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SUNYConnect: One-stop shop for SUNY research materials
By KEVIN FRYLING
Reporter Staff Writer
With the click of a button on Aug. 8, 60 libraries, 18 million volumes and thousands of electronic resources and digital images on SUNY campuses across the state were transformed into a single online library.
The statewide implementation of SUNYConnect streamlines collections from university centers to community colleges into one centralized resource—an unparalleled pool of materials placed at the fingertips of UB faculty, staff and students, said Stephen Roberts, acting associate vice president for University Libraries.
"It's a much larger collection of resources than one site could ever amass on its own," he said.
The official event held on Aug. 8 at Hudson Valley Community College, during which SUNY Chancellor John R. Ryan launched SUNYConnect system-wide, was the culmination of a long-term project on which UB served as a leader right from the start, said Roberts.
"It's been at least 10 years in the making," he said.
Roberts called SUNYConnect a major achievement that puts New York State in step with similar statewide collections established at public universities systems in California, Ohio and Florida.
"It's a whole different way to think about system collection," he said.
He explained that one immediate advantage involves online databases. Although electronic journal collections can "cost a fortune," Roberts pointed out that with SUNYConnect, one subscription can serve all 60 libraries in the system. "It's a major coup," he said. "We're saving money because we're doing volume purchasing."
Moreover, Roberts said smaller, four-year colleges and community colleges now can access databases that previously were out of reach financially.
The cash saved due to SUNY-wide subscriptions to online materials encourages reinvestment in new databases, which further broadens the resources available to SUNY scholars, Roberts added.
"It makes it better for scholars, researchers and students," he said.
SUNY libraries now can eliminate low-use physical materials on multiple campuses as well, Roberts said, since most inter-campus loans that cannot be delivered via the Internet are guaranteed physical delivery within 48-72 hours.
He said the fact that SUNYConnect offers the chance to eliminate redundancies is a powerful tool in the struggle to save room in libraries for uses beyond storage.
There is no longer a need to waste shelf space in the stacks on several copies of an obscure text across multiple campuses, said Roberts. He noted that off-site facilities—such as the new library annex that UB is building on Rench Road across Sweet Home Road from the North Campus—are a much more efficient model for the statewide distribution of low-use materials.
"You're not going to want to use up miles of real estate [on] papers you'll never use," said Roberts. "You can save miles of space right in the middle of campus."
He noted that SUNY libraries could even choose to pool single print editions of all the journals now available to them online in one annex location.
Lastly, Roberts explained that SUNYConnect should facilitate cooperation between subject librarians.
"You can share expertise and specialized knowledge," he said. "It makes it possible to use our specialized staff more effectively."
He pointed out that small institutions lack the resources for certain experts—librarians who specialize in texts in Czech or Hebrew, for example—but now it is easier for subject specialists at large universities such as UB to assist with such rare titles from a distance.
"The world has changed and libraries have to change along with it," said Roberts. "SUNYConnect is a way to do it."