Massey Theses on the Web - DigitalCommons@Massey

As well as being valuable sources of information doctoral and masters theses serve to raise the profile and promote the work of individual researchers during the early years of their careers. Massey graduates are now able to deposit electronic copies of their theses into the University's digital repository - DigitalCommons@Massey. Theses can be submitted as either Word or PDF files and must be the final version after all changes have been made and participation is not restricted to recent graduates - in fact anyone who has their work in electronic format should consider submitting it as a contribution to the community. Even embargoed theses can be held - only the title and abstract will be accessible until the period of embargo has ended.

Theses held in the repository will be fully accessible to Google searchers and it is intended that coverage will extend to Google Scholar in the future.

Library Serials Review Deadline

The deadline for responses to the proposed cancellations of journal subscriptions is Friday 11 August. The list of titles was circulated to departments on 27 July and a revised list based on the feedback received will be sent out on Friday 18th.

The cancelling of journals is not something that the Library undertakes lightly and this year's exercise has been necessitated by the university's request for financial stringency combined with the tendency of journal price increases to run ahead of the rate of inflation. The strategy adopted for science journals has been to select predominantly print titles which have been used much less heavily in recent years as electronic access has become the norm. Expensive titles have been particularly targeted as providing the greatest savings for the least impact unless there is clear evidence that they are of critical importance.

One electronic journal package - Taylor & Francis - will be cancelled because its cost structure has become insupportable. Individual titles from this publisher to which we subscribed before taking up the package will continue unless a further decision is made, as has been done in some cases, to cancel them on the grounds of cost and low use. Titles that were not previously held and that came to us as part of the T & F package will no longer be received and will disappear from the Library catalogue.

When cancellations are made interlibrary loan becomes an alternative means of acquiring articles and it is acknowledged that this does involve passing some costs on to departments. The major part of the cost is still carried by the Library and in the case of expensive journals that are infrequently used this proves to be much less expensive than a subscription. While we are sensitive to the question of whether a journal is held by other New Zealand libraries it is worth noting that the Library no longer charges an extra amount for overseas interloans and they are often obtained more quickly than those sourced locally.

Requests are received from time to time for new journal titles - it will be unusually difficult to institute any new subscriptions unless a substantial saving is made on existing expenditure.

Whilst the timeframe is tight we are pleased to listen to any suggestions, proposals or objections - you can phone Bruce White or Chris Good (Turitea) on extension 7814, Valerie Cohen (Albany) on 41077 or Diana Fehsenfeld (Wellington) on 6855 or email us.