»GEORGE, the online catalog, Unavailable August 2; Full-Text Databases Available On-Campus Only

On Tuesday, August 2nd, the Library's online catalog, GEORGE, will be taken offline in order to perform necessary hardware upgrades. As a result, GEORGE, as well as off-campus access to the Library's full-text databases and online periodical indices, will be unavailable from 9 am - 8 pm. On-campus access to the full-text databases and online periodical indices will be available, but you may need to follow these instructions to navigate to the search page of a database.

»AJCU Virtual Reference Consortium Receives Award

Georgetown University Library joined 18 other libraries of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) last fall to form a Virtual Reference Consortium. The Consortium provides online reference help 24 hours a day, seven days a week by distributing the staffing of the service across multiple libraries and multiple time zones.

At the American Library Association’s annual conference in Chicago recently, the AJCU and its new service received the 2004/2005 Innovator of the Year award, presented by Tutor.com. The AJCU Virtual Reference Service was recognized for its Outstanding Quality Control and Mentoring Program.

Seventeen librarians from Lauinger have provided service to Georgetown students, faculty and staff, as well as to patrons from the 18 other participating AJCU libraries. Four new libraries will join the consortium in August, bringing the total to 23 libraries, located across the country in four different time zones.

»SFS-Qatar Library Opens This Fall

On May 17, 2005 Georgetown University and the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development announced their agreement to open a campus of Georgetown's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) in Doha, the capital of the state of Qatar, in August 2005.

Georgetown's Qatar campus will offer an undergraduate Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service degree, with a major in International Politics, for approximately 25 students per year. The campus will expand to include at least 100 students over four years as new classes are admitted. The SFS Qatar degree requirements are the same as for the existing SFS Washington program, with undergraduate students completing a core liberal arts program, including required courses in economics, government and history in addition to two semesters of literature, philosophy and theology, and then in depth studies in international politics.

Just as the degree requirements and curriculum will be the same, students and faculty on the Qatar campus will have access to equivalent library resources and services. Within the first year, the library will have in place a collection of about 20,000 printed books and journals, plus online resources, representing the full spectrum of topics taught as part of the School of Foreign Service’s liberal arts core. The library plans to add 5,000 additional print titles each year. Students and faculty will also be able to request materials not available in the Qatar library, providing them with full access to the rich library resources available to their colleagues on the main campus.

Liberal Arts and Sciences Building, new home for the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar.

Initially the library will be represented mainly by its online presence, through access to GEORGE, our online catalog, full-text and bibliographic databases, online journals, and electronic reserve readings. In addition, two of four Qatar librarians and one paraprofessional staff member have been hired. These librarians will provide instruction, reference services and access to library resources from the beginning of the fall semester. Renovations will soon begin to transform a large space into a dedicated library with room to shelve 30,000 volumes, display shelves for new books and recent periodicals, computer workstations to access online resources, study areas for individual study and group study rooms, a service desk where librarians can provide individualized research and reference assistance and paraprofessional staff can provide circulation services, and office and work space for library staff. We expect the new library to be completed by the end of the fall semester.

Georgetown's Qatar campus joins four other U.S. research based universities with established branch campuses. They are: Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar, teaching art and design; Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, teaching medicine; Texas A&M University at Qatar, teaching engineering; and Carnegie Mellon University Qatar, teaching computer science and business.