planning to open any new branch libraries. Branch libraries are costly to operate and require considerable duplication of materials. With the availability of electronic resources and especially journal literature, distance learners have access 24/7 to many of our library resources. We can also deliver through ILLIAD materials from the collection here in Blacksburg. | Grad | other | female |
| The most wonderful feature you have is the Interlibrary loan. Its excellent and has helped me in my research | Thank you very much for your kind words. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| As a Nova student, there is no library facility. It was gutted and now my problem is away from NVGC so there is NO in person for my program. | The Blacksburg-based College Librarians (http://www.lib.vt.edu/help/instruct/clprg.html) make frequent trips to the Northern Virginia Center and will make even more trips if there is a demand. Please don't hesitate to contact them if there's anything we can do to improve your situation in the Northern Virginia Center. | Grad | other | female |
| Some information in the Addison catalog needs to be updated. Misleading information regarding the availability of the journals when actually they are in storage is often times problematic when it comes to retrieving journals for immediate use. But in all the resources as well as the online catalog and the breadth of coverage is excellent. | Due to space limitations in Newman and branch libraries, we must put older journal issues in offsite storage. As a result, a specific journal title may have issues located in three different places. Circulation or reference staff can help interpret holdings screens that show different locations for journal issues. If the information in the catalog is incorrect, we certainly appreciate having it brought to our attention, so that we may correct the error. If you see errors, please contact Leslie C O'Brien (lobrien@vt.edu). | Grad | sci/math | female |
| I have always been disappointed by the quality of the library’s collection. I have come to rely more heavily on the inter library loan office than the available material at VT. In addition, I borrow CDs and videos on a weekly basis and feel that there are enormous gaps in content. I am regularly disappointed to find that the library does not have what I am looking for. I realize that my concerns may be more a matter of budget, but I wanted to include them. | I'm sorry our collection isn't giving you what you need. Being 93rd in size among major research libraries of budget for materials and information makes it tough, but we are trying our best. We've recently made more efforts to acquire the best serious films, and I hope that this will have some payoff for you. For what it's worth, when you borrow through interlibrary loan you are indirectly building data we consult to help us identify gaps in local collections. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| Not all the electronic journals that I'm looking for are subscribed by the university. How can I make recommendations about adding a journal or a book? | We're all ears for suggestions like this. Contact your college librarian (http://www.lib.vt.edu/help/instruct/clprg.html) or, from the library home page, under services, click on "all forms" and then on "suggest a book or other item for purchase by the libraries." | Grad | other | female |
| There aren't enough books on specific subjects. Often, the book I need is already checked out. Or the book I need is not available at this library. | We're aware we need more copies of high-use books. We do systematically look at high circulation books or books with multiple recalls, and buy more copies when funds permit. If the book you want is checked out, please don't assume it will return on the due date. Rather, place a recall right away. To suggest a book, under "services" on the home page click all forms and you will find the suggestion form. We want to hear these specifics. | Grad | other | female |
| I'm a master's student in Northern Virginia and I've found the Illiad system to be most helpful and access to journals to be great (although there are a few which I have not be able to access but would have liked to). | We are pleased that ILLiad is working well for you. We would like to know what problems you had with particular journals. | Grad | sci/math | male |
| I would like see better information about resources listed on Addison. Since I'm not on the main campus I can't check out a book before I check it out. Also Addison needs to be faster. The wait times between pages is way to long and is very frustrating when I'm trying to sort through stacks of information. | Online book stores have certainly raised expectations of users, so it is not surprising that library systems are sometimes seen as inadequate. We hope to improve the experience for all users with a new system. | Grad | sci/math | male |
| It is very difficult to find online the journals that the library does and does not have in the stacks | If you're clicking on Ejournals under "Find" on our home page, you should be able to access some of the e-journals by title or keyword. | Grad | health | female |
| When a patron is viewing his/her patron record, it would be nice if there is a way to renew any items online | Our current system only allows batch renewals online. However, we soon will have a new system that will allow item by item renewal. In the meantime, until the new system becomes available, call the Circulation Desk at 231-6340 to renew specific items. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| the books in statistics are too old and few. Not much information in that field | If there are areas of particular weakness, we'd appreciate knowing of them in more detail. | Grad | sci/math | female |
| the library loan system is an excellent resource and one that I have used often. | Thanks so much for letting us know that ILL works well for you. | Grad | military | male |
| On a final note, as a Theatre Arts major, I would like to see more modern plays, a longer check-out period for play scripts, and more plays and playwrights on the shelves in general. | I will pass this along to the librarian responsible for Theatre Arts. Any specific suggestions would be welcome. Please contact your corresponding College Libarian (http://www.lib.vt.edu/help/instruct/clprg.html). | UGrad | performing arts | male |
| Online journals are the best!!! I love interlibrary loan too. | I will pass this along to the librarian responsible for Theatre Arts. Any specific suggestions would be welcome. Please contact your corresponding College Libarian (http://www.lib.vt.edu/help/instruct/clprg.html). | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| better educational and educational research information (our library has specialists????) | I see you're in Architecture so I assume you aren't asking for material bearing on K-12 instruction. If you can be more specific about the deficiencies you are seeing, please send me a note at pmetz@.vt.edu. | Grad | education | male |
| If it opens longer during the break will be better. | Over the past few years we have experimented with differential hours during breaks. Data we have collected does not support keeping the library open in the evenings and extended hours on break weekends. Keep in mind that many of our resources are now available electronically and accessible 24/7. | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| I think Interlibrary loans does a spectacular job -- I have not experienced such a wonderful service before...keep up the good work! | Thank you very much for your kind words. | Grad | psych | female |
| Number of journal currently subscribed to is not adequate - I end up using ILL too frequently. Web is not well designed - it has poor usability . | We have recently unveiled our new website and are optimistic that you'll find it more usable. The redesign was based on usability studies and on focus group input. We're trying to increase our 6,000+ full text electronic titles. Let us know specific titles you need. | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| am particularly pleased with the help and services I have received through ILLIAD. | Thank you very much for your kind words. | Grad | education | female |
| When some of papers (thesis, report, etc.) in other countries are needed by using the interlibrary loan system, our library can not support this problem, except the papers in British. | Most libraries in other countries will not lend books overseas, for a variety of reasons including shipping time, costs, and risk of loss or damage. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| I have had some difficulty with the online library services, specifically accessing the journals that I need. | We have just redesigned the library website and hope that will make it easier to for you to access our online services. | Grad | education | female |
| When one requests journal articles through Illiad, if the article is available in the library, you just send an email regarding its location in the library. It would be much better if you had a system where one could request electronic copies of journal articles already available in the library (whose online version is not available in electronic journals). It need not be through Illiad, but could be separate system just for the articles in the library. | Services like those and increased hours are dependent on overall funding. We try to focus much of our funding on providing a wide range of resources. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| MORE ELECTRONIC JOURNALS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES PLEASE! AND ESPECIALLY IN POLITICS / INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS!!! THIS IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM FOR ME IN THE LIBRARY!!!! AND ILLIAD IS A *TERRIBLE* INTERFACE!!! | We are redesigning the ILLiad web pages this year. Perhaps the new design will be better for you. We would welcome any specific suggestions you have about the design of the web interface to ILLiad. | Grad | psych | male |
| The online library catalogue is frustrating because it is slow and often doesn't display relevant search results. | We are planning to implement a new lbrary system in 2005. | UGrad | arch | female |
| So far, I've been able to access services through my local library and the internet. | We're glad you're able to get what you need from your local library and the internet, but do keep us in mind when your research needs become greater and you require our services; we're available to assist! | Grad | other | female |
| I love the electronic access to journals, however. What could be better is if getting to them did not take 4 or 5 clicks from the www.lib.vt.edu site. Finding them is not completely intuitive. | "E-journals" is a top-level click, after which you should be able to provide a little title information and get results with your second click. We know people want e-journals nearly above all else and will continue to try to make it easy to access them. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| I use the library almost exclusively on the web. When I have needed help in the library or online I could get it in a reasonably quick fashion and the assistance was effective and polite. I LOVE Illiad and its personnel, they have stretched to provide service even when it was a pain (my reference info was wrong but they found the item anyway, or they determined why I couldn't retrieve items myself electronically and sent them to me [journal was having web hassles or something]. | Thanks for your comments. The ILLiad staff is delighted to know that their work is so helpful and so greatly appreciated. Thanks for your kind words; we're delighted that you're having such good luck using our electronic resources. | Grad | education | female |
| It is reassuring to have access to outstanding resources. | Thanks for your positive feedback. | Grad | education | female |
| I think the collection of media (cds and movies) and the browse books are great- feel lucky to have them at a research institution. | It's a balancing act, trying to provide some entertainment without raising the expectation we're Blockbusters. We have fine-tuned some policies so that we should at least be acquiring the films that win major prizes or make the top yearly lists from the top critics. | Grad | education | female |
| This is an amazing service. Idon't know how I could have completed this program of study without the exceptional library program that delivers resources to my door. | Thanks so much for your kind words. We're delighted that we were able to help you complete your program of study! | Grad | psych | female |
| My biggest use of the library is the databases (ABI/IFORM) and the electronic journals. Most of the journals I need are available; however, some years we don't have full-text access to. Over the years I have seen an increase in the number of journals and years available on-line, and I hope the library continues with this trend. | We have no higher goal than to continue this trend. Also, as a result of emerging technologies and a lot of backroom work, we think we're doing a better job making sure that citations in the standard search databases link to full text whenever possible. The length of the backset for electronic access is usually something set by the publisher. When they offer backfiles as a separate purchase, we get them when we can afford them. | Grad | business | male |
| I don't like how I can only renew books from the library website once. After that I have to bring the books to the library for renewal, which they do if no one has requested them. I should be able to renew the items online if no one has requested them. It is a waist of my time and effort to haul all the books I need there and back again for a librarian to simply check the book right back out to me. | The University Library Committee is discussing renewal periods and we may input some differences with our new library system. | Grad | sci/math | male |
| I think something needs to be done to keep the inventory of library books up to date. There are plenty of books listed in the catalog that are not present in the stacks or are missing. If they are missing then I think they should be replaced. Also since the library aspires to be among the best, then the audio-visual collection should be increased. I think there is also a need to add on to the collection of books and related material like reports and maps to the main collection (I am saying this with respect to my subject of interest - Geosciences). And I think having a departmental library within the department premises is a great idea since it stimulates better research with easy accessibility to the required material if its available right away. | We do search for missing books and remove them from the catalog if they aren't found with repeated searching. Of course, first someone has to report item missing. We have to be selective about A/V materials, so we'd like to know specifically what you need. Please send suggestions to pmetz@vt.edu. | Grad | sci/math | male |
| I'd like the library to have a better juvenile collection. The one we have now is really outdated! I'm in the Graduate elementary education program here and it would help me and my peers to have a better selection that we can use for our lesson plan projects and for our student teaching positions. | Our juvenile collection is intended to be representative of books published for children and young adults rather than a working collection that a public library would have for this audience. Va Tech students can use the local public library that has a larger collection of juvenile books. Also, recommendations for specific titles are welcomed. A book request form is available at this library Web site http://www.lib.vt.edu/services/forms/Bookorder.php | Grad | education | female |
| The electronic journals provided are limited to the past 9 year, even though previous years are available electronically (e.g. Earth and Planetary Science Letters). The geosciences library should have never been moved, the was little justification and I believe the move was almost fully political. The move constantly inhibits my education and is a an unnecessary inconvenience. | The trend nationally is to centralize library services. Distributed libraries are more costly because they require more staff and a sizable percentage of duplicated materials. | Grad | sci/math | male |
| need to subscribe to more top journals, such as journal of scheduling | We should be getting this title soon. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| The electronic journal resources are the coolest things but there are still some journals that we t have access to. It would be nice if that was enhanced. | Thanks for the positives. We are trying to get e-versions of all our journals. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| Library should add more IEEE papers in its resource . We can not read a lot of papers using library resource because the university did not pay for them. | Our arrangement with IEEE entitles us to every IEEE paper that's published since 1988. If we don't get it, it's not because the university did not pay for them, it's because IEEE didn't put them online | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| I like the ability to request books/articles from other Universities using ILLIAD. | We are pleased that ILLiad is useful to you. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| library needs more subscription, journals in social science and political science. I do not we have enough subscription for major journals. for example Critique and Journal of Race and Ethnicity are the major journals in the field but we do not subscribe. | Overall, I agree with you about our need for more journals, but I'm having trouble with the specifics of your note. There are several journals called Critique . The one that sounds most relevant for you, issn 1066-9922, focuses on the Middle East and we do have it electronically. Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, the standard reference source, has no listing for a Journal of Race and Ethnicity . If you have more information conctact Paul Metz (pmetz@vt.edu) | Grad | psych | male |
| Addison is still a miserable search engine. | We are looking for a new library system and hope to have it installed in 2005. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| My Primary suggestion would be to get rid of the library's proxy server. Using a Proxy is typically no longer allowed by many businesses due to firewall / security concerns. Hence, I can NOT access the library's online journal resources from my office...only from home. Hence, I would prefer just having some basic online user ID and password to access the library resources, just like most online sources do (banks, investment companies, Nexis/Lexis, Yahoo, etc). The use of proxy servers is out of date and no longer accessible. | The proxy server is gone! We've replaced it with EZProxy, which allows you to use your PID and password to get to our resources. Hope you find it easy to use. | Grad | sci/math | male |
| The web search efficiency should be improved---this includes both the "hit rate" and searching speed. | I'm not exactly sure what web search you're referring to. We are in the process of updating the software and hardware for Addison, our online catalog, and hope that you'll see improved efficiency in terms of both speed and hit rate once we get the new Addison in place. If I've misunderstood your comment please contact me (Vicki Kok, vkok@vt.edu) and I'll try to answer more specifically. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| My only complaint is that I periodically run into journals that are not available on-line through the library access, although an online version exists. This seems to be less and less frequent as I go on, however. | I'm glad you noticed that the number of electronic journals is increasing. That's absolutely a top goal for us. | Grad | sci/math | female |
| More electronic journals! I have especially needed "Teaching of Psychology" but only the most recent are currently available online. | We have no higher goal than to add more e-journals. Typically, and this is the case with Teaching of Psychology, the limiting factor on our holdings is what the publisher has so far made available electronically. | Grad | education | male |
| sometimes electronic journals are difficult to use, mostly due to complex nature of the providers web-site - also sometimes difficult to determine if we subscribe to a particular journal (I cannot access a particular article because I am logged on from non-school site or youdon't provide the subscription?) | It can be difficult using e-journals. Since we're simply passing you through to the publisher's site, and they all differ, there's not much we can do to standardize the look. The best way to search is from Electronic Journals under "Find" on our home page. For instructions re off-campus usage, please see "Research from Off Campus" near the top right of our home page. | Grad | arch | female |
| I get frustrated when an e-journal wants you to buy an article. I realize the money wouldn't come out of my personal pocket, however until I've read the article Idon't know if it's worth $30, so Idon't request articles that cost money. | I appreciate your desire to save us a dollar, but please don't be overly shy about getting what you need. Everyone sooner or late borrows a book on interlibrary that turns out, once it's in hand, to be of no use. | Grad | education | female |
| My only complaint is with Addison. Sometimes I can't find a book using one criteria (ex. title), but I can find it using another (ex. ISBN). Once I left out the worddon'tHE' at the beginning of the title and Addison couldn't find the book. Another time I searched for a book using different criteria (title, author), couldn't find it so I requested it through ILLiad. ILLiad found the book in the stacks! I ABSOLUTELY LOVE ILLiad, by the way, and use it constantly. It is such a great service and if you let more people know about it and that it's not just restricted to academic tomes, you'd get a ton of use. Thanks for listening and I hope your budget improves by leaps and bounds. | It's a little surprising that you couldn’t find the book in Addison without "The," since initial articles are not usually indexed for searching. If, while searching, you do not get the results you expected, you are welcome to use the email address at the bottom of the search page to ask for help or point out errors in the catalog. We are always happy to help find information that may or may not be in the online catalog. | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| I am generally happy with them. I use electronic journal articles found through the library's subscription databases most often. | Thanks for the grand comment. | Grad | business | male |
| Overall I am amazed with the electronic library although it can be cumbersome for a new user and sometimes frustrating. | It's great to hear comments like this. E-publications are cumbersome and frustrating on end too sometimes, but always worth it. | Grad | education | female |
| Biggest frustration is having to perform a second independent search to access electronic publications, after a first search to locate the materials. | A lot of people are starting their search for journals now on the electronic journals link from our home page, and then dropping back to Addison only if Plan A doesn't work. You might try that. Or start off in an appropriate indexing database and expect that most, though not all, of the citations you find will link to full text. | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| The library needs to expand its collection of books, especially in the engineering fields. I was very disappointed with the low selection and few numbers of copies of very important books. | We're hoping to redress some of the acknowledged weaknesses in our engineering holdings this year. Besides our online books and an estimated $85,000 in engineering titles that will come on our approval plan, we've allocated $48,000 for discretionary purchases of books and proceedings by the college librarians for engineering. We hope that will help. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| The electronic journal entries for engineering are really lacking in number and quality | We think that with the forthcoming addition of the Society of Automotive Engineers' electronic publications, we'll have all the major engineering societies covered. And we're in good shape with Elsevier, Wiley, Blackwell, and most of the other major STM (science-technology-medicine) publishers. But yes, there are gaps -- please let me know (pmetz@vt.edu) of specific titles you think we should add. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| Keep working closely with EndNote Inter-library Loan is an absolute necessity Idon't see the need for money being spent on items that have no academic purpose (e.g. electronic version of Cosmopolitan magazine) | ILL is considered a vital service and it is well supported by the library. The only version of Cosmopolitan Magazine is within InfoTrac, a database from which we get a package of journals. It is paid for by VIVA, our state-supported consortium. | Grad | agriculture | male |
| 1)The availability of books is not updated.2)I cannot find many journals due to slow resulfing.3) Getting books,.. from storage take a long time.4) for preliminary exam, people cannot get sources quickly. It might be good to have a specific service for people who have prelim exam. | The turn-around time for getting books from storage is generally 24 hours after receiving the request. Demand for the older materials in storage has diminished considerably and doing more than one retrieval a day is not efficient, cost effective for the staff level in Circulation that performs this task. For materials checked out, please keep in mind that you can recall those materials. | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| Information on the latest technologies is lacking in all physical libraries. | We are hoping to make improvements on our information technology collections this year. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| I would like more full text access to nutrition/physiology/medical journals and more comprehensive databases to search for articles within these areas. | We recognize that medical research is a major university priority and an area of fast growth. We and VIVA, the state network, have been trying to add journals in this area. Please let us know of specific titles you'd like to see added. By and large with Biological Abstracts, Medline, and the other databases listed at http://www.lib.vt.edu/dsp/index.php?action=ViewResource&subject=19 you should be able to get at most of the literature in this area. Talk to your College Librarians (Margaret Merrill or Caryl Gray) if you think there's a larger area on some topics than you've been able to find. | Grad | agriculture | female |
| More copies of particular books | We are hoping a fairly good year on book funding will help us with the extra copy problem. We do consult circulation counts and hold/recall queues in deciding what to duplicate, but we also bear in mind that two copies of this may mean no copies of something else. I appreciate knowing your thoughts on this, so thanks. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| I would like to have earlier hours during the week for the library to be open. | The library opens at 7:30am weekdays; 9am on Saturday and at noon on Sunday. Our morning operational hours are very similar to like size institutions. | Grad | education | female |
| It would great if the library could have more flexible hours throughout the entire week. Maybe even stay open all day long like the Math Emporium does. It would definitely make it easier for me to find a quite place to study late at night. | The University Libraries tries to maintain similar hours of service as other like-sized research libraries. Within the state, the libraries’ hours of service compare favorably to the other state institutions. With the increase in online resources that are available to users in their homes and offices, access to many of our research resources are available 24/7. A few years ago, we remained open until 2 a.m. for several semesters and recorded use. Use was so minimal after midnight that it was not cost effective to keep the building open those extra hours. The same is true of weekend hours. | UGrad | arch | male |
| We love electronic journals. As a researcher, I tend to copy great quantities of material. Bound journals are difficult to copy, and I prefer to copy within my department (easier to use copiers, plus free copies), so have to go through special checkout procedures. Illiad service has been great so far as well. An "estimated time of delivery" option would be nice though (e.g. 1-3 days, 3-5 days, etc.) | Unfortunately it is impossible to estimate a time of delivery for any individual ILLiad request. It all depends on which libraries own the item, whether they can find it, and how long they take to ship it. All of this varies by time of year. One of our web pages has a summary of average delivery times, and you can view ILLiad reports that show turnaround time and distribution of turnaround times. Always glad to hear that the e-journals are appreciated. It's certainly a major priority for us to add more. | Grad | sci/math | female |
| More electronic journals covering more years would certainly help, since it is cheaper to print from my printer than photocopying. | More e-journals and longer backfiles for the ones we do have, pretty well summarizes our highest priority. | Grad | psych | male |
| Many times the library web page says we have access to a particular electronic journal. However, when I go to retrieve the article from the site, it says I have to pay for it. This has happened to me with more than 10 different electronic journals, that Virginia Tech students are supposed to have access to. Perhaps the library should stay on top of renewing their subscription to electronic journals more. | We've increased the dollar limit for articles we'll subsidize on Ingenta, possibly having thus solved the problem you had. Within any resource other than Ingenta, you should never have to pay -- if you see reference to a charge, it's on us and you shouldn't hesitate to proceed if you need the item. Please let me, pmetz@vt.edu, know if this problem continues for you. If you are accessing us from off-campus it's possible you have a proxy problem -- please see "Research from Off Campus" near the bottom of our home page. | Grad | psych | female |
| Article searching tools tend to give a lot of citations without full text options.... Even using the "Full Text Options" link, it is difficult to figure out where one is supposed to find articles. It would be easier if the tools for articles were more uniform so that one does not have to completely change strategies going from Lexis-Nexus to JStor for example. | We are working towards having more consistent prompts and logos so that your navigation among resources becomes more similar and familiar. Even with these efforts, there will remain some non-standard, proprietary presentations by vendors that are beyond our control. | UGrad | other | female |
| I would like to see easier access to more electronic journal articles. | We would as well, and this is a constant goal. We're working on the "easier" part by implementing standards and, to the degree possible, uniform logos and screen flows so that searching and linking are more intuitive. The "more" part comes as we continue to buy large title packages from publishers like Wiley, Elsevier, and Kluwer and as we continue to look for publishers whose content has recently become available electronically. | UGrad | sci/math | female |
| I would like to feel like the library has some of the most current information, but when I have visited in the past I felt as though many of the psychology information was out of date. | We will receive about $8,000 worth of psychology books on our approval plan and spend an additional $17,000 on discretionary purchases this year. We hope that helps. It is hard to keep up with all the progress in clinical, social, and neurological/biological psychology, but we're trying. Thanks for your thoughts. | UGrad | psych | female |
| Illiad is the library high point, computer/ computer service availability and dependability is the low point | We are glad to know that ILLiad works so well for you. | UGrad | sci/math | female |
| I think a journal search engine which accessed both electronic and printed journal articles would be wonderful. | The standard indexes for each field are intended to do this, though if you mean searching full-text as vs. just the bibliographic record, you're right that the industry's not there yet. | UGrad | Eng/CS | male |
| We need more and updated on-line journals, which is the resource I use the most | I agree. This is our highest priority. | Grad | psych | male |
| Addison's format and speed are extremely slow compared to UNC-Charlotte and William and Mary Libraries. Not very user friendly when trying to pull up the full card. Online-renew should be easier. | The fact that the catalog is slow might be because the network is experiencing high volume, or many users are trying to access Addison at the same time. Certain types of searches will sometimes bog the system down. We plan to have more renewal features in future versions of Addison. | UGrad | arch | female |
| The filing system for the books is very difficult to navigate for first time users. A simple explanation of the filing system and it's alpha numeric code on the website would help new users understand how to use the library. | You're right; it can be confusing. In our FAQs we have a brief explanation (http://www.lib.vt.edu/help/direct/faq/faq.html#Q6) and there are maps on each floor that might also help. But please don't hesitate to ask for assistance if you continue to have trouble finding things. | UGrad | Eng/CS | male |
| I think that more of the journals should be accessible online. | That's our highest goal. | UGrad | comm/journ | female |
| the Addison search really isn't user friendly if youdon't know how to use booleans or if youdon't already know what you're specifically looking for (in terms of what book). To me, it came across more as a locator than an index. | There are some tips that will help you find things in Addison; our Addison specialist is Buddy Litchfield (buddyl@vt.edu) and he'd be glad to give you a quick session on some of them. | UGrad | Eng/CS | male |
| The biggest complaint I have is about easily accessible materials from the library website. It's very confusing and hard to navigate. | We've recently redesigned the library website and have made changes based on usability studies and focus group sessions. We hope you'll find it less confusing and easier to navigate. | UGrad | sci/math | female |
| Also the navigation of the webpage is not intuitive. I think it attempts to force too much information or tools onto the front page. | We've recently redesigned the library website and have made changes based on usability studies and focus group sessions. We hope you'll find it less confusing and easier to navigate. | UGrad | Eng/CS | male |
| difficult to set up browser to access library materials off campus | We're no longer using the proxy server so you no longer have to set up your browser to access library materials from off campus. Instead you can use your PID and password to get to library materials. It's much simpler! | UGrad | Eng/CS | female |
| change Addison so easier to locate books and articles, make personal books more accessible, provide more computers to do research and study (Preferably not Macs!!) | The computers located in the library are primarily for locating materials in the library rather than personal computer use. Computer labs located across campus and location and hours of operation are available at www.cclab,vt.edu/ There are some tips that will help you find things in Addison; our Addison specialist is Buddy Litchfield (buddyl@vt.edu) and he'd be glad to give you a quick session on some of them. | UGrad | sci/math | female |
| Access on resources online is a huge part of today's library. | We agree, and are going full tilt to add more e-resources. | UGrad | arch | male |
| more accessibility through the web page for resources would be beneficial to those, who aren't able to visit the building as often as they would like. | We've recently redesigned the library website and have made changes based on usability studies and focus group sessions. We hope you'll find that it is now easier to access the resources you need. | UGrad | arch | female |
| The website's search can be a little tricky. It turns up strange answers sometimes. | I'm not exactly sure what website search you're referring to. We are in the process of updating the software and hardware for Addison, our online catalog, and hope that you'll see improved efficiency in terms of both speed and hit rate once we get the new Addison in place. If I've misunderstood your comment, please contact me ( Vicki Kok, vkok@vt.edu) and I'll try to answer more specifically. | UGrad | other | female |
| though the Addison search system is sometimes not satisfactory. | We regret that you do not find Addison satisfactory. Without knowing your specific complaints, it is difficult to address your comment. However, you might find it useful to attend a class on searching Addison in order to learn some different search strategies. | Grad | sci/math | female |
| To me personally as a Graduate student, the most important thing about the library is that it have the books and journals I need. The library's main feature is not in its architecture (although good interior decoration and adequate ventilation are indeed appreciated) or in its study areas but rather in its stacks. | Yes, and presumably when you say "in its stacks, " you also mean on your computer desktop. We have no higher priority. We are among the top libraries in the country in share of total budget devoted to collections because we share your priorities on this. That's not to say that "library as place" or public services aren't important and don't need resources too. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| Hope electronic journals cover more. | We're constantly adding publisher packages or adding e-versions of existing subscriptions because we recognize that more e-journals are just about the top thing people want from us now. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| Illiad is very useful for me because the library does not always have the journals I find articles in that I need for research. | Thanks for your kind words about the ILLiad service. | Grad | humanities | female |
| I was very pleased to see you decided to use the proxy server again. It works quite well. Thank you. | Actually, we've stopped using the proxy server and are now using a PID and password login to allow off-campus access to our resources. We hope you'll find that it also works quite well. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| It is frustrating when I cannot download an electronic journal article directly to my desktop. There are still too many which are unavailable. Maybe I need to take more advantage of interlibrary loan services for journal articles. As far as I am concerned, all specialty journal hardcopies can be removed from the library if they are available online. However, top tier (major association and general public) journal hardcopies should be maintained for general browsing. | As a rule, if we have a subscription, you would not want to try to get the article on interlibrary loan. We are going full blast in adding more and more electronic journals. Also, if it looks as if you should be able to download an article but you somehow can't get there, give us a buzz and let us try to figure out what's wrong. We have been going electronic only pretty uniformly with our journals. The exceptions include some of the key societal journals and heavily used popular titles, as well as anything for which graphical detail is significant and isn't adequately rendered online. | Grad | sci/math | male |
| it would be very helpful to install Wi-Fi wherever there are chairs and tables at the Nova Graduate center, since the library there, and the access to computers is limited. Having Wi-Fi at the Nova center would enable students to get access to the library's electronic resources from anywhere in the building. | I contacted the networking folks in the Nova Graduate center and have been told that their wireless access is almost completely finished -- so next time you're in the center pop open your laptop and see if it doesn't work for you! You may have to register, but you should see information about that available shortly at the Nova Center. | Grad | business | male |
| I seem to get a lot of runtime errors when I use the library web page - on many different computers. | I've checked with several of our computer people and we're not sure why you're getting runtime errors. We're hoping that our new website has eliminated this problem, but if you encounter it again please send a note to Alan Armstrong (alan.armstrong@vt.edu) and he'll try to track down the source of the problem. | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| right now the largest problem is accessing the e-journals that Sci-Finder says that we have access to. Then I go to the library and find that wedon't have them in print either. I cannot get them sometimes through Illiad.. so I am left with no way of getting a journal article that I need. It is very frustrating. | Since our holdings are pretty strong in the disciplines covered by SciFinder, and since SciFinder should never falsely indicate we have access to something, I'm suspicious that you may be running into some snags we could help you avoid. Please call us or contact your College Librarian, Ed Lener, the next time you hit a dead end like this. | Grad | sci/math | female |
| It would be nice to have more electronic services online. I'm student teaching and am never on campus and it's so much easier just to get online. | We recognize that the desire for more e-journals is widespread and strong. It's a major priority for us too. | Grad | education | female |
| I am generally pleased with the library facilities. I do wish that more journals were on line. I have also had problems with "break" in serials such that a few volumes are neither online nor at the library. The library does a good job in stating what is actually available. | We're glad you're pleased overall. Adding more and more e-journals as fast as possible is a top goal for us, and we're making progress. | Grad | psych | female |
| The only drawback is the lack of journals accessible to those of us who live off-campus and need around the clock access to information. I am an advocate of the recall system, especially for those of us working on theses, prelims, and dissertations. I also like the fact that books can be checked out for such a long period of time. The Addison system is a little hard to use sometimes because it is so particular, but other than that I have had only pleasant experiences at the library. | Adding full text e-journals to our current 6,000+ is a major priority for us too. | Grad | psych | female |
| I would appreciate more electronic resources. | We hear it loud and clear. It's our highest priority. | Grad | psych | female |
| Here's the basic deal- I am a new doctoral student on the CPAP satellite campus and have received no information or orientation to accessing the Tech library databases available and needed for my research. As a mid year transfer student, I think this is a combination of lack of support for the CPAP campus, simple oversight on the part of the libraries, and could be easily remedied with an on-line tutorial program.. Please contact me at 571-641-6169 if you can show me how to access the research materials for which everyone makes the assumption we know how to get into.... I've got to figure it out to pass the courses this semester.... Thanks, Jeff Stern PhD candidate- CPAP | Jeff, Shortly after you made this comment I believe you were contacted by Debbie Cash, who is the person who provides library support for students enrolled in programs in the National Capital Region. But for others with a similar question, Debbie is a wonderful resource for you, plus there's an A-Z list of our subject specialists at http://www.lib.vt.edu/help/subsatoz.html where you can find out who is the person who can help you. In addition, we do have a research-focused tutorial at http://www.lib.vt.edu/help/instruct/ism-intro.html. | Grad | other | male |
| [1] Online access to additional technical journals is very important. Specifically, I would like to see the "SPIE Proceedings" available online. [2] Library research from home is very important. Specifically, using the MyVT portal to access electronic journals online is more convenient than configuring the browser to use the library proxy server. | We are using EZProxy and a very simple PID and password access for electronic access to our online resources, so you no longer have to configure your browser to use the proxy server -- we think you'll find it much easier! | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| It would be WONDERFUL to get the Elsevier ScienceDirect articles back further. It would be nice to have a way to browse media (videos, DVDs, CDs) outside of Addison | At this point we don't see a way to offer a media browsing service outside of Addison without a significant duplication of effort. However, the Circulation Desk staff has developed a nice collection of brochures that should be helpful for you. In addition, we hope that a new library system will offer some functionality that our existing system doesn't offer, so a new Addison may allow you to better browse our media collections. We ourselves would love to have ScienceDirect articles way back. We got pricing from our excellent Elsevier rep, who had data to show us which of the various packages (they come in bundles, no real title-by-title pick and choose) would be most cost-effective for us based on past VT usage. We simply didn't get enough new funding to make this possible now but it's an ongoing "wish list" item and one we will be pursuing with outside donors. | Grad | sci/math | male |
| Comments: As an on-line user, the most difficult thing is tracking the maze of different databases and publications. If I find only an abstract on one database, I still need to look around and see if I can find the full article on another database. By looking up the particular journal, I can find a list of where that journal is indexed, but I need to look in each location individually to see if our subscription includes full text or not. (And also check to see if it is in the card catalog.) It appears that there has been progress in pulling all of these various resources together for the end user. It is easier than it was a year or two ago. However, it is still somewhat cumbersome for the very large literature review projects. | You're right that this is complicated, and it's also one of the hardest things to teach. For example, I do outreach to the Sociology Department and am constantly reminding students that most sociological problems overlap at least one other social science, each of which has its own database(s). By and large this is a feature of the industry that we can't control, though we are looking at a new database that covers practically all the sciences. | Grad | other | female |
| Idon't live on campus & none of my home computers (I have 3) will allow the proxy to be set up. Idon't think it is fair in the least for off campus students to be all but punished for not living on campus. We should be able to have access just as easily as any on campus student. | We have recently started using a PID and password login to provide access to our resources for off-campus users. This should eliminate the problems you've encountered, though if you do have trouble please contact Dave Beagle (beagle@vt.edu) for assistance. And we're sorry you've had so much trouble with this! | UGrad | sci/math | female |
| Need to make it easier to access library resources over the Web. The current system of having to set up a proxy is very difficult to use and does not always work. At the very least, need to provide clear instruction to explain to users how to access the library via the web and how to troubleshoot problems. | We're no longer using the proxy server but have recently switched to a PID and password login for off campus users. It's much simpler! | Grad | business | female |
| Links to web pages for courier service can be confusing. I wish all items from storage or off-campus could be delivered to Vet Med Library. Ingenta search engine is great, but most papers are outside of VT's price range, so I can't get them. | Not sure what problem you may have had concerning delivery of items from storage. On the request form you can designate where you want to pick up the item and the Vet Med library is a choice. | Grad | vet med | female |
| I am from NVC. The library here does not have the latest books and every time, we need to go on-line and apply for books from the main campus. I feel that the number and quality of books available here must be upGraded. | Debbie Cash does try to purchase all materials that are requested, but we will also look into trying to provide new materials on a much more regular basis. Even though we know we can't have fully current book collections in education, engineering, public administration, and everything else taught at NVC we know we need to redouble our efforts to buy the best recent books. We've recently discussed the matter with the staff member who runs the branch. She will be buying selected "best" books in the core disciplines supported by NVC. It will never be a comprehensive library for books, but we hope this helps. | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| The more electronic journals, the better. The more GIS data, the better. | We recognize the demand for e-journals as really central and are adding them as fast as we can. We also know GIS is hot -- it would be great if you'd send me (pmetz@vt.edu) a note regarding which of the many possible kinds of GIS data would be most helpful to you. | Grad | other | male |
| MyVT access to article searching worked much faster and more efficiently than having to use the proxy through the library. The proxy system is very slow especially adding to the time it takes to download PDF files. Also, I cannot use the proxy system at work for system security reasons while I was able to use the MyVT article search tool. | Actually, we've stopped using the proxy server and are now using a PID and password login to allow off-campus access to our resources. We hope you'll find that it also works quite well. | Grad | other | female |
| I have great difficulty finding electronic journals. I have now learned a maze to find what I need, but I believe it could be much easier. My most difficulty is with Illiad (Interlibrary loan). I now go to Radford University for articles (I'm adjunct). The turn around time is about 1 week. It is then scanned and e-mailed to me. Since I am off campus this makes things much easier. Through Illiad I get a late response, and then it is sitting at Tech for me to go pick-up when I have requested it to be mailed. | I am sorry you have had trouble getting articles through ILLiad. We mail photocopies of articles that we do not get electronically, so they should be delivered directly to your home. Photocopies from our collection are mailed within a couple of days of a request appearing in ILLiad. Photocopies from other libraries take differing amounts of time depending on the availability of the title and the shipping method chosen by the lending library. ILLiad delivers to you automatically based on the preferences in your personal information. We have recently redesigned our website and I'm hoping things will be easier for you. We do have a searchable and browsable list of our electronic journals available at http://www.lib.vt.edu/find/ejournals/. | Grad | education | male |
| There should be an agricultural library closer to the agricultural students to improve acquisition of subject related materials. Many other universities provide subject area libraries that serve the needs of the students in that area of campus. I believe the libraries are used more if they are subject specific because they are easier to locate materials, the librarians are better able to serve the students/faculty, and they are convenient to get to. One library on the opposite side of campus is not feasible for all students. | Distributed libraries are more costly because they require more staff and a sizable percentage of duplicated materials. For these reasons, the University Libraries made the decision to centralize library services. Nationally, the trend is now to centralize services especially with the advent of electronic resources. | Grad | agriculture | female |
| On an unrelated note, a small thing that you could do that would be very helpful would be to list the Indexing (call?) letters for each floor in the stairwell. Although I am a relatively frequent user, I often forget the letters and have to find a sheet to find out where they are. If they were listed on each floor in the stairwell it would probably help a lot of people out. | This was such a good idea that we implemented it immediately. You should now find a list of the call numbers for each floor in Newman located not only in the stairwells but also in the elevators. Thanks you for your valuable input. | Grad | psych | male |
| Iliad is the best. | - We think so too. Thanks for supporting our opinion. | Grad | education | female |
| I think a document translation service would be excellent. Often, I find Japanese publications of extreme interest to my research, but I have no method of translating. | I'm not sure what to suggest here. If the demand were great enough we might be able to serve as a clearinghouse for a fee-based translation service, but I did some checking and wedon't often get queries about translations. | Grad | sci/math | male |
| The inter library loan system is a great tool to get the material which our library doesn't have. | We are strongly committed to having a great ILL system. Thanks for letting us know that it is working well for you. | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| I have had two incidents with Illiad in which I had returned books and/or renewed books and received overdue notices. The errors were fixed, but still it makes me a bit nervous that the errors may not get fixed and perhaps I should get receipts for returning books. | It's hard to reply to this since I dondon't know whether you are mailing the books from off-campus or returning them to our office. Returns can be delayed in the mail, or we may make a mistake in check-in. I cannot recall any incident during my seven years in ILL where there has been a problem that hasn't been fixed satisfactorily. | Grad | psych | female |
| Would like to have the AWWA Journal available electronically | American Water Works Journal , yes? Good idea. I checked with them and right now they do this only for individual subscribers, but thanks to your suggestion they now know we're interested and as soon as they have institutional terms (early 2005?) they will pitch them to us. So thanks very much, I hope you are still here when this comes off but eventually VT users will benefit from your suggestion! | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| I hope our library could have more newly published books | We are hoping for a good year on book buying -- certainly it's overdue. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| The library hours are too limited. Many Grad students remain on campus during breaks to work on theses/dissertations and are frustrated by the limited hours. Also, it would be wonderful if the library was open 24hrs/day during the school year. If this became the case, I think many students would use it throughout the night. | The University Libraries tries to maintain similar hours of service as other like-sized research libraries. Within the state, the libraries’ hours of service compare favorably to the other state institutions. With the increase in online resources that are available to users in their homes and offices, access to many of our research resources are available 24/7. A few years ago, we remained open until 2 a.m. for several semesters and recorded use. Use was so minimal after midnight that it was not cost effective to keep the building open those extra hours. The same is true of weekend hours. It is not feasible to keep a main university library open 24-hours daily without adequate staffing. To our knowledge, there are no university libraries that are open around the clock although a few do have small restricted areas closed off for round-the- clock studying. | Grad | psych | female |
| Although your collections are limited, the library does an excellent job with processing ILL requests. | We're glad to know that ILL is working for you. Our ILLiad data shows that all libraries are limited. We've found that in any given year we borrow from more than 1,000 different libraries. Engineering students alone borrow from about 450 libraries. So there isn't any complete library out there that can supply all our needs. That's the basic reason that libraries have ILL services. They are really fundamental and required. Even where resources are less limited than here, Interlibrary Loan remains very important. We're proud of our Interlibrary Loan service, but also know we have to continue to work to have the basic bread and butter right here at hand. Thanks for writing. | Grad | psych | female |
| I would be very excited if the library picked up an electronic version of the Journal Tree Physiology | I checked their home page and this looks doable, so we're pursuing it. Thanks for the excellent suggestion. | Grad | agriculture | male |
| Continuing to increase access to electronic journals is a major plus for VT. Addison search pages could be made to be more easily navigated (e.g., the ways in which some titles are entered into the system multiple times, yet the multiple links lead to the same source/information). | We are constantly working to add more e-journals, and have really no higher priority. | Grad | psych | female |
| I think the library needs to be open longer!!! I am very disappointed with how early it closes on Fridays and Saturdays. longer hours would help tremendously!! | The University Libraries tries to maintain similar hours of service as other like-sized research libraries. Within the state, the libraries’ hours of service compare favorably to the other state institutions. With the increase in online resources that are available to users in their homes and offices, access to many of our research resources are available 24/7. A few years ago, we remained open until 2 a.m. for several semesters and recorded use. Use was so minimal after midnight that it was not cost effective to keep the building open those extra hours. The same is true of weekend hours. It is not feasible to keep a main university library open 24-hours daily without adequate staffing. To our knowledge, there are no university libraries that are open around the clock although a few do have small restricted areas closed off for round-the- clock studying. | Grad | vet med | female |
| Please also bring back the media page for videos and DVDs. It was much easier to find movies on the old site before it was all put into Addison. The brochures online help, but it was still better before.... | You can, of course, search for the CAM materials in Addison. In addition, we feel that our next integrated library system will allow us to replicate some of the CAM database features without the need to maintain a separate database. | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| Still can't access to some engineering journals | With the forthcoming addition of the automotive engineering journals (SAE) we think we'll have all the major engineering societies covered. Since we also have Elsevier, Wiley, Blackwell, and Kluwer journals online we should be in fairly good shape. Please let the College Librarians for Engineering or me (pmetz@vt.edu) know of specific titles you'd like to see added and we'll do all we can. | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| Wouldn't be able to get by without ordering things from illiad. It delivers very quickly what I need. | We are delighted to know that ILLiad works well for you. | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| my only wish is that we had more online journal access | That's been the most common theme throughout LibQual comments. We have no higher priority ourselves. | Grad | sci/math | male |
| It's hard to find technical papers at the library. Many times they are somewhere in the building, but finding someone to help you locate what you're looking for is very difficult. Ideally, it would be nice if the electronic search capabilities of the library would better handle locating technical papers. | We have begun double-staffing the Reference Desk in Newman Library, which would allow some one to go with you to the shelves and help you find technical papers and other hard-to-find items. In addition, staff in their offices who are available to provide assistance are leaving their doors open, so if you seen an open office door stick your head in and ask for help! | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| More latest rtech books at the off campus will help students learn the latest tech. Idon't get inspired on seeing the 1980s books available in the off campus library (Falls Church campus) | We know we need to refresh the book collections at NVC. I'm sure you realize we can't keep full strength current collections in all the fields taught up there but we need to do better. The staff member who runs the NVC facility will be buying "best" recent books in the curricular areas of key interest to NVC. I hope that helps. | Grad | Eng/CS | female |
| You should have more business magazines and newer computers | We'll try. If you have specific titles in mind for business please contact Ellen Krupar, the College Librarian for Pamplin, or send me (pmetz@vt.edu) a note. | Grad | business | male |
| I wish the library were subscribed to more electronic databases - it's frustrating to search a database, find what I need, then read that VT doesn't have a subscription. | I think we have all the standard databases. We're constantly trying to add e-journals, and recognize how badly this is wanted. | Grad | arch | male |
| the loss of some e-journals and user restrictions for some electronic resources has been disappointing | There's been no real cutback in e-journals, the number of which is steadily increasing. And most of our e-resources are available to all (make sure you check out "Research from Off Campus" if you suspect you are having a proxy problem with remote usage). Please send specific suggestions to me (pmetz@vt.edu) so we can better understand, and try to meet, your needs. | Grad | humanities | female |
| The interloan library staff are wonderful (though sometimes they forget to check the microfilm/fiche section, but now I remind them). | Thanks for your kind words, and we do in fact welcome all the help we can get in remembering some alternative ways of finding things. | Grad | education | female |
| I hope I could access more international journals, such as International Journal of Technology Management and International Journal of Innovation Management, through the library web page. At the same time, I wish I could access the full-text doctoral dissertations of more schools. | We don't subscribe at all to either of those journals. Though dollars are scarce, I (pmetz@vt.edu) or Ellen Krupar, the College Librarian for Business, would appreciate hearing more about why you would advocate them as possible additions to our collections. The number of universities publishing theses and dissertations online is growing. There's also a product available that includes many of them but it's pricey and would have to compete with other important and unmet needs. VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia, is looking into this product but I would hesitate to predict how it will fare against other pressing needs. | Grad | business | female |
| The library does an excellent job at meeting my needs for research. I am continually astounded by the obscure research articles I can find that I wouldn't expect to be available in the stacks. Access to journals on-line through the library is the most important thing to me, and I have access to pretty much everything I need for my research! A+! | Thanks! I feel like I should take you to lunch or something. It was good to hear that we're making a positive difference in your work. We'll keep truckin'. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| The "browse" cook collection is not conducive to browsing, the shelves are to low and there are no close chairs to take a seat relax and flip through the browse books. | We will look at changing the shelving for new and browse books when we began some renovations soon. For your convenience, rocking chairs are located near these collections. | Grad | sci/math | female |
| I feel like our library does an adequate job; however, it could do a much better job. Unfortunately, I think most problems concerning the library--availability of texts, hrs. of operation, etc--have to do with university-wide budget shortages rather than incompetence of the library personnel. | The University Libraries tries to maintain similar hours of service as other like-sized research libraries. Within the state, the libraries’ hours of service compare favorably to the other state institutions. With the increase in online resources that are available to users in their homes and offices, access to many of our research resources are available 24/7. A few years ago, we remained open until 2 a.m. for several semesters and recorded use. Use was so minimal after midnight that it was not cost effective to keep the building open those extra hours. The same is true of weekend hours. It is not feasible to keep a main university library open 24-hours daily without adequate staffing. To our knowledge, there are no university libraries that are open around the clock although a few do have small restricted areas closed off for round-the- clock studying. | Grad | humanities | female |
| It would be nice to have electronic subscriptions to more journals. A more intuitive way to search for media will be good (rather than using call numbers for DVDs and VHS) | Our media collection is searchable in Addison and we are optimistic that the next version of Addison will allow even more flexibility in locating materials. We're intent on continuing to add e-journals as fast as possible. The catalog records for media are robust and should bring hits for all the standard title, author, subject, and keyword searches in Addison. Please let us know of any specific problems you encounter. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| quite often inadequate resources like journals and conference proceedings | It's hard to get everything we need when we are 93rd in the Association of Research Libraries in dollars for resources. Meanwhile, we are always open to specific suggestions for journals and proceedings we could add. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| The only complaint I have is based on the hours. The library shouldn't ever closed; you should be able to go in and get books, journals, etc. all the time. Students need places to study - dormitories are not conducive at all to study and apartments can be just as trying. | The University Libraries tries to maintain similar hours of service as other like-sized research libraries. Within the state, the libraries’ hours of service compare favorably to the other state institutions. With the increase in online resources that are available to users in their homes and offices, access to many of our research resources are available 24/7. A few years ago, we remained open until 2 a.m. for several semesters and recorded use. Use was so minimal after midnight that it was not cost effective to keep the building open those extra hours. The same is true of weekend hours. It is not feasible to keep a main university library open 24-hours daily without adequate staffing. To our knowledge, there are no university libraries that are open around the clock although a few do have small restricted areas closed off for round-the- clock studying. | Grad | education | male |
| longer hours would be nice, but budget is short, I know. | The University Libraries tries to maintain similar hours of service as other like-sized research libraries. Within the state, the libraries’ hours of service compare favorably to the other state institutions. With the increase in online resources that are available to users in their homes and offices, access to many of our research resources are available 24/7. A few years ago, we remained open until 2 a.m. for several semesters and recorded use. Use was so minimal after midnight that it was not cost effective to keep the building open those extra hours. The same is true of weekend hours. It is not feasible to keep a main university library open 24-hours daily without adequate staffing. To our knowledge, there are no university libraries that are open around the clock although a few do have small restricted areas closed off for round-the- clock studying. | Grad | sci/math | male |
| 2. extended hours for the study area mentioned above. | The University Libraries tries to maintain similar hours of service as other like-sized research libraries. Within the state, the libraries’ hours of service compare favorably to the other state institutions. With the increase in online resources that are available to users in their homes and offices, access to many of our research resources are available 24/7. A few years ago, we remained open until 2 a.m. for several semesters and recorded use. Use was so minimal after midnight that it was not cost effective to keep the building open those extra hours. The same is true of weekend hours. It is not feasible to keep a main university library open 24-hours daily without adequate staffing. To our knowledge, there are no university libraries that are open around the clock although a few do have small restricted areas closed off for round-the- clock studying. | Grad | business | male |
| Journal resources that are available are not kept up to date. I do not know why there is no 2003 or 2004 edition of most journals. This will help in knowing the latest trends in our research field. Also some of the latest books are not available, and interlibrary loan is too much of a wait. Get rid of all the old books (put them in reserve storage) and make room for newer books..who cares about the old outdated books | We did lose access to 2003 content for some of our print journals due to a vendor problem. Please let us know of specifics. We're hoping a good year in book buying will help us to redress some of the obsolescence we too have detected in our collections. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| the library lacks sufficient resources for specific disciplines like economics......it seems that such departments are kind of overlooked.....moreover library hours should be made more flexible since this is a research school......libraries in universities like UVA are open all night through...... | The University Libraries tries to maintain similar hours of service as other like-sized research libraries. Within the state, the libraries’ hours of service compare favorably to the other state institutions. With the increase in online resources that are available to users in their homes and offices, access to many of our research resources are available 24/7. A few years ago, we remained open until 2 a.m. for several semesters and recorded use. Use was so minimal after midnight that it was not cost effective to keep the building open those extra hours. The same is true of weekend hours. It is not feasible to keep a main university library open 24-hours daily without adequate staffing. To our knowledge, there are no university libraries that are open around the clock although a few do have small restricted areas closed off for round-the- clock studying. We did lose access to 2003 content for some of our print journals due to a vendor problem. Please let us know of specifics. We're hoping a good year in book buying will help us to redress some of the obsolescence we too have detected in our collections. | Grad | psych | male |
| The library does a good job as it is. My only complaint is not having online access to every journal I want (which I know you can't always do) | You're right that not all are available online but we are trying. | Grad | agriculture | male |
| Facilities in Northern Virginia are very lacking, but I appreciate the quality of online resources and the willingness of the library to mail books to my home. | Without more details regarding what's lacking in the facilities in Northern Virginia, it's difficult to address your concern. We're delighted that you're satisfied with the online resources and with home delivery of materials. If you would care to contact me regarding what's missing in the facilities, please contact me ( Vicki Kok, vkok@vt.edu). | Grad | arch | male |
| Hours of Operation: We must move toward 24-Hour access. Often times, I am just getting into a study grove around 11 pm. I understand the budget constraints; however, this access is needed, ESPECIALLY during mid-terms and finals. Reduced hours are fine on Friday night and Saturday night, although I find Friday night an extremely productive time to study; at the beginning of semesters (~2-3 weeks into the term). But let's look at the top tier engineering schools like MIT that offer all night access. IT IS NEEDED! | The University Libraries tries to maintain similar hours of service as other like-sized research libraries. Within the state, the libraries’ hours of service compare favorably to the other state institutions. With the increase in online resources that are available to users in their homes and offices, access to many of our research resources are available 24/7. A few years ago, we remained open until 2 a.m. for several semesters and recorded use. Use was so minimal after midnight that it was not cost effective to keep the building open those extra hours. The same is true of weekend hours. It is not feasible to keep a main university library open 24-hours daily without adequate staffing. To our knowledge, there are no university libraries that are open around the clock although a few do have small restricted areas closed off for round-the- clock studying. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| I don't know if it is possible, but try to get books reshelved as quickly as you can...it is frustrating for a book to show up as available on the computer, only to be unable to find it on the shelf. | We recognize the importance of this and try to get books back on the shelves within 24 hours of their return. For most of the year we meet this standard or come close. However, the end of each semester brings us the double whammy of heavy book returns combined with the disappearance of our student workers. We try to work through this as fast as possible. I hope you and everyone else knows they can look for books in the sorting rooms, though I recognize this is time-consuming and often unsuccessful. | Grad | humanities | female |
| 1. Close too early on Friday. Not long enough on Saturday, either. | The University Libraries tries to maintain similar hours of service as other like-sized research libraries. Within the state, the libraries’ hours of service compare favorably to the other state institutions. With the increase in online resources that are available to users in their homes and offices, access to many of our research resources are available 24/7. A few years ago, we remained open until 2 a.m. for several semesters and recorded use. Use was so minimal after midnight that it was not cost effective to keep the building open those extra hours. The same is true of weekend hours. It is not feasible to keep a main university library open 24-hours daily without adequate staffing. To our knowledge, there are no university libraries that are open around the clock although a few do have small restricted areas closed off for round-the- clock studying. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| There are NOT enough NEW books with RECENT information. | We think FY05 will be a good year for book buying. We're due, that's for sure. | UGrad | business | female |
| ILLIA Service is outstanding. Keep up the great work! | Thanks for your kind words. | Grad | education | male |
| Some journals of interest are not available online through the library I'd like to see older issues of journals to be made available online too | We're going online with journals as fast as budget and the industry permit. There are some important backfiles of e-journals we just can't afford right now, but they remain high on our list. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| Once I found the library numbers for books/journals I needed, I had trouble finding a well laid out library map which indicated how the numbers were laid out in our library. Otherwise...no problems | We're in the process of looking at our maps and our signage and trying to identify ways to make things easier to find in Newman. In the meantime, please don't hesitate to ask for assistance in locating materials. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| Access to needed print and electronic journals is approaching unacceptable levels. I frequently need to use interlibrary loan to access journal articles and books. | We're going online with journals as fast as budget and the industry permit. There are some important backfiles of e-journals we just can't afford right now, but they remain high on our list. | Grad | humanities | male |
| I am a distance learner and found that there are many options for research, but I have little access to the full journal articles I needed. I had to buy one for $25 and that was the cheaper of my options. Other colleges I have seen buy the rights to those journals. I believe Va Tech should do this given the amount of distance learners you have and non-traditional students. Thanks for allowing me to give my comments. | You should have access to the same 6,000+ electronic journals everyone on campus can use. Please see the link "Research from Off Campus" on the bottom of our home page for help with remote access. If when you do this and get into our ejournals you still don't find the titles you need, please let me (pmetz@vt.edu) know. | Grad | agriculture | male |
| I have found the electronic services to be superb. The times I have experienced in-service training through Graduate classes, I have been impressed with both the staff and the content. | Thanks! We're delighted that you have had a good experience with our training sessions. | Grad | education | male |
| Need to be able to get books through inter-library loan even if it not for research and this should be available to underGraduates. | We believe that responsible expenditure of state funds for interlibrary loans precludes the use of ILL for frivolous purposes. Ultimately, we expect users to act responsibly by requesting materials for legitimate educational purposes. Many kinds of materials have legitimate research purposes when you are researching a topic of interest to you. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| However, in regards to the library resources (i.e. ILIAD, Electronic Journals, Journal Databases), I am very pleased. These resources have provided me with many documents that I would otherwise be unable to attain. | We are glad to hear that ILLiad is working well for you. | Grad | psych | male |
| I'm so satisfied with IIL services provided by the library. Thank you! | You are very welcome. | Grad | psych | female |
| I would be better if the library opens 24 hours. | The University Libraries tries to maintain similar hours of service as other like-sized research libraries. Within the state, the libraries’ hours of service compare favorably to the other state institutions. With the increase in online resources that are available to users in their homes and offices, access to many of our research resources are available 24/7. A few years ago, we remained open until 2 a.m. for several semesters and recorded use. Use was so minimal after midnight that it was not cost effective to keep the building open those extra hours. The same is true of weekend hours. It is not feasible to keep a main university library open 24-hours daily without adequate staffing. To our knowledge, there are no university libraries that are open around the clock although a few do have small restricted areas closed off for round-the- clock studying. | UGrad | Eng/CS | male |
| The access to electronic information is antiquated, confusing, and nearly impossible to use. This unavailability of access has led me to seek information from other sources. I have taken two 3 hour course supposedly instructing me on how to use the library's access system. Some in the class have taken it 3 or 4 times. What a waste of research time. Rather than long involved, and poorly presented instruction on how to use a system whydon't we ask ourselves Is this system user friendly? | We have recently redesigned our home page and hope that the streamlined layout of the page will improve your access to information. We're definitely aware of the problems with overlap in classes, but with no systematic way to provide students with instruction on how to use library resources there will unfortunately be some redundancy. I am dismayed that you think that the instruction was poorly presented and would be willing to try to address this is if you would like to contact me ( Vicki Kok, vkok@vt.edu) and provide specifics or offer suggestions. And, again, we do hope that the redesigned web site is more user friendly. | Grad | education | male |
| more access to electronic journals would be nice, sometimes it's hard to find the journals I deal with on line | We have no higher priority than to add e-journals. The basic problem is money and the uneven state of development in the publishing world. | Grad | agriculture | female |
| OPEN ALL NIGHT! ENGINEERING STUDENTS T HAVE DAYTIME! CLOSING AT MIDNIGHT IS PREPOSTEROUS! HELP US OUT AND GIVE US AN ACTUAL PLACE TO STUDY, LIBRARIES AT OTHER COLLEGES ARE OPEN ALL NIGHT LONG! JUST WANTED TO MAKE THIS OBVIOUS! I CANT USE YOUR RESOURCES BECAUSE THEY AREN'T ADEQUATELY AVAILABLE TO ME! Thank you! | The University Libraries tries to maintain similar hours of service as other like-sized research libraries. Within the state, the libraries’ hours of service compare favorably to the other state institutions. With the increase in online resources that are available to users in their homes and offices, access to many of our research resources are available 24/7. A few years ago, we remained open until 2 a.m. for several semesters and recorded use. Use was so minimal after midnight that it was not cost effective to keep the building open those extra hours. The same is true of weekend hours. It is not feasible to keep a main university library open 24-hours daily without adequate staffing. To our knowledge, there are no university libraries that are open around the clock although a few do have small restricted areas closed off for round-the- clock studying. | UGrad | Eng/CS | female |
| it would be better to separate quality of service in to areas, such as book provision, journal provision, interaction with staff, or just materials vs. people | We tend to think that research is not separated by format, but I do understand why you might think it would be desirable to have our information organized and presented that way. As we have staff available, we will certainly keep this in mind as a possible way to present resources and services. | Grad | psych | male |
| The library is very confusing and difficult to find books. Idon't like to use the library because, even though I took the tour, I have no idea where to go for information or how to go about finding the resources I need. I wish all publications were on the web because that is the only thing I know how to navigate. | We realize that Newman Library can be pretty confusing. We're working on improving our signage and our maps and hope that will help. In addition, we would encourage you to ask people in Newman to help you if you have trouble finding things since it may be a very long time before all publications are available electronically. | UGrad | business | female |
| I am studying on Bio-medical system. I think the materials or information on this field are quite deficient. Especially, papers on those field are quite dissatisfactory. | We have been spending extra money in recent years to try to fill in our biomedical holdings. Interest in medicine cuts right across the curriculum, and NIH funding is a research priority. We'll redouble our efforts to redress this acknowledged weakness in our holdings. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| Purchasing requested new books and photocopy service for the storage books would be helpful for my research. | , As a result of budget reductions, we reduced the staffing for the Storage facility which at one time provided copies of journal article requested. We simply do not have the resources at this time to provide this service. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| Excellent resources! In previous years I have complained about the availability of online journals, but as it turns out, I wasn't accessing them appropriately. I would like to see extended dating (further back) for the online journals in my field (accounting, academic), but the availability is truly fantastic!! | Thanks for the kudos! We're working on the backset problem and have made it a high priority for new funds. | Grad | business | male |
| I often find it disappointing and disturbing that we oftendon't have current periodicals, or have large gaps in the periodicals tat we DO subscribe to. | We would like to strengthen our journal collections but it takes money. Also, of course, since we've gone e-only on so many journals, don't assume we don't have a title merely because there's nothing in the fourth floor current issues. Gaps in holdings represent all manner of problems. | Grad | humanities | male |
| The library should have more copies of standard course textbooks and less of non standard books that are used sparingly | We buy textbooks when we think they will be of long-term value in helping people with basic issues, but like most research libraries we don't make this a priority. The research materials are essential to the very heart of VT. Students can buy their course textbooks. For most courses we couldn't buy enough copies anyway, and then a few years later we'd have superseded editions. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| I would like to see more technical journals in the Art/Arch library. | Please send specific suggestions to me (pmetz@vt.edu) or Heather Ball, the Art and Architecture Librarian (h.ball@vt.edu). | Grad | arch | female |
| The availability of journals in history and political science is abysmal. I frequently use the article databases only to discover that the library has very few of the journals that are cited in the databases. For a library at a major research university, the lack of scholarly journals in these disciplines is shocking. I am also bothered by the carelessness of the employees who check in books that have been returned. I have received multiple emails telling me that I did not turn in a book when I know that I did. Most of the time I am able to go and find the book in the stacks. Recently I was charged $100 to replace a small book that I supposedly "lost" when I am positive that I returned it. Past experiences tell me that I am being charged for carelessness on the part of the employees at the library. That's ridiculous. | For missing books, the staff does an extensive search through the stacks to verify that books are not in the library. In the future if you have continued problems with this issue, please discuss it with the Circulation Unit Head, Brenda Pratt. | UGrad | psych | male |
| I would happy if the architecture library was open later, especially during the week--would it be reasonable to be open to 2? | With the staff that we have available plus the data that we have on how the architecture library is currently used, it probably is not likely that we could keep it open until 2am during the week. With the increased availability of online resources access to many of our research materials is 24/7. | Grad | arch | male |
| The media section is good, but is not really up to the best in technology - for example, there are very few movies in DVDs. ILLIAD is terrific. Ambience provided is excellent (although last winter, there were times when the inside temperature was too low, and a staff member actually told me that she brought thick clothes to combat the cold). Still, one of my most fav. spots in the whole campus. Good job, guys !!! | Thank you for your positive comments. Regarding building temperature, it is difficult to maintain an even temperature in the building. Heat and AC are not controlled locally but centralized and making adjustments are sometimes difficult. We are now buying DVD only for movies, whenever possible, and always with subtitles and letterboxing when possible. We're making it a point to get all major award winners plus films from the most credible end-of-year Best lists. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| About a third of my printed materials I need in journals are not available. | We are scrambling to add e-journals as fast as possible. Meanwhile, please send suggestions for specific items to me (pmetz@vt.edu) or Larry Thompson, your College Librarian. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |
| I have been extremely impressed with the rate of electronic journal acquisition in the biological sciences. I would encourage the continued aggressive effort to make everything possible available electronically. Enormous amounts of time and productivity used to be wasted making trips to the library to find and photocopy articles. | I'm so glad we're making a positive difference for you. We are certainly doing all we can to increase the number of e-journals. | Grad | sci/math | male |
| The VA Tech campus at Falls Church has a very small library, so most everything has to be e online. The proxy was a long process to set up. I was on the phone with a tech person for hours trying to figure out how to do it on my mac. I think it could be easier to get into the databases for article searching. The way it was set up for a while by going through my VT worked much easier. | We recently stopped using the proxy server and have started using a PID and password login. We think you'll find it a much simpler way to access our resources and very similar to the MyVT access. | Grad | education | female |
| Access to electronic databases is very difficult and outdated. I quit using the library here because of its inaccessibility. I use EndNote and then type in exactly what I want when I need to read a journal article. | We know it's hard to figure out the right data base but it shouldn't be this hard, so please contact Michelle Young, your College Librarian, so she can help you figure out more efficient search strategies. | Grad | education | male |
| Addison is completely worthless. You need a better search engine that will locate only what you ask for, and allow you to skip forward by more than one page at a time. If I have to use Addison to find something, then I will stop looking for that resource. | The library is planning to purchase a new system in 2005 that will update Addison with many new features. The current system has some limitations, but it does have many search features that might help you find exactly the item you are looking for. You might find it helpful to attend a class on searching Addison, or ask a librarian for assistance on searching Addison. | Grad | Eng/CS | male |