CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY COLLECTIONS AND UTILIZATION
FISCAL YEARS 1998 TO 2000

Electronic Information Resources and Access

The University Libraries provide access to a variety of digital information, including the library catalog and other local databases, and a growing number of commercial databases that are licensed for use by the university community. Access methods continue to change as the delivery of electronic information evolves. Currently, Internet (Web) access predominates.

The web-based library catalog (Cameo) contains records of items owned by the libraries, as well as items on order or being cataloged for library collections. Cameo is part of a system that integrates acquisitions and cataloging functions with circulation, reserve, and user service functions. Users can see if items are available or checked out when they use the library catalog; they can also request services (like Renew Item or Request Check-out Item).

Users may access Cameo from any computer with Internet capability at:

http://www.library.cmu.edu 

As the digital library environment matures, more full-text documents and images are becoming available. Some vendors who are providing full-text documents are no longer reporting numbers of searches.
1998 1999 2000
Searches Performed using Cameo (Library Catalog) 605,260 676,477 596,013
Searches Performed on Library Information System (LIS)* 194,542 6,488 --
Searches Performed to Licensed and Local Web Resources 219,719 297,776 416,468
Total Database Searches 1,019,521 980,741 1,012,481
Total Full-text Documents Retrieved 61,523   172,536   207,284

* LIS was phased out by August 1998.

VIDEO VIEWING CLUSTER*
FALL 1996 TO FALL 2000
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
VCR carrels 21 21 21 19 14
Laserdisc carrels* 11 16 16 16 13
DVD carrels** --- --- --- --- 8
Videotapes viewed in carrels 9,167 8,696 6,875 4,628 4,761
Videotapes previewed by Faculty 1,038 791 775 865 771
Videotapes used in class 1,280 1,547 1,439 1,565 1,684
TOTAL 11,485 11,034 9,089 7,058 7,216
*Prior to 2000, the Video Viewing Cluster was under "Instructional Technology".  It is now part of the library.
**Prior to 2000, this category was "Videodisc/VCR carrels".
***DVD carrels were first counted in 2000.
NOTE:  There are a total of 15 actual viewing carrels, which are equipped for the above medias.