Yes, we are open and do work in the summer.

Yes, we are still open and quite busy. Despite a lower volume of students at the Medicine Hat College Campus in the Summer Semesters, we are still busy behind the scenes.

Some of the active projects that we are currently engaged in are:

• Development of the Curriculum Collection for the Bachelor of Education Degree.Medicine Hat College, by means of a partnership with the University of Alberta, offers an Education Degree.Acquisitions and Cataloguing Technicians (with the Serials Clerk) are feverishly ordering, cataloguing, and preparing materials for this new area in our collection.The Curriculum Collection will be housed at the Vera Bracken Library (Medicine Hat Campus).

• The Curriculum Collection will employ Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC; call numbers) – which is most popular at public libraries and schools. The Audiovisual, Circulating Books, and Reference Collections will continue to use the Library of Congress Classification (LC) – which is employed by colleges and universities throughout North America.
  
  
• Updating of the Libraries’ (Medicine Hat and Brooks) websites. Medicine Hat College updated its logo, colours, and website over the summer time, and Library Services is updating its look to match.
  
  
• Updating of the online catalogue public access catalogue (OPAC). The revised OPAC is still in the test phase. Though it is not a dramatic update, it will have some new visuals and features. Among the new features, includes an Advanced Keyword Search and Dewey Decimal Call Number Search (for the Curriculum Collections materials).
  
  Periodical searches will now be handled by SFX (Find It!) – a tool that was developed in partnership with The Alberta Library (TAL). The SFX (Find It!) search allows students to locate periodicals in the Library, but also online periodicals available via the online databases. This expands our resources from 450+ print publications to more than 9,500 online periodicals – which includes journals, magazines, and newspapers.
  
  
• E-book collection development. Library Services is working on development of full-text electronic books being made available online through the OPAC. The e-book collection will focus on computer and office technologies.
  
  
• Online library tutorial. Library Services continues to develop an online tutorial based on the Western Michigan University’s Searchpath. This tutorial will offer a basic introduction to locating and evaluating resources from the OPAC, online databases, and the Web. Though we have experienced some development setbacks, we are still expecting this to be online in early September.

So, as you can see, we are busy this summer. Staff are hard at work expanded our services and your access to information. Despite all the development, we are never too busy to help our patrons and look forward to serving the faculty, public, students, and staff in August and the months that follow.