The UC Davis University Library has launched a Web site to explain restructuring efforts now under way.

The site — lib.ucdavis.edu/ul/about/inside/restructuring — provides answers to questions about the sciences libraries’ restructuring activities, plans and proposals. Due to budgetary challenges, the library is reconfiguring its science libraries to form two science libraries that will be housed in three buildings instead of four.

According to the Web site, the idea is to create “economies of operation” by vacating the Physical Sciences Library building, which has a relatively high cost of operation for its current level of use, and then reorganizing it into two sciences library units — the Physical Sciences and Engineering Library, and the Health, Agriculture and Life Sciences Library.

The three buildings will be Shields Library, Carlson Health Sciences Library and the Blaisdell Medical Library in Sacramento.

“These are challenging times for all of us. The UC Davis General Library employees rely heavily on input from the faculty, staff and students, ” wrote Gail Yokote and Helen Henry, acting co-university librarians, in an e-mail to campus leadership.

Yokote and Henry stated in an Oct. 1 letter to the campus community that the library is attempting to:

• Design efficient library services. This can be done by leveraging current interdisciplinary approaches to research, teaching, learning, patient care and community service.

• Develop collections that are strong in both electronic and print formats. The library will acquire more electronic materials while continuing to purchase print books and journals, minimizing duplication, and hosting unique content generated by scholars in UC and beyond.

• Create a sustainable funding model. The library faces rising costs of UC-wide licenses for electronic content, especially in the area of maintaining unique collections in agriculture, environment, ecology and veterinary medicine.

The University Library welcomes feedback. “Faculty, staff and student input on the issues associated with the restructuring of the sciences libraries is extremely important, so that we can continue to provide the best service possible to the UC Davis community,” the acting co-university librarians wrote.

Comments may be posted and questions asked on the Web site.