Johnson & Wales University Library

Service Policy

I. Purpose

          The Library exists to enrich the scholastic and cultural environment of Johnson & Wales University by making available a wide range of information resources and services that reflect the educational goals of the curriculum, cultivating the information literacy skills of all users in a manner that reinforces the values of the Institution and the library profession.

II. Primary Clientele

          The primary clientele are the students, faculty, staff and alumni of the University.

III. Other Clientele

         Johnson & Wales University Library also serves students, faculty and staff affiliated with the Higher Education Library & Information Network (HELIN), the Consortium of Rhode Island Academic & Research Libraries (CRIARL), as well as the Principal Residency Network (PRN).

         On a case by case basis upon receipt of a written request, the Library may offer limited onsite access to unaffiliated individuals.

IV. Services

         Johnson & Wales University operates two academic library facilities in Providence, RI, one on the Downcity Campus and one on the Harborside Campus, as well as the Culinary Arts Museum. The Library facilities maintain a regular operating schedule of approximately 85 hours per week between September and May.  Professional librarians are available most hours that the Library is open, responding to on-demand questions or providing individualized research assistance in person, by instant message, video-conferencing, telephone, or by e-mail. The Culinary Arts Museum maintains a regular operating schedule of 40 hours per week, with a professional archivist available to provide research support.

         JWU Library provides librarian-led classroom instruction in information discovery and research skills to all Johnson & Wales University undergraduates during their enrollment in the required core English Composition course.  In addition, librarian-led classroom instruction, and ‘embedded’ instruction is provided in association with other courses across the undergraduate and graduate curriculum at the discretion of University faculty. 

       As part of JWU Library, the Culinary Arts Museum also offers individualized research support as well as classroom instruction focused on discovery and analysis of historic artifacts and information resources in the fields of culinary arts and food studies.

         Librarian-created research guides and video tutorials are delivered in online format through the Library’s website at http://pvd.library.jwu.edu/homepage and on the JWU Library YouTube channel athttp://www.youtube.com/JWUlibrary

         The Library also hosts exhibits of special collections as well as of original works of art by students, faculty and staff. In support of a rich cultural climate on campus, JWU librarians lead book discussions, participate in student mentoring initiatives, and provide guided meditation sessions, as well as serving on a range of campus committees. By request, the Museum makes its space available to University departments for hosting special events and cultural interest activities.

V. Collections

         Collections include 70,000+ books in print format and more than 75,000 in electronic format, selected primarily to support the university curriculum, and covering such specialized fields of study as culinary arts, hospitality management, equine studies, and physician assistant studies, in addition to the areas of business, computer engineering, education, and the humanities.   The Library also provides two rotating “best seller” book collections in order to foster interest in recreational reading.  Additional curriculum support is provided through 500+ paper and e-journal subscriptions, approximately 3,500+ videos in both VHS and DVD format; more than 10,000 streamed videos, restaurant menus, and historic resources from the University’s Archives and Special Collections. In 2021, the Library launched OpenEd@JWU, a repository for open educational resources (OER) adopted, adapted or created by members of the Johnson & Wales University community. Finally, the Library maintains the ScholarsArchive@jwu, an online institutional repository providing web-based, fully searchable open access to publications and images created by University faculty, staff and students, as well as to digitized special collections.  Included within the ScholarsArchive@jwu are more than 1,000 digitized restaurant menus donated to the University by the National Restaurant Association, and by private collectors Marilyn B. Feingold, Hayden Matthews, and Raymond Earl Oetgen.

The Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson & Wales University contains 200,000+ items of which more than 30,000 are cookbooks. Holdings with digital images are searchable through the Culinary Arts Museum database.

VI. Resource Sharing

         The Library is committed to making its holdings discoverable via the Web, and displays all holdings in OCLC WorldCat which, for JWU students, faculty and staff, facilitates unmediated interlibrary borrowing of tangible library resources from HELIN institutions.

         As a member of OCLC WorldCat, the Library also shares materials with borrowers from any local, regional, national or international library, through librarian-mediated interlibrary loan. 

         The majority of the Library’s physical holdings are available to any of the above borrowers.  The Library places lending restrictions only on course reserve materials, and a small portion of high demand or irreplaceable items.     

VII. Loan Periods

     In general, students at any HELN institution can borrow JWU books for up to three consecutive months, and videos up to two consecutive months, however loan periods vary depending upon the collection to which any given item belongs. Best sellers have shorter loan periods (up to six weeks), and course reserve materials are generally restricted to in-house use only with a two-hour loan period.

     Loans to faculty at any HELIN institution are generally up to six months for books and two months for videos, but loan periods will again vary depending upon the specific collection to which an item belongs.

     JWU alumni and authorized CRIARL institution borrowers may borrow books for up to two months and videos up to one month.  

     Through interlibrary loan, anyone submitting a request through an institutional library may borrow most JWU Library books and videos (except those on course reserve) for up to two consecutive months.

VIII. Facilities & Equipment

         Equipment and accommodations include 130+ computer workstations with full Internet connectivity MS Office Suite and other software specific to the academic curriculum. Ten iMacs are also available. Wi-Fi connectivity requires a university network password. Authorized visitors may obtain connectivity through a guest username and password. A ‘smart’ classroom equipped with 20 workstations is available on the Downcity Campus and the Harborside Campus Library provides an instructor’s terminal with dedicated LCD projector for 35 workstations. Four wide-bed scanners with scan-to-e-mail or scan-to-print capability are also available, as well as one fax machine on the Downcity Campus.

         Study tables, study carrels, and soft seating are available to all Library users.  Bookable group study rooms are also available for use by students, faculty and staff of the University.  Wildcat Café in the Library on the Downcity Campus offers vending machine snacks for sale whenever the Library is open for business. 

Rev. September 2021