Petroleum Institute
The Petroleum Institute University and Research Center (PI) is committed to “providing excellence in its undergraduate and graduate academic programs alongside fundamental and applied research.”
To streamline and simplify the integration process by dealing with a single provider, Vanessa Middleton Head Librarian at PI turned to ProQuest to provide a selection of resource databases and search and discovery solutions.
It was determined that the ideal solutions were the ProQuest GeoRef and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT) databases. The GeoRef database offers library patrons over 3.4 million references to geoscience journal articles, books, maps, conference papers, reports and theses which is a key focus area for the institution. “GeoRef is the most comprehensive database we have come across, with the extensive collection of resources we were really looking to offer our students.”
The PQDT database provides students with online access to over 2.9 million dissertations and master’s theses, with more than a thousand new resources added weekly. “It was very important that we could provide our students with a vast range of dissertations and theses that were of the highest quality. The PQDT database was ideal due to its peer-reviewed quality assurance,” said Middleton. In addition to this was the unique functionality of PQDT to publish, archive and disseminate the students own graduate theses.
After the successful implementation of ProQuest’s databases, PI once again turned to ProQuest to provide an easy-to-use, accurate search and discovery experience for their library users. In any educational institution, simplicity, accuracy, speed and relevance are crucial when searching for specific full-text items across the portfolio of databases and journals. This was no different for Middleton and PI. “The Summon service is the ideal library searching interface – not only for its web-scale searching ability, but its fast and accurate discovery and accessibility to article-level resources across our complete collection,” Middleton explained.
Alongside the implementation of the Summon service® to offer users a familiar, web-scale search experience, PI wanted to ensure patrons wouldn’t face such issues when connecting them to essential full-text items across its portfolio databases and journals. “We needed a technology that would provide our users efficient access to full-text resources anywhere in our collection,” explained Middleton. By providing accurate and up-to-date results when searching for specific full-text items in electronic databases and journals, ProQuest’s 360 Link proved ideal. To compliment this ability of single box searching, Middleton also identified that Ulrichsweb™ would enable a quick identification of latest bibliographic and provider details of serials sources.
Finally to enhance the students progression on completion of their courses Middleton identified ProQuest’s Papers Invited which allowed for students to take advantage of potential presenting opportunities through various Call for Papers. The latest implementation was for ProQuest Chronicle of Higher Education which offers career advice and job listings for those student looking to move into their chosen fields for permanent employment.
The PI has chosen a wide range of ProQuest products of which Middleton said, “The fact that we could work with a single company that could offer us the portfolio of solutions we needed, and support us through the implementation period, was fantastic.”
Click here to access the full case study from the Petroleum Institute.