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NORC's Sheatsley LibrarySince acquiring the historic monographic and serials collection of the Population Research Center in 1988, the Sheatsley Library has supported the research mission of the PRC through its collection and through its services. The transfer of materials from the Population Research Center was intended to provide improved physical and intellectual access to important demographic and statistical materials, to provide more efficiently for continued collection development in these areas, and to bring a wide range of professional library services directly to the associates of the PRC. These long terms goals have been met, and provide the context in which the Sheatsley Library seeks to refine and expand its mission to the PRC. To search online, visit the NORC Library Web Catalog. ResourcesThe Sheatsley Library's affiliation with the University of Chicago, through the University's contractual relationship with the NORC, assures that the full resources of the University's 6-million-volume collection are at the service of Population Research Center associates. In addition, coordination of services with the University of Chicago library system provides ready and efficient interlibrary loan capabilities directly to all PRC associates. The Sheatsley Library is therefore able to provide the service of procuring and circulating to PRC associates a full range of materials from one of the premier library collections in the nation, as well as providing efficient access to the wider community of bibliographic resources through interlibrary loan. The availability to PRC associates of the networked resources of the University of Chicago libraries is of great and increasing significance, and it has been the task of the Sheatsley Library to introduce these networked resources to its PRC patrons and to encourage their use by instruction and consultation. The University of Chicago provides networked access (readily available not only in the Sheatsley Library but at all networked workstations in NORC's corporate headquarters at 1155 East 60th Street) to a large and expanding list of critical and very expensive online resources, which include FirstSearch (through which patrons can use virtually all major bibliographic indexing and full-text databases, including MEDLINE and ERIC), OVID (through which the University makes PsychInfo available), the Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, and ISI's Web of Science (which includes Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index). The Sheatsley Library tailors its collection development strategies to take the greatest possible advantage of its relationship with the University of Chicago libraries, and collects comprehensively in subject areas where the University does not, which include survey research methods. An example of collection development coordination between the University of Chicago library system and the Sheatsley Library is our subscription to all sections of Social Sciences and Medicine, a journal which of considerable importance to many PRC researchers, and which was discontinued by the University of Chicago library because of its very high cost, and which is not available in any other Chicago area library. Duplication of titles held by the University is considered appropriate for certain reference and government publications, where ready access and assurance of availability of titles are paramount. Monographs: The Sheatsley Library makes the full resources of its monographic collection available without restriction to PRC researchers. The monographic collection of the library is approximately 6,000 volumes, of which many are in the field of historical and international demography and population research, and which include historical and current U.S. Census materials, as well as historical materials related to U.S. and international vital statistics. Serials: The library's extensive serials collection, much of it devoted to national and international demography, is also made available without restriction to all PRC researchers and students. In addition, the "tables of contents" service which has been provided by request to PRC researchers has been made available through the NORC intranet (an internal, or "staff-only" web site for NORC and the centers), so that PRC researchers can browse tables of contents of a large and growing percentage of the serial titles purchased by the library and submit article requests directly through the intranet. This innovation represents a tremendous gain in currency and efficiency; whereas formerly hard-copy tables of contents were photocopied and circulated by interoffice mail, now tables of contents made available through the World Wide Web are updated many times weekly and available immediately and to all interested researchers. We are able to provide requested articles with much greater efficiency by using the NORC intranet. Networked Databases: The library purchases a site license, networked version of POPLINE. This networked version of a vital bibliographic resource for demographic research is available not only in the Sheatsley Library, but at every networked workstation within the NORC as well, through the library's intranet site. This means that PRC researchers may consult this important database, updated monthly, from their own networked workstations. The library will gladly continue to provide mediated searches of all kinds of databases, POPLINE included, but is committed to making as many resources as possible directly available to researchers. FirstSearch: The library continues to provide literature searching as a service to PRC researchers, and has, through the University of Chicago's subscription to FirstSearch, been able to make a large set of databases available to PRC researchers at no charge. These databases include Sociological Abstracts, WorldCat, Medline, PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service), ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center), and Government Printing Office documents, in addition to others. The library has sought to orient researchers throughout NORC and the centers to the many networked resources available to them through the web pages of the University of Chicago library, and has put a linked tutorial guide to these resources on its own intranet site (access only if you are on University of Chicago servers). ArchivesThe library holds a significant collection of published and unpublished questionnaires from many completed NORC studies, as well as certain supporting documents, such as training manuals and project files. These materials are stored in the library's recently outfitted "compact shelving," and are made accessible to scholars chiefly by means of indexing in the published Bibliography of NORC Publications. The library also collects comprehensively all published documentation of NORC projects, and maintains extensive reference collections of titles documenting such studies. A list of some of the more important studies for which such documentation is made available in the Sheatsley Library follows:
Additionl ResourcesUniversity of Chicago Library System: As in recent years, all of the resources of the combined libraries of the University of Chicago are made available without restriction to PRC researchers, through the efforts of a part-time library assistant, who procures material for researchers through loan, photocopying, or Interlibrary Loan. The Sheatsley Library also frequently assists researchers by directly acquiring requested materials. Current Contents: The library's subscription to Current Contents is available in a diskette version, from which tables of contents of journals not held by the library but of interest to PRC researchers can be emailed directly to recipients, again dramatically improving currency and efficiency of dissemination of this information. World Wide Web: The library also mediates and monitors web sources and their increasing availability, and has located and made available to PRC researchers many published materials downloaded from the web in various formats, from sites maintained by the U.S. Census, the NCHS, and the NCES, among others. The library offers the PRC services of two professional librarians whose extensive experience and training in using the internet are frequently consulted by PRC researchers. Materials from online journals, newspapers, and private and governmental web sites are routinely found and made available to PRC researchers by library staff. The library offers formal orientation and training sessions for researchers, which include "Internet Tutorials" and customized searching training, both in the library and by appointment at individual workstations, to help researchers improve their ability to use this increasingly critical resource.
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