The University of South Florida is a multi-campus, comprehensive research university within reach of more than three million people, roughly one quarter of the state's population--in a 15 county area. Currently, the university serves more than 37,000 students in ten colleges on five campuses. USF is home to medical clinics, research and teaching hospitals, and a major mental health research institute.

USF is the second largest university of ten state universities serving not only traditional age, residential students but also adult students already in the workforce, professionals seeking continuing education, community college transfer students, and senior citizens. A large number of students attend part-time. The university offers a wide variety of degree programs with 77 baccalaureate, 87 master's and 22 doctoral degrees, as well as the M.D.

The Tampa campus plays the most comprehensive role within the mission of the university. The missions of the regional campuses at St. Petersburg, Fort Myers, and Lakeland emphasize undergraduate upper level and master's level educations while the mission at New College at Sarasota is to provide a high quality, undergraduate, liberal arts education.

The 13th largest university in the nation, USF is still growing. This year budget expenditures amounted to more than $600 million. It supports more than $100,000 million in sponsored research. Top programs by enrollment are: Arts and Sciences (12,449 students, Fall, 1996), Business Administration (5,826), Education (4,927) and Engineering (3,116).

This year the Institutional Research and Planning office surveyed USF students. Findings indicate that 40 percent of USF students pay their own educational expenses and more than 55 percent are first-time-in-college students. More than 80 percent chose USF because it offered their desired major and was close to home. More than 60 percent were attracted to USF's strong academic reputation. More than 70 percent of the students surveyed cited its access to technology, quality of its libraries, and faculty research among the university's assets.

The University of South Florida
The Libraries
The organization of the USF library system is one of the more complex among academic libraries today. There are seven libraries in the system, three are located on the Tampa Campus. These libraries are: the Tampa Campus Library, the central research library for the university; the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute Library; and the Health Sciences Center Library. Two libraries are located on the regional campuses: the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library in St. Petersburg and the Jane Bancroft Cook Library on the Sarasota campus.

In addition, there are USF libraries at two community colleges, Polk Community College -Lakeland/USF and Edison Community College -Fort Myers/USF. Officially, August of 1997 the newest state university, Florida Gulf Coast University, will assume responsibilities for library services and collections for the USF Ft. Myers campus. Currently all seven libraries are separately administered yet work collegially to administer like services and develop appropriate resources.

Collectively, the USF Libraries have acquired 1.25 million volumes and over 300 CD-ROM databases. The USF Libraries provide access to: over 60 databases through FirstSearch; Lexis/Nexis; 9 Eureka/Citadel databases; CARL UnCover, and over 20 databases centrally mounted by the Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA). FCLA supports and maintains the work of the NOTIS-based online catalog, including the development of a Web front end, as well as the consolidation of local database support for the ten state university system libraries.

CITATION: Metz-Wiseman, Monica; Grohs, Kim; Hanson, Ardis; Neville, Tina, and Ed Sanchez (1996). A Blueprint for Development: The USF Libraries Virtual Library Project. Poster session presented at the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Annual Meeting, Nashville, Tennessee, April 1997. [http://www.fmhi.usf.edu/library/projects/acrl/usfview.html

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