How to order items for the Scholarly Services collections

The University of Melbourne offers an electronic and print scholarly collection for use by current staff and students. Librarians work with publishers to identify new materials to support teaching and research across all our Academic Divisions, and we welcome direct recommendations via our Orders Request form

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Further information about purchases for the Scholarly Services collections

New Purchases

Requests for new purchases focus on published materials able to be added to our library collections and are assessed against the following dimensions and prioritised within the current and forecast budget scenario

  • Aligns with University of Melbourne teaching and research subject areas
  • Existing resource or subject coverage (including via resource sharing)
  • Cost
  • Can deliver access via a library lending model eg format, license restrictions
  • Accessibility of platform
  • Provision of usage statistics to determine ongoing value of investment

Unless a benefit is stated for a print copy, we will source electronic materials where available as electronic copies offer 24/7 access, can be accessed globally and reduce maintenance costs.

Selection Tools

Scholarly Services staff use a range of tools to locate recommended material.  We are now able to make one of these tools directly available to academic staff:

Access via the Faculty Select (requires authentication)

Faculty Select searches across a curated collection of unrestricted ebooks and Open Access Resources to assist teaching staff in adopting texts that are freely available or can be supported by unlimited access through the library. This works towards student equity in terms of access to textbooks.

We also offer a list of publishers with whom we have agreements that enable access to titles that the publisher has categorised as eTextbook under an unlimited access license (although some DRM restrictions apply as noted).

  • Cambridge Higher Education (access to all titles) but you will need to create a free account with Cambridge to gain some limited printing and copying options.
  • Sage Catalyst – access to over 650 Sage ebooks – limited printing and copying options
  • Springerlink – Multiuser, unlimited access and DRM free
  • Peter Lang - Multiuser, unlimited access and DRM free
  • Oxford Academic - Multiuser, unlimited access and DRM free
  • ScienceDirect (although some e-textbooks are only available as a 12-month subscription)
  • ClinicalKey (we have various ebook packages that have Medicine and Nursing etextbooks) new editions updated automatically- multiuser, unlimited access
  • McGraw-Hill Access Engineering – multiuser, unlimited access
  • McGraw-Hill Access Medicine - multiuser, unlimited access
  • McGraw-Hill Access Neurology- multiuser, unlimited access
  • McGraw-Hill Access Physiotherapy- multiuser, unlimited access

We also maintain agreements that enable access to newly published non-textbook eBooks from the following platforms

  • Taylor and Francis - - Multiuser, unlimited access and DRM free
  • Cambridge Core – we have access to all titles on Cambridge Core
  • Jstor - Multiuser, unlimited access and DRM free
  • De Gruyter – has many University Presses titles - unlimited access and DRM free
  • Brill Online - Multiuser, unlimited access and DRM free
  • Bloomsbury - Multiuser, unlimited access and DRM free
  • Elgaronline – Multiuser, Unlimited access

We are still able to obtain eBooks from other vendors however cannot guarantee that these titles will be available with a licence that will enable optimal access for students.

Purchasing barriers:

  • Some items are out of print. Our staff can investigate copyright to see if this is a case where we can digitise an existing copy, or explore second hand copies for purchase.
  • Material in languages other than English can take longer to source, due to additional communication required, and different publishing models. Scholarly Services staff with relevant language skills often assist the Collection Access and Development team in these purchases.
  • Due to cost implications the University of Melbourne does not provide “class sets” where the library supplies of textbooks purchases match the class size. We will however attempt to purchase a few copies of core texts to assist with access for students, and these may be placed on restricted loan periods to accommodate peak demand.  We monitor turnaways on electronic books with restricted user licenses to determine if additional copies may be required.
  • Many publishers will not make electronic copies of textbooks available through libraries.  In such cases we cannot provide textbooks through the library, although Readings Online staff can digitise an allowable chapter under Australian copyright laws. This is a common problem with textbooks and we would highly recommend discussing selected titles with Scholarly Services staff before prescribing a text.

Please send your recommendations via the Orders Request form