5. STRENGTH OF LIBRARY

The libraries at the University of Florida form the largest information resource system in the state

and rank among the top 35 public research libraries in North America. In addition, the campus

community has access to the information resources of the Ham Museum of Fine Arts, the Florida

Museum of Natural History and the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.

A. Strength of Institutional Holdings: At the end of June 2005 UF libraries contained over

4,122,400 volumes, 27,320 serials, 7,355,480 microforms, 1,350,105 government documents,

47,000 audio, film and video resources as well as over 9,000 linear feet of manuscript archives and

over 1,000,000 cartographic, graphic and photographic materials. The total library staff consists of

over 380 librarians, technical/clerical staff and student assistants located in 9 libraries. The

libraries also provide access to the full text of digitized titles for over 252,660 books (from 1470 to

the present), 38,079 serials and newspapers and 450 subscription databases along with some

20,000 computer data sets. Additional materials (ca. 20,000) are available through the PALMM

(Publication of Archival, Library and Museum Materials) cooperative project.

The European collections include approximately 1.3 million volumes (not counting

journals, newspapers, monographs or electronic media). This includes some 545,000 European

foreign language texts, including over 1,600 minority language and almost 30,000 Slavic language

resources (Table 5.1). Europe related research collections exist for Linguistics, British literature,

Film studies, French Studies, Spanish Studies, German Studies, Philosophy, Classics, Religious

Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Political Sciences, History, Fine Arts and Architecture,

Education, Geography, Economics, Business, Law, Ecology and Environmental Studies. Basic

collections are also held for Italian, Russian, Polish, Portuguese and Scandinavian.

Comprehensive NRC/FLAS Proposal

Particular strengths of the

European collection include a collection UF UF UF
Language holdings Language holdings Language holdings
Mod.
of 2,800 pamphlets from the French Bulgaan 277 Greek 2,494 Romanian 991
Catalan 998 Hungarian 1,048 Russian 17,964
revolution, an extensive holding of Croatian 258 Irish 292 Slovak 180
Czech 2,159 Italian 22,053 Serbian 230
German state documents from 1850- Danish 2,028 Norwegian 1,278 Spanish 219,627
Dutch 4,688 Polish 7,340 Swedish 3,207
1940, a collection of manuscripts and Estonian 460 Romanian 991 Turkish 1,180
Finnish 702 Serbian 230 Ukrainian 267
correspondence from Thomas Moore, German 97,208 Portuguese 35,497 Yiddish 4,385
Minority languages (incl. Basque, Breton, Galician, Provencal, Occitan,
Romani, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh amongst others) account for an
John Silkin, Jean Cocteau and Albert additional 1,768 titles.

Camus, and the P.K. Yonge Library contains a large collection of Spanish colonial documents.

The Law library has important relevant holdings especially in British common law and

international law. The Judaica collection includes an extensive Holocaust section with

approximately 6,000 volumes on Jews in Europe as well as a unique and rare collection of some

450 memorial books on extinguished East European Jewish communities. UF also has an

extensive collection on Greece in the Constantindis Library and a large collection of specialized

holdings on European business, administration, finance, marketing and management.

The libraries provide access to over 450 electronic databases, 65 of which are dedicated to

Europe, including a specialized searchable database on Post-Communist Nationalism in Eastern

Europe developed by Alena Aissing, the Associate Librarian for Slavic Studies. Recent additions

in electronic resources include the East View Russian Periodicals Database and the Central and

Eastern European Online Library. The library's commitment to support European studies is also

demonstrated by the collaborative purchase with CES in 2004 of The Archives of the European

Movement (1945-1960), consisting of 2,194 microfiches. In addition, UF has been a designated

EU documents depository library since 1974. This collection contains over 8,500 titles. Status as

EU depository also provides UF faculty and students with access to restricted EU databases and a

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dedicated EU documents librarian to assist in accessing this wealth of information, including

providing regular student and faculty training seminars on accessing EU documents.

B. Institutional Support: The libraries spent a total of $14,681,124 on salaries, wages and other

operating expenditures during the fiscal year 2004 2005. Approximately 15% or $2,305,000 was

dedicated to CES program related expenses, including 18 professionals fully or partially involved

in collection development and specialized reference for European studies with commensurate

salaries totaling over $570,000. The materials budget in 2004-05 for the UF Libraries was

$10,709,273 with expenditures for European materials totaling approximately $950,000.

C. Cooperative Agreements and Public Access: UF is a member of the prestigious Association

of Research Libraries (ARL), the Research Libraries Group; the Center for Research Libraries,

OCLC, ASERL (Association of South East Research Libraries) and the Florida Center for Library

Automation (FCLA). These institutions promote equitable access to and effective use of recorded

knowledge in support of teaching, research and community service. Their union catalogs record a

vast bibliographic universe to which UF has full borrowing privileges. UF can also exercise

consortial purchases of databases, especially through ASERL and FCLA.

As a public institution and flagship of the state university system UF is committed to

provide the necessary resources and services for academia and the community at large. The

libraries catalog is accessible free on the web while the proprietary databases can be consulted off

campus by remote logon with a valid UF ID. All 9 libraries maintain reference service, including

weekends, by telephone, email (UF was one of the first libraries to offer this service in 1989) and a

live chat service (initiated in 2001). UF also participates in Questions Point, an international

online reference service at the Library of Congress, with access to a collaborative network of

reference librarians from around the world 24/7. The libraries are also actively involved in

preservation and digitization programs and maintain a full service Conservation Lab. Interlibrary

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Loans are conducted online and it is indicative of the strengths of the collections that UF is a net

lender, loaning out 125,599 items while borrowing just 75,727 between 2001 and 2004.

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