Welcome | Reserve & subject readings | Research
Welcome to the McLennan Library. Our goal is to ensure that as an academic at MBS, you have ready access to the information resources and services you need to support your teaching and research interests. The information contained here is only a brief guide to those services, and we warmly invite you to discuss your individual requirements with the McLennan Librarian.
Who we are
While each member of the library staff is more than happy to assist you in the use of the collections and services, the list below of the principal functions of the library staff should help you direct your inquiry to the most appropriate person in the first instance, for the quickest and most efficient response to your inquiry.
Chris Flegg - Chief Librarian
All administration and policy issues; information and research assistance; library collection development and management issues, including budget expenditure; and general enquiries.
Mary Trudzik - Co-Librarian and Serials Collection Manager
Administration and policy issues; information and research assistance; serials budgeting and expenditure; and general enquiries.
John Foley - Systems Librarian
System support for library database access; library web-page issues, and electronic services; information and research assistance; instruction in use of Arcadia databases; and general enquiries.
Sally Blake - Information Librarian
Information and research assistance; bibliographic tools and guides; instruction in use of Arcadia databases; subject bibliographies creation and delivery; and general enquiries.
Kristina Adams - Information Librarian
Information and research assistance; bibliographic tools and guides; instruction
in use of Arcadia databases; subject bibliographies creation and delivery; and
general enquiries.
Marina Herriman - Inter Library Loans Officer
Inter library loan; instruction in use of Arcadia databases; MBS archive collection; and general enquiries.
Paul Holgate - Acquisitions Officer
Book, journal and video orders and all acquisitions issues; instruction in use of Arcadia databases; and general enquiries.
Gill Bruwer - Cataloguer.
Subject bibliographies on particular management topics; catalogue maintenance and usage issues; and general enquiries.
How to borrow
You will need a staff card to borrow from the McLennan Library. For short term MBS appointments or for visiting staff, an Approved Borrower’s card is issued by the McLennan Library as a temporary staff card. To obtain an Approved Borrower’s card, you will need to fill in a form at the loans desk of the library. In addition to access to the McLennan collection, this card will give you borrowing privileges from all the University of Melbourne campus libraries.
However, for both security reasons, and for fuller access to the broader University of Melbourne campus facilities, it is recommended that on-going staff obtain a standard University of Melbourne staff card, with a photo ID, issued by The University of Melbourne. This staff ID card is used as the library membership card throughout the campus. To obtain the university card, you will need to take a copy of your contract with MBS, or a letter from the MBS Director's office stating your employment details, including job title and period of employment, to:
The Human Resources Department
The
University of Melbourne
Raymond Priestley Building
Parkville Campus
Administrative staff there will photograph you and prepare the card on the spot.
Loan periods
The loan period for academic staff is generally 4 weeks, excluding material on the reserve desk, and items can be re-borrowed up to three times after the initial loan. You can renew your books online through the view your circulation record function of the Library catalogue.
Generally, journals are not available for loan. However, short term removal of journals for the purpose of reading within the MBS building or for photocopying outside the library is allowed by MBS staff, but we request that journal issues are returned promptly after use. For a full list of the applicable loan periods for library materials, consult the Library Lending Policy.
As MBS staff you can also borrow from The University of Melbourne libraries, but please note that the university imposes fines for the late return of books from their campus collections.
The reserve desk collection is a collection of material gathered by the library to support your teaching. It contains copies of books and other materials referred to in the subject reading guides, and therefore likely to be in “high demand”. The reserve desk material is “one-hour library use” and “overnight-loan” only to promote rapid use of required reading and thus ensure equitable access for all students enrolled in the subject.
Subject reading requirements
Lecturers wishing to place material in the reserve desk collection can notify the library in a variety of ways. A copy of the subject reading list may be sent via internal mail to the library, with the items required to be placed on reserve appropriately marked, or a list of required reading may be sent to the library by email. Lists are also generally placed on the MBS student web page, where library staff regularly check for updates. In the absence of any direct instruction from the academic staff teaching the subject, the library will process material for this collection according to a standard formula.
Generally, “prescribed texts” are placed on reserve and other “supplementary” or “additional” readings are changed to “recommended reading” status, whereby the loan period is automatically reduced from the standard 7 day loan to a 3-day loan for the duration of the subject taught. Where the library holds more than two copies of the prescribed text, the extra copies are assigned a recommended reading status for the term. In instances where a book has been listed as supplementary reading, but reference to the work suggests heavy and continued reference to the contents of the book, the library will treat that title as if it were a “text”, and place copies of the book in the reserve collection.
If the library does not hold a book or additional copies are required, urgent orders are placed for them. However, as it can take 3 - 4 weeks for books to arrive if ordered from overseas, it is important that notification of the required reading be received by the library at least 4 weeks before the term begins if reading matter is to be processed by the beginning of each term.
Purchasing policy for required course material
The actual number of texts purchased for both the prescribed text and recommended reading category, and the number of texts allocated for reserve or recommended reading, can vary depending upon factors such as the estimated number of students enrolled in a particular subject and the subject mode, i.e. ft/pt, etc.
However in most instances the following formula is applied:
Prescribed text for one subject -- 2 copies for reserve.
Prescribed text for two subjects -- 4 copies: 2 for reserve and 2 copies for recommended reading.
Prescribed text for one subject and recommended reading for other subjects -- 4 - 6 copies: 2 for reserve and 2 or more copies for recommended reading.
Recommended or additional reading -- 2 to 4 copies depending upon anticipated level of demand.
Loan conditions
Reserve desk book can be borrowed for one hour, for use within the library. Loans can be renewed as long as no-one else is waiting for the item. They may also be borrowed for overnight loan, available half an hour before closing time and due back by 10.00 am the next working day. Students may reserve a book for overnight loan on the day they wish to borrow the book.
Recommended reading books are available for three day loan and may be renewed, unless another student has placed a “hold” on the book in question.
Please note: Texts are purchased and allocated certain loan categories based on expected levels of demand and convenience of access to the students enrolled in the subject. For example, if a subject is offered predominantly or exclusively to part time students, who tend to visit the library more sporadically than the full-timers, it may be more practical to treat prescribed texts as if they were “recommended reading”, i.e. available for 3 day loan, instead of shorter term loan from the reserve desk. Obviously, information regarding the number of students expected to enrol in a particular subject will greatly assist in determining an appropriate formula application.
Article collection
The article collection consists of copies of journal articles and book chapters which are listed on the subject reading lists but not included in the reading packs. Library staff make multiple copies of these readings which are non-core, but which are required by a large number of students.
One copy of each article is placed on reserve and two copies are circulated on 3-day loan. We request that items that are to be included in the article collection should be clearly marked in the subject guides.
Request for articles must abide by the copyright guidelines and library staff will check all material submitted to ensure that there is no infringement.
Subject reading list
A consolidated list of all the references for each subject, and processed by the library, including prescribed texts, recommended reading and additional reading, showing the location and number of copies held, is produced and placed online at the beginning of each term. This list allows academic staff to check that the material for their subject has been appropriately provided for student access, as well as assisting students identify the location and status of required reading material.
Reading packs
A full set of the reading packs for the current term are available for student access at the reserve desk. In addition, the library keeps reading packs for the previous 3 years in the library’s archive and students may view any one of these only with the express permission of the lecturer concerned.
Exam papers
The library retains all end of term exam papers in the library’s archives, but only the most recent three years on public access. Exam papers from 2002 are also available online in PDF format. Due to copyright restrictions, Harvard cases are not included in the online version of the exams.
Students may not view archived exam papers without the express permission of the lecturer concerned.
Personal copies on reserve
In some instances, it may not be possible for the library to acquire its own copies of material required for course support. For example the material may be out of print, or copies may not be available for sale in the country by commencement of term. In such circumstances personal copies of books, journals, videos and audiocassettes may be placed on reserve.
To process personal copies for loan and usage control, the library may need to affix some labels or other markings, such as barcodes and reserve desk identifiers. This is to ensure that items can be correctly identified and safeguarded against loss.
The library will take all reasonable care to minimize any damage to personal items or loss of personal copies. In the event that a student loses a personal copy, the standard library replacement policy will apply with replacement costs charged to the student.
Please contact the Deputy Librarian if you wish to make any personal copies of material available for student use via the library.
The library staff are happy to assist you in locating any information that you may require, either for your teaching or research activities. This may include anything from identifying and locating a copy of an article or book, to verifying a citation, or completing more substantial research. Library staff do not copy or retrieve material from the McLennan Library or any of the University of Melbourne libraries.
Research Tools
Innopac - the library on-line computer catalogue - contains the holdings of the McLennan Library, the University of Melbourne libraries, and the libraries of affiliated institutions. The library subscribes to a core print collection of the major management and business journals such as HBR, BRW, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Marketing, etc. McLennan Journals, available in both print and electronic form is a searchable title and subject list of the library’s print journals.
In addition, over 10,000 or so journals, many in full text and including academic journals and working papers, may be searched via our research databases: Business Source Premier (Ebsco), ABI/Inform (Factiva) and SSRN (Social Science Research Network) in the Arcadia suite of electronic products. The Arcadia collection also provides access to company annual reports, reports of investment analysts, financial, economic and trade data, and industry news and intelligence.
If required, the library information staff will be happy to assist you in your use of the databases. Search guides are also available both in print form and on the library’s web site.
Additionally, the tools and guides section of the library webpage lists the many resources available for staff and student research support. Among the services produced by the library, the following may be of particular interest to you:
New books list
An accessions list of new books and other material acquired by the library is created and distributed regularly to all staff. As an academic staff member you will automatically be placed on the distribution list unless you indicate otherwise.
Purchase recommendation form
Apart from requests for items to be placed on reserve, we also welcome recommendations to purchase material for the general library collection. Staff can submit recommendations using the Purchase Recommendation Form online or available from the loans desk.
Journal contents
The Journal Contents Service is a browsing and alerting service designed to assist you in keeping your research up to date. The contents pages of all the MBS journal received each month are copied and collated in three broad subject areas: information technology, organizational behavior and economics.
Journal Contents is available for general use in the reading lounge in the library and in the staff lounge on the first floor. It may also be circulated to you on request.
McLennan videos
The library holds over 200 videos on management and related disciplines. A database of the McLennan Videos provides a searchable index with informative abstracts of the videos held.
These videos are held as teaching resources. They may be viewed in a special viewing room in the library, or can be borrowed for screening in an MBS related subject or course. If you wish to remove a video from the library for teaching purposes you will be required to complete a Video Loan Request Form available from the loans desk. For copyright and security reasons, videos may not be removed from the MBS premises without the express permission of the McLennan Librarian.
Subject bibliographies
To facilitate quick and easy access to books in the McLennan, subject bibliographies of McLennan titles, based on the subjects offered at MBS, are compiled and updated regularly. Let us know if you require a new list created or an updated version of an existing list.
Inter-Library loans
If a book or article is not available in the McLennan, or any other library on the Melbourne University campus, we can arrange to obtain it on your behalf from a library located elsewhere.
The library covers all the costs of ILL for academic staff, but the McLennan Librarian retains the right to refuse the processing of inter-library loan requests where these are deemed to be beyond research activities associated with MBS. Unless an ILL request is designated as “urgent”, most requests will be processed within a week, although supply will be subject to service from the supplying libraries. Requests for ILL must be submitted on the ILL forms, available from the loans desk.
IT skills
Learningfast contains
interactive tutorials and learning activities, covering commonly used PC
applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. You can learn,
or add to your, basic IT skills at your own pace, in your own time and
according to your own needs. Staff and students of the University of Melbourne
can access Learningfast by using your windows network username and password.
Library orientation
All new staff are provided with a library introduction pack which contains guides and other relevant literature itemizing the library’s services and resources. In addition, whether you are a new staff, or an existing staff needing a refresher, we invite you to a guided personal tour of the library to familiarize you with the library facilities at any time, and to introduce you to the full range of library services.
Please contact the McLennan Librarian on 9349 8419 if you would like to arrange a special orientation tour.
Finally, do not hesitate to contact us for any questions or additional assistance you may require to fully utilize the information resources available to you from the McLennan Library.