A current awareness resource for students & faculty members in Business & Economics

Spread the word! Special pre-construction request period (Apr. 1-30) for books from the 5th floor of our Bennett/Burnaby library!

Published March 24, 2023 by Mark Bodnar

As you may have heard, the 5th floor of WAC Bennett Library has been closed since November 2022 when asbestos-containing debris was found in the area. The university is now moving forward with an asbestos abatement project, which means that the 5th floor books will continue to be inaccessible for approximately one year.

Wait! What's on the 5th floor? Are my books there?

Books with call numbers starting with HV - QA are on floor 5. That corresponds roughly to books about criminology, political science, law, education, music, art, literature, languages, general science, and mathematics. (Browse LC Classification Online for more detail.)

Most of our economics & business books (i.e., those of interest to your average BUEC Buzz reader) are on the 4th floor (esp. HB - HJ) and are unaffected by the 5th floor closure. However, both subjects are highly interdisciplinary, so books from all subject areas and on all floors may be of interest... hence this blog post!

The Library recognizes the importance of access to collections for research, scholarship, course planning, student assignments, and other purposes. We are taking several steps to provide access to our 5th floor collections, including:

Opening a requesting period for 5th floor books (April 1-30, 2023)
Moving high-demand items to the 6th floor, and fulfilling requests (May 2023)
Adding online access to as many 5th floor books as possible
Providing copies of books via interlibrary loan
Purchasing additional copies of titles (whether ebook or print)

Learn more about the steps we’re taking.

What we’re asking:

Place your requests (holds) for 5th floor books starting April 1st, and please encourage your colleagues and students to do so as well. This one-time requesting period will be open April 1-30, 2023. Our staff will retrieve all the requested books from the closed floor during May and June, after which the remaining books will be boxed for storage and construction can begin.

We encourage everyone in the SFU community to place requests for any and all 5th floor books they anticipate needing in the coming year. We understand, of course, that it's impossible to predict your information needs a full year ahead, but we're hoping this approach will get many of the most-needed books out circulating in our community* so they are available if needed during construction.

Questions? Check out our general updates on the 5th floor closure.

Looking forward to a nice, clean, asbestos-free 5th floor in a year!

— Mark
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Mark Bodnar
Economics & Business Librarian
mbodnar@sfu.ca

* In case you weren't aware, current SFU students, staff, and faculty can borrow most of our books for the entire semester and renew them an unlimited number of times, unless someone else requests them.