July 2009 Archives

To comply with the University's and VCU Libraries' policies on retention, security, and confidentiality of patron information, VCU Libraries will purge all records for interlibrary loan and document delivery services on an annual basis. The initial purge of records will take place on July 23, 2009, and will include all requests submitted before June 30, 2008. Patron profiles (e.g., name, address, status, delivery preferences, etc.) will be purged in cases where there has been no activity since June 30, 2008. This means that library patron will:

• have access to requests submitted after June 30, 2008.
• have access to all active and incomplete requests.
• no longer have access to completed (finished and canceled) requests submitted before June 30, 2008. Once deleted, patron requests cannot be restored.
• no longer have access to ILLiad patron profile if there has been no activity since June 30, 2008. Patrons will be able to create a new ILLiad profile by registering again using their VCU eID and password.

For more information about the purge, contact Resource Delivery Services (804-828-1115).

In the effort to provide in-depth information to support teaching and research, VCU Libraries has just acquired a backfile collection in materials science covering most areas of scientific, technological, and medical disciplines in the VCU curriculum. This collection consists of 108 journals, some of which date back to 1946. The journals provide access to hundreds of groundbreaking articles from journals such as Carbon, Polymer, Acta Materialia, Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids, and Biomaterials, with high impact factors and impressive five-year citation records.

Like other Elsevier backfile collections, the collection complements our current subscriptions to the respective journals in Science Direct. Access to all the journals is through Science Direct.

Direct questions and comments to Ibironke Lawal Engineering & Science Librarian (828-8739).

The VCU Libraries has released the latest addition to its Digital Collections: Fan Free Funnies. The Fan Free Funnies were an illustrative example of the growing influence of "underground comix" on young comic artists in the early 1970s, when a number of Fan District residents and VCU fine arts students began creating comic art inspired by the popular underground comix scene. In the spring of 1973, VCU's student newspaper The Commonwealth Times took advantage of this phenomenon and produced three issues of an all-comics black-and-white tabloid called Fan Free Funnies. All three issues are presented in their entirety. The collection includes artwork from well-known VCU alumni Charles Vess and Bill Nelson.

Visit all of the VCU Libraries Digital Collections at http://dig.library.vcu.edu/.