The University of Adelaide Library


The University of Adelaide is the oldest of the three universities in the State of South Australia, having been established in 1874. The University, located in the central metropolitan area of Adelaide, has a student enrolment of approximately 14,000, and covers a broad range of academic and professional disciplines.  The University has a strong research emphasis with a relatively high proportion of postgraduate students. The University and its libraries have successful co-operative relationships with a large number of local institutions, including the Flinders University of South Australia, the University of South Australia, and other professional, research, governmental and commercial organisations.

The University of Adelaide Library comprises:

The Waite Library and the Roseworthy Library both serve the staff and students of the Division of Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences and several primary industry departments of the South Australian Government.

The Barr Smith Library is the central library of the University and accommodates materials and services which support all faculties and departments not specifically served by the branch libraries. It undertakes a number of tasks on behalf of the branch libraries, including the acquisition, cataloguing, and classification of new additions to the collections, the purchase of equipment and supplies, the collection and recording of management information, and the management and development of computing systems.

By the end of 1998, library holdings will exceed 2,000,000 items. The libraries currently receive approximately 11,000 journal titles, and some 20,000 new monograph volumes are catalogued each year, and a similar number of bound volumes of journals is accessioned annually. Particular collection strengths include medicine and dentistry, the biological sciences, agriculture, music, nineteenth century English literature, and Australian history. The University of Adelaide Libraries accommodate some 350,000 volumes in the Joint Library Store, shared with the Flinders University Library on campus of Flinders, sixteen kilometres to the south of the University of Adelaide; an extension to the Store was completed in 1997, and will accommodate a further 300,000 volumes on behalf of the University of Adelaide Library. A daily courier service delivers volumes and requested photocopied articles between all libraries of the University and the Joint Library Store.

The Barr Smith Library has study accommodation for approximately 1,300 persons, and an additional 700 study places exist in the branch libraries. There are approximately 500,000 loans annually. The Library lends some 20,000 items to other Australian libraries each year; and borrows some 6,200 items for its own members from other libraries. Membership of the Library is open to the staff and students of the University of Adelaide, to the staff and students of Flinders University and the University of South Australia, and to other persons for whom a case is made: the Library will generally admit members of the public to consult items in its collections.

Administratively the Barr Smith Library is structured into functional areas:

The Library employs 139 equivalent full-time staff, of whom 119 are employed in the Barr Smith Library; 35 of the staff are professional librarians or at a professional level in other areas.

Library routines are extensively automated, and the Library is a pioneer in a number of aspects of the application of computing in information retrieval. Main library systems run on a DEC Alpha 1000A 5/300 computer; a Library Information Service provides users with access to information resources around the world, a large suite of Database facilities is provided for users with access over the University computing network, a microcomputer suite exists for student use, and microcomputing is employed in many aspects of library management.

In 1997 the Library's budget was $11,558,000, of which 40% was spent on new additions to the collections, 49% on staff salaries, and the balance on equipment and other support costs.

The Barr Smith Library owes its name to the Barr Smith family, which was prominent in South Australian business and pastoralist activity over many years, and which made many gifts and bequests to the University of Adelaide. The original building of the Barr Smith Library, now a reading room with heritage status, was opened in 1932, having been built with £30,000 donated by Tom Elder Barr Smith. Later additions to the Library were made in all decades from the 1950s, the large southern wing completed in the early 1970s, and the present entrance in 1984. The usable floor area of the Barr Smith Library is 14,600 square metres, and of all the libraries 20,809 square metres.

 

Selected Library Statistics 31 December 1997

BSL Law PAL Roseworthy Waite All
Library collections
Monograph volumes 808,726 36,713 20,951 36,438 30,288 933,116
Journal volumes 502,793 75,064 6,047 9,028 577,731 647,630
Microform volumes 245,241 4,596 - 47 239 250,123
Maps 128 - - 945 - 1,073
Music scores - - 107,957 - - 107,957
Sound recordings 657 8 21,436 135 17 22,253
Visual recordings 570 - 336 360 161 1,427
Graphic materials 8,067 - - 5 7 8,079
Computer filess 2,495 - - 70 6 2,571
Multimedia/kits 391 - - - - 391
Other non-book items 50 - - - - 50
Total of all items 1,569,118 116,381 156,727 47,028 608,449 1,974,670
Current journal titles 8,650 1,220 232 824 940 11,866
User seats 1,406 212 96 204 147 2,065

 


This information was correct at 20 October 1998.
Last update: 14 December 1998, by Stephen Beaumont
Copyright © 1998 The University of Adelaide Library