The University of Queensland

1. Purpose of the collection

The Biological Sciences Library collection in this area is intended to support the teaching and research activities of the Department of Microbiology & Parasitology. The Department of Microbiology and Parasitology is located in the School of Microbial and Molecular Sciences in the Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences.

2. Primary user groups served

The Department offers comprehensive undergraduate courses in microbiology and parasitology to science, medical, veterinary science and agricultural science students. The Department has a strong national and international reputation for teaching and research on micro-organisms important in human, animal, plant and environmental sciences.

The Department supports two major fields of study on different groups of organisms:

• microbiology covering viruses, bacteria, fungi, yeasts; and
• parasitology covering protozoa, helminths and arthropods

Broad areas of study within the Department are:

• Bacterial genetics and molecular physiology
• Biotechnology
• Experimental and physiological parasitology
• Helminthology
• Immunoparasitology
• Immunology
• Infectious diseases
• Marine parasitology and aquaculture
• Marine symbiosis
• Medical and public health microbiology, parasitology and bacteriology
• Molecular ecology and environmental microbiology
• Molecular genetics of parasites
• Parasite biology and pathogenesis
• Phylogenetics
• Plant pathology
• Protozoology
• Veterinary microbiology and parasitology
• Virology

3. Description of the collection

The Biological Sciences Library has strong collections in general microbiology and medical microbiology, in parasitology, and in a number of closely related areas such as veterinary pathology, diseases of horses and pets, venereal diseases, and dermatology.

The Library has many electronic databases that are accessible in all branch libraries and from home or office. These include:

• Medline
• CAB
• Biological Abstracts
• Zoological Record
• Web of Science
• Cambridge Scientific Abstracts

The Library also has electronic access to collections of full text journals including:

• Cambridge University Press journals
• Academic Press online library (IDEAL)
• Blackwell Science journals
• InfoTrac Expanded Academic ASAP
• LINK (Springer publications)
• ScienceDirect (Elsevier)

4. Interdisciplinary relationships

Other departments and faculties including Biochemistry, Physiology & Pharmacology, School of Life Sciences, Faculty of Natural Resources, Agriculture and Veterinary Science, and the Faculty of Health Sciences also collect a number of research areas in microbiology and parasitology.

5. Scope of current collecting

1. Languages collected

The microbiology and parasitology collection contains principally English language material.

2. Types (formats) of material collected

The library collects mainly current materials in the fields of microbiology and parasitology taught or researched at the University. Monographs and serials are purchased retrospectively when academic or research staff requests them.

3. Conspectus

In the area of parasitology the collection was rated at the research level by Conspectus criteria. Collection strengths are: veterinary parasitology, helminths, history of parasitology, arthropods, transmission of parasitic diseases, infectious and parasitic diseases. The specific Conspectus ratings are as follows: