Calendar: 1973-1974 Page 404

Annual Report of the Delegacy xxxi used the maximum occupancy of the Engineering Library was 24 seats out of the 70 places provided There was however predictable pressure on the seating accommodation in the Science Library on the fifth floor of the New Library Plans were drawn up for the partial mezzanining of the old General Library for which grant was made available by the Uni- versity this would provide space for 32 additional seats at gallery level and improve the access to and use of the Enk library now shelved there Unfortunately the estimates were not approved in time for the work to be completed during the long vacation but the steelwork was erected and the remainder of the work will be carried out during the long vacation of 1973 Scientific periodicals Throughout the session the Library was under pressure from scientists to make scientific periodicals more readily available to research workers and it was agreed that keys to the science periodicals room should be issued to members of the academic staff on the recom- mendation of their heads of department to enable them to gain access to their periodical literature after the Library had closed in the evening and at weekends Keys were also made available for loan to post- graduate students against the surrender of their late passes The introduction from the beginning of the session of the new rule that scientific periodicals should be available only for overnight loan caused difficulties for scientists in the department of Botany in Dulwich and more particularly at the Rogate Field Centre in Hamp- shire who were thereby virtually deprived of the use of the periodicals taken in the Strand moreover the practice of circulating post-current parts to Rogate was incompatible with the new overnight rule As an alternative to the expensive solution of duplicating periodicals whole- sale in the Strand at Dulwich and at Rogate it was agreed that the experiment be tried of sending photocopies of the contents lists of the relevant current parts to Rogate and of giving priority to photocopies of particular articles requested from Rogate if deadline were respected which would enable the Library to ensure their despatch the same day Another consequence of the introduction of the overnight rule for scientific periodicals was steep rise in the demand for photocopy- ing work for Botany and Rogate accounting for about third of the copying undertaken in the Science libraries